The fire as seen from a boat in vicinity of Tower Wharf. This drastic method of creating firebreaks was increasingly used towards the end of the Great Fire, and modern historians believe that this in combination with the wind dying down was what finally won the struggle. [97][98] Pepys climbed the steeple of Barking Church, from which he viewed the destroyed City, "the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw". The Great Fire of London made addressing all these problems more difficult by exacerbating existing tensions and diverting the government's resources to handle the aftermath of the fire. The fire started in the home of a baker named Thomas Farynor (Farriner), located on London's Pudding Lane. KS1 English History. "[107], The material destruction has been computed at 13,20013,500 houses, 86 or 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 gatesLudgate, Newgate, and Aldersgate. BBC Teach > Primary Resources > KS1 History > The Great Fire of London, 1. BEST POEMS ABOUT LONDON. True False. Great fire of London - simple idea. What happened to convicts who were transported to penal colonies instead of being executed? [121] An example of the urge to identify scapegoats for the fire is the acceptance of the confession of a simple-minded French watchmaker named Robert Hubert, who claimed that he was a member of a gang that had started the Great Fire in Westminster. Charles took command at once, ordering the demolition of houses, and However it also touches on some of the more interesting aspects of the fire, such as the absence of firebreaks, the indecisiveness of the mayor, the failure of the fire engines, the significance of the wooden buildings, and the heroism of the king. For 37 years, The Backstreet was an iconic part of Londons leather and gay bar scene. [105], Only a few deaths from the fire are officially recorded, and deaths are traditionally believed to have been few. What happened when Arthur Thistlewood and his men tried to murder the British PM on 23 Feb 1820? [94], Everybody had thought St. Paul's Cathedral a safe refuge, with its thick stone walls and natural firebreak in the form of a wide empty surrounding plaza. Compare Hanson, who claims that they had wheels (76), and Tinniswood, who states that they did not (50). When firefighters arrived at the address, they found the building almost entirely engulfed in flames. Its hard not to be swept up in the drama taking place on the streets of London. I was always just supposed to be a whisper, Londons breath, blending in, part of the clutter, but a lot of people like to chatter, and I. scattered like sparks from one mouth to another. After the fire, London was reconstructed on essentially the same medieval street plan which still exists today. A series of six animations exploring the topic 'Castles and Knights' with additional photos, illustrations and worksheets. At 7:24 pm, the first fire alarm was sounded from Fire Box 52 at the corner of Summer and Lincoln Streets. His maid was not so [41], London possessed advanced fire-fighting technology in the form of fire engines, which had been used in earlier large-scale fires. [5], By the 1660s, London was by far the largest city in Britain and the third largest in the Western world, estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 inhabitants. We teamed up with award-winning performance poet Sara Hirsch, who was keen to tackle the subject of the fire: Fire is so dramatic and vivid; it lends itself to all sorts of metaphors. Bloodworth was responsible as Lord Mayor for coordinating the firefighting, but he had apparently left the City; his name is not mentioned in any contemporaneous accounts of the Monday's events. This is probably because most deaths were not recorded. In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear. Within half an hour, the lead roof was melting, and the books and papers in the crypt were burning. The Great Fire of London poem for kids, by Paul Perro, tells the story of the time, hundreds of years ago, when a fire started in a baker's shop in London, and spread throughout the city. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small,[2][3] although some historians have challenged this belief.