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Posts Tagged ‘1666’

Fire of London and The Blitz on our Walks

Monday, September 28th, 2009

2,000 years ago the Roman’s established a trading port on the banks of the River Thames at a point where the river could be bridged.

Ever since then, that port, which they called Londinium and we call London, has been a major trading city. We have several London walks that explore the streets of the city tracing it from its Roman origins to the present day.

London’s history has not always run smoothly. Almost from its beginnings it has faced down triumph and disaster. In AD60 the Iceni Queen, led a revolt that almost saw the end of Roman occupation in England.

Leading a swarming army of angry tribes folk she swept into London, fired its buildings, and slaughtered in the region of 70,000 Romano-Londoners.

To this day, about 18 feet below the current street level there is a level of red ash, known to archaeologists as the Boudica layer, that remembers this first major disaster in London’s history.

It seems also that at some stage in the 120’s the city was again destroyed by fire.

The Romans departed these shores between AD407 and AD410 and since their departure London has seen many fires. The two most notable were in 1666, when the Great Fire of London destroyed the medieval City of London (we actually do this on our Great Fire of London walk) and again in the 1940’s when the bombs of the London Blitz razed the City once more.

This latter destruction is covered in great detail on our Blitz London walks, which tells the story of how, between September 1940 and May 1941, the bombs rained down as the Nazis tried to obliterate the financial powerhouse of the British war effort, demoralize the the population and destroy the historical centre of London. A huge amount of damage was inflicted on the City, thousands were killed and thousands more made homeless.

But the spirit of London stood firm. “London can take it” was the can do attitude that the people adopted and, spurred on by their great wartime leader Winston Churchill, London did indeed take it.

After the war, with much of the City a wasteland of destruction, London did what it has always done when faced with fire. It rose from the ashes, stronger and more vibrant. But, as happened so many times in it past, little pockets of the old city were left and still survive today, sometimes hidden away behind the new gleaming offices of the 21st century financial hub that the City of London has become.

This is the City that our London walks set out to explore and on our tours you can see Roman remains, medieval walls, ancient street patterns and lovely old churches, some in ruin, some still standing proud.

And on every street to the left of the street name you will see the coat of arms of the City of London, the emblem of  the white shield with the red cross of St George. In its top left corner the short sword of St Paul, the patron saint of the City of London and the City’s motto emblazoned beneath it Dios Dirige Nos - O Lord Guide Us.

So why not join us on one of our London walks that explores this historic heart of the city where 2,000 years of fascinating history are just waiting to be discovered and uncovered.

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Exploring Wren’s London on Our Walks

Monday, September 14th, 2009

In our earlier blog we looked at how many of the streets we see on our London walks were the work of one of London’s most prolific architects, Sir Christopher Wren.

Wren’s opportunity to transform the London skyline came about in September 1666 when the Great Fire of London destroyed virtually all the medieval City.

With the embers of the fire still smouldering, Sir Christopher Wren approached King Charles 11 and presented him with a comprehensive plan to rebuild the City on a grid-pattern that would consist of spacious streets, squares and elegant piazzas.

In truth, since the plan ignored the property rights of all those who had lost buildings in the Great Fire of London it had little chance of ever becoming a reality.

What it did do, however, was persuade the king that this enthusiastic young man was just the person to supervise those parts of the necessary rebuilding that could be undertaken by the Crown and the public authorities.

Wren was, therefore, made one of the three Royal Commissioners for the rebuilding and was employed almost continuously from then until his retirement in 1718.

You can see evidence of his genius on so many of our London walks. From the mighty splendour of St Paul’s Cathedral, to the graceful simplicity of his lesser known churches such as St Anne and St Agnes in Gresham Street.

According to the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, commenting on Wren’s achievement in 1932, ” There is no finer monument to his genius than the character that he gave London…”

Indeed, as Wren himself observed “architecture aims at eternity” and his vision is still apparent to us today as we make our way around the streets of the City on our London walks.

He designed 51 City Churches, four Royal palaces, Royal Hospitals at Chelsea and Greenwich, not to mention numerous minor commissions both within and without London.

When he died in 1723 at the ripe old age of 91 he had transformed London and was, fittingly buried in the crypt of his greatest achievement, St. Paul’s Cathedral beneath a simple black slab that urges “If you require a monument look about you..”

Those who join us on our City of London walks will see that it is not just a reference to St Paul’s Cathedral but to his graceful church towers that still dot the London skyline.

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Walks in London - Wren and Christchurch

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

The last two blogs about our London walks in the city have focused upon the ruins of Christchurch, Newgate Street. Yesterday we told how, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Edward V1 founded Christ’s Hospital School in the buildings of the former Greyfriars Monastery.

In early September 1666 both the church and hospital were destroyed by the Great fire of London.

Our City of London walks feature much about the Great Fire and these were just two buildings that were destroyed by it.

The summer of 1666 had been a hot and dry one. The narrow streets of the old medieval city were crammed with wooden buildings which, by the beginning of September were tinderbox dry.

On the night of 1st September 1666 Thomas Faryner, the King’s Baker, whose bakeshop was situated on Pudding Lane, went to bed and, allegedly, forgot to draw or put out his fire.

In the early hours the household were woken by the smell of burning and found that the building was on fire. The flames quickly spread down to the riverside wharves where items such as timber, brandy, oil, silk and even gunpowder were being stored.

Up until this point Londoners wouldn’t have been to worried about the flames as fire was commonplace in the old Medieval City of London. But the wind grew stronger and, worse still, changed direction, fanning the flames north westerly thorugh the heart of the city where they were fed by the dry timbers of the houses.

The fire raged for four days and destroyed nine tenths of the old City of London. 87 churches were razed to the ground, 44 livery halls were wiped out and 13,200 houses were destroyed. But remarkably, despite the devastation, only nine lives were lost directly in the Great Fire of London.

The old medieval city of narrow streets and picturesque timbered houses was gone for good. But for one man the devastation would provide a longed for opportunity to redevelop the City.

That man was Christopher Wren and one of the many churches he rebuilt was Christchurch.

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