A humble baker named John Farinor lived in London in the second half of the 17th century. His bakery was located in the city center, between the Bridge and the Tower, and all Londoners were pleased with the shy guy's culinary products, who from early morning rushed to buy fresh bread at his institution. For five years, John Farinor was in the service of King Charles II and supplied His Majesty's court with fresh buns and pretzels for breakfast, muffins for lunch, and pies with all kinds of fillings for dinner. And John wondered what else he could bake to please the royal family and thereby gain even greater authority.
On that day, 1 (11 - new style) September 1666, he had to stand at the stove until late in the evening, and he was very tired. His eyes closed, he wanted to sleep. Unable to withstand fatigue, John decided to take a nap and return to the bakery early in the morning, since everything was located in the same house. First he sent off the apprentices, and then went home himself.
His road was very short, in fact, it was necessary to climb the stairs to the second floor. John didn’t check the oven fires again because he was quite sure he had left the bakery in perfect order. He went upstairs to his bedroom, sat down on the bed and only then felt the day's weariness literally crushed him. There was no longer the strength to resist her, although a thought flashed through: did he have a flame left in the furnace? But he dismissed the thought, blew out the candle, fell on the pillow, dressed like that, and fell asleep.
He slept very soundly, and below in the furnace the flame that he had not extinguished continued to blaze. And something happened that usually happens in such cases. Sparks from the stove fell onto the dry plank floor, and the dry, tarred wood instantly flared up. And then the rags and towels caught fire. In addition, sparks flying out of the chimney hit a haystack in a neighboring yard, and it immediately caught fire. From the stack, the fire spread to the wall of a nearby building.
From the bakery, a suffocating smoke breathed, a burning tree was already cracking with might and main, when the apprentices smelled the smell of burning. The guys first of all rushed upstairs to the owner and woke him up. It was so blazing that it was too late to take emergency measures to extinguish the fire. The entire lower floor, where there were barrels of water and the necessary equipment (axes and hooks), was engulfed in fire. John, his wife, children and apprentices had no choice but to escape through the roof. And on the first floor there was only a nanny, who was no longer destined to get out.
John Farinor and his family managed to escape by jumping from roof to roof. They got out into the street and from a safe place watched the spread of the fire.
In those years, London was a crowded city with narrow streets, in which fires were quite frequent: as soon as one dilapidated house caught fire, the next one immediately flared up. Homes in areas called London slums, where the poor lived, were especially on fire. And nobody paid special attention to such fires.
But now a fire broke out in the city center, not far from the Tower and the bridge over the Thames. Nevertheless, it was not easy for the firemen to get to the blazing houses.
Promotional video:
The flames raged, the rising wind threw sparks on neighboring buildings, and soon several buildings on Padding Lane caught fire. The night street was filled with shouts. Hundreds of people ran out of their homes to try to cope with the fire before the firefighters arrived. But where there! There were, however, those who just came running to gaze at the flames and fire victims. However, most people soon realized that the fire would quickly spread to other homes and the best thing now is to take valuable things with you and flee to another area.
London, full of tar-plank buildings and stucco shingles, caught fire frequently, so people were used to such relocations. Of course, they fought with fires, but no one could offer a radical means of fighting fires. True, about a year ago, King Charles II sent a note to the Lord Mayor, demanding the introduction of stricter fire safety rules. The Lord Mayor naturally agreed, but did nothing. The fact is that all the previous fires somehow subsided by themselves. This one was expected to do the same.
But later it turned out that there was a landfill on Padding Lane where rubbish from the nearest Eastchip Market was dumped, and it also broke out. Soon she was drawn by such a poisonous smoke and smell that many townspeople could not stand the stench and ran across the bridge to the other side of the Thames.
The Lord Mayor was informed of the start of the fire early in the morning, but the city governor who arrived had a faint impression of the burning houses. “Fi,” he said. - What's wrong with this fire? Even a woman, if she urinates, will easily flood it."
