Lived history
I work near the bottom end of Pudding Lane, the street where the Great Fire of London started. This part of town is pretty much dominated by fancy glass buildings and braying toffs in suits, it would be easy to forget the area's history if it weren't for the place names, and all the damn Wren buildings.
Pudding Lane is where all the bakeries used to be in ye olden tymes, and also where a lot of fires happened. Apparently, when he was woken up and told of the King's bakery fire on the night of September 1 1666, Lord Mayor of London Sir Thomas Bloodworth grumbled: "Pish! A woman might piss it out!" This wasn't strictly true - the fire raged until September 6. By the time it was finally put out, four fifths of London had been burned to the ground, most civic buildings had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Oops.
This was good news, however for Sir Christopher Wren, who was clearly flinging up buildings every five minutes, judging by the amount there are around here. I imagine him as a Laurence Lewellyn Bowen figure, large-cuffed and sprinkled with plaster dust, breathlessly showing off yet another post-fire church to Sir Thomas Bloodworth before racing down the road to top off another, with Sir Thomas yelling: "But we really don't need another... one... thanks.. Christopher" impotently at his retreating back. Still, they're all very wonderful and give the tourists something to take pictures of, so well done him.
Anyway, the reason I went off on one about Pudding Lane etc is because I'm on a cut-back-or-starve economy drive, and have been buying a bread roll and bread-topping jollop every day from Tescos (lunch for a pound? Get in!). In order to get to Tescos, I cut up through Pudding Lane. It struck me today that, even though Londoners in 1666 probably weren't all that enamoured by cottage cheese and donuts, it's kind of a kick to be trotting down Pudding Lane every day to buy a freshly baked bread roll.
Pudding Lane is where all the bakeries used to be in ye olden tymes, and also where a lot of fires happened. Apparently, when he was woken up and told of the King's bakery fire on the night of September 1 1666, Lord Mayor of London Sir Thomas Bloodworth grumbled: "Pish! A woman might piss it out!" This wasn't strictly true - the fire raged until September 6. By the time it was finally put out, four fifths of London had been burned to the ground, most civic buildings had been destroyed, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Oops.
This was good news, however for Sir Christopher Wren, who was clearly flinging up buildings every five minutes, judging by the amount there are around here. I imagine him as a Laurence Lewellyn Bowen figure, large-cuffed and sprinkled with plaster dust, breathlessly showing off yet another post-fire church to Sir Thomas Bloodworth before racing down the road to top off another, with Sir Thomas yelling: "But we really don't need another... one... thanks.. Christopher" impotently at his retreating back. Still, they're all very wonderful and give the tourists something to take pictures of, so well done him.
Anyway, the reason I went off on one about Pudding Lane etc is because I'm on a cut-back-or-starve economy drive, and have been buying a bread roll and bread-topping jollop every day from Tescos (lunch for a pound? Get in!). In order to get to Tescos, I cut up through Pudding Lane. It struck me today that, even though Londoners in 1666 probably weren't all that enamoured by cottage cheese and donuts, it's kind of a kick to be trotting down Pudding Lane every day to buy a freshly baked bread roll.
posted by Elizabeth at 4:48 PM
1 Comments:
Delicious. The history as well as the freshly-baked roll.
The Black Plague was just before the Great Fire no? You could pretend you were a half-starving clerk trotting off to get breakfast fearful of catching the plague from passers-by.
Or is it me who's the only nutter on any given street? Bwha.
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