The Great Fire of London, 1666. Search The Great Fire of London began on the night of September 2, 1666, as a small fire on Pudding Lane, in the bakeshop of Thomas Farynor, baker to King Charles II . At one o'clock in the morning, a servant woke to find the house aflame, and the baker and his family escaped, but a fear-struck maid perished in the blaze. At this time, most London houses were of wood and pitch construction, dangerously flammable, and it did not take long for the fire to expand. The fire leapt to the hay and feed piles on the yard of the Star Inn at Fish Street Hill, and spread to the Inn. The strong wind that blew that night sent sparks that next ignited the Church of St. Margaret, and then spread to Thames Street, with its riverside warehouses and wharves filled with food for the flames: hemp, oil, tallow, hay, timber, coal and spirits along with other combustibles. The citizen firefighting brigades had little success in containing the fire with their buckets of water from the river.

By eight o'clock in the morning, the fire had spread halfway across London Bridge. The only thing that stopped the fire from spreading to Southwark, on the other side of the river, was the gap that had been caused by the fire of 1633. The standard procedure to stop a fire from spreading had always been to destroy the houses on the path of the flames, creating fire-breaks, to deprive a fire from fuel. Lord Mayor Bludworth, however, was hesitant, worrying about the cost of rebuilding. By the time a Royal command came down, carried by Samuel Pepys , the fire was too out of control to stop. The Trained Bands of London were called in to demolish houses by gunpowder, but often the rubble was too much to be cleared before the fire was at hand, and only eased the fire's way onward. The fire blazed unchecked for another three days, until it halted near Temple Church. Then, it suddenly sprang to life again, continuing towards Westminster. The Duke of York (later King James II ) had the presence of mind to order the Paper House demolished to create a fire break, and the fire finally died down. From The Times History of London.

London: Times Books, 1999. Courtesy of The Millwall History Files website. Although the loss of life was minimal (some sources say only sixteen perished), the magnitude of the property loss was staggering. Some 430 acres, as much as 80% of the city proper was destroyed, including 13,000 houses, 89 churches, and 52 Guild Halls. Thousands of citizens found themselves homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the fire of 1676, which destroyed over 600 houses south of the river, changed the face of London forever. The one positive effect of the Great Fire of London was that the plague, which had ravished London since 1665, diminished greatly, due to the mass death of the plague-carrying rats in the blaze. Charles II appointed six Commissioners to redesign the city. The plan provided for wider streets and buildings of brick, rather than timber. By 1671, 9000 houses and public buildings had been completed. Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to design and oversee the construction of nearly 50 churches, not least of them a new St.

Paul's Cathedral, construction of which began in 1675. The King also had Wren design a monument to the Great Fire, which stands still today at the site of the bakery which started it all, on a street now named Monument Street. Books for Further Study: BBC - History - London's Burning: The Great Fire London's Burning: The Great Fire By Bruce Robinson Last updated 2011-03-29 In September 1666 the heart of England's capital, the City of London (now London's financial district), was devastated by fire. Everyone knows the Great Fire of London started in a baker's shop in the aptly named Pudding Lane, but was it an accident or a pernicious Papist plot? On this page Print this page Introduction Late summer, 1666: London was an emotional and physical tinderbox. Following decades of political and religious upheaval, the restoration in 1660 of the Protestant Charles II ensured that suspicion lingered around republicans and Catholics alike. With the country also at war with the French and Dutch, paranoid xenophobia - a familiar English trait of the period - was rife.

...for years there had been warnings of London's total destruction by fire... Fires in London were common, even inevitable, given the capital's largely timber construction. Yet for years there had been warnings of London's total destruction by fire: in 1559 Daniel Baker had predicted London's destruction by 'a consuming fire'. In April 1665, Charles had warned the Lord Mayor of London of the danger caused by the narrow streets and overhanging timber houses. Furthermore, a long, hot summer had left London dry and drought had depleted water reserves. Yet the greatest fear among Londoners was not fire. Plague had killed over 68,000 people in the previous two years. Although Charles II had returned to Whitehall in February 1666, London remained unsafe, with death carts still commonplace. What worried inhabitants most was the strong east wind. This, combined with the dry, dusty air, was known to be particularly effective in carrying plague. It would prove as equally efficient as fire in taking lives. Top London's burning Long Lane, Smithfield.

Drawing of a house made from combustible materials, built before the Great Fire © Thus by September 1666, all that was required was a spark. This was provided at the house of Thomas Farynor, the king's baker in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. At 2.00am on Sunday 2nd September his workman smelled smoke and woke the household. The family fled across the nearby roofs, leaving only a maid, too scared to run, who soon became the first of the four listed casualties of the fire. With only narrow streets dividing wooden buildings, the fire took hold rapidly, and within an hour the Mayor, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, had been woken with the news. He was unimpressed, declaring that 'A woman might piss it out'. Yet by dawn London Bridge was burning: an open space on the bridge, separating two groups of buildings, had acted as a firebreak in 1632. It did so again: only a third of the bridge was burned, saving Southwark from destruction and confining the fire to the City of London, on the north bank.

...the smoke could be seen from Oxford, and Londoners had begun to flee to the open spaces of Moorfields and Finsbury Hill. Samuel Pepys lived nearby and on Sunday morning walked to the Tower of London. There he saw the fire heading west, fanned by the wind, and described 'pigeons... hovering about the windows and balconies till they burned their wings and fell down'. With Bloodworth dithering, Pepys went to Whitehall, informing the King and his brother James, Duke of York, of the situation. Although Charles II immediately ordered Bloodworth to destroy as many houses as necessary to contain the fire, early efforts to create firebreaks were overcome by the strength of the wind, which enabled the fire to jump gaps of even twenty houses. By the end of Sunday the fire had begun to travel against the wind, towards the Tower, and Pepys had begun to pack. By the following dawn, the fire was raging north and west, and panic reigned. The Duke of York took control of efforts to stop the fire, with militias summoned from neighbouring counties to help the fight, and stop looting.

But the flames continued relentlessly, devouring Gracechurch Street, Lombard Street, the Royal Exchange, and heading towards the wealthy area of Cheapside. By mid afternoon the smoke could be seen from Oxford, and Londoners had begun to flee to the open spaces of Moorfields and Finsbury Hill. Top Demolition By nightfall the streets were jammed with the carts of fleeing Londoners, and the fire was heading down Watling Lane, towards St Paul's Cathedral. The next day saw the greatest destruction. Both the King and the Duke of York were immersed in the battle against the fire, which was contained until late afternoon, when it jumped over the break at Mercers' Hall and began to consume Cheapside, London's widest and wealthiest street. While Pepys was busy evacuating his house - digging a pit in which he buried 'a parmazan cheese as well as my wine and some other things' - he had an inspiration. 'Blowing up houses... stopped the fire when it was done, bringing down the houses in the same places they stood, and then it was easy to quench what little fire was in it'. ...embers were falling on Kensington, and flames surrounded St Paul's Cathedral, covered in scaffolding.