[4]. The fire's spread to the north reached "the financial heart of the City". It even has a dramatic climax with St Pauls Cathedral, presumed safe from the flames, catching alight and an inspirational finale that saw London rising as a though a phoenix from the ashes. When the king was told about thisHe was really upset. The firemen saw the shops nearbyAnd said Let's knock these down,Or else they will catch fire tooAnd it will spread through town.But no, the Mayor would not do that,He said Just hang about,The fire is not that bad, you know Wee* could soon put that out!So they tried to put the flames outBut they just grew higher.Sure enough they spread, soon half ofLondon was on fire. Charles's next, sharper message in 1665 warned of the risk of fire from the narrowness of the streets and authorised both imprisonment of recalcitrant builders and demolition of dangerous buildings. [52] King Charles II sailed down from Whitehall in the Royal barge to inspect the scene. [164][161], Although it was never implemented, Wren's plan for the rebuilding of London has itself had a significant cultural impact. People did not know about the dangers of fire. Today. What does Sam's silverware tell us about Pepys and his times? [117] Royal proclamations were issued to forbid people to "disquiet themselves with rumours of tumults", and to institute a national charitable collection to support fire victims. As a result, the fire not only devastated the City of London; it also proved detrimental to Charles II's reign and increased instability throughout England. Curriculum topics available: The Great Fire of London. And what if they escaped? [27] The perception of a need to get beyond the walls took root only late on the Monday, and then there were near-panic scenes at the gates as distraught refugees tried to get out with their bundles, carts, horses, and wagons. Life in the busy streets of London before The Great Fire. A thousand watchmen or "bellmen" who patrolled the streets at night watched for fire as one of their duties. [7] The City was then, as now, the commercial heart of the capital, and was the largest market and busiest port in England, dominated by the trading and manufacturing classes. The fire that changed our city forever. After This made it much easier for the fire to spread. Farynor, baker to King Charles II, in Pudding Lane. He later changed his story to say that he had started the fire at the bakery in Pudding Lane. [47], When Bloodworth arrived, the flames were consuming the adjoining houses and creeping towards the warehouses and flammable stores on the riverfront. Samuel Pepys was fast asleep when, at three in the morning of Sunday 2 September 1666, one of his maids, Jane Birch, banged on the door with the news that there was a . They must have thought that next year would be better, but it was even worse. Five to six hundred tons of powder was stored in the Tower of London. soon put that out in the poem.). It took place twelve months after the great plague of 1665. The summer of 1666 had been very hot and dry, and the fire soon spread. It had burned down an estimated 300 houses and reached the riverfront. Even and I blew. By William Blake. It received many submissions alleging a conspiracy of foreigners and Catholics to destroy London. Soon London was filled with smoke. by Barry8. All along the wharves, the rickety wooden tenements and tar paper shacks of the poor were shoehorned amongst "old paper buildings and the most combustible matter of tarr, pitch, hemp, rosen, and flax which was all layd up thereabouts". [8] By "inartificial", Evelyn meant unplanned and makeshift, the result of organic growth and unregulated urban sprawl. [58] The spread to the south was mostly halted by the river, but it had torched the houses on London Bridge and was threatening to cross the bridge and endanger the borough of Southwark on the south bank of the river. Q2. See results. It took ten years to rebuild. Although he. 2. . On 2 September 1666, an event started that would change the face of London. He took a boat to inspect the destruction around Pudding Lane at close range and describes a "lamentable" fire, "everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that lay off; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another." 1. [78] This provided a source of income for the able-bodied poor, who hired out as porters (sometimes simply making off with the goods), being especially profitable for the owners of carts and boats. [40] This did not happen, as inhabitants panicked and fled. By the time large-scale demolitions were ordered on Sunday night, the wind had already fanned the bakery fire into a firestorm which defeated such measures. Year 3 Great Fire of London Comprehension Whole Class Guided Reading Text. And what if they escaped? And could our visitors help us shape it? [102] The mood was now so volatile that Charles feared a full-scale London rebellion against the monarchy. With such a series of events, its no surprise that countless paintings, novels and dramatisations have been inspired by the fire of 1666. Louis had made an offer to his aunt, the British Queen Henrietta Maria, to send food and whatever goods might be of aid in alleviating the plight of Londoners, yet he made no secret that he regarded "the fire of London as a stroke of good fortune for him " as it reduced the risk of French ships crossing the English Channel being taken or sunk by the English fleet. It took some time until the last traces were put out: coal was still burning in cellars two months later. He found that houses were still not