Survivors of The Great Fire still stand
The Hoop & Grapes is still open on Aldgate High Street in Whitechapel (right picture: Lisa Nordbo Fiil, left picture: Collage)
Most of the city was asleep at 1am on September 2, 1666. But in Pudding Lane, a baker's embers were still smouldering. When he and his family went to bed, they probably didn't expect to be woken up by thick smoke and leave their house through a window. Not long after, the house was gone and the Great Fire had grown big and strong, destroying everything in its way.
Days later, when the fire was extinguished, an area of 400 acres had been turned into ashes, including most of the churches in the city. 13,200 houses were destroyed, some of them deliberately blown up to keep the fire from spreading. By a stroke of luck, the fire did not reach the Tower of London, where 600 tonnes of gun powder were being kept.
The red area on the map shows the fire’s path of destruction, but even within this part of the city, some buildings survived the flames – more or less unscathed.
Today surrounded by the busy traffic of Whitechapel and towering skyscrapers, the old, crooked doorway reminds us of the rich history of London.
Courtesy of Historic-uk.com
