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The Great Fire of London (1666)

How a baker's shop in Pudding Lane destroyed most of the medieval City of London.

The Great Fire of London began in the early hours of 2 September 1666 in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane. Driven by a strong easterly wind, it spread through the closely built wooden houses of the medieval City and burned for four days. Around 13,000 houses, 87 churches and the original St Paul's Cathedral were destroyed, although remarkably few people are recorded as killed.

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In the rebuilding the architect Sir Christopher Wren designed the new St Paul's Cathedral and more than fifty other London churches. The Monument near London Bridge, also by Wren, was put up to commemorate the fire. Samuel Pepys' diary gives a vivid first-hand account of the disaster.

You may be asked the year of the Great Fire (1666), where it started (Pudding Lane), or who designed the new St Paul's (Sir Christopher Wren).

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