A new look at London’s Great Fire

The excellent Museum of London has a new exhibition starting this Friday 16th March, called London’s Burning. It tells the story of one of events that had an enormous impact on how the modern city evolved, the Great Fire of London.

In the mid 17th century there were two disasters that struck London, the Great Plague swept the city in 1665 killing a third of the population and was followed a year later by the Great Fire. The fire started just after midnight on 2 September 1666 in the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane which is just east of London Bridge, close to the Thames.

A combination of wooden buildings many with thatched roofs, strong winds and combustible materials being present in a lot of the buildings meant the fire quickly spread. The Lord Mayor of London at the time Thomas Bludworth didn’t help matters when he was woken to inspect the fire and declared ‘a woman could piss it out’ and then returned to bed. He also delayed ordering buildings demolished as a fire break because the owners weren’t present.

The fire lasted for four days and distroyed four-fifths of the City of London including St Paul’s Cathedral, amazingly the number of deaths was quite low. The Museum of London’s exhibition divides into different segments such as the Causes of the Fire, the Impact of the Fire, Rebuilding, as well as focusing on the people involved under sections including Architects and Surveyors (eg Sir Christopher Wren), Diarists and Writers (Samuel Pepys), Heroes and Villains (the Mayor) and Winners and Losers (such as Robert Hubert, a Frenchman tried and quickly hung for starting the fire).

The Museum of London is located at London Wall in the City of London and is open daily 10am-5.50pm Mon-Sat, 12-5.50pm Sun, admission is free. Also starting this March is a major redevelopment which will mean their lower galleries will be closed for some time but it shouldn’t effect any of their major exhibitions.