London After the Great Fire
The Great Fire of September 1666 laid waste five sixths of the walled area of the medieval city, from Fleet Street in the west to the Tower of London in the east, and north from the bank of the Thames to the wall at Cripplegate. London Bridge was not affected, as a previous fire of 1633 had cleared an area at its north end which stopped the flames of 1666 spreading. Within the area of the fire no buildings survived intact above ground, though churches of stone, and especially their towers, were only partly destroyed and now stood as gaunt and smoking ruins. In many places the ground was too hot to walk on for several days afterwards.
At least 65,000 people had been made homeless by the fire. At first they camped in the fields outside the walls, but within days had dispersed to surrounding villages or other parts of London. Rents soared in the unburnt area, but somehow accommodation was found for all who needed it. Much merchandise had been destroyed, and there was virtually no fire insurance, so many people were ruined, and some moved away permanently.
Within a few days of the fire, several proposals with sketch-plans for radical reorganisation of the City"s streets were put forward, including one by Christopher Wren, but they had no chance of success, because so many interests were involved and the City wanted to get back on its feet quickly. One of them, by Richard Newcourt, which proposed a rigid grid with churches in squares, was however later adopted for the laying-out of Philadelphia, USA. Then, in October 1666, King Charles and the City appointed Commissioners, including Wren, to regulate the rebuilding. The Commissioners issued proclamations concerning the width of streets and the height, materials and dimensions of secular buildings. And in February 1667 a Fire Court started hearing many competing claims from owners and tenants as the rebuilding began.
Some streets were widened or straightened, bottlenecks eased, and one new street built by carving through private properties. Markets in the streets were moved into new special market halls. But efforts to create a city with fine new public buildings and spaces did not go much further. There were no new public squares. The four affected gates (Ludgate, Newgate, Moorgate and Temple Bar) were rebuilt in place, even though they were now decorative rather than useful, and all the gates were removed in the 1760s. A New Quay, 40 feet wide and from Blackfriars to the Tower, was intended; but although a space was cleared back from the pre-fire river wall for this purpose, it became gradually obscured by cranes, sheds and then permanent private warehouses. A separate scheme to make the Fleet into a canal with its own warehouses and vaults got under way but also failed after a few decades.
By the end of 1670 almost 7000 sites had been surveyed and 6000 houses built. By the time of Ogilby and Morgan"s map of the City in 1676 all the area of the fire had been rebuilt with the exception of some of the sites of parish churches. The mapmakers even guessed at the future shape of St Paul"s Cathedral, even though only the foundation of the east end had been laid. Surprisingly, considering Wren"s habit of keeping the design to himself, they got it roughly right.
Overall, there were fewer houses (some scholars say a reduction of 20%, others say as much as 39%), partly due to amalgamation of sites and some owners" wish to have larger houses. Four sizes were specified in the rebuilding act—the largest was a house at the back of a courtyard. These grand residences were now occupied by merchants and aldermen, since the aristocracy had been moving to the West End or Covent Garden before the Great Fire and they now decamped with greater speed. The courtyard houses and the second type, which fronted major streets, were restricted to four storeys in height whereas before the fire they were sometimes six. Ordinary streets and alleys contained two smaller types, limited to three storeys.
All houses had to be constructed of brick, though some timber was allowed in practice (especially for the cornice at roof-level), and the external walls were to be of differing thickness depending on the type of house. The grander houses sometimes had doorways and windows in stone, but this would have been exceptional. There are a very few survivors today, but an example can be seen in the former Deanery off St Paul"s churchyard.
Fifty-one parish churches were rebuilt under the general direction of Christopher Wren (knighted in 1673). Today there are 23 left fairly intact, and ruins or only towers of a further six. Their variety and beauty comes not only from his inventive genius and a close study of classical architecture, but also from an essential pragmatism about the ruins facing him. Often the new church had the same outline as the pre-fire building, or the tower was retained. Some of the designs may be by Robert Hooke (St Martin Ludgate), but it is clear that Wren only had a general overall control of all these projects.
Whether it is around the cathedral, during repairs to a Wren church or on some building sites, archaeological excavation in the City often finds evidence of the fire and of the rebuilding, especially along the waterfront where the fire rubble was left in the streets and alleys to heighten the ground level against the Thames. This means that not only are some of the pre-fire buildings saved for excavation, with walls up to five feet high, but the post-fire improvements can be seen: wider alleys, and more construction in brick. Carved stones from destroyed churches were reused as rubble in foundations and walls, most notably in the crypt of the new St Paul"s.
We have perhaps been overimpressed by the Great Fire, and must place it in context—the fire, destructive though it was, devastated only about one third of the conurbation of London then standing. Within the area of the devastation a new city of brick and occasionally stone arose, but around it a larger area remained timber-framed for generations to come. Inside the City, if we could have walked down a street like Fenchurch Street in 1675, we would have seen an abrupt change from the brick buildings of the new city to the timber and plaster frontages of the pre-fire city, at the point where the fire was stopped. This sudden contrast took generations to erase. But it is also true that the fire created the opportunity to build, in the central area, a city in a new form, which would quickly become the hub of the British Empire in the decades which followed. So the creation of the Empire owes something to the Great Fire of 1666.
Comprehension