#great fire

[nemfrog]

Great Fire of London, 1666 from Lilly's Hieroglyphs published in 1681. Found in Myths and marvels of astronomy. 1878.

Internet Archive

[aitiuilghrain]

How to reset a World

[londiniumlundene]

All Hallows by the Tower

The church of All Hallows by the Tower was founded in Saxon times – 675 C.E. to be precise. In over 1300 years of history, it’s had associations with a fair few famous names as they passed through - dead or alive. Situated next to the Tower of London, the church became the temporary resting place for those executed by beheading, including Thomas More and Archbishop William Laud.

The church narrowly escape destruction in the Great Fire of 1666 when Admiral William Penn (father to founder of Pennsylvania William Penn) arranged for the use of the Navy’s gunpowder to demolish a row of nearby houses, creating a fire break. Diarist Samuel Pepys watch the flames consuming the rest of the City from the church’s tower. 

It was the incendiary bombs of WWII that later dealt significant damage to All Hallows, melting the lead roof so it ran in great streams, leaving only the tower and outer walls. The Vicar at the time, Phillip “Tubby” Clayton (famous for founding Talbot House in WWI), vowed immediately to rebuild the church, with the rededication occurring in 1957.

Many parts of the church survived the bombing, including an arch from the 7th Century, and a number of wooden carvings. Yet more history can be seen in the crypt museum, where a roman pavement sits alongside Anglo-Saxon crosses, the church plate (silvery valuables), and the church’s registers, one of which notes the marriage of John Quincy Adams (later the 6th President of the USA). Perhaps the most intriguing artefact is the crow’s nest of the Quest, the ship used by Sir Ernest Shackleton in his last Antarctic expedition. It was apparently acquired by “Tubby” Clayton, who toured it around as an attraction to raise money for the Talbot House hospices.

[illustratus]

The Great Fire of London by Philip James de Loutherbourg

[shakespearenews]

Fantasies of Old London: Nineteenth-Century ‘Virtual Reality’

When we think about nineteenth-century panoramas of cities, it is most likely the triumphalist portrayals of the modern metropolis such as Thomas Hornor’s Panorama of London of 1829 that come immediately to mind. Hornor’s 360-degree painting, exhibited at the Colosseum in Regent’s Park, showed the contemporary city in an all encompassing view taken from the top of St Paul’s cathedral, but simulations of old London, featuring urban locations that had long disappeared, are less well known. 

These often appeared as part of a theatrical performance in the form of moving panoramas, long paintings unrolled on stage in such a way that the spectator experienced the sensation of moving through a long-vanished urban environment. They were a regular feature of nineteenth-century productions of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, for example, where, to musical accompaniment, the audience witnessed a journey down the Thames by barge through sixteenth-century London from Bridewell Palace to Greenwich.

...

The entertainment didn’t stop there, however, since every evening visitors could experience ‘the most astounding exhibition ever yet offered to public notice, viz., a representation of the Great Fire of London, under the direction of Mr. Southby, the unrivalled pyrotechnist. Doors open at Nine, Feeding time for the Animals, Five. Conflagration at Dusk.’

[historymakesmeangry]

New conspiracy, Christopher Wren started the Great Fire of London so he could get his architecture career off the ground

[sometimeslondon]

St Mary-le-Bow church in the City of London

If it wasn't for this church, we wouldn't have Oranges and Lemons, Bow Bells, Cockneys, Dick Whittington, his cat and the best Christmas pantomime ever!