289. DSC 202- 3.i- The Great Fire (1)
1. Summary
Pepys’s Diary–The Great Fire of 1666
The Great Fire destroyed most of the City of London. It started on the night of September 2, 1666, in a bakery on Pudding Lane in the City; it seems likely that a cooking fire had not been fully extinguished. The summer of 1666 had been a dry one, and London was already a fire hazard. The city was still built much as it had been for centuries; the vast majority of its buildings were made of timber, and they were close together, meaning that a fire could spread quickly. And so it did. Within hours, hundreds of houses were in flames. Before the fire burned itself out, thirteen thousand homes and scores of churches, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, had been destroyed. Thousands were left homeless; they camped in fields outside London for weeks while the rubble and ashes cooled and were cleared.
Pepys’s diary account of the fire is the most vivid eye-witness account we have of this event. At the time, Pepys was living near the Tower of London in the building complex owned by his employer, the Navy Board, so he was relatively close to the fire when it started. He went down to the river and got into a boat to inspect the damage, and then continued toward the court in Westminster, where he briefed the King and his brother the Duke of York (who would later become King James II) at first hand. Pepys got to witness the efforts to save what could be saved, the private individuals rushing to get the possessions to safety (which he had to do himself), and the public officials who were trying to manage the effort to extinguish the fire. The most notable moment in this regard occurs when the Duke of York ordered buildings to be destroyed to create a gap so that the fire could not threaten Westminster. The fire burned itself in three or four days, but the effects were permanent. The city of London was rebuilt, with stone and brick buildings that were more resistant to fire. Christopher Wren was given the job of designing churches to replace those that had been destroyed, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, and these remain some of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in Britain.
Pepys clearly wrote up this account at some points after the events he describes. It is filled with vivid and arrest
The fire started in Pudding Lane, at the bakery of Thomas Farriner, King Charles II’s baker. With the overcrowded streets and a lack of rain for several weeks, the fire spread rapidly. There were many theories surrounding the start of the fire. In 1651, ten years before the fire started, William Lilly predicted the Great Fire of London in his book, Monarchy or no Monarchy in England. Many thought the fire was a punishment from God for the sins of Londoners, some thought the fire was a Catholic plot to destroy Protestant London. There were even rumours that the fire was started by French and Dutch attackers, the countries with which England was at war.
Within a few hours, the wind had spread the blaze to the River Thames, engulfing parts of London Bridge in flames. Samuel Pepys describes the scene in his Diary, which remains one of the most comprehensive eyewitness accounts of the fire. Samuel Pepys was responsible for the administration of the navy for the English government, and was 33 when the fire occurred. Pepys describes in detail how the fire consumed London, a year after it was ravaged by the plague:
“The churches, houses and all on fire and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made”
His diary emphasises the terror of the London citizens as they fled the fire, describing the type of material possessions they carried away in carts and boats upon the Thames. He mentions how one in every three boats had viriginals (a keyboard musical instrument) in them, giving an insight into the leisure activities of the more affluent:
“River full of […] boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water; and only, I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had goods of a house in, but there was a pair of virginalls in it”
When Pepys is forced to flee his own home, the material possessions he chooses to save are more unusual, burying his wine and parmesan cheese in his garden to save them from the flames! Despite his descriptions of the fire, it is surprising how much of Pepys’ account is devoted to descriptions of feasting and affluent pursuits, even lamenting that because of the fire he had to eat mutton without a napkin.
The actions taken by King Charles II to stop the fire spreading are also recorded in Pepys’s diary, which included pulling down and blowing up houses with gunpowder. After burning for five days, the Great Fire of London was finally extinguished on the 6th September. However, whilst only ten deaths are recorded from the fire, London needed extensive re-building with over 13,000 houses and 87 churches destroyed.
St Paul’s Cathedral was completely destroyed by the flames. The diarist John Evelyn stated that “the stones of St Paul’s flew like grenades”. In 1675 Sir Christopher Wren was given the task of re-building St Paul’s into the cathedral we know today, a task which was finished in 1711.
Sir Christopher Wren was responsible for much of London’s re-building, constructing the Monument to mark the place near where the fire began. Completed in 1677, the Monument has 311 steps, leading to a viewing platform offering panoramic views of London, highlighting the scale of the area destroyed by the fire. Whilst the fire caused sheer destruction, 350 years later, it is still remembered as a significant part of London’s history.