Wren’s Great Wen

The Great Fire of London in 1666 sparked Sir Christopher Wren’s triumphant ecclesiastical rebuilding project. Matthew Dennison revels in his legacy to the City

ON 5 May 1681, diarist John Evelyn dined with Sir Christopher Wren. Wren, Evelyn noted, was not only engaged in rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral but “was in hand with the building of 50 Parish Churches”. The churches in question all lay within the City of London. Unsurprisingly, Evelyn was moved to comment: “a wonderful genius had this incomparable person”.

Eighty-seven City churches were destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 350 years ago. Statutes had required that each church contain fire-fighting equipment: ladders, leathern buckets, iron fire-hooks and axes; in almost every case, provision had been neglected. Through the crowded streets, the mighty conflagration swept. On 3 September, surgeon Thomas Middleton saw flames burst from the steeple of the church of St Laurence Pountney; such was the impact of the fire on the church of All Hallows-the-great that afterwards its