The material destruction has been computed at 13,500 houses, 87 parish churches, 44 Company Halls, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, St Paul's Cathedral, the Bridewell Palace and other City prisons, the General Letter Office, and the three western city gates—Ludgate, Newgate, and Aldersgate. [11], The City was essentially medieval in its street plan, an overcrowded warren of narrow, winding, cobbled alleys. London was also full of black powder, especially along the river front. / 15. Experienced firemen were on the scene, who told the Mayor that houses needed to be demolished to stop the fire in its tracks, but as most of these buildings were rented and the owners could not be found, the Mayor did not want to demolish them. "[50], The wind dropped on Tuesday evening, and the firebreaks created by the garrison finally began to take effect on Wednesday 5 September. However, it took some time until the last traces were put out. The city burning, with the Thames full of ships rescuing people. While Farriner shouldered the blame from Londoners angry at seeing their houses destroyed, Bradby wanted viewers to sympathise with his plight. [30] The neighbours tried to help douse the fire; after an hour, the parish constables arrived and judged that the adjoining houses had better be demolished to prevent further spread. The Great Fire of London started in a bakers shop in Pudding Lane when the bread oven was left unattended. After his death, it became apparent that he had been on board a ship in the North Sea, and had not arrived in London until two days after the fire started. In a letter to William Coventry, Pepys wrote that he "saw how horribly the sky looks, all on a fire in the night, was enough to put us out of our wits; and, indeed, it was extremely dreadful, for it looks just as if it was at us, and the whole heaven on fire. [49] The Duke of York's command post at Temple Bar, where Strand meets Fleet Street, was supposed to stop the fire's westward advance towards the Palace of Whitehall. The cathedral was quickly a ruin. James sent men to key spots along the perimetre of the fire with authority to demolish any building deemed necessary to stop the spread of the fire. Thomas Farriner and his children escaped the fire, but his maid died in the flames. The section "Fire hazards in the City" is based on Hanson (2001), 77–101. Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television, said: “It’s remarkable that the Great Fire has never been the subject of a major film or TV drama before. Due to the sheer scale of this comment community, we are not able to give each post the same level of attention, but we have preserved this area in the interests of open debate. Foreigners were immediately suspects because of the current Second Anglo-Dutch War. Mythical Creatures: The Headless Blemmyes, Fashion as Liberation: Edwardian Women’s Hatpins, Historical Accuracy in Films and the Tiffany Problem, Women of Just History Posts: International Women’s Day 2018, Stand and Deliver, Your Money or Your Life: Female Highwaymen of the Seventeenth Century, Historical Fashion: Georgian Men's Hairstyles, The Monument to the Great Fire – The Monument – The Rambling Wombat, Historical Fashion: Georgian Women’s Hairstyles – just history posts. Which subjective method is best to measure human activity of adults discuss in detail? Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. By February 1666, London was judged safe enough for the King and wealthy people who had been able to evacuate the city to return. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account.

[63], Abroad in the Netherlands, the Great Fire of London was seen as a divine retribution for Holmes's Bonfire, the burning by the English of a Dutch town during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

“It’s so hard to find someone to play an everyman hero and I think Andrew Buchan did it brilliantly,” Bradby told The Independent.