Although demolition began to take effect in the east, in the west the fire had destroyed Newgate and Ludgate prisons, and was travelling along Fleet Street towards Chancery Lane. It was visible as far away as Enfield, embers were falling on Kensington, and flames surrounded St Paul's Cathedral, covered in scaffolding. This caught fire, soon followed by the timber roof beams. The lead roof melted and flowed down Ludgate Hill, and stones exploded from the building. Within a few hours the Cathedral was a ruin. This marked the height of the inferno. On Wednesday morning the fire reached a brick wall - literally - at Middle Temple and at Fetter Lane. Workers took the opportunity to pull down more buildings and widen the break. At the same time, the wind slackened and changed direction, turning south and blowing the fire onto itself and into the river. In the north, it was being checked at Smithfield and Holborn Bridge, and the Mayor, finally useful, was directing demolition in Cripplegate.

Top The aftermath By Thursday the fire was effectively extinguished, having destroyed 373 acres of the City - from the Tower in the East to Fleet Street and Fetter Lane in the West - and burning around 13,200 houses, 84 churches and 44 company halls. Officially, only four people died, but John Evelyn referred in his diary to 'the stench that came from some poor creatures' bodies' and the true toll is likely to have been much higher, rising further in the following months. The fire beaten, London's full attention could turn to the question of blame. The fire beaten, London's full attention could turn to the question of blame. Hysteria had raged as fiercely as the flames, as frightened fingers fell on foreigners. On Sunday a schoolboy, William Taswell, had seen 'the ignorant and deluded mob... [venting] forth their rage against the Roman Catholics and Frenchmen' and his brother saw 'a Frenchman almost dismembered'. The King's Guard assaulted strangers for speaking poor English, and everywhere there was 'a great alarm of French and Dutch being risen', as Pepys reported.

The Spanish Ambassador opened his house to all foreigners in fear of their lives - Protestant Dutch as well as Catholic French - as religious bigotry and xenophobia, born in the Reformation and raised by the Gunpowder Plot, surfaced again. On Thursday, Charles travelled to Moorfields to address the 100,000 people made homeless, one sixth of London's population. He declared that the fire had not been started by foreign powers or subversives, but had been an act of God. Few were convinced. A scapegoat was needed: the more foreign, the better. The wait was not a long one. Top The Parliamentary investigation At the end of September, a Parliamentary Committee was appointed to investigate the fire. During the investigation a French Protestant watchmaker, Robert Hubert, confessed to having deliberately started the fire at the bakery with 23 conspirators. His colleagues claimed he was unbalanced and the details of his confession changed as flaws were continually unearthed. The Earl of Clarendon commented that 'Neither the judges, nor any present at the trial did believe him guilty; but that he was a poor distracted wretch, weary of his life, and chose to part with it'.

He was helped by a jury - that included three Farynors - and was hanged at Tyburn. ...nothing hath yet been found to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great wind, and the season so very dry... The Parliamentary committee reported in January 1667 that 'nothing hath yet been found to argue it to have been other than the hand of God upon us, a great wind, and the season so very dry'. Yet with Farynor declaring - as expected - that his ovens had been completely extinguished on the night in question, the committee was as widely believed as the Warren Report, and the cause of the fire became the grassy knoll of late seventeenth century conspiracy theorists. In 1678, during the Popish Plot, Titus Oates declared that Jesuit priests were to set fire to the city, prompting a Commons resolution declaring that 'the City of London was burnt in the year 1666 by the Papists... to introduce arbitrary power and Popery into this Kingdom'. In 1685 the Duke of Monmouth, rebelling against the new King, the Catholic James II, accused him of deliberately starting the fire.

It was not until 1831 that the inscription on the fire's commemorative Monument, blaming 'the treachery and malice of the Popish faction', was removed. An inferno caused by a forgetful baker, fuelled by a strong wind and indecisive leadership, was blamed on Catholics for over 150 years. London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd (Chatto & Windus, 2000) A City Full of People: Men and Women of London 1650-1750 by P. Earle (1994) The London Encyclopaedia by Christopher Hibbert & Ben Weinreb (eds)(Macmillan, 1983) The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys, edited by Robert Latham and William Matthews (1970-83) Restoration London by Liza Picard (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997) The Rebuilding of London After the Great Fire by T.F.

Reddaway (1940) The Building of London by John Schofield (1984) Top About the author Bruce Robinson is a professional journalist who graduated with a first class degree in History from Cambridge University, specialising in English Social, Political and Economic History from 1300 to 1600. BBC - History - British History in depth: The Cathedrals of Britain On This Day The Cathedrals of Britain The history of Britain and the aspirations of her Christian communities can be traced in the glorious excesses of the cathedrals. From Norman grandeur to the modern interpretations found in Liverpool and Coventry, explore the changing styles of the cathedrals in our midst. On this page Print this page Centuries of style The cathedrals of Britain span the millennium - from the cathedrals dating from the 1100s to the modern cathedrals found in Liverpool and Coventry. They display a wide array of architectural styles from Early English Gothic, to the majesty of the Renaissance at St Paul's and the sixties modernism of Liverpool's Roman Catholic Cathedral.

In the Middle Ages and up to the Reformation in the 1500s, the Church enjoyed enormous power and wealth, and cathedrals are eloquent symbols of its dominant place in British society. Cathedrals in the Middle Ages weren't the quiet, reverential places of worship we know today. Cathedrals in the Middle Ages weren't the quiet, reverential places of worship we know today. In Lincoln, for example, the central nave or aisle was where pilgrims chatted and shared news; there would have been an elaborately carved stone screen to separate the ordinary people in the nave from the priests and monks worshipping and singing in the choir. Cathedrals were elaborate and brightly coloured before much of the interior decoration and original medieval art was destroyed during the Reformation and the Civil War. During the Civil War, cathedrals were used as garrisons, prisons and even stables. Now only traces remain of the vibrant colours that were often whitewashed out of existence. Top Cathedral floorplan Many of the cathedrals in Britain are orientated east to west. The nave is situated in the west end of the cathedral where people would come to pray.

For that reason, it is the long hall of the cathedral. (The nave is 5 on the diagram below.) The choir (11) is at the east end of the cathedral. It is here that the high altar (13) is generally found. The clergy traditionally prayed here and an elaborately carved screen was often built to separate them from the general public in the nave. This part of the cathedral is often called the 'quire' - the 19th century spelling of 'choir'. St Paul's in London still uses this spelling. The north and south transepts (7, 9) separate the choir from the nave. This means that the layout of cathedrals usually forms the shape of a cross. Side altars are found in the transepts as well as the tombs of important people. The central tower or dome (8) of the cathedral is found at the centre of this 'cross'. These high towers are supported by piers or pillars. At Salisbury Cathedral, it is possible to see that the piers have been slightly bent out of shape by the weight of the tower. The tombs of past bishops and famous saints are often found in side chapels (2, 3).

