User:Bishonen/Fire
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User:Bishonen/Fire holding area: Wiki article June 30 2006
Contents |
[edit] Lead
In 1666 London caught fire ans was all burnt up, loads of people may habve died, and after it was put out Chris wren bukt a few churches and everone was happy.
[edit] London before 1666
[edit] London socially before 1666
[edit] London architecturally before 1666
[edit] Earlier fires in London, or, "you call that great?"
[edit] The fire
[edit] Causes
- Weather
London was like a tinderbox in Septembver '66 after a summer of drought. A high, hot easterly wind drove the bakery fire in Pudding Lane before it.
- Cramped streets
When the seriousness began to be realized, the narrow streets were already filled with the belongings of the refugees. Little chance of bringing firefighters and demolition gear near the fire (demolition rather than water was the method used to try to stop it).
[edit] Details of Fire
[edit] Why it was allowed to rage (politics etc)
At the beginning, the mayor came to look at it and opined that "A woman might piss it out".[1] But nobody did put it out.
[edit] Putting it out
[edit] Imediate impact
[edit] Death toll
The death toll from the fire is unknown, and is traditionally thought to have been quite small, but a recent book theorizes that thousands may have died in the flames or from smoke inhalation. Only six verifiable deaths are recorded.
[edit] Reconstruction
[edit] Re-building
Following the fire Christopher Wren was put in charge of re-building the city. His original plans involved rebuilding the city in brick and stone to a grid plan with continental piazzas and long straight avenues, from 1667, Parliament begain raising funds for an ambitious re-building scheme by taxing coal. However, the city was not rebuilt according to Wren's grandiose baroque scheme of a city of long straight streets and piazzas, this was largely due to delaying legal disputes over ownership of land, and the fact that owners of the destroyed shops and houses had to repay for their own rebuilding work. Finaly, subject to certain conditions owners were allowed to retain their former sites. This is the reason today's modern London has a medieval street layout - "Seen in isolation" writes Reddaway, Wren's draft "has bred the story of a great and neglected opportunity. The documents tell a different tale."[2]
[edit] Ethos of Wren's Churches
Wren newly appointed as Surveyor General began to supervise the construction of 57 new churches, much of the design work of which was delegated. The greater part of the cost of replacing the public buildings was met by the City and its companies. [3] Amongst the new designs were plans for the first new churches to have been built in England since the reformation.[4] Wren's new churches were revolutionary in English ecclesiastical architecture in that they ignored the traditional medieval cruciform plan, while externally they resembled the renaissance Roman Catholic churches of Europe internally the renaissance layout was adapted to suit the protestant liturgy. Which unlike that of the Roman Catholic church places greater emphasis on the sermon rather than the ritual taking place at the high altar, hence Wren's churches were basically halls, often with a gallery which allowed everyone to see and hear the preacher thus the chancel became vestigial.
Wren also re-built St Paul's Cathedral 11 years after the fire.
[edit] Social and economic crisis
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- Rebuilding and aftermath
"Something is known about the churches", writes T. F. Reddaway in The Rebuilding of London (1940), but little of "the secular and greater work". "With... no chronicler to tell of the efforts of the dispossessed, it has been overlaid and forgotten. The city government left voluminous records, but the maze of its committees have many centres and no single clue... The focal point is the struggle of the community to survive destruction."[5]
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- Evacuation and refugees
- Labour market
- Prices and supplies
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- Profiteering
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User:Bishonen:Fire holding area: Wiki article June 30 2006
[edit] Notes
- ^ Kishlansky, Mark (1997). A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603-1714. London: Penguin Books. p. 208.
- ^ Reddaway, 15–16.
- ^ Haliday,175
- ^ Haliday 175.
- ^ Reddaway, 15–16.
[edit] References
- Hanson, Neil (2001). The Dreadful Judgement: The True Story of the Great Fire of London. New York: Doubleday.
- Reddaway, T. F. (1940). The Rebuilding of London After the Great Fire. London: Jonathan Cape.
- Tinniswood, Adrian (2003). By Permission of Heaven: The Story of the Great Fire of London. London: Jonathan Cape.
