Plague and fire in London
An epidemic kills a fifth of the city, and the next year most of it burns.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 365 days
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Bubonic plague kills perhaps 100,000 Londoners in 1665, the last major outbreak in England. In September 1666 a fire starting in a Pudding Lane bakery destroys 13,200 houses, 87 churches and St Paul's Cathedral across four days, leaving most of the medieval city gone. Recorded deaths were remarkably few. Wren rebuilds the churches and St Paul's, and building in brick and stone rather than timber is enforced.