being pulled down, in spite of Bloodworth's assurances to Pepys, and daringly overrode the authority of Bloodworth to order wholesale demolitions west of the fire zone. Spring 2: Week 1 and 2 Learning 22nd Feb- 5th March; Spring 1: Week 5 and 6 1st- 12th February; Spring 1: Week 3 and 4 Learning 18th- 29th January; Spring 1: Week 1 and 2 Learning 4th-18th January; Spring 1: Week 1 and 2 Resources 4th-18th . Pepys and Evelyn were the most famous chroniclers of the fire, but it also inspired a few amateurs and hacks One of the more surprising consequences of the fire that destroyed London 350 years ago this week wasthe way it spawned an entire literature of loss. The makeshift camps outside the City wallswere so full of sleeping refugees that the area was the Counterfeit of the Great Bed of Ware. Our sister site, crickweb.co.uk, provides 265 free educational interactive teaching resources and . Step inside the Fire! It also featured heavily in textbooks for the nascent specialty of city planning and was referenced by reports on the reconstruction of London after the Second World War. In 1666, London had experienced a few years of drought, and so the buildings and streets were very dry. Copyrighted poems are the property of the copyright holders. James set up command posts on the perimeter of the fire. It commemorated 1665-1666, the "year of miracles" of London. [42] They had to be brought a long way, tended to arrive too late, and had limited reach, with spouts but no delivery hoses. Nov 2, 2015 - A funny and educational story poem about The Great Fire of London for kids. [30], Fires were common in the crowded wood-built city with its open fireplaces, candles, ovens, and stores of combustibles. The moving human mass and their bundles and carts made the lanes impassable for firemen and carriages. The fire lasted four days, and burned down over 13,000 homes. Hiring a cart had cost a couple of shillings the week before the fire; on Monday, it rose to as much as 40,[79] a fortune equivalent to roughly 133,000 in 2021. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what . However, unlike the useful firehooks, these large pumps had rarely proved flexible or functional enough to make much difference. Even under normal circumstances, the mix of carts, wagons, and pedestrians in the undersized alleys was subject to frequent gridlock and accidents. A Modern Charlotte Mason. He was a fire watcher, which meant MacNeice sat on rooftops across the city surveying the smoke rising from buildings. John Dryden in his poem Annus Mirabilis dreams of a city of gold whose streets will be paved with silver. They would remove what they could carry of their belongings to a safer area; some moved their belongings and themselves "four and five times" in a single day. Additional songs about The Great Fire of London. Resources used were cereal boxes, white towels, brown fabric, felts, fleece, black bias binding & tissue paper. The Great Fire of London poem for kids, by Paul Perro, tells the story of the time, hundreds of years ago, when a fire started in a baker's shop in London, and spread throughout the city. To view these you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. The use of the major firefighting technique of the time, the creation of firebreaks by means of removing structures in the fire's path, was critically delayed due to the indecisiveness of the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth. It took nearly 50 years to rebuild the burnt area of London. Start. [31] Self-reliant community procedures were in place for dealing with fires, and they were usually effective. There were outrageously mannered compositions And still the surly flame doth fiercer hiss / By an Antiperistasis and conceits of metaphysical weirdness. 1/6. He decided that he must help, Put on his boots and cloak,And he marched out of his palaceTowards the fire and smoke.He helped some fire-fighters whoHad started to despair,And everyone was really gladThat the good king was there. [126][127] In Italy, a pamphlet circulated comparing London "to Lucifer in its proud arrogance and its spectacular fall". [138], Instead, much of the old street plan was recreated in the new City. [17] Building with wood and roofing with thatch had been prohibited for centuries, but these cheap materials continued to be used. The Royal Exchange caught fire in the late afternoon, and was a "smoking shell" within a few hours. Click here to see our privacy policy. Why did The Great Fire happen? [137], English economist Nicholas Barbon illegally reshaped London with his own rebuilding schemes, which developed the Strand, St. Giles, Bloomsbury and Holborn. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a maidservant who was too frightened to try, thus becoming the first victim. It successfully stopped the fire around the Tower of London and Cripplegate. Joseph Guillim, for example, ends his Dreadful Burning with the hope that from our Ruind City may arise, / Another, whose high Towers may urge the Skies. These objects from our collections tell the story of the Great Fire. A duty was imposed on coal to support civic rebuilding costs. 