Join me as I lead the walk through central London, using as my guide, Bloody London by David Fathers, highlighting some of the major incidents and flashpoints. We start at Tower Hill, where the diarist Samuel Pepys, lived at the time of the Great Fire of London, and journey across the City to Smithfield, and will finish at Farringdon station. For those who fancy it we'll visit a pub afterwards.
In 1666 the population of London was about half a million people, making it England's largest city. Most were crammed cheek by jowl into small wooden thatched building on narrow medieval streets. Fire was a daily occurrence and an ever present threat. The Great Fire of London swept through the central parts of the city from Sunday, 2 September to Thursday, 6 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. It destroyed 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. The death toll is unknown but generally thought to have been relatively small; only six verified deaths were recorded.
