1666 The most vivid evocation of the fire that transformed London is that of Samuel Pepys. A narrator of genius – true always to the impression of the moment – Pepys, like other Londoners, was initially somewhat blasé (fires were commonplace in a metropolis warmed by coal and constructed out of wood).
2nd. Some of our mayds sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast to-day, Jane called us up about three in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City. So I rose and slipped on my nightgowne, and went to her window, and thought it to be on the backside of Marke-lane at the farthest; but, being unused to such fires as followed, I thought it far enough off; and so went to bed again and to sleep. About seven rose again to dress myself, and there looked out at the window, and saw the fire not so much as it was and further off. So to my closett to set things to rights after yesterday’s cleaning. By and by Jane comes and tells me that she hears that above 300 houses have been burned down to-night by the fire we saw, and that it is now burning down all Fish-street, by London Bridge.
So I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower, and there got up upon one of the high places, Sir J. Robinson’s little son going up with me; and there I did see the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side the end of the bridge; which, among other people, did trouble me for poor little Michell and our Sarah on the bridge. So down, with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it begun this morning in the King’s baker’s house in Pudding-lane, and that it hath burned St Magnus’s Church and most part of Fish-street already. So I down to the water-side, and there got a boat and through bridge, and there saw a lamentable fire. Poor Michell’s house, as far as the Old Swan, already burned that way, and the fire running further, that in a very little time it got as far as the Steeleyard, while I was there. Everybody endeavouring to remove their goods, and flinging into the river or bringing them into lighters that layoff; poor people staying in their houses as long as till the very fire touched them, and then running into boats, or clambering from one pair of stairs by the water-side to another. And among other things, the poor pigeons, I perceive, were loth to leave their houses, but hovered about the windows and balconys till they were, some of them burned, their wings, and fell down.
The pigeons are a touch of genius. Pepys, a trusted functionary, hurried off to advise the authorities (the king and the Duke of York, no less) that houses must be pulled down to create firebreaks. When he hastened back to the fire, Pepys was told by the frantic Lord Mayor that the fire was moving faster than houses could be demolished (or owners prepared to let them be demolished), and the oil and tar warehouses alongside the river were in flames. ‘Firedrops’ were showering all over the city.
Pepys realised that his own house was in danger. His entry for 3 September notes: ‘About four o’clock in the morning, my Lady Batten sent me a cart to carry away all my money, and plate, and best things, to Sir W. Rider’s at Bed[th]nall-greene.’ On the next day the authorities began blowing up houses. After supping on a cold shoulder of mutton (‘without napkins, or anything’), he and his wife went out into the garden ‘and saw how horridly the sky looks, all on a fire in the night, was enough to put us out of our wits; and, indeed, it was extremely dreadful, for it looks just as if it was at us; and the whole heaven on fire.’ Genuinely alarmed, Pepys now made arrangements about his £2,000-odd worth of gold. It was not until the 7th that the fire (‘thank God!’) finally burned out.