"In sixteen hundred and sixty-six...

...London burned like rotten sticks".  Children are still being taught history by using that rhyme - my small great-niece recited it to me the other day when I told her that I was about to lead a special History Walk in London exploring the route of the Fire.

We'll start at The Monument, which conveniently has a tube station alongside. We'll go to Pudding Lane where the fire started, and take a look at some other sites, and some post-fire Wren churches. A recent TV series on the Fire seems to hint at a "Popish plot"...for years the Monument asserted that Catholics had started the fire  ( ‘Where London’s column pointing at the skies, /​ Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies’). This lying inscription was only finally removed in the early 19th century with Catholic Emancipation: how weird that it should be revived again via TV fiction in the 21st century...

Our Walk this evening will finish with Evensong and Mass at Precious Blood Church, across the river. The Fire stopped when it crossed London Bridge, as there was a firebreak on the south bank, in the form of open land beyond the bridge before the houses and shops and pubs of The Borough.