In the later Middle Ages, the wealthy would pay for private chapels to be built where their families could say mass in private. Top Salisbury Cathedral Salisbury Cathedral is one of twenty cathedrals that were built after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when William the Conqueror seized control of England and Wales. It is built in the Early English Gothic style and has a simple layout in the shape of a cross. This cathedral is built of 70 thousand tons of stone with over three thousand tons of timber for the roof which was covered with 450 tons of lead. Much of the stone came from nearby quarries. At this time, cathedral construction was at the cutting edge of building technology, and errors of judgement led to the collapse of the central towers at both Winchester and Lincoln. With foundations only four feet deep, Salisbury was lucky to escape this when the imposing spire was added. However, the columns of the central crossing are now bowed by around ten inches. St Paul's Cathedral St Paul's was the first British cathedral to be built for the Anglican faith at the end of the 1600s.

It is therefore ironic that its famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren, borrowed heavily from the Catholic Renaissance by adopting such features as the dome and Corinthian columns. The original St Paul's Cathedral was built on the same site in 604 by Bishop Mellitus. The Vikings burnt it down in 962 and it was rebuilt in the Gothic style. This was begun in 1087 and completed two centuries later in 1310. This cathedral was then destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Wren's masterpiece was started in 1675 and took 35 years to complete. Unlike many of the medieval masons, whose cathedrals took centuries to complete, Wren was able to see it finished. It cost £700,000 - about £53 million today. On the inner dome, there are frescoes of scenes from the life of St Paul. These were painted by Sir James Thornhill and can be seen from the Whispering Gallery. Wren died at 91 and his tomb is marked by a black marble slab in the St Paul's crypt.

St Michael's of Coventry The Gothic cathedral, St Michael's of Coventry, was destroyed on the night of 14th November 1940 when some 500 tons of high explosives and 40,000 fire bombs were dropped on the city. All that remained of the old cathedral was the spire and the building's shell. The new cathedral was built next to the old in the 1950s and the early 1960s. The architect Basil Spencer had won the competition with his radical departure from the Gothic original. He recalled that when the plans for the new steel and concrete cathedral were revealed in the press, he received hundreds of letters the next morning. "80 percent were rude and the remaining 20 percent were very rude." In a 1974 interview, he recalls that the project took up ten years of his life, and when it was finished, it left a terrible vacuum. Whilst medieval cathedrals took centuries, the new Coventry Cathedral took just six years to build. The one-and-a-half ton metal spire was flown in by helicopter and, according to contemporary news footage, took just eight minutes to install.

Top Winchester Cathedral Winchester Cathedral © Winchester Cathedral stands on a site that has been a place of Christian worship for over a thousand years. In the 1000s, the old Minster was destroyed to make way for the new cathedral. This is one of the largest medieval churches in the world thanks to a nave of over 160 metres long and provides a fitting home for the Bishops of Winchester, some of whom weren't just the wealthiest men in England but in Europe as well. The Bishops' power and affluence is indicated by the many grand memorial chapels in the cathedral which house their tombs. Among these luminaries are Stephen Gardiner who officiated at the wedding between Mary Tudor and Phillip of Spain in 1554 and Henry Beaufort, half brother to Henry IV and banker to Henry V. For centuries, Winchester was a place of pilgrimage. It was the last resting place of Saint Swithun who lived in the 9th century. After his death, his bones were said to heal the sick and pilgrims flocked to the cathedral in their thousands. Stalls were set up to sell relics and clay models of the parts of the body that required healing.

These were then placed in the shrine in the hope of a miracle cure. Winchester Cathedral's power and influence came to an end with the Reformation in the 1500s... Winchester Cathedral boasts some of the finest medieval wood carving in Britain, if not Europe. In the 13th century England's greatest carpenter, William Lyngewode, spent four years decorating the cathedral's stalls. Another outstanding example of its medieval art is the Great Screen. It was erected in the 1400s but the original statues with their vivid colours didn't survive England's religious upheavals. Now, only the whitewashed backdrop of the original screen remains while the current statues are Victorian. Events have taken their toll on the cathedral. The West Window was smashed by the Roundheads during the English Civil War in the 1600s. The locals pieced it together but in a rather haphazard way, and it has the appearance of a rather abstract art work. The cathedral is also home to the beautifully decorated Winchester Bible, the best example of a 12th century bible in the country.

Winchester Cathedral's power and influence came to an end with the Reformation in the 1500s and the Dissolution of the Monasteries during Henry VIII's reign. The scale of the Church's power can be imagined when it is considered that it controlled one third of the country's wealth before Henry VIII stripped it of much of its lands and privileges. Top Wells Cathedral Wells Cathedral © Wells Cathedral was built entirely in the Gothic style in the late 1100s and serves the smallest city in England. One of the major glories of this cathedral is the West Front. It was begun in 1215 and, on its completion, boasted the largest collection of figurative statues in the western world at that time. It depicts the history of the world as told in the Bible, and shows Christ flanked by angels above statues of the disciples and kings as well as martyrs and confessors. The West Front is flanked by two towers. Chapter House ceiling, Wells Cathedral © The West Front is now bare stone but in its medieval heyday, this would have been brilliantly painted with strong bold colours. Sound was also part of the religious spectacle.

Within the cathedral is a special gallery where the choristers sang hymns to the people gathered outside. The sound was channelled to the outside thanks to a series of carefully hidden holes in the West Front. The singing would have occured on religious occasions such as Palm Sunday. The original central tower of Wells Cathedral was damaged by an earthquake in the 13th century. The rebuilding took some 60 years to complete but, after just 20 years, cracks began to appear. In order to save the tower from collapse, the master mason, William Joy, built the 'scissor arches' that can still be seen in the main part of the cathedral and the hidden buttresses in the upper part of the church building. 700 years later, it is safe to say that these measures have been successful in preserving the tower for posterity. The cathedral boasts some of the finest medieval stained glass to be found in England which, miraculously, survived the Reformation and the Civil War. The 'Jesse' or 'Golden Window' dates back to 1340 and, thanks to its height, avoided the stones of the mob.

The window traces the ancestry of Christ through Mary to Jesse, the father of King David, in the shape of a genealogical tree. Top St Magnus Cathedral St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney © St Magnus, the most northerly cathedral of Britain, towers over the town of Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands. Work on the cathedral began in 1137; many of the masons came from Durham whose cathedral was also under construction. It was founded by Earl Rognvald in the memory of his relative St Magnus, who had been murdered by his cousin Hakon, co-ruler of the Orkneys. Hakon is depicted in a stained glass window in the north transept which dates from the 19th century. In 1980, local children contributed a whole series of paintings to show the events in his life and the brutal murder. Although St Magnus Cathedral is small compared to other cathedrals in Britain, it has a number of distinctive features. One of these is the use of 'polychrome' work: the technique of using different coloured stones to form patterns in the stonework.

