Where the Great Fire Stopped

The Great Fire of London by Philip James de Loutherbourg, 1797

According to an old saying, the Great Fire started in Pudding Lane and finished at Pye Corner. This suited the narrative of those who blamed the conflagration on the sin of Gluttony. There is a commemorative statue of a suitably well-fed child at Pye Corner. Although the flames were brought under control after a week, the final dampening down took six months. John Leake’s survey of the burnt-out area, printed by Wenceslas Hollar in 1667, indicates that Pye Corner wasn’t where the fire stopped and wasn’t even the furthest point that it reached. Most of the Ward of Farringdon Without to the south west was obliterated including much of Fleet Street.

It’s interesting to compare Leake’s map with pre-fire surveys such as that attributed to Ralph Agas from 1561. The city blocks that Agas indicated as densely packed were totally destroyed but those that seemed to have open areas around them often survived at least partially. The former had no natural firebreaks and the progress of the flames was unimpeded. The space around the latter did give some opportunity for arresting the fire. In addition, these buildings were probably of more substantial construction and many were positioned to the north-east of the city, upwind of the severe gale that intensified the destruction. As a result, wards such as Bishopsgate and Aldgate were left mostly unscathed.

The fire may have started in Thomas Farriner’s bakery in Pudding Lane, but it was Thames Street and its associated wharves that gave it vigour. A heady brew of tallow, oil and spirits was mixed with the stacks of hay, timber and coal heaped nearby. Fed by this cocktail the fire ripped along the waterfront.

The next main axis northwards was Tower Street – part of the ceremonial route that monarchs took from the Tower to Westminster. This quickly began to burn and, despite the strength of the opposing wind, was threatening to consume the Tower itself with its store of gunpowder. In a ruthless act that perhaps should have been repeated across the city to protect other key buildings, the navy blew up much of Tower Street to stem the flames. The enterprising instigator of this action was Admiral Sir William Penn, parishioner at All Hallows by the Tower and father of the founder of Pennsylvania.

The firebreak on Tower Street also probably helped the streets to its north east to survive although Samuel Pepys had to arrange the demolition of some wooden buildings adjacent to his parish church at St. Olave, Hart St. The Agas Map shows big gaps between the properties on Mincing Lane and Mart Lane which may explain why Mart Lane was undamaged. The Clothworkers company still inhabit a large complex which runs eastwards from Mincing lane. The third version was largely of brick set around small gardens and had been finished in 1633. Pepys records that he saw it burn for ‘three days and nights in one body of flame’. Despite this battering, the buildings were not totally destroyed and the Hall reopened in 1668.

Fenchurch Street looking westward around 1750 with the Ironmonger’s Hall centre right. The fire reached to about the middle of the view destroying everything on its left-hand side including St. Gabriel (the Fen Church itself) which stood in the middle of the street. The replacement properties conform mainly to the statutory brick built standard whilst the pre-fire building on the right is probably wooden. The fire ‘endangered the hall’ and so the clerk removed all of the archive and the plate for safekeeping. A shipwright called William Christmas had helped quench it and received a gift of £4. A court was convened on 14th September just one week after the fire was extinguished and they recorded how much rental income they had lost as a result. They owned twenty-five tenements and a Tavern within the burnt-out area reducing their annual income by £270. The Hall illustrated was built in 1748 to replace the Tudor version that had survived the fire. In July 1917, it became a rare victim of the First World War blitz and the Ironmonger’s HQ is now in the Barbican.

Along with the western half of Fenchurch Street, the South western corner of Lime Street succumbed. Attempting to spread east from here the fire will have found less to fuel it in the gardens and courtyards to the rear of Billiter Lane’s grand houses. This apparently included one of London’s largest private houses with multiple gardens and a tennis court.

Leadenhall Market shown on the Copperplate Map produced around 1550. The Manor House on which it was founded apparently had a lead roof and became a focus for trading activity in the fourteenth century. It was acquired by the city in the fifteenth century and formally accredited as a food market. By 1455 it had been transformed into a quadrangle with arcading around each side, probably not unlike the Roman Forum which had stood nearby nearly one and a half millennia before. On the ground floor was the food market and on the first, a granary. Substantial walls surrounded the courtyard to protect the city’s grain supply in times of famine. When the Great Fire reached these walls, it faltered and didn’t progress up Leadenhall Street. The market was slightly damaged but was lucky that the strong east wind accelerating the fire was mainly pushing it away westward. When the current Victorian market was constructed in 1881 part of the west wall of the fifteenth century market was discovered. In 1985, it was rediscovered at the rear of a building being demolished on Gracechurch Street. From the foundations it reached the fourth storey and with hundreds of moulded stones recovered from the adjacent dig giving clues on the architectural details, a three-dimensional reproduction of the late medieval market has been made.

