In the early hours of Sunday, September 2, 1666, a small fire began in the bakery of Thomas Farriner (or Farynor) on Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. The baker and his family escaped through an upstairs window, but a maid — too frightened to climb — became the first victim. The fire, fanned by a strong east wind, spread with terrifying speed through the tightly packed timber-framed buildings of medieval London. For four days, the fire raged — consuming 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, the Guildhall, and countless other landmarks. By the time the flames were extinguished on September 6, 436 acres of the city had been reduced to ash. The official death toll was astonishingly low — only six people were recorded as having died. But the true toll was certainly much higher, as the poor — whose bodies would have been completely consumed — were never counted. The Great Fire of London was a catastrophe that destroyed the old medieval city. But from its ashes, a new London was born: a city of brick and stone, of wide streets and glorious architecture, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The Great Fire was the disaster that gave London its modern face.
Summary: The Great Fire of London burned from September 2 to September 6, 1666. It began in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane. A strong east wind carried the flames through the densely packed timber buildings of the City of London. The fire destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 churches, and St. Paul's Cathedral. Official deaths: 6, but the real toll was almost certainly higher. The fire consumed 436 acres — about 80% of the City of London. The rebuilding was led by Sir Christopher Wren, who designed the new St. Paul's Cathedral and 51 of the city's churches. The Great Fire effectively ended the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in London (the Great Plague of 1665–66), as the fire destroyed the rat-infested slums where the disease had flourished.
🍞 Pudding Lane: The Spark
Thomas Farriner was the King's baker, supplying biscuits to the Royal Navy. On the evening of Saturday, September 1, he raked his ovens — or thought he did. At about 1:00 AM on Sunday, his assistant smelled smoke. The house was on fire. Farriner, his wife, and their children scrambled out of an upstairs window onto a neighboring roof and escaped. Their maid was too terrified to follow. She died. The fire spread to the neighboring buildings — the Star Inn, a coaching house on Fish Street Hill, filled with hay and timber — and the flames took hold. The summer of 1666 had been exceptionally dry. The buildings — mostly timber frames covered with pitch (tar) — were tinder. The east wind fanned the flames into a firestorm. Within hours, a sizable portion of the City of London was ablaze.
📖 Samuel Pepys: The Eyewitness
The most vivid account of the Great Fire comes from the diary of Samuel Pepys — a naval administrator who lived on Seething Lane, near the Tower of London. Pepys rose at 3 AM to find his maid had seen the distant glow. He dismissed it as a minor fire and went back to bed. Later that morning, he climbed the Tower of London's turret to observe: "I saw houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side of the end of the bridge." Pepys rushed to Whitehall to inform King Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York (later James II). The King immediately ordered the demolition of houses to create firebreaks — but it was too late. Pepys buried his wine and Parmesan cheese in his garden (such was his priority) and evacuated his household. His diary entries for September 2–6 are the most intimate and immediate record of the disaster: the panic, the smoke, the desperate citizens fleeing with whatever possessions they could carry, the pigeons unable to fly away because their wings were singed, and the "poor wretches" huddled in fields outside the city walls.
"We saw the fire grow. It was not the fire of one house, nor of one street. It was the fire of a whole city."
⛪ The Fall of St. Paul's
The destruction of Old St. Paul's Cathedral was the symbolic heart of the Great Fire. The medieval cathedral — one of the largest in Europe, with a towering spire that had been struck by lightning in 1561 and never rebuilt — was surrounded by wooden scaffolding for a restoration project. On Tuesday, September 4, the scaffolding caught fire. The lead roof melted and poured down the streets "in a stream," Pepys wrote. The intense heat cracked the cathedral's stone pillars. The crypt — filled with books and papers that had been brought there for safety by the publishers of St. Paul's Churchyard — burned for days. The cathedral collapsed in on itself. When the fire was finally over, only the bare stone walls remained — a blackened ruin. The destruction of St. Paul's was seen by many as a judgment from God. But it also gave the architect Sir Christopher Wren the blank canvas he needed. Wren would spend the next 35 years designing and building the new St. Paul's Cathedral — the magnificent domed masterpiece that still dominates the London skyline today.
🔪 The Scapegoating and the Monument
The fire consumed London, but it also triggered xenophobia. The paranoid atmosphere — England was at war with both France and the Netherlands — produced a ready scapegoat: foreigners. A Frenchman, Robert Hubert — a watchmaker who may have had a mental disability — confessed to starting the fire, claiming he was a Papal agent. His confession was riddled with contradictions. He said he had thrown a fireball through a bakery window — but the bakery window was on the first floor, inaccessible from the street, and Hubert was apparently lame. Nevertheless, he was convicted and hanged at Tyburn. An inscription on the Monument to the Great Fire (built near Pudding Lane and completed in 1677) originally blamed the fire on "the treachery and malice of the popish faction" — a reference to Catholic conspiracy. That inscription was removed in 1830. The Monument — designed by Wren and Robert Hooke — stands 61 meters tall (exactly the distance from the Monument to the site of Farriner's bakery). It is a Doric column, topped with a golden urn, and remains one of the defining landmarks of the City of London.
🏛️ Rebuilding: Sir Christopher Wren's London
The task of rebuilding London fell to a commission headed by Sir Christopher Wren. Wren's original plan — a grand baroque city with wide boulevards and piazzas — was rejected by property owners who wanted to rebuild on their original plots. But Wren still left his mark. Over the next 50 years, he designed 51 new parish churches (including the exquisite St. Stephen Walbrook and St. Mary-le-Bow) and the new St. Paul's Cathedral. The new London was built of brick and stone, not timber. Building regulations were enforced. The streets were wider. The jettied upper stories of medieval buildings — which had leaned toward each other over narrow lanes, creating fire bridges — were banned. The Great Fire also inadvertently solved another catastrophe: the Great Plague. The 1665–66 bubonic plague epidemic had killed an estimated 100,000 Londoners. The fire incinerated the rat-infested slums and the fleas that carried the disease. London never had another major plague outbreak after 1666. The fire that destroyed the city also cleansed it.
The City That Rose from the Ashes
"The Great Fire of London was a catastrophe — but it was also a rebirth. The medieval city of Chaucer and Shakespeare, of timber and mud, was gone. From its ashes rose the London we know today: the London of St. Paul's, of Wren's churches, of brick and stone and wide streets. The fire killed the plague. It cleared the slums. It gave Christopher Wren his great commission. Every time you look at the dome of St. Paul's — a building that survived the Blitz of World War II — you are seeing the legacy of the Great Fire. The Monument, standing near the spot where Thomas Farriner's bakery burned, is not just a memorial to the fire. It is a memorial to the city that refused to die. The Great Fire destroyed London. But it also forged it."
🤔 Frequently Asked Questions
1) Did the Great Fire really kill only 6 people? The official death toll was 6, but this only counted identified bodies. Many of the poor — whose bodies would have been entirely incinerated — were never recorded.
2) Why did the fire spread so quickly? The summer was dry. The buildings were timber-framed, covered in pitch. The streets were narrow. And a strong east wind drove the flames.
3) Who was blamed for the fire? A French watchmaker, Robert Hubert, was hanged for starting the fire — but he was almost certainly a convenient scapegoat. Catholics were widely blamed in the anti-papal hysteria of the time.
4) What is the Monument? A 61-meter Doric column designed by Wren and Hooke, located near Pudding Lane. Its height equals the distance to the site of Farriner's bakery.