At St Magnus local red stone and a yellow sandstone, probably from the nearby island of Eday, is arranged in a chequered pattern effect around the window arches. The red stone was dug from a nearby quarry just a few miles from Kirkwall on a piece of land known as the Head of Holland. St Magnus is also renowned for being the only cathedral in Britain with a dungeon - Marwick's Hole. The origins of the name have been associated with a romantic story. In the 1600s, Jane Forsyth was accused of witchcraft and sentenced to be burned at the stake. She was rescued from the dungeon the night before this was due to be carried out by her lover and they went off to live in Manchester, then a distant place. St Magnus Cathedral © The most poignant memorial in the cathedral is dedicated to the memory of the hundreds of sailors who died when the British ship Royal Oak was sunk by a German U-boat just a few months after the declaration of war in 1939. Charlotte Omand, from Orkney, remembered that Kirkwall was shocked by the sinking and that the air stank of oil for days afterwards.

Now, once a week, a single page of the memorial book in the cathedral is turned as a reminder of the loss of life. St Magnus is unique among British cathedrals for its use of the Norwegian style of bell ringing known as 'clocking'. Just one bellringer can operate the bells by hand and using footpedals. This custom is proof of the strong Viking influence found on these islands and in Kirkwall itself, a cathedral city of just 7,000 people. Top Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral © Taller than the Egyptian Pyramids, Lincoln Cathedral is an imposing tribute to medieval British architecture. It has been through a series of building disasters and mishaps in its near 1000 years of existence. The first mishap came in the 12th century, less than 100 years after the cathedral was built. A fire swept through the cathedral, and the wooden roof was replaced by a stone vault. However this was, in turn, destroyed a few decades later when a major earthquake destroyed much of the building. Bishop Hugh, who was later canonised as a saint, then had the cathedral rebuilt in the Gothic style.

The next disaster was in the 13th century when the central tower collapsed and, in the 16th century, the wooden spire was blown down in a gale. St Hugh's life was pivotal to the history of Lincoln Cathedral. In his lifetime, he was known as pious man who tended to the sick and worked on rebuilding the cathedral. One famous story recounts how he befriended a swan which became very protective of the Bishop and hissed at people who came too near. The swan's place in the legend of the cathedral is assured, for it is depicted twice in the cathedral's stained glass windows. On St Hugh's death, large crowds came to pay their respects and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. A modern sculpture was placed there in 1986 to mark the 800th anniversary of his enthronement as Bishop in 1186. Little remains of the vivid colour that would have transformed the cathedral's bare stone into glorious spectacle. As with many of the cathedrals in Britain, much of the medieval art was destroyed during the Civil War. Little remains of the vivid colour that would have transformed the cathedral's bare stone into glorious spectacle.

Many of the statues had their heads pulled off when an 18th century restorer accidentally put the heads of the male bishops onto the bodies of the female statues. One statue of a tumbler from around 1330 did survive because of its inaccessible location: legend has it that a tumbler could only offer the Virgin Mary his tumbling skills as a gesture of devotion, hence his place high on the cathedral walls. Another famous statue is the imp which peers down, ready to pounce should anyone stray from the God-fearing path. There are warnings all over the cathedral for those who may feel tempted to transgress. The 13th century doorway shows the faithful ascending to heaven whilst hairy devils drag the damned into the mouth of hell - a visual warning in an age when the vast majority of the people were illiterate and few copies of the Bible were in existence. Top Liverpool's cathedrals Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral © Liverpool's skyline is dominated by two imposing cathedrals. Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral is the largest cathedral in Britain and the fifth largest in the world.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral is known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King and was built after World War Two in a futuristic design by Frederick Gibberd. The construction of the Anglican Cathedral began in 1904 to a design by Giles Gilbert Scott, a Victorian designer famous for red telephone boxes and the now defunct Battersea Power Station. Giles Scott came from a family of architects: his grandfather had designed the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, London, and his father, George, was a leading exponent of the Gothic Revival in Britain. Giles Scott was just 21 when his entry won a design competition for Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, and he can be seen in the bottom left of the Layman's Window, wearing a blue coat. Sadly, he died in 1960 and so did not see the cathedral finally consecrated. Liverpool is home to many faiths but the Catholic and Protestant faiths have traditionally dominated the city. Around the turn of the century, there was an unstated competition between the leaders of the two communities who both attempted to have the larger, more impressive cathedral. Money problems dogged each side's ambitious plans, and the Anglican Cathedral was only consecrated in 1978.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral was to have been even more impressive thanks to a design by Sir Edwin Lutyen. Work started in 1933 but the crypt is all that remains of this grand vision before World War Two and budget deficits halted building work. Lutyen's plan was thrown out and a competition was hosted in 1960 to find a newer, cheaper design. Sir Frederick Gibberd's pioneering design won, and work began in 1962. The cathedral was consecrated just five years later. The Lantern Tower has crowning pinnacles to help make the cathedral stand out against the Liverpool skyline. These are over 52 feet high and feature diagonal struts to strengthen them against the wind. Within the cathedral, the High Altar is at the centre of the circular design. The interior is bathed in many colours, primarily blue as befits a cathedral with more coloured glass than any other in Europe.

UK National Archives Urban planning Having stayed, and in an hour's time seen the fire rage every way, and nobody to my sight endeavouring to quench it, but to remove their goods and leave all to the fire; and having seen it get as far as the Steeleyard, and the wind mighty high and driving it into the city, and everything, after so long a drougth, proving combustible, even the very stones of churches, and among other things, the poor steeple by which pretty Mrs Horsley lives, and whereof my old school-fellow Elborough is parson, taken fire in the very top and there burned till it fall down - I to Whitehall with a gentleman with me who desired to go off from the Tower to see the fire in my boat - to Whitehall, and there up to the King's closet in the chapel, where people came about me and I did give them an account dismayed them all; and word was carried in to the King, so I was called for and did tell the King and Duke of York what I saw, and that unless his Majesty did command houses to be pulled down, nothing could stop the fire.

Diary of Samuel Pepys, September 1666 “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down; London Bridge is falling down, My fair Lady”… a nursery rhyme sung by children for generations. Most kids today sing it cheerfully and as part of a simple toddler’s game, but the lyrics may have much darker beginnings. The Great London Fire of 1666 devastated the old wooden city, including London Bridge and the old St. Paul’s Cathedral. The rebuilding of modern London in stone by architects such as Christopher Wren (who redesigned St. Paul’s) helped create many of the iconic symbols of identity modern Londoners take for granted today. Through an in-depth analysis of primary and secondary sources, students in this lesson will identify, understand and be able to explain the Great London Fire of 1666, how it started, what it destroyed and how the government responded, and finally how Wren and others responded by remaking London in stone, changing the old capital into the modern city it is today. Students will identify, understand and be able to explain the Great London Fire of 1666.

