When my mother left school she went to work in the City of London. She knew the city well, as a kid she took me into town on occasion and we would walk from landmark to landmark and she would tell me all about them. Standing in Pudding Lane she told me about the Great Fire of London, 1666. It started in a bakers and burnt for four days …
Some 430 acres, as much as 80% of the city proper was destroyed, including 13,000 houses, 89 churches, and 52 Guild Halls. Thousands of citizens found themselves homeless and financially ruined. The Great Fire, and the fire of 1676, which destroyed over 600 houses south of the river, changed the face of London forever.
The rebuilding was carried out in brick, not timber.
Time passes and people tend to forget these things …
Fortunately the rest of Nottingham proved less flammable.
bobmcgee 