One of London’s most impressive monuments is just that –
“The Monument”. It was built in 1671-7 as a reminder of the Great Fire of
London of 1666, and it stands very close to Pudding Lane, the street in which
the fire started in Robert Faryner’s bakery before spreading to destroy about
80 per cent of the old city of London. The height of the column, 202 feet, is
supposed to be the distance from its base to the bakery.
The fire destroyed 87 churches as well as Old St Paul’s
Cathedral, and the rebuilding owed a huge amount to the efforts of Sir
Christopher Wren who designed not only the new Cathedral but many of the
replacement churches and The Monument as well – the latter in collaboration
with Robert Hooke.
The Monument comprises a single fluted Doric column on a
large square base. It is unusual among London’s monuments and memorials in that
members of the public can, for a reasonable fee, climb the 311 steps of a
spiral staircase to the viewing platform near the top. In times gone by the
view was more extensive than it is now, due to all the high-rise buildings that
have appeared in London’s business district in recent decades, but the climb is
still worth the effort, even now – and the exercise is good for you!
At the top of The Monument is a flaming golden urn, to
symbolise the fire, and at the base there are inscriptions and reliefs by Caius
Gabriel Cibber. Part of the original inscription blamed “Papists” for starting
the fire – a self-deluded Frenchman confessed to the “crime” and was hanged,
although he could not possibly have been responsible – but the words were
erased in 1830 after the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed.
© John Welford
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