The incredible buildings that survived the Great Fire of London

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Tomorrow is the 350th anniversary of the start of the Great Fire of London.

The conflagration, which started at the bakery of Thomas Farriner - the baker of Charles II - in the early hours of Sunday 2nd September 1666, consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul's Cathedral and most of the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's 80,000 inhabitants. Amazingly, only six verified deaths were recorded.

These are some of the buildings which survived the devastation...

Which buildings survived the Great Fire of London?

1 September 2016
The Telegraph

The Great Fire of London started in the early hours of 2 September 1666 in King Charles II's bakery in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge.

It only ended on 6 September destroying four-fifths of London and killing 6 people. But it did not touch everything - and some of the buildings that survived are still standing today.


41 and 42 Cloth Fair

The Great Fire of London destroyed over 400 acres of London, including 13,200 houses and 87 out of 109 churches. Tucked away in a small street in Farringdon, however, is a lonely survivor - 41 and 42 Cloth Fair.

Built between 1597 and 1614, this house is sometimes described as the oldest in London. It may have only survived the fire because it was sheltered by the walls of a nearby priory.

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Middle Temple Hall

Said to be one of the finest Elizabethan halls in London, Middle Temple Hall (part of Middle Temple, one of the capital's four Inns of Court) survived the fire due to a change of wind direction. Two later fires in 1677 and 1678 destroyed much of the Temple but the hall - where the first performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was recorded in 1602 - emerged unscathed.

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Prince Henry's Rooms

This beautiful building in Fleet Street, known as "Prince Henry's Room", managed to escape the ravages of the fire. Once a tavern where Samuel Pepys liked to cavort, its intricately decorated plaster Jacobean ceiling is one of its most impressive features.

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All Hallows-by-the-tower

Overlooking the Tower of London, All Hallows-by-the-tower is a church which only narrowly escaped being burnt down by the fire. The story goes that a local admiral ordered neighbouring buildings to be demolished to create firebreaks.

Samuel Pepys, who watched the city blaze from the church's tower, wrote: "But going to the fire, I find, by the blowing up of houses and the great help given by the workmen out of the King’s yards, sent up by Sir W Penn, there is a good stop given to it."

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Guildhall

Still the administrative centre of the City of London today, the Guildhall's construction began all the way back in 1411. It did not come out of the Great Fire without a few bruises - its entire roof was replaced in 1670 - but fared surprisingly well.

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Staple Inn

Not far from Chancery Lane tube station is the Staple Inn, which dates all the way back to the 1580s. Once part of Gray's Inn, another Inn of Court, it survived the fire but was heavily damaged by bombing during the Second World War.

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Tower of London

The fire was stopped before it reached the Tower of London, which was home to over six hundred tons of gunpowder.

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St Olave Hart Street

St Olave Hart Street is one of the smallest churches in the City. The flames supposedly came within 100 yards of the building, but again, a change of wind direction saved it for posterity.

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The Seven Stars

The Seven Stars in Holborn is a charming pub that was built in 1602, made it through the fire and is still operating today.

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St Andrew Undershaft

Today dwarfed by the Gherkin, St Andrew Undershaft was built in 1532 and is one of few City churches to have survived both the Great Fire and the Blitz.

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Which buildings survived the Great Fire of London? - Property

 

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As British schoolchildren know, Samuel Pepys buried his gold and papers in his cellar and buried his wine and a parmesan cheese in a friend's garden to protect them from the Great Fire.

Pepys witnessed the fire and then wrote about it in his diary:

Wednesday 5 September 1666

I lay down in the office again upon W. Hewer’s quilt, being mighty weary, and sore in my feet with going till I was hardly able to stand. About two in the morning my wife calls me up and tells me of new cryes of fire, it being come to Barkeing Church, which is the bottom of our lane. I up, and finding it so, resolved presently to take her away, and did, and took my gold, which was about 2350l., W. Hewer, and Jane, down by Proundy’s boat to Woolwich; but, Lord! what sad sight it was by moone- light to see, the whole City almost on fire, that you might see it plain at Woolwich, as if you were by it. There, when I come, I find the gates shut, but no guard kept at all, which troubled me, because of discourse now begun, that there is plot in it, and that the French had done it. I got the gates open, and to Mr. Shelden’s, where I locked up my gold, and charged, my wife and W. Hewer never to leave the room without one of them in it, night, or day. So back again, by the way seeing my goods well in the lighters at Deptford, and watched well by people. Home; and whereas I expected to have seen our house on fire, it being now about seven o’clock, it was not. But to the fyre, and there find greater hopes than I expected; for my confidence of finding our Office on fire was such, that I durst not ask any body how it was with us, till I come and saw it not burned. But going to the fire, I find by the blowing up of houses, and the great helpe given by the workmen out of the King’s yards, sent up by Sir W. Pen, there is a good stop given to it, as well as at Marke-lane end as ours; it having only burned the dyall of Barking Church, and part of the porch, and was there quenched. I up to the top of Barking steeple, and there saw the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw; every where great fires, oyle-cellars, and brimstone, and other things burning. I became afeard to stay there long, and therefore down again as fast as I could, the fire being spread as far as I could see it; and to Sir W. Pen’s, and there eat a piece of cold meat, having eaten nothing since Sunday, but the remains of Sunday’s dinner. Here I met with Mr. Young and Whistler; and having removed all my things, and received good hopes that the fire at our end; is stopped, they and I walked into the town, and find Fanchurch-streete, Gracious-streete; and Lumbard-streete all in dust. The Exchange a sad sight, nothing standing there, of all the statues or pillars, but Sir Thomas Gresham’s picture in the corner. Walked into Moorefields (our feet ready to burn, walking through the towne among the hot coles), and find that full of people, and poor wretches carrying their good there, and every body keeping his goods together by themselves (and a great blessing it is to them that it is fair weathe for them to keep abroad night and day); drank there, and paid two-pence for a plain penny loaf. Thence homeward, having passed through Cheapside and Newgate Market, all burned, and seen Anthony Joyce’s House in fire. And took up (which I keep by me) a piece of glasse of Mercers’ Chappell in the streete, where much more was, so melted and buckled with the heat of the fire like parchment. I also did see a poor cat taken out of a hole in the chimney, joyning to the wall of the Exchange; with, the hair all burned off the body, and yet alive. So home at night, and find there good hopes of saving our office; but great endeavours of watching all night, and having men ready; and so we lodged them in the office, and had drink and bread and cheese for them. And I lay down and slept a good night about midnight, though when I rose I heard that there had been a great alarme of French and Dutch being risen, which proved, nothing. But it is a strange thing to see how long this time did look since Sunday, having been always full of variety of actions, and little sleep, that it looked like a week or more, and I had forgot, almost the day of the week.