The Destruction of 17th Century London: The History of the City’s Fire and Plague in 1666

In the mid-17th century, the heart of England fell victim to the mother of all epidemic catastrophes. The city of London was a ghost town, deserted by those who knew better than to hang around in a breeding ground that offered near-certain doom. Those who were confined within the city's borders had to make do with what they had, and the pitifully low morale seemed appropriate; the reek of rot and decomposition pervaded the air day in and day out, while corpses, young and old, riddled with strange swellings and blackened boils, littered the streets. For Londoners, to say it was hell would be an understatement.

With some bad luck and bad timing, a potential disaster awaited the city, and that finally came in September 1666. As it turned out, the Great Fire of London was so bad that one author who studied the blaze described it as “the perfect fire,” referring to the convergence in the largest city in England of spark, wood and wind in such a way that no one could stop the fire or even fight it effectively. John Evelyn, who had warned of the potential for a devastating fire given the layout of the city, noted that people seemed so stunned by the scope of the fire that they didn’t know what to do: “The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting to save even their goods, such a strange consternation there was upon them.”

While the fire quickly spread throughout the heart of the city, the only thing that saved London’s suburbs was an ancient wall built around the city to keep the enemies of Rome out, not the fire in. . By the time it was finished, most of the city’s homes and churches lay in ashes, and nearly 90% of the city’s citizens were left homeless.

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Lydbog: 29. januar 2026