The Great Fire of London began at around 1am on 2 September 1666 in the bakery of Thomas Farriner on Pudding Lane, near London Bridge. A spark from an improperly shut oven ignited the wooden building. Within hours, a strong east wind had spread the fire west through London’s densely packed medieval streets.
Four Days of Fire
The fire burned for four days and three nights, consuming 373 acres of the city within the old Roman wall. 13,200 houses, 87 churches, 44 livery company halls, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House and old St Paul’s Cathedral were destroyed. Remarkably, the official death toll was only six — though historians suspect many more poor Londoners died uncounted.
Blame and the Monument
A French watchmaker named Robert Hubert confessed to starting the fire deliberately and was hanged, despite the confession being almost certainly false. Parliament later exonerated him posthumously. The Monument to the Great Fire of London, designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke, stands 62 metres tall — exactly the distance from its base to where the fire started on Pudding Lane.
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