Can you smell smoke?

Because if you had been standing in the City of London on the second day of September 1666, exactly three haundred and sixty years ago today, you would not have needed to ask. The air was practically waving at you. A warm toasty smell drifted through the streets, the sort of smell that makes you think someone has burnt the morning bread and is hoping nobody notices.

It began in Pudding Lane (Well near enough, but who’s going to change over three hundred years of stating it’s a fact) where the King’s baker Thomas Farriner closed his shop for the night. He believed the ovens were out. They were not. One tiny ember decided it was not finished with the day and tucked itself into stray kindling stacked up to dry. Before long the Farriner family was waking to the smell of their own workplace at gas mark 8, necessitating a dramatic escape attempt. They climbed out through an upstairs window, all except the maid who refused to jump and became the fire’s first casualty.

London at this moment was basically a giant invitation to chaos. A long hot summer had dried the timber houses to tinder. The streets were narrow. The wind was lively. The riverside warehouses were packed with pitch rope oil and brandy. Everything you would need to turn a small fire into a very large one. It was almost as if the city had been waiting for this exact moment to misbehave.

So when the flames broke free of the bakery they did not politely stay put. They dashed off like they had spotted a bargain at the market.

By dawn the fire had already chewed through a good stretch of the riverside. People woke to orange light flickering against their bedroom walls and realised that this was not the sort of glow you wanted to see before breakfast. Some grabbed valuables. Others grabbed pets. One man famously rescued a single chicken. Londoners poured into the streets blinking at the heat and trying to decide whether this was a minor inconvenience or a sign that the week was about to get very complicated. Some stayed put for a while before realising their folly and texts describe elderly women being lowered by rope from upstairs windows.

Enter Sir Thomas Bludworth the Lord Mayor who was dragged from bed and pushed toward the flames. He took one look declared that a woman could extinguish it with ease (that’s the polite version)*** and went home again. History has not rewarded his decision kindly and Sir Tom who looks quiet a genial chap in his portrait was, it transpires what was known in the 17th century as a Fopdoodle and his fall from grace and power began as soon as the flames had been extinguished

The fire surged westward leaping from house to house helped along by the wind and the tightly packed medieval street plan. By mid morning it was a roaring wall of heat. People fled north to Moorfields where a makeshift refugee camp sprang up. Tents carts bundles of bedding and a general sense that Londoners had decided to move to a better location all at once

And then Samuel Pepys wandered into the story.

Pepys woke late saw the fire spreading and went to the Thames for a better view, climbing to the top of All Hallows Barkingside (All Hallows by the Tower). Realising it was serious he hurried to Whitehall to report what he had seen, but not before digging a hole in his garden to bury his wine and Parmesan cheese. He spoke first to Sir William Coventry who took him to the Duke of York and then to King Charles the Second. Both royal brothers already knew about the fire and had been out giving orders. Pepys was not the first messenger but he was certainly the most enthusiastic and probably the most entertaining.

Gunpowder was soon brought in to create firebreaks. Imagine the scene. London burning on one side controlled explosions on the other and Pepys somewhere in the middle taking notes for his diary and quietly enjoying the drama.

By the sixth of September the fire finally died down. What remained was staggering. More than thirteen thousand houses, eighty seven churches, the Guildhall and the old Saint Paul’s Cathedral were gone. Four fifths of the medieval City was a smoking shell.

And into that smoke stepped fear.

Rumours spread faster than the flames ever had. People whispered about plots sabotage and enemies within. Foreign residents especially French and Dutch Londoners were suddenly viewed with suspicion. Crowds formed. Accusations and fists flew. It was chaotic, unfair and very human.

Enter Robert Hubert a troubled French watchmaker who claimed he had started the fire by throwing a fireball through Farriner’s window. He had not. He was not even in London when the fire began. His story changed every time he told it. The evidence did not fit. But fear does not care about evidence and Hubert became a convenient answer to a terrifying question. He was tried convicted and executed at Tyburn. A tragic example of a scapegoat.

And while we are clearing up misunderstandings let us tidy up a few myths that cling to the Great Fire like soot on a street urchin.

First myth. The fire ended the plague which had been raging since 1665. It did not. Plague deaths were already falling and many plague hit areas were not touched by the fire at all. The fire was dramatic but it was not a medical miracle.

Second myth. The fire raced across thatched roofs. It did not. Thatch had been banned in the City since the twelfth century. If you see a thatched roof in the Great Fire it is probably in a painting where the artist wanted extra drama.

Third myth. The fire introduced brick buildings to London. Brick was already in use. The fire simply encouraged people to use more of it. keep them in good repair and to stop building houses that behaved like kindling.

In the aftermath three ambitious plans to redesign London were presented to the King by Christopher Wren John Evelyn and Robert Hooke. None were adopted in full but Wren’s influence shaped the new skyline most famously with the reborn Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

Today the Monument stands near Pudding Lane a tall reminder of how a single spark reshaped a city and how fear reshaped its people. One fact I learny only recently is that the Monument sits on top of the site of St. Margaret, New Fish Street, the first church in the City to be burnt down.

Three hundred and sixty years on the Great Fire remains one of London’s most dramatic tales. Chaotic tragic occasionally ridiculous and still carrying that faint whiff of smoke if you know where to stand. So tonight before you retire, just check you haven’t left the oven on.

*** I took Sir Tom’s assumption that ” A women could piss it out” and calculated if this was in any way possible. History get’s revised all the time and it might have been that Tom could have been on to something. Sadly my calculation prove what we already know, he was a pompous idiot!

Swerving the relevant information about the female anotomy I calculated that it would require 375,000 ladies, all of which would have to answer ten calls of nature an hour, every hour, for four days to cover the area of the fire with 1 cm of liquid. A ludicrous supposition as there were only about 260,000 females in the City around that time.