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THREAD/Today marks the 80th anniversary of the "Second Great Fire of London" and although we have covered much of this during our previous lockdown virtual walks, we can re-visit some of these spots today. Perhaps the most enduring image of this raid is the iconic photograph of
St Paul's Cathedral taken by Herbert Mason of the Daily Mail. The photo became known as "St Paul's Survives" which it did - barely, although it had a narrow escape on the night that this photo was taken. One of the scores of incendiary bombs dropped in the vicinity pierced the
thin lead covering of the dome and began to fizzle and burn. There was a real danger that if the bomb dropped inside the dome, then the timbers that support the dome against the brick inner "cone" would catch fire and burn out of control. The bomb was too high for those working
on the Stone Gallery to reach and similarly too low for those on the Ball, high above and preparations were made to lower a fireman with a rope around his ankles from the Ball to try and dislodge the bomb. Fortunately, before this desperate plan could be put into operation, the
bomb dislodged itself by the power of gravity and bounced down the Dome onto the Stone Gallery, where firemen and members of the St Paul's Watch were able to deal with it. If we take a short walk down Ludgate Hill and along Fleet Street, we can visit a memorial to another tragic
event that was recorded for posterity by someone who witnessed it first hand. The war artist Leonard Rosoman served as an AFS Fireman during the Blitz and painted this striking image which he entitled simply "The Falling Wall" and which now forms part of the IWM collection. He
was part of a squad that had been sent from Station 13 at Belsize Park to assist in fighting the fires in the City and was at Shoe Lane, that runs alongside the old Daily Express Building. Today it is office buildings but in 1940, it was largely industrial warehouses, including
storage for the rolls of newsprint used in the printing presses. Rosoman was with a squad that included the journalist and travel writer William Sansom and another fireman, Sidney Alfred Holder, as well as a couple of off-duty servicemen from the Army and RAF respectively, who
had offered their assistance. Rosoman was on a branch (hose) at ground level in Shoe Lane but was ordered by a senior officer to accompany him to an adjacent building to set up another branch to pour water on the fires from a higher level. Just as they were getting started, they
heard the ominous crack of masonry falling and saw the wall collapsing on to the very spot where Rosoman had just been standing. Amazingly, Sansom and the RAF man survived with minor burns and injuries but Sidney Holder and the un-named soldier were buried beneath feet of red-hot
masonry and were killed instantly. Sidney Holder is today remembered by a memorial plaque but sadly, the unknown soldier who died with him isn't commemorated here. As we look across Fleet Street, we can see the "Wedding Cake" spire of St Bride's Church, which was also to be....
seriously wounded on this night. The Wren Church which dates from 1672, was largely gutted by fires although the main structure of the building survived sufficiently to enable it to be rebuilt post-war to its former glory. A short distance further along Fleet Street, we can cut
through into Gough Square and visit Dr Johnson's House, which during the Blitz was used as a social club and rest centre for the fire brigade. It was badly damaged on the night of 29 December but probably because of its fire service connections, survived the fires although the
repairs to the damaged brickwork can still be clearly made out. A circuitous walk from here, via Fetter Lane will enable us to imagine the scenes and the sheer enormity of the task faced by the firefighters on this night and on others during the Blitz. We're heading back towards
Newgate Street, where we are going to pause at Christ Church, Greyfriars, the current incarnation of which is a Wren edifice dating from 1704 which replaced an earlier building lost in the Great Fire of 1666. The church was destroyed in the Second Great Fire and was never rebuilt
but instead, the ruins were stabilised and now surround a delightful walled garden, with the bell tower now a twelve storey residence, topped by a dental surgery. Perhaps the idea is that the view can take one's mind off the impending pain! Another short walk (there are no long
walks in the City) takes us to the Guildhall, once the location for the City of London Civil Defence HQ in the basement. The Guildhall stands in Guildhall Yard, an impressive courtyard, in which also stands the Church of St Lawrence Jewry-next-Guildhall, another Wren structure
built between 1670 and 1687 which replaced another church destroyed in the 1666 fire. On the night of 29 December, St Lawrence Jewry was set afire by incendiary bombs and sparks from these fires started fires in the roof of the Guildhall, which despite the best efforts of the
firefighters stationed here, eventually forced them to retreat. The girls operating the switchboard at first refused to leave their posts but eventually fled at the last moment to set up in the stand-by HQ, located beneath City of London Police HQ, at that time in Old Jewry. The
Guildhall itself was gutted by the fires. As an aside, I was due to speak here last June but sadly, COVID put paid to that particular plan but hopefully the invitation will be forthcoming once we get back to some sort of normality again! We have one final port of call on today's
mini-walk and this is to the footprint of yet another Wren church. As we walk along Aldermanbury, we can glance behind us and compare the present day view with that which greeted firefighters and City workers on the morning of 30 December as they surveyed the scene of utter ruin.
We now find ourselves standing in the footprint of the former St Mary's Church, Aldermanbury, rebuilt to replace an earlier church destroyed in 1666. Henry Condell & John Heminges, two key figures in the production of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, were once parishioners
here and the garden now contains a monument to them. Another parishioner was an altogether more controversial figure - Judge Jeffries of "Hanging Assizes" notoriety, once worshipped here and was buried in the crypt. On 29 December, the church was destroyed by the bombing but a
substantial ruin remained in situ until the 1960s. However, the church was later dismantled stone-by-stone and shipped across the Atlantic to Fulton, Missouri where it was rebuilt on the campus of Westminster College as a memorial to Winston Churchill, who gave his famous..
"Sinews of Peace" speech at Westminster College in 1946 at the invitation of President Harry S Truman, who hailed from Missouri. The City of London was permanently scarred by the events of 29 December 1940 and we could continue with these tweets all afternoon. In normal times,.
I would've guided a walk around the City today that commemorates the events of 80 years ago but obviously, that isn't possible now. Hopefully, we'll be able to resume that tradition next year but in the meantime, let us not forget the events that unfolded 80 years ago tonight.
