(M662)

In spite of every effort to stay its progress the fire continued to rage
throughout the whole of Monday and Tuesday. By this time Lombard Street,
Cannon Street and Gracechurch Street had been reduced to ashes. The houses
on London Bridge were attacked and Southwark threatened with destruction.
On Wednesday the flames devastated Cornhill and the Exchange. The
following day they got hold of St. Paul's (at that time undergoing repairs
and surrounded with scaffolding), and were carried by the east wind
towards the Temple and Hatton Garden. The brick buildings of the Temple
offered a more stubborn resistance than the wooden buildings of the city,
and prevented the fire spreading further westward.(1307) In the meantime
resort was had to gunpowder for the quicker destruction of houses in the
city, and by this means much was eventually saved which otherwise would
inevitably have been lost. But this was not done without considerable
opposition from the owners of houses who objected to their property being
blown up if there was a chance of it being saved.(1308) At last the
"horrid, malicious, bloody flame," described by Pepys as so unlike the
flame of an ordinary fire, burnt itself out, and at the close of Thursday,
the 6th September, the inhabitants of the city were able for the first
time since the outbreak to seek a night's rest without fear of further
danger. When they rose the next morning and contemplated the extent of the
havoc wrought on their city by the fire, the hearts of many must have
fairly sunk within them. At least four-fifths of the whole of the
buildings situate within the walls had been reduced to ashes. The official
report was that no less than 13,200 houses and eighty-nine parish
churches, besides St. Paul's and divers chapels, were destroyed, and that
only seventy-five acres out of a total of 373 acres of ground within the
walls escaped the conflagration.(1309) These seventy-five acres chiefly
lay in the vicinity of Aldgate and Tower Hill, and probably owed their
immunity from the fire to the free use of gunpowder, for it was in Tower
Street, Pepys tells us, that the practice of blowing up houses began. Most
of the livery companies lost their halls. Clothworkers' Hall burned for
three days and three nights, the flames being fed with the oil that was
stored in its cellars. The Leaden Hall was partly saved. Gresham House
also escaped; but the Guildhall suffered severely, its outer walls only
being left