Students will identify, understand and be able to explain how the Great London Fire of 1666 “remade” the city of London itself by destroying two of its landmark institutions, Old St. Paul’s Cathedral and London Bridge, along with most of the old city. Students will identify, understand and be able to explain theories behind how the Great London Fire of 1666 actually saved lives by wiping out the black plague in the city. Students will identify, understand and be able to explain how contemporaries described the fire, analyzing and assessing the validity of such sources. To view resource web pages, download the lesson plan PDF above. I. Anticipatory Set Writing / Question: How might great disasters both harm and help an urban population? (5 min) Handouts – Copies of Samuel Pepys Diary on the Great London Fire of 1666 and copies of readings from the websites listed below. (5 min) II.

Body of Lesson 1000+ images about great fire of london on Pinterest | City of london, Royal house and London Forward Jan van Wynkyn, known better as Wynkyn de Worde was the first to set up a bookshop at St Paul’s Churchyard, which later became the centre of the book selling trade. One of his biggest patrons was Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, another familiar name in this story. His output was mainly religious subjects, but he also published the first printed version of Robin Hood. Wynkyn died in 1534 and by then the presses of London were beginning to blossom. See More 20 Medieval English Cathedrals - Photos and History So in 1536 Henry, desperate for cash, engineered the passing of the Suppression Act which led to the first phase of the "dissolution of the monasteries" - the taking over by the crown of the assets of the 70% of religious houses in England and Wales with revenues below ï¿½200 a year, and the eviction of their monks and nuns.

After this was accomplished, larger monasteries, including those which ran cathedrals, were persuaded by Vicar General Thomas Cromwell to follow suit "voluntarily". Such persuasion included promises (which were kept) of lifetime pensions for the monks and nuns, and usually a seriously large lump sum for the abbot or abbess! In parallel with monastery and abbey closures, Henry established a Commission for the Destruction of Shrines, which set to with gusto to destroy all the shrines in the country and (more importantly) confiscate their often considerable treasures. For example, when Henry VIII's boys came to close down the shrine of Saint Thomas (Becket) in Canterbury Cathedral in 1538, they needed 26 wagons to carry off the loot. The lucrative pilgrimage trade went into terminal decline, as did pilgrim hospitality and memorabilia businesses.

In March 1540 the surrender of Waltham Abbey (right), which appropriately contained the 500 year old tomb of (bits of) Harold II (maybe), the last Saxon King of England who had been killed and hacked to bits at the battle of Hastings, brought the dissolution process to its end without the King ever having had legislative authority to move outside of the smaller religious establishments. There were no monasteries or nunneries left operating in England, and their treasures, artefacts, libraries, building materials and huge landholdings (well over a quarter of the land in England), now belonged to the King or those he needed to pay off. In addition shrines and chantry chapels in all churches were looted and their tombs destroyed. The lucrative intra-English pilgrim trade disappeared overnight. Henry's wreckers (and the much more vicious ones of O.Cromwell) left many abbey and priory churches intact (often with denosed statues and broken stained glass), and several of these have survived in the form of parish churches and cathedrals (see below).

More books about Henry VIII and various Thomases On the right - portrait of Thomas Cromwell (c1485 - 28 July 1540 (55) (executed)) by Hans Holbein the Younger (c1498 - 1543 (45)), from the stunningly illustrated (and written) book by Prof Susan Foister about the greatest portrait painter working in England between the late 1520s and his death in 1543. Not your nicest guy, T Cromwell, but family historians owe him a great debt of gratitude because in 1538 he mandated for the first time that all parish churches had to keep records of births (christenings), marriages and deaths (burials). In 1598 a further law ordered churches to provide their bishop with a transcript of their register information each year ("bishops' transcripts"). Little could anyone have imagined the much much later explosion of interest in parish registers / bishops' transcripts as the dominant source of English family history dates prior to the introduction of a national registration system in 1837 (or indeed the involvement of the Mormon Church in putting millions of these records on the web).

The Rector of the hamlet of Starston, Norfolk, who was probably the only writer around, pens the intro to his Parish Register Book nearly 450 years ago in 1558, when things were finally looking up for the C of E. Parish Register for Cuby with Tregony (Cornwall) - 1683 Paradox's 7 x grt grand-parents marry: "Richard the son of John Teague was marryed to Grace Laurence the 22nd day of October" Just under 250 years after Cromwell, BMDs become a source of stamp duty revenue in 1783, and the estate of the late Willm Clutterham of Starston, Norfolk, becomes the first in the parish to pay a new threepenny stamp duty. Parish Registers like these can be viewed because of the generosity of the Mormon Church and their "Family Search" Website .

The monastic cathedrals themselves were still needed for Henry's Church of England, and so, after the King's "visitors" had cleaned everything out and destroyed what they did not like, he refounded them (without land holdings) and appointed Bishops, Deans and Canons (often the previous Abbots, Priors and Monks) to run them along the same lines as the already existing secular cathedrals. In more than one case the new administrators got into the smashing up act (though their reasoning was "spiritual" rather than monetary)! In some cases schools (known as King's Schools - for example the King's Schools at Canterbury, Ely, Gloucester, Worcester etc) were refounded or founded and used some of the old monastic buildings. For many cathedral monastic buildings, the really brutal destruction came a hundred years' later at the hands of the followers of that other Cromwell - Ollie (1599-1649-1658 (59)), who also had a penchant for smashing medieval stained glass and denosing statues.

Over the intervening centuries many of the monastic building structures around the cathedrals have disappeared, but there are notable exceptions such as the cloisters and chapter houses at Canterbury , Worcester and Gloucester , and the almost complete monastic complex, including the magnificent wood beamed dormitory, at Durham , which was the major English pilgrimage centre before the Shrine for murdered (1170) Saint Thomas (Becket) was built by Archbishop Stephen Langton in Canterbury Cathedral in 1220. Saint Paul's Cathedral, London - Photo Lawrence Williams MEDIEVAL SECULAR FOUNDATIONS York Minster Lincoln Salisbury Exeter Chichester Lichfield Wells Hereford Saint Paul's London (destroyed in 1666 in the Great Fire of London) By Henry VIII's time around half of medieval England's cathedrals were secular, and had been erected as cathedrals in their own right by cities and the church. These cathedrals did not have attached monasteries to be closed by Henry (though their shrines and chantry chapels stacked with gear were fair looting game).

