Rebuilding After the Great Fire of London

After the Great Fire of London in 1666, a massive rebuilding programme was needed. At first, it was seen as an opportunity to improve the layout of the City. A number of people like Christopher Wren and John Evelyn submitted plans for a much more modern city, in 17th century terms, with wide streets and grand squares.

These plans would have meant compensating many property owners whose houses and places of business could not be rebuilt. Neither King Charles II not the City of London itself had the money for this scale of compensation. In fact, the City was heavily in debt, made worse by the scale of devastation and its subsequent loss of income from the businesses and householders whose property was destroyed. This loss of income also made rebuilding quickly of paramount importance.

In spite of the speed needed to rebuild, the King was determined that some control should be exercised over the way it was done. Another city of wooden buildings overhanging narrow streets was out of the question because it would only be a matter of time before there was another catastrophic fire.

Commissioners for Rebuilding were appointed in October 1666. There were six:

• Christopher Wren
• Robert Hooke, of the Royal Society and Professor of Geometry at Gresham College
• Hugh May, a royal official with experience of architecture
• Robert Pratt, architect
• Edward Jerman, City man
• the City Surveryor, Peter Mills.

From their deliberations came the first Rebuilding Act, passed by Parliament in February 1667.

The Act laid down road widths, the types of building allowed and endeavoured to make disputes between neighbours easier to settle by setting up a Fire Court. The Act stipulated four types of houses that would be permitted.

• Buildings of the first sort - cellar, two floors high with an attic on by-lanes - 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.

No matter what kind of building, they had to be built in brick or stone - timber buildings were forbidden under the Act. There could be no projections over the streets either, because they allowed fire to leap from house to house. There were many more provisions that encouraged good practice. Stephen Inwood, in his book, A History of London, says, "...but in their clarity, good sense and simplicity they provided a model which other English towns that experienced disastrous fires in the decades ahead were often happy to follow".

The City of London officials were responsible for implementing the new building regulations as well as rebuilding public buildings lost in the fire. Parliament voted for the City to receive a levy from the import of coal to help pay some of the extra expenses involved. In fact, it was used to help pay for all that was needed to be done.

Traditionally, the Guilds had controlled who could work in many trades in the City of London but this monopoly, as far as building was concerned, was abolished by Parliament to ensure that there were enough skilled workers to undertake the huge rebuilding programme. It also kept the costs down as the City council and local landowners could not be held to ransom by the Guilds controlling the workers' wages.

Public buildings were, of course, a priority and rebuilding started immediately on Newgate Prison and the Guildhall, amongst others. The Monument was also built to commemorate the fire. It was designed by Wren and Robert Hooke, built of Portland stone, measures 202ft and was completed in 1677. An inscription on the north side explains the height, "In the year of Christ 1666, on 2 September, at a distance eastward from this place of 202 ft, which is the height of this column, a fire broke out in the dead of night which, the wind blowing, devoured even distant buildings, and rushed devastating through every quarter with astonishing swiftness and noise...."

By 1672, nearly all the rebuilding of houses and the City Guilds' halls was finished. It was decided that only 51 churches of the original 87 were to be rebuilt. Christopher Wren was given the designs for all of these and also for St Paul's Cathedral. Amazingly, he managed to give each church its own identity giving the pre-war City of London its beautiful and distinctive skyline. After the Second World War blitz and other bombing, only 24 of Wren's churches survived.

Although the Great Fire of London was a catastrophic event causing great loss of life and property, the rebuilding led to a safer, cleaner city and it maintained the medieval street plan that is still visible, to some extent, today.

Home