Hi All,

  Actually maybe more of a correction than addendum.  I really glossed over the rebuilding part of the story but our friend Ed Kelly, much more of a history buff than I pointed out the following to me in response to my email.  I thought I’d share.

Ru

Thanks.  Very nice report.

I think your guide may have missed a bit of the history of rebuilding however.  Charles II actually proposed changing city plans, but could not get consensus and city agreement to do so. At the time the City and the King were on opposite sides politically. During the Civil War that had just ended the City had supported the arrest of King Charles I and the King could not actually even enter the city of London. During the fire the city tried to keep the kings troops out of the city, despite an offer to help. They did not trust one another and possibly that is why they were suspicious of the Kings plans to improve much of the city, I am not sure.

But Charles did enlarge the streets and alleys… so they must have really been super narrow before!  I think there is an inscription on the river side of the monument attesting to Charles II’s insisting on brick and stone and on his deciding and directing the streets be widened on rebuilding.  Although Charles II came back into Power with the 60s, with a promise of no reprisals, the HUNG, DRAWN & QUARTERED Pub just West of the Tower of London presently bears an inscription made by Pepys … which is testament to his revenge … the hangee being a General who had signed the death warrant years earlier for the execution of his father.

SOME INTERESTING NOTES ON THE TIMES:

Encouraged by Charles, radical rebuilding schemes for the gutted City poured in. If it had been rebuilt under some of these plans, London would have rivalled Paris in Baroque magnificence (see Evelyn’s plan on the right). The Crown and the City authorities attempted to establish "to whom all the houses and ground did in truth belong" to negotiate with their owners about 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. Apart from Wren and Evelyn, it is known that Robert Hooke, Valentine Knight and Richard Newcourtproposed rebuilding plans.

With the complexities of ownership unresolved, none of the grand Baroque schemes for a City of piazzas and avenues could be realised; there was nobody to negotiate with, and no means of calculating how much compensation should be paid. Instead, much of the old street plan was recreated in the new City, with improvements in hygiene and fire safety: wider streets, open and accessible wharves along the length of the Thames, with no houses obstructing access to the river, and, most importantly, buildings constructed of brick and stone, not wood. New public buildings were created on their predecessors’ sites; perhaps the most famous is St. Paul’s Cathedral and its smaller cousins, Christopher Wren’s 50 new churches.

On Charles’ initiative, a Monument to the Great Fire of London, designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, was erected near Pudding Lane. Standing 61 metres (200 ft) tall and known simply as "The Monument", it is a familiar London landmark which has given its name to a tube station. In 1668 accusations against the Catholics were added to the inscription on the Monument which read, in part:

Aside from the four years of James II‘s rule from 1685 to 1689, the inscription remained in place until 1830 and the passage of the Catholic Emancipation Act.^[59]

Another monument, the Golden Boy of Pye Corner in Smithfield, marks the spot where the fire stopped. According to the inscription, the fact that the fire started at Pudding Lane and stopped at Pye Corner was an indication that the Fire was evidence of God’s wrath on the City of London for the sin of gluttony.

Cheers,

   Last Sunday Randal and I took part in our second www.walks.com tour.  It focused on part of the famous London Square Mile that makes up the old city of London.  We began the tour at the monument to the great fire of 1666, a date that once you learn is not hard to remember.  The Great Plague was 1665-1666.  Not a good time to be in London.   Our tour started at the foot of The Monument to the great fire.  While we were there, our guide Simon mentioned that the view from the top was worth the 311 steps.  We didn’t have time Sunday so today, while Randal and I were out and about, we made The Monument our last stop.  Randal waited in a coffee shop down on the street while I walked to the viewing platform.  Before I started I’d  asked the ticket seller how long it would take.  “Five minutes” was her reply and that was just about right.  I walked slowly and steadily giving the young man behind me an excuse to go slowly and steadily.  I’d invited him to pass me but he said my speed was just fine for him too.  So now that’s done, here’s the story of The Monument to the Great Fire.   http://www.mydoramac.com/wordpress/?p=19008 has more information and photos from our visit to the Museum of London where there is an exhibit devoted to the Great Fire of 1666.

Ru

The Monument

  “The Monument stands at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill in the City of London. It was built between 1671 and 1677 to commemorate the Great Fire of London and to celebrate the rebuilding of the City.

     The fire began in a baker’s house in Pudding Lane on Sunday 2nd September 1666 and finally extinguished on Wednesday 5th September, after destroying the greater part of the City. Although there was little loss of life, the fire brought all activity to a halt, having consumed or severely damaged thousands of houses, hundreds of streets, the City’s gates, public buildings, churches and St. Paul’s Cathedral. The only buildings to survive in part were those built of stone, like St. Paul’s and the Guildhall.

     As part of the rebuilding, it was decided to erect a permanent memorial of the Great Fire near the place where it began. Sir Christopher Wren, Surveyor General to King Charles II and the architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and his friend and colleague, Dr Robert Hooke, provided a design for a colossal

Doric column in the antique tradition. They drew up plans for a column containing a cantilevered stone staircase of 311 steps leading to a viewing platform. This was surmounted by a drum and a copper urn from which flames emerged, symbolizing the Great Fire. The Monument, as it came to be called, is 61 metres high (202 feet) – the exact distance between it and the site in Pudding Lane where the fire began.

     The column was completed in 1677, and in accordance with Wren’s original intention, was at first used as a place for certain experiments of the Royal Society, but vibrations caused by ceaseless traffic proved too great for the success of these experiments and they were discontinued; thereafter the Monument became a place of historic interest, unique of its kind, providing visitors with an opportunity to look across London in all directions from a height of about 160 feet, being the level of the public gallery.  

     Sir Christopher Wren’s flame-topped Monument to the Great Fire of 1666 is the tallest isolated stone column in the world.

http://www.themonument.info/history/introduction.html

Our guide Simon explained that when rebuilding the King insisted that the City be rebuilt as it had been even recreating the small alleyways and lanes rather than lay the city out as a grid or spoke or something more logical.  That’s why London is just as it had been in 1666.