An interview with Simon Thurley
This interview with Simon Thurley (ST) was carried out by Oxford Film & Television (OFT) for the Channel 4 programme The Great Fire of London. Dr Simon Thurley is director of the Museum of London.
Contents
• London Bridge
• The Fire and the City
• Rebuilding St Paul's
• The dome
• Changes resulting from the Fire
OFT: What was London Bridge like in 1666?
ST: You can't really overestimate how important London Bridge was. It was the only way of crossing the river unless you wanted to get into a rather perilous little wherry and be rowed across. So it was a fantastically important building that dominated the London skyline, something that, other than the cathedral, was probably the greatest symbol of the City.
It had a drawbridge halfway across because it still was one of the protective devices that protected the City from marauders. Rebellions that had started in Kent had always been stopped at London Bridge by simply whipping up the drawbridge. And, of course, it was also a symbol of justice, because on pikes on the bastions of the bridge were the heads of traitors – sometimes as many as 30 or 40 heads.
So it was symbolic for a lot of reasons, but most of all because it was the great gateway to the City.
OFT: Why didn't the Fire spread across it?
ST: This bridge was a very densely packed structure. It was only 12 or 13 feet (3.7-4.0 metres) wide, but over the years it had acquired the famous accretions that we all know – the houses – along either side, with only a narrow passage in the middle. And there was the extraordinary Nonsuch House, a tremendous half-timbered house, right next door to the drawbridge.
In fact, the bridge had been burnt down before: in 1633, there'd been a terrible fire that had burnt almost two-thirds of it. But that fire had never got any further than the drawbridge because there was a natural break there.
That's exactly what happened in 1666: as the flames took a grip of the bridge, they didn't just race right across, they were stopped, then more or less turned and blasted back into the City. Londoners' hearts must have sunk at the thought of the only river crossing, this great symbol of London's prosperity, going up in flames. However, part of it survived until the predecessor of the present bridge was built.
The Fire and the City
OFT: What was the City itself like in 1666?
ST: One of the most incredible things about London is the sheer sense of continuity. The heart of the banking community has been in the same place since the 13th century. Just before the Great Fire, there were street signs, very similar to the ones there now, hanging from the houses proclaiming the presence of bankers from all over the world. For example, Lombard Street takes its name from the bankers from Lombardy in northern Italy. It was the money from Lombard Street that was financing the war against the Dutch, and was subsidising the king's lifestyle at Whitehall.
As their houses started to be consumed, the bankers had only one thing on their minds – gathering together the gold coin that was so fundamental to London's economy and getting it out of the Square Mile. And that action meant that the gold was saved and could be used afterwards for the rebuilding of the City.
If the bankers of Lombard Street were lucky enough to get their gold out, the vast majority of the shop owners in Cheapside certainly weren't. This was the shopping centre of London, and it went up in flames in an afternoon. It was as if Regent Street and Oxford Street simply disappeared between the hours of midday and six o'clock in the evening. By the end of that afternoon, anyone who was standing in Cheapside looking south could have seen the Thames for the first time since the Roman period.
OFT: How did the City first react to the Fire?
ST: One of the extraordinary things in the early hours of the Fire – in fact, almost right the way through the whole crisis – was the contrast between the way the Fire was handled by the City and what the king and the duke of York did. There is absolutely no doubt that the lord mayor and the Court of Common Council were impotent, completely hopeless, whereas the king and the duke seized the initiative right from the earliest hours.
At the root of that was the Court of Common Council's and the mayor's great fear of property rights. They really didn't want to get involved with knocking down people's houses and the possibility being prosecuted afterwards for doing it. The mayor's fear of trammelling over the rights of individual property holders in the City caused him to act indecisively. If he had really grasped that issue in the early hours, he might have been able to stop the fire in its tracks.
OFT: Did this attitude change after the Fire?
ST: Looking at the wonderful, idealised plans produced by Wren, Evelyn and others immediately after the Fire, one sometimes wonders why they weren't built. Wouldn't London have been so much more spectacular if they'd actually been realised?
The answer is very simple: property rights. It was essential for the people who owned the houses to get them rebuilt and start trading immediately. That is why, above all else, post-Fire London was built on a plan that was almost indistinguishable from that of the medieval City.
OFT: What happened on the Wednesday of the Fire?
ST: By the Wednesday, the Fire had finally met its match. It suddenly hit something that it couldn't burn, and that was the Temple – the ancient medieval church at the centre of it, surrounded by stone buildings belonging to the lawyers. In fact, the duke of York, who was a bencher of the Temple, presided over the final series of demolitions that actually stopped the Fire.
So after all those days, the Fire ended here. It carried on smouldering for many weeks beyond that, but it wasn't to progress another inch further west.
Rebuilding St Paul's
OFT: What were the differing pre-conceptions about the rebuilding of St Paul's?
ST: There were four things that dominated the whole consideration of the design of St Paul's. The first we can attribute to Wren and the king. They wanted a modern building, something that, stylistically, would set it apart from the Gothic cathedral. They had both been very influenced by France, and they wanted to have something that was going to put London on the European map.
