What damage did the fire cause?
-13,200 houses were burnt on 400 different streets
how do you think this would have affected the people of London?
-87 churches burnt down
-St Paul's Cathedral burnt down
Do you think this would have affected peoples religion?
-Most major public buildings burnt down
Do you think this would have affected buisness?
-10,000,000 estimated value of goods and property destroyed
-100,000 people to spend winter in tents or shelters
How do you think they would have felt?
-Death toll between 5-8 people
Do you think this is high or low in comparison to the scale of the fire?
Rebuilding the city
After the Great Fire of London had taken place the city was a mess and needed to be rebuilt. King Charles II had a cousin called King Louis XIV of France who had very grand and magnificent buildings in both Paris and Versailles and he admired these so he created very bold plans for reconstruction of London with the help of John Evelyn, Robert Hooke and Christopher Wren. However Charles II did not have enough power to order Londoners to give up their homes and properties just for his plan. In fact, London was heavily in debt, which was made far worse by the devastation and loss of income from the businesses and householders whose property was destroyed. This loss of income meant that rebuilding became of great importance very quickly.
The houses were rebuilt in four different ways:
Buildings of the first sort - cellar, two floors high with an attic on by-lanes on the smallest streets.
Buildings of the second sort - one more storey than the first sort and to be built on larger streets.
Buildings of the third sort - two more storeys than the first sort and to be
built on main roads.
Buildings of the fourth sort - basically mansions with fewer restrictions than the other three but still restricted to four storeys plus cellar and attic.
They were all built out brick or stone as this was part of the Act from the
Parliament in 1667 (a set of rules you have to stick to legally). Another part
of this Act was that the buildings would not able to crowd over the
streets.
Why do you think the buildings were built out of brick instead of wood?
Why do you think the buildings were not allowed to overhand on the streets?
By 1672, nearly all of the houses were rebuilt. It was decided that out of the 87 churches that were burnt down only 51 were to be rebuilt, these were designed by Christopher Wren he also designed St Paul's Cathedral.