As a result of the check to the fire at Leadenhall Market, the medieval street running east from it had a reprieve – for a while. Above: The Cock Inn, Leadenhall Street depicted by JT Smith in 1796. This wooden jettied building is typical of London’s pre-fire stock although its gable has disappeared. The full width window on the first floor was apparently the last remaining in the city. Formerly a wainscoted parlour, its panelling may have been Tudor. Behind the Cock was a brick building from 1627, once housing the Tiler’s and Bricklayer’s Company. Ironically, the company lost its monopoly on the trade at the point when London was becoming largely brick built. In order to cope with the vast restoration project, artisans had to be drafted in from all over the country. In 1761 the hall became the New Synagogue accessed through the archway depicted at the centre. The aspiring congregation wanted a purpose-built place of worship and moved to a fresh site on Bishopsgate in 1837. Among their number was David Salomons a champion of Jewish emancipation. His rise up the hierarchy of local government ran parallel with legislation allowing him to become a Sheriff and Alderman without the normal Christian oriented oath of allegiance. After a stint as Lord Mayor he was elected Liberal MP for Greenwich. He took the Parliamentary oath albeit without the Christian references and attempted to take part in debates but the Serjeant ejected him and he was not a candidate at the next election. However, after another law change in 1858, he was re-elected in 1859 and became the first Jewish MP to speak in the House of Commons. When the synagogue moved to Bishopsgate, the hall initially became a Jewish Educational Institute and then broadened into the City of London College. The city had lost around thirteen thousand similar buildings in September 1666. This fine example was added to those losses in 1883 but the college lives on as London Guildhall University.

Leadenhall Market had provided a bulwark against the fire’s northern and eastern progress. To the north west though it targeted Cornhill including the large grounds of the Merchant Taylor’s company which extended as far as Threadneedle Street – surely a name inspired by their trade. The complex was badly damaged but not catastrophically and was open for business in time to celebrate the new Lord Mayor in 1668. The buildings seem to have formed a buffer, staying the fire and probably saving St. Martin Outwich which stood at the apex of the junction between Threadneedle Street and Bishopsgate.

Heading north west, the fire razed the French church and St. Benet Fink. Agas reveals much open space between Bishopsgate and Broad Street which probably hindered any progression north east. This included Gresham College which was undamaged and provided temporary accommodation for the Royal Exchange.

Bishopsgate and its impressive array of medieval, Tudor and Jacobean buildings were saved from the direct effects of the fire. In 1857, local curate and historian Thomas Hugo undertook a perambulation around the ward. Even then much of that pre-fire world still survived but was disappearing fast. Coaching Inns that had witnessed Shakespeare plays; houses designed by Inigo Jones; large mansions built by extremely wealthy merchants; jettied shops gradually being modernised.

Bay window from the front of Paul Pindar’s house on Bishopsgate, built in 1597. Pindar was a very rich merchant and an Ambassador to Turkey. His mansion was located just outside the city wall which at that time was largely open countryside. By the nineteenth century it had become a pub and in 1890 was pulled down to accommodate Liverpool Street Station. The Great Eastern Railway had the good grace to present this window and some interior details to the V&A where they are still on display. Ironically the conservation lobby have in recent years been vocal about the preservation of the Liverpool Street’s Victorian character opposing schemes which would ‘harm the extraordinary historic character of the City of London as a whole’.  

A faint trace of Thomas Cromwell. The inner garden at Austin Friars’ now belongs to the Drapers’ company who bought Cromwell’s house for £1200 after his fall. The fire quickly guzzled the frontages on Throgmorton Street and the Drapers’ Hall but was stymied by the extensive gardens to the rear thus saving the Dutch church. Recently replanted, the garden again features fruit trees, herbs and roses. Cromwell had also created a larger garden beyond by moving houses that were in his way and illegally claiming the resultant space. One unfortunate victim was the father of the historian John Stowe whose house was put on rollers and borne twenty-two feet northwards without warning. Cromwell’s men then erected a high brick wall to avoid any reclamation. Stowe concludes that it was ‘goode to note, that the sodaine (sudden) rising of some men causeth them to forget themselves’. Writing in 1598, Stowe could afford to be flippant, Cromwell was long dead and still a traitor. In 1874, the Drapers’ company sold off much of the large garden to speculators who created Throgmorton Avenue.