2/6. Equipment was stored in local churches. London Bridge acted more like a fire break and stopped the fire from rampaging into the south of London. Charles' brother James, Duke of York, offered the use of the Royal Life Guards to help fight the fire. Food production and distribution had been disrupted to the point of non-existence; Charles announced that supplies of bread would be brought into the City every day, and markets set up round the perimeter. Cases were heard and a verdict usually given within a day; without the Fire Court, lengthy legal proceedings would have seriously delayed the rebuilding which was so necessary if London was to recover. What could a poem inspired by the Great Fire look and sound like? This occurred at a time when London was suffering from terrible droughts. It's thought the fire started when a spark fell out of the oven after the family had gone to bed. It was a huge city even then. He hoped that the River Fleet would form a natural firebreak, making a stand with his firemen from the Fleet Bridge and down to the Thames. King [49], Samuel Pepys ascended the Tower of London on Sunday morning to view the fire from the battlements. [55] The fire pushed towards the city's centre "in a broad, bow-shaped arc". The conflagration was much larger now: "the whole City in dreadful flames near the water-side; all the houses from the Bridge, all Thames-street, and upwards towards Cheapside, down to the Three Cranes, were now consumed". hours of the morning the choking smoke woke him up. They seemed much troubled, and the King commanded me to go to my Lord Mayor from him and command him to spare no houses, but to pull down before the fire every way." In each episode Maureen recounts the stories passed down through her family, from generation to generation. The Great Fire of London was an inferno of such all-consuming proportions that it left 85 per cent of the capital's population homeless. The fire "caused the largest dislocation of London's residential structure in its history until the Blitz". They created firebreaks by blowing up houses on a large scale in the vicinity, halting the advance of the fire. lucky, and she did not escape. [56] By Sunday evening it "was already the most damaging fire to strike London in living memory", having travelled 500 metres (1,600ft) west along the river. The heat from the flames by then was too great for the remaining engines to get within a useful distance. Throughout 1667 people cleared rubble and surveyed the burnt area. This article is about the 1666 fire of London. The prolonged absence of rains brought a lot of danger to the city's inhabitants. During the first couple of days, few people had any notion of fleeing the burning city altogether. Only some of them had wheels; others were mounted on wheelless sleds. Who first invaded Britannia? [137], The Crown and the City authorities attempted to negotiate compensation for the large-scale remodelling that these plans entailed, but that unrealistic idea had to be abandoned. In 1666, a huge fire that started in a tiny bakery burned down most of London. So I was called for, and did tell the King and Duke of Yorke what I saw, and that unless His Majesty did command houses to be pulled down nothing could stop the fire. Anonymous artist. It Download / print the notes including activities templates and worksheets (pdf), Be the news reporter interview a character and find out what happened! Pinterest. [124][125] The committee's report was presented to Parliament on 22 January 1667. The great fire of London 1666. This historic royal palace was completely consumed, burning all night. [99] There were many separate fires still burning, but the Great Fire was over. The easiest way to state the cause of the Great Fire of London is to blame Thomas Farynor and his family and servants. Things people wrote made me see the fire in a whole new way and from that came the idea of a rumour and writing from the perspective of the fire itself. There was no fire brigade in London in 1666 so Londoners themselves had to fight the fire, helped by local soldiers. The flames spread through the house, down Pudding Lane and into the nearby streets. If it had been rebuilt under some of these plans, London would have rivalled Paris in Baroque magnificence. I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow. What happened when Arthur Thistlewood and his men tried to murder the British PM on 23 Feb 1820? Tinniswood, 72. Surging into the streets, the frightened mob fell on any foreigners whom they happened to encounter, and were pushed back into the fields by the Trained Bands, troops of Life Guards, and members of the court.