From Robert Wilde,
Your Guide to European History.
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The Damage
Up to 430 acres were affected by the fire, much of them within the city walls. Over 13,000 houses, 87 parish churches, 6 chapels, 3 city gates, four bridges, 52 guild halls, a prison and many famous and important buildings had been destroyed, leaving ten of thousands homeless and ruined. Contemporary estimates claim the damage to buildings neared eight million pounds, along with over £2 million worth of goods; the city government's annual income was just £12,000. In contrast, and even though we don't know the exact figure, the death toll was low. Official records cite only five deaths - the Farriner's maid, a shoemaker, an old man who died trying to get a blanket from St. Paul's Cathedral and two people who fell into cellars – but figures eight and seventeen are often given. The true number might have been more, but nowhere near the three thousand supposedly killed by a fire in the thirteenth century.

The Plague
Common lore claims the Great Fire stopped the plague in London, saving more lives than it cost. While the fire clearly did have some effect on retarding the plague by driving out or killing the flea carrying rats, historians don't believe fire was the sole reason. Many of the embryonic suburbs and most affected parishes also recovered from plague in 1666 without the aid of cleansing flame and even a geographically wider explanation – the bitter 1665/6 winter – isn’t accepted as effective enough. The real reason is probably a combination of many factors and the fire is simply a coincidence.

Rebuilding
The incentives to rebuild quickly were huge, and not just because of the thousands who needed re-homing. London was England's capital city, the third biggest in Europe, the hub of the nation's prestige, government and economic power. To have left it in ruin, to have rebuilt slowly or unsurely, would have been to damage England on many levels. For example, custom duties gathered by the king fell over £200,000 in 1667; unsurprisingly, he was a major driving force behind the reconstruction. The drive to rebuild was also present in architects and civic leaders, many of whom had dreamt of wiping London flat and designing a glorious, modern city.

Christopher Wren submitted a massive and elaborate plan full of grand boulevard's and glorious buildings, but ideas on this extreme were quickly rejected. People may have lost their homes, but they still had their land and most were determined to either keep it or only sell for a reasonable price. While the legal wrangles, time and cost associated with a clean sheet were prohibitive, few wanted a return to the pre-fire days of tightly pack wood. Compromise was the answer, and it was decided upon by a special commission created by the King, enforced by an act of Parliament - the 1667 Rebuilding Act – and enacted by the City administration. The medieval street plan remained, but the main roads which were widened and every size of buildings subject to officially determined dimensions: thickness of wall, limits on storeys (two on normal streets, three on larger ones and four on the most important), types of material etc.

Builders Make A Statement
In addition, the King and the London Corporation initiated three grand structures to show the world how London was back in business. The Royal Exchange and a new Customs House had vital economic functions, but the Monument – sixty-two metres of Doric column with a sculpted flaming top – was pure symbolism. Wren provided the column, which is supposedly as high as the distance between the Monument and Farriner's bakery, and Robert Hooke the sculpture. Wren contributed much more, including fifty-one churches and a new St. Paul's Cathedral, creating his reputation as the architect who built London.

The Fire Court
A Fire Court, created specifically to judge arguments arising from the fire, smoothed the reconstruction, dealing with around 1500 cases: roughly one for every ten affected buildings! Many disputes were between land-owners and tenants or borrowers and lenders, but some people managed to avoid the judges. In a case which is still notorious, Humphrey Henchman – the Bishop of London – charged stationers a storage fee on £200,000 of books and papers they had in St. Paul's Cathedral, even thought it and the stock had been totally destroyed.

By 1671 over nine thousand buildings had been finished, London had an entirely new look and relatively little had been spent in doing it. Parliament had certainly needed some help in remaining interested, and St. Pauls had yet to be rebuilt, but London's return to life had been remarkably quick. For many Londoners this was a different, positive, sign from God.