Coleman Street looking north near the junction with London Wall around 1851. A firepost had been established at the southern end of Coleman Street where it meets Lothbury. A torrent of flame stoked by another from Old Jewry overwhelmed the soldiers and constables manning the post. They eventually brought it to a halt by creating firebreaks and, helped by the waning wind, saved the few properties shown above including the Armourer’s and Brasier’s Hall. Its second incarnation at the centre of the painting had only recently replaced the much-refurbished version spared from the fire. The jettied building centre right is possibly the Bell Inn.

The tower of St.Giles Cripplegate viewed from Redcross St. near its junction with Fore St. around 1884. A firepost had been created at Cripplegate inside the city wall a few yards to the south of St. Giles. Fireposts were set up by the King to help prevent its spread beyond the walls and were manned around the clock. They were commanded by prominent citizens which provided appropriate authority for the demolition of houses to arrest the flames. Up to that point there often had been a reluctance to pull anything down lest they be sued by the owners. The posts sprang into action when fire broke out in their vicinity. The Lord Mayor John Bludworth was stationed at Cripplegate and in a late showing of initiative blew up a ‘great store of houses’ to create a firebreak. St. Giles and its coterie of houses shown here at the end of Fore St. thus survived. Perhaps if he had shown similar vim three days earlier the fire might not have spread this far. In 1897 Cripplegate suffered its own great fire that started in an ostrich feather factory and destroyed fifty-six buildings. Having endured two great fires, St. Giles succumbed to a third on the 29th December 1940 when peppered with incendiary bombs by the Luftwaffe

Little Britain in 1807 (this part then called Duke St.) looking north east showing some of the classic pre-fire, wooden jettied buildings alongside typical post-fire brick residences. Having swept away entire wards inside the wall, the fire, now losing its ferocity, could not get past Aldersgate thus saving these houses. In 1819 the American author Washington Irving wrote an affectionate booklet about the street which he reckoned was more of a district and seems to have been a microcosm of London, if not Britain, a ‘stronghold of true John Bullism’. Irving lodged in one of the smallest but oldest edifices filled with fine but faded furniture and wainscoted, perhaps one of those pictured. He notes that there were ‘several houses ready to tumble down, the fronts of which are magnificently enriched with old oaken carvings of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and fishes; and fruits and flowers which it would perplex a naturalist to classify.’ Presumably the brick houses on the right had replaced some that actually had tumbled down. Although the buildings that comprised Irving’s ‘little nest’ are long gone, the eastern arm of Little Britain still has a detached air aided by the Postman’s Park and St Botolph’s church.

Ludgate ablaze, painted by an anonymous artist in 1670. On the Tuesday, the fire leapt across the Fleet ditch and surged westwards to Westminster. Plans were drawn up to evacuate Whitehall Palace and the Queen and Duchess of York decamped to Hampton Court. The Inner Temple got the full force. The new brick buildings of King’s Bench Walk provided only a brief respite. The Templars were largely absent – still on vacation or reluctant to return to plague ridden London. Those remaining refused to open the gates to the public who might have helped quench it. The Duke of York had established a firepost at Temple Bar and brought gunpowder to bring down the Paper House whose conflagration was threatening the Hall and church. A young lawyer complained that it was against the rules but he was silenced by a cudgel wielded by one of the duke’s men and the building was blown up. By about one o’clock in the morning the fire was out. A further outbreak was extinguished by a mariner Richard Rowe who eventually received £10 for his efforts on the roof of the Inner Temple Hall. Meanwhile, up on Fleet Street, St Dunstan’s was apparently saved by forty scholars from Westminster dowsing the flames. Spared from the fire, it couldn’t contend with the juggernaut of progress and was demolished in a road widening scheme in the early nineteenth century.

Clifford’s Inn, Fetter Lane, 1873. The oldest Inn of Chancery, it provided initial legal education and was associated with the Inner Temple just across Fleet Street. The buildings illustrated dated from 1663 and although damaged by the fire largely withstood its effects probably helped by the wind gradually abating. Sadly, this complex was demolished in 1930 to make way for a rather non-descript block of flats which bears the same name.

London had not eradicated the scourge of fire and the frequency of large fires (more than ten houses) actually increased. Only a quarter of the metropolis had been destroyed so, much was still built of wood. London’s expanding docks received an increasing number of flammable materials such as sugar and cotton and material for furnishing. Its burgeoning industry was fuelled by coal. Tobacco smoking became very popular and aspiring Londoners wanted to fill their homes with wooden furniture and elaborate fabrics. Thus, a potent fusion of more opportunities to start a fire and more combustible materials to fuel it inevitably produced more conflagrations but thanks to the Great Fire the city was better equipped to deal with them and so none resulted in the same level of destruction until an outside force intervened in the twentieth century.