Another government official named Samuel Pepis was no more impressed by the fire. The maid woke him up at three in the morning. His home was near Tower Hill, about three-quarters of a mile east of the disaster site. This is what Pepys wrote in his diary: “I got up, pulled on my robe, went to the window, thought that it must be no further than the back of Mark Lane. Well, I went back to bed, thinking to sleep. But he could not get enough sleep. The smoke and screams of people running through the streets woke him up.
It was Sunday, a holy day, on which no one dared to disturb His Majesty. But it was a fire …
Shortly before noon, Pepys showed up at his office in Whitehall, the quarter where government offices were located. For a long time he could not make up his mind, then he still plucked up courage and asked to report to the king that a big fire had started in the center of the city.
However, the king could not do anything. He, like all his subjects, could only hope for the mercy of God and wait for the fire to go out by itself. But soon this hope vanished. The day was windy, the fanning flames spread to neighboring houses and neighborhoods, and by midday the fire reached the Thames. Almost immediately, the warehouses along the river bank, filled with timber, coal, oil and food, burst into flames. Explosions were soon heard. These were barrels of cognac, alcohol and wine.
The fire spread so quickly that there was no way to stop it. The flame spread like a river, covering entire streets in one minute, flying over great distances and destroying everything. The spread was facilitated by an even and dry wind that blew continuously from the east. And thanks to this constant wind, the fire, almost hitting the house of Pepis, spread unhindered to the west. On Sunday, the flames could probably still be extinguished. But the firefighters in the rush and confusion prevailing then, trying to fill the buckets as soon as possible, damaged the water supply system, thereby leaving the entire central region without water supply.
Hellfire raged from Sunday to Wednesday. For three days and three nights, tongues of red flame shot up into the London sky. During this time, 13,200 houses in four hundred large streets, 80 churches and many public buildings were burned down, three hundred acres of land were devastated. Stores and shops located on London Bridge burned. Sparks from it flew to the opposite side of the Thames, and they started fires in other parts of the city. The Town Hall and the Royal Exchange, the financial center of London, turned to ashes.
The worst disasters were caused by the fire to St. Paul's Cathedral. From the heat, stones exploded, ancient tombs opened, revealing mummified remains. The roof of the cathedral melted, liquid lead flowed in streams along the adjacent streets. It was a terrible sight. It seemed that some kind of fire-breathing dragon pounced on the peaceful city.
It is noteworthy that only 8 people died in the Great London Fire. Most of the townspeople had enough time to flee. The roads were clogged with carts laden with belongings, the whole district turned into a continuous refugee camp.
Among those who left the city was Pepis. In his diary, he wrote: “The wind is blowing in your face, and at the same time you are almost burnt by the sparks of flame that rain down from this terrifying, this ominous, this damned fire … And above all this is smoke, so thick and huge that in noon obscures the sun. And if it sometimes appears, it is red as blood."
By Wednesday evening, the fire was practically extinguished. And this happened thanks to the personal intervention of the king, who sent fire brigades to destroy buildings in the path of the fire in order to prevent it from spreading. But London smoldered for a few more weeks, and the cellars continued to burn six months later.
As Londoners began to repair and rebuild their homes, the architect Christopher Wren suggested that the government take into account the disaster and build London according to a new plan so that the city lives up to its purpose - the great capital of a great people. However, the proposal of the talented architect was ignored, and London continued to be built up almost in its former form.
But although K. Ren was refused, in memory of the natural disaster he was ordered to build a monument, which he did. The column built by Wren, known in London as the "Monument", never received another name. This colossal Doric column is 202 feet high. Inside it is a staircase of white marble with 345 steps. They lead to the landing, which offers an amazing view of the whole of London. The column is built of Portland stone with bronze and marble decorations. On the pedestal there is a description of the fire with all the details and various allegorical figures. Earlier on the "Monument" there was an inscription that the fire was caused by the papists, now this inscription is gone.
In addition, there is a tradition that the fire destroyed the consequences of the previous London catastrophe - the great plague of 1665, which claimed a hundred thousand lives, and in general, forever exterminated the plague in London, which had been raging periodically for many centuries.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubeev