A self-guided audio walk through the City of London, following the Great Fire of 1666 backward, from St Paul’s Cathedral to the church by the Tower where it was stopped in the east, almost at Samuel Pepys’s door. Within days of the fire, Christopher Wren and John Evelyn drew a new London of wide, straight streets, so why did the City rebuild its crooked lanes? The answer starts with a question the Lord Mayor is reported to have asked as the fire took hold, who would pay to rebuild?, and you will hear it come back at most stops: in a garden where a painter named ordinary Londoners who died saving others, in the yard of the medieval Guildhall, on the street where a goldsmith’s hoard lay buried for almost three hundred years, at the Royal Exchange where only the founder’s statue survived, beside the Monument and the story of the man hanged for a fire he could not have started, by the old approach to London Bridge, and at the tower Pepys climbed after burying his wine and his Parmesan cheese. Everything is told from public streets and open spaces; nothing is narrated inside St Paul’s, the Tower of London or any paid space, and no tickets are sold or bundled. Diarists are quoted as diarists and every legend is labeled.

The stops

1. St Paul’s: A Plan for a New City
2. Postman’s Park: The Names on the Wall
3. Guildhall Yard: The Lord Mayor’s Question
4. Cheapside: Treasure Under the Street
5. Bank Junction: The Statue That Survived
6. The Monument: The Wrong Man
7. St Magnus the Martyr: The Gap on the Bridge
8. All Hallows by the Tower: The Saddest Sight

Finding the start

Start at the top of Ludgate Hill, on the sidewalk west of Queen Anne’s statue, facing the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral (St Paul’s station on the Central line is about 300 meters north-east; many buses stop on Ludgate Hill).

Terrain and access

About 3.3 kilometers, step-free on paved sidewalks, pedestrian lanes and one public garden, gently downhill overall toward the river. Signalized crossings at Ludgate Hill, Newgate Street, St Martin’s Le Grand, the Bank junction, Gracechurch Street and Eastcheap, and twice on Lower Thames Street. Busy traffic at the Bank junction and on Lower Thames Street and Byward Street. Postman’s Park closes at dusk and Guildhall Yard is sometimes closed for events; both stops can be heard from the adjoining street. No admissions. The walk ends about 250 meters from Tower Hill station.

Tickets

Postman’s Park and Guildhall Yard can close (the park at dusk, the yard for events); nothing on the route needs a ticket.

What you get

• An email from tours@the3dtravel.com with a link and an access code.
• Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
• Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
• Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
• Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.

Image credits

• Photo: Tristan Surtel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Iridescent, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: Bazj, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
• Photo: Diliff, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)
• Photo: 3BRBS, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (license)

The post The City: The Great Fire and Who Paid to Rebuild London appeared first on The3DTravel.