The only cathedral in this group which does not exist today is Saint Paul's in London, a large Romanesque structure completed in 1150 on the site of the original 604 cathedral. It was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666, and replaced by the present domed masterpiece (left) designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed around 1710. Each cathedral had a Dean and three other senior officers - Precentor, Chancellor and Treasurer. Under them came a body of canons, who drew their income from "prebends" (estates). The canons were in turn understudied by vicars, who did the hard work! Most of the secular cathedrals had monastery style chapter houses, where the dean and chapter met, and cloisters.

Gloucester Bristol Chester Finally, at the same time as orchestrating the biggest redistribution of assets since the Norman conquest of 1066, and dismantling and closing all of the monasteries and convents in England, Henry produced a plan for "mantling" 13 new cathedrals and dioceses, but these ended up being whittled down to 6 - all of which interestingly were medieval monastic foundations. The list of 6 included Westminster Abbey (right), and although nowadays it is probably the most famous church in England, it only enjoyed the status of a cathedral for just over a decade until 1556. Interestingly the list also included the magnificent Italianate Peterborough Abbey , which contains the tomb of Henry's first wife - Catherine of Aragon. Cathedral History Timeline - St Paul's Cathedral Cathedral History Timeline Foundation, Loss and Reconstruction | Medieval Splendour 604–1087: Foundation, Loss and Reconstruction Christianity reached Roman Britain in the second-century AD.

A number of Roman artefacts - pots, tiles and glass - have been found in excavations around St Paul’s, however no evidence has emerged that the site of St Paul’s, as once believed, was ever used for a Roman temple. The official withdrawal of Roman administration in 410 AD did not end Christian belief in England but it was to be almost two hundred years before St Paul’s Cathedral was founded. The two names most associated with the establishment of the first St Paul’s are Saint Mellitus and Saint Erkenwald. The former, a monk who arrived in Britain with Saint Augustine on a mission from Rome instigated by Pope Gregory the Great, founded St Paul’s in 604 AD. The latter was the Abbot of Chertsey whose consecration as Bishop of London in 675 AD, following the city’s brief return to paganism, confirmed the return of the Roman Church to London. The earliest Cathedral buildings were relatively short-lived structures, repeatedly damaged by fires and Viking attacks. It was the Cathedral begun in about 1087 AD by Bishop Maurice, Chaplain to William the Conqueror, which would provide the longest standing home for Christian worship on the site to date, surviving for almost six hundred years.

1087–1559: Medieval Splendour The Cathedral quire was the first part of the new building to be completed in 1148, enabling the Cathedral to function as a place of worship as quickly as possible. Up to the Reformation of the Church in England St Paul’s was a Catholic cathedral in which the celebration of the Mass, the preaching of sermons, the veneration of many saints, shrines, reliquaries, chapels, the observance of Saints’ feast days, masses for the dead said in chantry chapels, a wooden cross known as a rood, and a chapel devoted to The Virgin, all played a part in the liturgical life of the building. A great deal of public activity also took place; although not always welcomed by those looking after the Cathedral, trade, sports and ball games were common and a north/south route through the Cathedral transepts was used as a general thoroughfare. Paul’s Cross was an important feature of Cathedral life from at least the mid thirteenth-century. It was an outdoor covered pulpit from which proclamations were made and leading prelates expounded, often controversially, on theology and politics.

It ceased to be used in the 1630s, and stood in the north churchyard until 1642. The Cathedral School was re-established with new statutes just to the east of Paul’s Cross in 1512 by John Colet (1466–1519) a Renaissance scholar and friend of Erasmus who viewed education as prerequisite for spiritual regeneration. All of these enterprises, the spiritual, the educational, and the civic, took place within or beside the largest building in medieval England: longer, taller and wider than the present building and richly decorated. The reign of King Henry VIII saw the beginning of the end for many aspects of the religious life of the building associated with Roman Catholicism. The shrine of St Erkenwald was plundered and waves of iconoclasm followed in which shrines and images were destroyed. The full suppression of Catholic worship and fittings was carried out under Edward VI by the first Protestant Bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley, who was martyred by Mary I's government in 1555. After a restoration of Catholic rites under Mary, settled Protestant worship was confirmed finally under Elizabeth I's first Bishop of London, Edmund Grindal, in 1559.

Turning against wealthy foreigners, Londoners riot across the city, with St Paul's at the centre of the troubles as a place where vitriolic speeches are made. 1560-1711 Reformation to Conflagration | A New Cathedral for London 1560–1666: Reformation to Conflagration The new form of worship continued at St Paul’s in the wake of the Reformation, with the choir singing in English instead of Latin at Mattins and Evensong according to the new Book of Common Prayer. The Cathedral already had a long history as a place of commemoration and some of the grandest tombs were still to be added to the building in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. One of the most remarkable monuments from this period still survives, that of John Donne (1572–1631), the poet and clergyman who, after a raffish youth, went on to become Dean of St Pauls from 1621 until his death. During his lifetime, St Paul's and Paul's Cross were leading centres of a newly confident and thriving Protestant culture in England.

The physical destruction wrought during the Reformation had only been the start of a series of threats to the fabric. In June 1561 lightning struck the Cathedral spire igniting a fire which destroyed the steeple and roofs, the heat and falling timbers causing such damage to the Cathedral structure that it would never fully recover. Plans were made for restoration and the architect Inigo Jones (1573–1652) was engaged to carry out work in 1633, but his work was left incomplete at the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642. Parliamentary forces took control of the Cathedral and its Dean and Chapter dissolved; the Lady Chapel became a large preaching auditorium, while the vast nave was used as a cavalry barracks with, at one point, 800 horses stabled inside. By the 1650s the building was in a serious state of disrepair and it was only after the Restoration in 1660 of King Charles II (1630–1685) that repair was once again considered in earnest as an architectural proclamation of the restored Church of England and the monarchy.

Leading architects wrestled with the how to restore the medieval structure and were often in disagreement. Inspired by his travels in France and his knowledge of Italian architecture, Christopher Wren (1632–1732) proposed the addition of a dome to the building, a plan agreed upon in August 1666. Only a week later The Great Fire of London was kindled in Pudding Lane, reaching St Paul’s in two days. The wooden scaffolding contributed to the spread of the flames around the Cathedral and the high vaults fell, smashing into the crypt, where flames, fuelled by thousands of books stored there in vaults leased to printers and booksellers, put the structure beyond hope of rescue. 1666–1711: A new Cathedral for London Sir Christopher Wren was a brilliant scientist and mathematician and Britain’s most famous architect. The building he designed to replace the pre-Fire Cathedral is his masterpiece.

