0 Unofficial London - Then and Now, Pudding Lane.

"For years there had been warnings of the total destruction of London by fire."

 

This weeks blog post was inspired by a visit to the where The Great Fire of London started - Pudding Lane - to see how it looks today. But first, a little history...

In 1666 the predictions came true and the city of Londonwas devastated by The Great Fire of London. Given the dry summer, close packed timber framed buildings, abundance of hay, and use of candles, this was hardly a surprise. It is now widely acknowledged that the fire started in a bakery in Pudding Lane, but at the time rumours were rife of political intrigue; of the French, or Dutch, or even Catholics setting fire bombs through shop windows to start the conflagration.

 

            It was at 2am on Sunday 2nd September that a workman at Thomas Faryner's bakery, Pudding Lane, near London Bridge, smelt smoke and woke the household. Modern experiments have shown that under certain conditions fine particles of flour suspended in the air can become explosive, and it seems likely just such a cloud came into contact with an ember and did indeed explode. The fire took rapid hold, jumping from building to building with startling speed. The mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, was woken with the news but remained unimpressed.

 "A woman might piss it out."



He was wrong. By dawn part of London Bridge was burning and by the time it was exstinguished on Wednesday 5th September, an estimated 13,000 houses and 89 churches, including the Old St Pauls, had been destroyed.

Samuel Pepys records the experience:  

.. all over the Thames, with one's face in the wind you were almost burned with a shower of Firedrops - this is very true - so as houses were burned by these drops and flakes of fire, three or four, nay five or six houses, one from another. When we could endure no more upon the water, we to a little alehouse on the Bankside over against the Three Cranes, and there stayed till it was dark almost and saw the fire grow; and as it grow darker, appeared more and more, and, in Corners and upon steeples and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the city, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire.
We stayed till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only one entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow up the hill, for an arch of above a mile long. It made me weep to see it. The churches, houses, and all on fire and flaming at once, and a horrid noise the flames made, and the cracking of houses at their ruin.

 The Great Fire cleared such vaste swathes of buildings that a rebuild of approximately ten million pounds in the 17th century, took place. The fire was commerated by building a monument in 1671, designed by Sir Christopher Wren to mark the regeneration of the city. The Monument was exactly 61 metres tall, which is the distance from the monument to the site of Thomas Faryner's bakery.

 

The Monument in 1794.

So how does the remodelled city appear today?

 

The Monument - there....behind the stack of portakabins!

And Pudding Lane? Surely some great architectural wonders must celebrate perhaps one of the most well-known streets in London? Sadly not...

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is modern day Pudding Lane -
note the portakabins to the left and street sign on the right.
 

But I won't leave you feeling totally desolate about this wasted opportunity, there is at least is one beautiful building to rise out of the ashes, the new St Pauls Cathedral.

 

 

Detail: Unofficial London - Then and Now, Pudding Lane.

0 Monumental Vertigo!

I'm not good with heights - in fact, that's something of an understatement. The number of historical buildings that I have exited on my bottom, for fear of open staircases and exposed battlements is a long one. Numbered amongst these is The Monument in London - but for once it seems I am in good company.

James Boswell, writer, visited The Monument in 1762. Half way up the 311 stone steps he suffered a panic attack (can't say I blame him. The Monument feels like a tall stone tomb inside with a dizzying spiral staircase - I got less than half way before I froze and could go neither up nor down - stuck against the wall while people pushed past…but that's another story.) Boswell did better than me and overcame his fear to reach the top to see what was to be seen from what was in the 18th Century the highest viewpoint in London.

His opinion was less than glowing:

"Horrid to be so monstrous a way up in the air, so far above London and all its spires."

A rash of suicides meant the viewing platform was caged in 1842.

So what is the Monument?

As well as being the tallest isolated stone column in the world, at 202 feet. It stands as tall as it does distant from the start of the Great Fire of London, in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, 2 September 1666. Built on the site of St. Margaret's Church (the first church to be destroyed in the fire), Fish Street, it commemorates the Great Fire.

Designed by Sir Christopher Wren (designer of St. Paul's Cathedral) and Robert Hooke, Wren wanted to put a statue of King Charles II at the top. But king declined pointing out:

"I didn’t start the fire."

Instead, a flaming urn of gilt bronze placed on the summit.

During the Great Fire itself surprising few lives were lost but 13,000 homes destroyed and great swathes of London raised to the ground. However, the damage was more extensive than necessary because superstitious people refused to fight the fire, Charles Mackay explains in his 1841 collection, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and quotes from eye-witness accounts:

"The writer, who accompanied the Duke of York….through the district between Fleet-bridge and the Thames, states that their efforts to check the progress of the flames…were much impeded by the superstition of the people."

It appears there was a widely held belief at the time that Mother Shipton prophesied that:

"London in sixty-six will be burnt to ashes."

Those that should have known better even convinced others to do nothing.

"A son of the noted Sir Kenelm Digby…persuaded them that no power on earth could prevent the fulfilment of the prediction, for it was written…that London was to be destroyed."
So people stood back and watched, instead of acting to prevent the disaster.

"Hundreds of person, who might have rendered valuable assistance and saved whole parishes from devastation, folded their arms and looked on. As man …with less compunction, gave themselves up to plunder the city."

Charles Mackay.

So finally, harking back to my abortive attempt to climb the Monument, who else has had an embarrassing experience in a public place?

Detail: Monumental Vertigo!