The Great Fire of London began at around 1 a.m. on Sunday 2 September 1666 in the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane. Within four days, it would burn through most of the City of London and leave around 100,000 people homeless.

The first warning came inside Farriner’s household. His journeyman, Thomas Dagger, woke after the smoke affected him. Farriner, his daughter and Dagger escaped through an upper window into a neighbouring property. A maid in the house did not escape.

Fire was a familiar danger in seventeenth-century London, but several conditions made this one particularly difficult to contain. The summer had been dry, buildings stood close together, and many were constructed largely from timber. Homes and businesses around Pudding Lane also contained combustible materials including oil, tar, rope and brandy. A strong easterly wind drove the flames westwards.

The fire soon moved beyond the buildings around Pudding Lane. A servant woke Samuel Pepys, and he initially saw the fire from his home. As its seriousness became clearer, he went to the Tower of London and then took a boat on the Thames to observe its progress.

Pepys later went to Whitehall and reported what he had seen to Charles II. He told the king that houses needed to be pulled down to prevent the fire from moving from building to building. Demolition could create gaps the flames could not easily cross, but taking this action was difficult as residents tried to save their homes and possessions.

The fire continued for four days. Strong winds and the density of the City helped it spread through streets, churches, warehouses and public buildings. Old St Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Exchange and thousands of houses were destroyed.

By the time the fire ended on 6 September, around four-fifths of the City of London had been burned. About 100,000 people had been made homeless. Despite the scale of the destruction, only a small number of deaths were officially recorded.