The Great Fire Of London Samuel Pepys Guide
But when Pepys returned to Bludworth, the mayor wept. “ Lord, what can I do? I am spent. People will not obey me. ” The fire was now chewing through Cheapside, one of London’s richest streets. Molten lead dripped from St. Paul’s Cathedral like candle wax.
On Monday, September 3, he took a coach to the royal palace at Hampton Court (20 miles away) to personally inform the king that the fire was unstoppable. He returned with written orders for gunpowder demolitions. On Tuesday, he commandeered carts, horses, and boats to evacuate the Navy Office’s records—including centuries of irreplaceable maritime contracts. He even dug a pit in his garden and buried his prized Parmesan cheese and a bottle of wine.
The summer of 1666 had been a cruel one. A drought had turned the River Thames into a sluggish trickle. Wooden buildings were desiccated tinder. Worse, the city had just survived the Great Plague of 1665, which killed 100,000 people. London was exhausted, bankrupt, and terrified. The last thing anyone wanted was another act of God. the great fire of london samuel pepys
This is the story of the Great Fire of London as told through the ink-stained fingers of the man who refused to look away. To understand Pepys’s terror, you must first understand the city he loved. London in 1666 was a medieval labyrinth of over 350,000 souls crammed into a one-square-mile area. The houses were built almost entirely of oak timber, pitch, and tar. They leaned so close together across the narrow alleys that neighbors could shake hands from opposite upper windows.
Pepys walked through the wreckage on Friday, September 7. His diary entry is a masterpiece of understated horror: “The ground under one’s feet was hot as if one were walking over burning coals. The air so full of smoke and ashes that one could hardly breathe. And the smell of burnt flesh and timber—I shall never forget it.” Yet even then, he was taking notes. He listed which streets survived, which wharves could still land goods, which bakers were already selling bread from tents. He was not a poet of grief; he was a logistics officer of survival. Why does Samuel Pepys matter? Because he left us the only hour-by-hour, street-level account of the Great Fire written by someone who was neither a hero nor a victim—but a competent, terrified, brilliant human being. But when Pepys returned to Bludworth, the mayor wept
By Thursday, September 6, the wind shifted. Rain began to fall. The Great Fire was over. The statistics are numbing: 13,200 houses destroyed. 87 churches reduced to skeletons. St. Paul’s Cathedral a hollowed ruin. 70,000 people homeless, camping in the fields of Moorfields and Finsbury. Total damage: over £10 million (roughly £2 billion today).
By the time the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Bludworth, arrived, the fire had already consumed half a dozen houses. Bludworth took one look and spoke the most infamous words in London’s history: “ Pish! A woman might piss it out. ” Then he went back to bed. People will not obey me
He wrote in his diary: “ We did cause the fire to be put out between the Middle Temple and the Inner Temple. But it was a desperate stop. ”
Charles II, often dismissed as a pleasure-seeker, proved his mettle. He handed Pepys a simple command: Go back and tell the Lord Mayor to start pulling down houses. No excuses.
