They stayed till it was dark almost and saw the fire grow; and as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the city, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire. . . . It made me weep to see it.
—Memoirs of Samuel Pepys.
On the morning of Sunday, Sept. 2, 1666, in the house of the King's baker in London's Pudding Lane, fire broke out.
Four days long it raged in the scrambled streets and. along the water front; then burned itself out. Of the square mile known as the "City," four-fifths lay dead and blackened. St. Paul's Cathedral, the ancient Guildhall, the Custom House and Royal Exchange were gutted; 87 parish churches, 44 City Companies halls, and 13,200 houses in over 400 streets and squares were destroyed.
With undaunted courage Londoners rebuilt their City. Architects Sir Christopher Wren and John Evelyn drew up what for the 17th Century were model reconstruction plans. The Rebuilding Act of 1667 directed that brick and stone only should be used. A brick-built City slowly arose that was orderly in design and in marked contrast to the picturesque jumble of gabled houses removed by the fire. Only the medieval street plan was retained. A new St. Paul's designed by Wren lifted its massive dome over a new City. Two and a half centuries placed the patina of age on Wren's masterpiece, but Londoners still talked about their Great Fire.
Then on another Sunday foreign youths in sleek black bombers swept over central London and dumped 10,000 incendiary bombs in a coldly calculated Nazi attempt at mass arson. Any modern Samuel Pepys picking his way through the twisted streets of the City last week could have described scenes matching those of 1666.
Fire had eaten great hunks out of the heart of Britain's Empire. Streets were lined with gutted shells of office buildings.
They were mostly three-or four-story structures—musty headquarters for centuries of proud merchant traders, insurance brokers and craftsmen who preferred tradition to comfort. Here & there stood the steel skeleton of a modern building, its girders fantastically warped and bulged by heat. Fleet Street, mecca of British journalism, was badly hit, and behind it stood the blackened hulk of the Associated Press building. St. Bride's white spire, Wren's "madrigal in stone," stood alone over the ruins of the church. Supreme amid wreckage rose the great dome of St. Paul's, saved through the devotion of scores of clerks, journalists and professional men who kept a 24-hour vigil over it. Guarding every foot of the roof, they extinguished firebombs as they landed and doused flaming cinders blown by the wind.
Nine churches, eight of them by Wren, were destroyed. Dr. Samuel Johnson's house in Gough Square was roofless and gutted, but his extra-size chair and first edition of his dictionary had been rescued. Old Bailey, scene of famous and infamous trials, was partially burned; the Temple, already battered by a dozen bombs, was set aflame; and the Inner Temple, sanctum of British law, had five of its buildings burning at once. Its great Gothic library was reduced to rubble.