Nine years of planning were required to ensure that the new design would meet the requirements of a working cathedral; the quire was to be the main focus for liturgical activity, a Morning Chapel was required for Morning Prayer, vestries were needed for the clergy to robe, a treasury for the church plate, a home had to be planned for the enormous organ, bell towers were essential, and the interior had to be fitted for the grandest of occasions and ceremonies. The building which Wren delivered in thirty five years fulfilled all these needs and provided a symbol for the Church of England, the renewed capital city, and the emerging empire. Construction commenced in 1675: the process involved many highly skilled draughtsmen and craftsmen and was pursued in phases, largely dependent on the availability of funding and materials. Portland stone predominated but other types of stone were necessary as well as bricks, iron and wood. All of the building accounts, contracts and records of the rebuilding commission survive, and many original drawings. A detailed history of the design of the cathedral can be found in the online Wren Office Drawings catalogue written by Dr Gordon Higgott (2012).

Christopher Wren lived to see the building completed: the last stone of the Cathedral’s structure was laid on 26 October 1708 by two sons named after their fathers, Christopher Wren junior and Edward Strong (the son of master mason). The first service had already been held in 1697 – a Thanksgiving for the Peace between England and France. After 35 years of building, Christopher Wren's brave new domed Cathedral is declared formally complete by Parliament. London had a new icon. 1721-1905 Memorialising the Greats | St Paul’s in the Age of Industry 1712–1795: Perilous painting and memorialising the Greats The violent and iconoclastic transition from Roman Catholicism and the debate over the reformed faith which followed were tumultuous. The Cathedral was built at a time when the Civil War and Protectorate had again heightened sensitivity to the confluence of art and Protestantism. What constituted appropriate decoration for the Cathedral was the subject of great debate.

After a competition Sir James Thornhill was chosen to provide a decorative scheme for the interior of the Cathedral dome in 1715 and immediately began work to produce eight scenes from the life of St Paul. Working precariously over fifty metres from the ground he completed the work within two years and was soon commissioned to continue his scheme into the lantern and onto the drum beneath the dome. Daily rounds of worship were observed within view of the new murals, but despite the efforts to enliven the interior of the building, St Paul’s proved an unpopular venue with the Hanoverian dynasty and royal attendance dwindled; after George I’s visit in 1715 no monarch came again for seventy-four years. The capture of the French fortress of Louisburg during the course of the Seven Years War was marked by an impressive service in 1758, but it would not be until 1789 that George III marked his recovery with a special Thanksgiving service attended by thousands.

A monument to the philanthropist and prison reformer John Howard which was placed on the Cathedral floor in 1795 was the first of a host of sculptures commemorating the lives of clergy, writers, artists, scientists and military figures which were to populate vacant floor and wall space in the next century.Two of the most distinguished military commanders of the Napoleonic Wars were commemorated with state funerals and later great monuments on the church floor: Admiral Horatio Nelson in 1806 and Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington in 1852, both of whom are interred in the Cathedral crypt. 1800–1905 Heat, light and colour: St Paul’s in the age of industry Institutional reform was matched by physical changes to St Paul’s in the nineteenth-century. Queen Victoria lamented that St Pauls was "most dreary, dingy and un-devotional” adding her voice to the general criticism of the Cathedral for being, dark, dirty and cold .The Cathedral Chapter took steps to make the building more inviting and began work on the so called "completion of the decoration”.

While the use of vivid mosaic in the dome and the quire area were being explored, and programmes of stained glass were designed. The rearrangement of the quire by the Surveyor F C Penrose (1817–1903) was the most significant of many changes to the interior made under his supervision. By removing the screen dividing the quire from the nave many more people were able to participate in services. Great Victorian Deans, especially Henry H Millman and Robert Gregory, seized the opportunity to hold routine worship under the dome and in the nave, as well as in the quire – thus for the first time actively making the whole of the vast building a place of worship and Christian teaching. The full ceremonial potential of St Paul’s was also realised by this reordering, something anticipated in the state funeral for Nelson, and confirmed with that for Wellington. Victorian philanthropy more generally flourished at a reinvigorated St Paul's. During the first half of the nineteenth-century Maria Hackett (1783–1874) devoted her time and money to a campaign to improve the living and educational conditions of boy choristers in St Paul’s and other cathedrals and Anglican choral foundations.

In 1860 the Chapter of St Paul's presented William Weldon Champneys (1807–1875), to the vicarage of St Pancras, where he developed the schools, ragged schools, and Sunday schools and provided an invalids dinner table. The Canons of St Paul’s focused on the welfare of the thousands of clerks and warehousemen who worked in the vicinity of the Cathedral through the Amen Court Guild. At the end of the century St Paul’s had one of its most dynamic of English cathedral Chapters, with the many facets of the life of the Cathedral attaining new levels of distinction and in 1897 the organisation of the Diamond Jubilee Thanksgiving Service for Queen Victoria (1819–1901) proved an outstanding success. The nation celebrates as Queen Victoria marks 60 years on the throne with a service at St Paul's, Too frail to come inside, the whole service is held on the west steps, with the Queen remaining in her carriage.

1905-present Defending the Building | Royal Events and Social Reformers 1906–1960 Belt and Braces: Strengthening the Dome and Defending the Building Cracks had appeared in some parts of the Cathedral as a result of settlement even before the Cathedral was topped-off in 1710 and concern over the structural stability of the Cathedral persisted in to the early years of the twentieth-century. After various investigations, fears culminated in the Corporation of London's serving of a dangerous structure notice to the Dean on Christmas Eve 1924: the Cathedral was closed from 1925 to 1930 while the piers and dome were strengthened under the supervision of the surveyor Walter Godfrey Allen (1891–1986). Some of the strengthening interventions may have been excessive; however they were to provide valuable structural support when the Cathedral suffered two significant bomb strikes during the Second World War. St Paul’s Watch, the group of volunteers who defended the Cathedral during The Blitz, enabled the continuation of services as normally as possible throughout the war years.

At the end of the conflict, on 8 May 1945, ten consecutive services were held in thanksgiving for peace, each attended by over three thousand people. The last of the services focused on the work of the St Paul’s Watch. In the years that followed St Paul’s played an important role in commemorating those who had sacrificed their lives and in reconciliation. The American Memorial Chapel was constructed and consecrated in the presence of President Eisenhower (1890–1969) and on 21st October 1958, Theodor Heuss (1884–1963), President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1959, visited St Paul’s to present an altar set with the words "The German people have asked me to hand to you, Mr Dean, and to the Chapter of St Paul’s Cathedral this crucifix and these two candlesticks. Our gifts are a token of our sincere wish to serve, together with the British People, the cause of Peace in the World”.

1960–2012: Royal events and Social reformers With the major structural issues resolved and war damage repaired, the Cathedral continued to welcome world leaders, thinkers, theologians, politicians and the public in pursuit of hope for a better society. Canon John Collins (1905–1982), who had been a leader in the drive for post-war reconciliation, campaigned tirelessly for peace, human rights, and nuclear disarmament, and against apartheid in South Africa. Dr Martin Luther King (1929–1968) stopped at St Paul's to speak from the west steps en route to collect his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and his widow Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) became the first woman to preach in a statutory service in St Paul’s. On January 30th, 1969 the Cathedral Choir was joined by Indian singers and instrumentalists, and addresses were given to mark the centenary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) the champion of non-violent resistance, civil rights and freedom across the world.

