Samuel Pepys
Books
- Pudding Lane The Great Fire of London, Hour by Hour · Liszt Think
In the early hours of September 2, 1666, a spark in Thomas Farriner’s Pudding Lane bakehouse ignited a catastrophe that consumed medieval London.
- The City of Wood and Pitch…most warehouses along the Thames were rented, their owners scattered across Kent and Essex, unreachable in the night when sparks might fly. Samuel Pepys walked through the narrow lane that connected Thames Street to Eastcheap. He was Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, a man of rising stati…
- The King’s Peace and the Mayor’s Watch…ked well enough for ordinary times. It had no provision for extraordinary ones. The fire would find this gap and widen it into catastrophe. Samuel Pepys occupied a unique position in this divided system. As Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, he lived in Seething Lane within the City walls,…
- The Watchman's Cry…ry spell extended back through the harvest, the east wind establishing itself as a persistent feature rather than a passing weather system. Samuel Pepys, whose diary would record the fire’s progress, noted the wind’s character independently of fire-related observation. Contemporary correspon…