Two people have left us eyewitness accounts of the fire. The first is Samuel Pepys, who worked for the Navy. He kept a diary from 1660-1669. The second is John Evelyn, who also kept a diary. Both men describe how dramatic and scary the fire was. The wind dropped on Tuesday evening, and the firebreaks created by the garrison finally began to take effect on Wednesday, 5September. [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". [99] There were many separate fires still burning, but the Great Fire was over. It took some time until the last traces were put out: coal was still burning in cellars two months later. [100] The lesson could be expanded to ask pupils to attempt a piece of writing on the fire such as a diary entry.

Who Was Samuel Pepys? by Paul Harrison – simple biography of Pepy’s life, including a section about his recount of The Great Fire.

Activity: Quiz – The Great Fire of London

A ten-year-old boy called Edward Taylor and his family were questioned for throwing fireballs at an open window in Pudding Lane and in the streets. Fireballs were made from animal fat (called tallow), set alight and used to start fires. However, the fire was most likely caused by chance rather than by a deliberate act. Pupils could read extracts (or simplified versions) from the diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. Images to Inspire – A huge collection of inspirational images that can be used as the starting point for learning. Each picture is accompanied by a writing prompt, inference questions and related activity ideas! Rat: But while they slept, a spark must have jumped out of the oven… the fire spread across the kitchen before anyone woke up. Thomas Farriner and his family climbed out of the window, to the roof, and escaped to the neighbour’s house… all except their maid.

Carlson, Jennifer Anne (September 2005). "The economics of fire protection: from the Great Fire of London to Rural/Metro". Economic Affairs. 25 (3): 39–44. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0270.2005.00570.x. By mid-morning the fire had breached the wide affluent luxury shopping street of Cheapside. [90] James's firefighters created a large firebreak to the north of the conflagration, [91] although it was breached at multiple points. [92] Through the day, the flames began to move eastward from the neighbourhood of Pudding Lane, straight against the prevailing east wind and towards the Tower of London with its gunpowder stores. [93] The garrison at the Tower took matters into their own hands after waiting all day for requested help from James's official firemen, who were busy in the west. They created firebreaks by blowing up houses on a large scale in the vicinity, halting the advance of the fire. [94] Toby and The Great Fire of London by Margaret Nash – a simple story (under 400 words) with lots of great pictures. Rat: So, Pepys went to command the Lord Mayor to pull down the houses, while King Charles II followed up the Thames in his royal barge to see the fire for himself. Source 5 provides evidence of how Charles hoped to improve the city and prevent such a calamity happening again. SP 29/171

Outstanding KS1 lessons the Great Fire of London

The Baker’s Boy and the Great Fire of London by Tom Bradman – join Will Farriner as he struggles to prevent London burning. London possessed advanced fire-fighting technology in the form of fire engines, which had been used in earlier large-scale fires. However, unlike the useful firehooks, these large pumps had rarely proved flexible or functional enough to make much difference. Only some of them had wheels; others were mounted on wheelless sleds. [42] They had to be brought a long way, tended to arrive too late, and had limited reach, with spouts but no delivery hoses. [c] On this occasion, an unknown number of fire engines were either wheeled or dragged through the streets. Firefighters tried to manoeuvre the engines to the river to fill their tanks, and several of the engines fell into the Thames. The heat from the flames by then was too great for the remaining engines to get within a useful distance. [41] Development of the fire Sunday Approximate damage by the evening of Sunday, 2 September, outlined in dashes ( Pudding Lane origin [a] is short vertical road in lower right damage area) [44] Hanson, 81. The section "17th-century firefighting" is based on Tinniswood, 46–52, and Hanson, 75–78, unless otherwise indicated.

is the size of the area within the Roman wall, according to standard reference works (see, for instance, Sheppard, 37), although Tinniswood gives that area as a square mile (667acres). The Great Fire of London (Famous People, Great Events) by Gillian Clements – clear, simple text with lots of useful illustrations and lists. Cultural responses to the Great Fire emerged in poetry, "one of the chief modes of media in seventeenth-century England", [166] as well as in religious sermons. [120] At least 23 poems were published in the year following the fire. [167] More recent cultural works featuring the Great Fire include the 1841 novel Old St. Paul's [168] (and the 1914 film adaptation), [169] the 2006 novel Forged in the Fire, [170] the 2014 television drama The Great Fire, [171] and the musical Bumblescratch, which was performed as part of the commemorations of the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire. [172] See also Explore our Event Calendar to find educational events throughout the entire year. Each event includes: 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. Exhortations to bring workmen and measure the plots on which the houses had stood were mostly ignored by people worried about day-to-day survival, as well as by those who had left the capital; for one thing, with the shortage of labour following the fire, it was impossible to secure workmen for the purpose. [138]In those days when people wrote diaries, instead of using pens they dipped feather tips in ink and wrote with that instead. The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, [1] gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small, [2] [3] although some historians have challenged this belief. [4] The Great Fire Dogs by Megan Rix – follow the adventures of two dogs, Woofer and Tiger Lily, as they brave The Great Fire of 1666. Colsoni, F (1951). Le Guide de Londres (1693) (in French) (Reprinted.). London Topographical Society.

Soon London was filled with smoke. The sky was red with huge flames from the fire. By Monday, 300 houses had burned down. By the late 17th century, the City proper—the area bounded by the city wall and the River Thames—was only a part of London, covering some 700 acres (2.8km 2; 1.1sqmi), [11] and home to about 80,000 people, or one quarter of London's inhabitants. The City was surrounded by a ring of inner suburbs where most Londoners lived. [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. [12] The City was traffic-clogged, polluted, and unhealthy, especially after it was hit by a devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the Plague Year of 1665. [7] Hinds, Allen B, ed. (1935). "Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice Volume 35, 1666–1668". British History Online. p.82. A committee was established to investigate the cause of the Great Fire, chaired by Sir Robert Brooke. It received many submissions alleging a conspiracy of foreigners and Catholics to destroy London. [124] [125] The committee's report was presented to Parliament on 22 January 1667. Versions of the report that appeared in print concluded that Hubert was one of a number of Catholic plotters responsible for starting the fire. [125]

Watch: Find out how the fire was put out

The Great Plague epidemic of 1665 is believed to have killed a sixth of London's inhabitants, or 80,000 people, [156] and it is sometimes suggested that the fire saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary housing with their rats and their fleas which transmitted the plague, as plague epidemics did not recur in London after the fire. [157] During the Bombay plague epidemic two centuries later, this belief led to the burning of tenements as an antiplague measure. [158] The suggestion that the fire prevented further outbreaks is disputed; the Museum of London identifies this as a common myth about the fire. [159] [158] Tuesday, 4 September was the day of greatest destruction. [87] 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. 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. However, early on Tuesday morning, the flames jumped over the Fleet and outflanked them, driven by the unabated easterly gale, forcing them to run for it. [88] [89] Tinniswood, Adrian (2003). By Permission of Heaven: The Story of the Great Fire of London. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-06226-3. Rege Sincera (pseudonym), Observations both Historical and Moral upon the Burning of London, September 1666, quoted by Hanson, 80 Garrioch, David (2016). "1666 and London's fire history: A re-evaluation". The Historical Journal. 59 (2): 319–338. doi: 10.1017/S0018246X15000382.