Continuing this tradition, in 2012 the Dalai Lama (b. 1935) was welcomed to receive the Templeton prize ('for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities'). The St Paul’s Institute was established in 2003 to foster an informed Christian response to the most urgent ethical and spiritual issues of our times and engaged with the Occupy Protests of 2011/12 seeking constructive debate on financial ethics. The wedding in St Paul’s of HRH the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer gripped the nation and much of the world in 1981, and Queen Elizabeth II officially marked both her Golden and Diamond Jubilees with Thanksgiving services in St Paul’s Cathedral. There have been occasions for national mourning: in 1965 Winston Churchill (1874–1965) who had led Britain during the war received a state funeral, a ceremony reserved for heads of state and others who have given significant leadership in the defence of the nation. A large ceremonial funeral was held for former Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, in 2013.

Vast crowds gathered at St Paul's following the terrorist attacks on New York on September 11 2001, as London expressed its solidarity with the people of New York at a time of grief; and the victims of the 7/7 bombings were mourned in special services in 2005. The Diamond Jubilee and the special summer service at St Paul's celebrating the Paralympic Games made 2012 a spectacular year for the Cathedral. 1560 - 1711 - St Paul's Cathedral 1560 - 1711 Today at the Cathedral View More 7:30am Reformation to Conflagration | A New Cathedral for London 1560–1666: Reformation to Conflagration The new form of worship continued at St Paul’s in the wake of the Reformation, with the choir singing in English instead of Latin at Mattins and Evensong according to the new Book of Common Prayer. The Cathedral already had a long history as a place of commemoration and some of the grandest tombs were still to be added to the building in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

One of the most remarkable monuments from this period still survives, that of John Donne (1572–1631), the poet and clergyman who, after a raffish youth, went on to become Dean of St Pauls from 1621 until his death. During his lifetime, St Paul's and Paul's Cross were leading centres of a newly confident and thriving Protestant culture in England. The physical destruction wrought during the Reformation had only been the start of a series of threats to the fabric. In June 1561 lightning struck the Cathedral spire igniting a fire which destroyed the steeple and roofs, the heat and falling timbers causing such damage to the Cathedral structure that it would never fully recover. Plans were made for restoration and the architect Inigo Jones (1573–1652) was engaged to carry out work in 1633, but his work was left incomplete at the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642.

Parliamentary forces took control of the Cathedral and its Dean and Chapter dissolved; the Lady Chapel became a large preaching auditorium, while the vast nave was used as a cavalry barracks with, at one point, 800 horses stabled inside. By the 1650s the building was in a serious state of disrepair and it was only after the Restoration in 1660 of King Charles II (1630–1685) that repair was once again considered in earnest as an architectural proclamation of the restored Church of England and the monarchy. Leading architects wrestled with the how to restore the medieval structure and were often in disagreement. Inspired by his travels in France and his knowledge of Italian architecture, Christopher Wren (1632–1732) proposed the addition of a dome to the building, a plan agreed upon in August 1666. Only a week later The Great Fire of London was kindled in Pudding Lane, reaching St Paul’s in two days.

The wooden scaffolding contributed to the spread of the flames around the Cathedral and the high vaults fell, smashing into the crypt, where flames, fuelled by thousands of books stored there in vaults leased to printers and booksellers, put the structure beyond hope of rescue. 1666–1711: A new Cathedral for London Sir Christopher Wren was a brilliant scientist and mathematician and Britain’s most famous architect. The building he designed to replace the pre-Fire Cathedral is his masterpiece. Nine years of planning were required to ensure that the new design would meet the requirements of a working cathedral; the quire was to be the main focus for liturgical activity, a Morning Chapel was required for Morning Prayer, vestries were needed for the clergy to robe, a treasury for the church plate, a home had to be planned for the enormous organ, bell towers were essential, and the interior had to be fitted for the grandest of occasions and ceremonies. The building which Wren delivered in thirty five years fulfilled all these needs and provided a symbol for the Church of England, the renewed capital city, and the emerging empire.

Construction commenced in 1675: the process involved many highly skilled draughtsmen and craftsmen and was pursued in phases, largely dependent on the availability of funding and materials. Portland stone predominated but other types of stone were necessary as well as bricks, iron and wood. All of the building accounts, contracts and records of the rebuilding commission survive, and many original drawings. A detailed history of the design of the cathedral can be found in the online Wren Office Drawings catalogue written by Dr Gordon Higgott (2012). Christopher Wren lived to see the building completed: the last stone of the Cathedral’s structure was laid on 26 October 1708 by two sons named after their fathers, Christopher Wren junior and Edward Strong (the son of master mason). The first service had already been held in 1697 – a Thanksgiving for the Peace between England and France. Share this content Great Fire of London | English history | Britannica.com Great Fire of London Fukushima accident Great Fire of London, (September 2–5, 1666), the worst fire in London ’s history.

It destroyed a large part of the City of London , including most of the civic buildings, old St. Paul’s Cathedral , 87 parish churches, and about 13,000 houses. The Great Fire of London, as depicted about 1675, seen from Blackfriars and looking toward Old St. … © Museum of London/Heritage-Images On Sunday, September 2, 1666, the fire began accidentally in the house of the king’s baker in Pudding Lane near London Bridge . A violent east wind encouraged the flames, which raged during the whole of Monday and part of Tuesday. On Wednesday the fire slackened; on Thursday it was extinguished, but on the evening of that day the flames again burst forth at The Temple . Some houses were at once blown up by gunpowder, and thus the fire was finally mastered. Many interesting details of the fire are given in Samuel Pepys ’s Diary. The river swarmed with vessels filled with persons carrying away as many of their goods as they were able to save. Some fled to the hills of Hampstead and Highgate, but Moorfields was the chief refuge of the houseless Londoners.

London residents escaping from the Great Fire of London in 1666 by way of the Thames. © Photos.com/Jupiterimages Within a few days of the fire, three different plans were presented to the king for the rebuilding of the city, by Christopher Wren , John Evelyn , and Robert Hooke ; but none of these plans to regularize the streets was adopted, and in consequence the old lines were in almost every case retained. Nevertheless, Wren’s great work was the erection of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the many churches ranged around it as satellites. Hooke’s task was the humbler one of arranging as city surveyor for the building of the houses. The Great Fire is commemorated by The Monument , a column erected in the 1670s near the source of the blaze. Learn More in these related articles:

Question: Which English cathedral was destroyed by fire in 1666?
Answer: St Pauls