Recovery and Regeneration after the Great Fire of London (1666)

On 2 September 1666, a fire began in the bakery on Pudding Lane. The fire spread rapidly across the city of London, resulting in the destruction of 13,000 homes, 87 churches, the Royal Exchange and St Paul’s Cathedral.

How did seventeenth-century Londoners recover from disaster? This talk gives an insight into how devastation offered opportunity to re-imagine the urban landscape and the way people lived following the Great Fire of London. Drawing on records in The National Archives, it details how the government responded to the crisis and how new initiatives and plans were put in place to raise London from the ashes.