Then we had the clergy – and there was inevitably tension between Wren and the king and the clergy. The clergy wanted something that was going to work liturgically, that was going to be suitable for the first Anglican cathedral – because that's essentially what this building was. The first design, the Greek cross design, was booted out by the clergy because it simply didn't fit what they wanted.
Then there was the City. What the City wanted was a status symbol. The old cathedral had been the great status symbol of medieval London, and as this wonderful new City arose, the Corporation of London was determined that the new cathedral would be the same.
And, finally, there was money: of course, the cathedral had to affordable. In fact, to begin with, the idea was that the cathedral should be built in parts. They should first build the east end, then the transepts and then the middle. The whole business was down to cashflow, and the cash had to carry on flowing through the coal tax.
Somehow Wren had to try and come up with a design that pleased all four of those parameters.
OFT: What was Wren's relationship with the king?
ST: There's no doubt that Wren and the king worked very closely together on the design of St Paul's. The king was fascinated by it – after all, this was as much a symbol of the monarchy of Britain as it was a symbol of the City or a symbol of the Church. The final design that was approved is known as the 'warrant design' because Charles signed a bit of paper – a warrant – to show that this was the design that he wanted to see built in his capital city.
OFT: Was it the two of them against the clergy?
ST: There was certainly a tension with the clergy. At least two of the designs were rejected by the church – the Greek cross design and, to a degree, the Latin cross design – both of which were seen as being too Roman Catholic for the Anglican church. But ultimately, once the decision was taken to rebuild, the clergy were very behind it and obviously wanted to get the cathedral up and built and working as soon as possible.
OFT: So what did they feel like when they saw the ruins of St Paul's?
ST: Immediately after the Fire had died down, everybody hoped that St Paul's could be saved. In fact, Wren's first commission wasn't to build a new cathedral, it was to shore up the east end and make this into a place where services could be held. But not long after he drew up his plans, there was a major collapse of masonry at the east end, and everybody reluctantly realised that the cathedral would have to be taken down. And it was two years before this was decided.
It then took another eight years before they started building. The old building was an enormous pile of rubble, and it took all that time to clear the site and re- use the old brickwork. All the old stones were used in the foundations of some of the City churches. Only then could work start on digging the foundations of the new building.
The dome
OFT: What were the problems connected with the dome?
Even though London's skyline has changed unrecognisably since Wren's time, the dome of St Paul's still dominates – it's the focus of our view of London. But, of course, in 1666 no one had ever seen a dome before; it was a completely new architectural feature. This is one of the reasons why the City was so keen that it should be enormous, a vast new status symbol.
But this gave Wren a problem. The size outside and the size inside simply couldn't be the same: it would be far too large inside the cathedral if they had this massive dominating feature on the skyline.
And so Wren came up with a very simple solution, which was to build two domes: a small one inside, a large one outside and a gap between the two. That's what we've got there today – a double-dome structure that solved the tension between the City's desire for a huge silhouette and Wren's imperative to have something that worked from the inside.
OFT: How important was it to preserve the dome during the Second World War?
ST: During September 1666, icon after icon fell – first, it was London Bridge, then it was the Guildhall. For a brief moment, it seemed as if Old St Paul's was actually going to survive, but it also burned. During the Second World War, people felt St Paul's mustn't be allowed to burn a second time. Because it had turned into what the City had always intended it to be – the great icon of London – people were determined it wasn't going to be destroyed again.
And so the roof of St Paul's was literally crawling with fire watchers who were ready to bash out the sparks, to throw off the incendiary bombs. And if that had happened during 1666, we might never have had St Paul's cathedral as we know it today, but that's another story.
Changes resulting from the Fire
OFT: After the Fire, what happened to the guild system?
ST: The Guildhall, together with London Bridge and St Paul's cathedral, were the great civic symbols of the pride and economic prosperity of the City. And so as the flames reached the Guildhall, it was a double blow. First, this was one of the great icons falling, and second, it was an incredible humiliation for the City government. Not only had they failed to stop the start of the Fire, here was the seat of all the civic pride, pomp and pageantry of London going up in flames.
There had always been tension between the Crown and the City. This had come out during the Civil War, when the City had played a large role in the fall of Charles I. Thus it's ironic that Charles II did so much to save the City.
However, after the Fire, he caused another blow to fall on one of the City's privileges. In an attempt to get the City rebuilt quickly, in five-year period, he authorised tradesmen from all over Britain to come in and work. This eroded the cherished monopoly that the City had held over crafts within the Square Mile.
OFT: How did building regulations change London?
ST: On 5 February 1667, an Act of Parliament was passed that changed the face of London for ever. It was a Building Regulation Act 'for the better regulation, uniformity, and gracefulness of architecture'. What it effectively did was invent modern London as we know it – those brick-built terraces, with sash windows, of a certain height and proportion.
And the brain behind it all was the king, Charles II. In fact, he was fulfilling the ambition of his father and his grandfather in transforming London from a town of plaster and timber into a town of brick and stone.
