“One of the worst, certainly. But out of the evil came one good at least. London has never since been visited by that dreadful Plague which before the Fire was always hovering in its narrow lanes ready to break out violently at intervals. In sweeping away the picturesque buildings, many of which had been standing for hundreds of years, it also swept the city free of the poisonous germs in it, which had never before died out. The new houses were healthier, many of the streets were made broader. There was air and light where formerly there had been stuffy darkness. And light and air are the good spirits that drive away the demons of disease.”
“But how did London ever get built again? I can’t think how ever the people found homes once more?”
“There was terrible suffering, of course, but they were brave and energetic. They did not sit down and cry for long, but helped by money from the rich, they began to build their city again. The part by the riverside that was needed for shipping and trade of all kinds, rose first out of the ashes, and then by degrees new churches and mansions, and public buildings arose on the ruins of the old. You must remember one man in particular who lived at this time, because it was he who designed most of the new churches and a great many of the public buildings. His name was Sir Christopher Wren.”
“Oh! It was Sir Christopher Wren who built the new St. Paul’s, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, and many of the other London churches we see every day. After the Great Fire, when most of the city was in ruins, it was at first proposed to rebuild it in an altogether different way, and Sir Christopher Wren was asked to prepare a plan for New London. If it had been built according to his drawing, we should see a very different London now. It would be a regular city, with broad streets all more or less similar, running parallel to one another; rather like modern Paris or New York.”
“But it isn’t a bit like that, is it? There are lots of little curly streets and narrow lanes in the city in our own time,” said Betty.
“That’s because the people couldn’t wait to build till all these new arrangements were settled. They began putting up their new houses in the same places, following the lines of the old streets.”
“I’m so glad they did,” Betty remarked. “Because at least you can tell now exactly where the old places stood. It wouldn’t have been interesting to have a perfectly different city.”
“Well, it has stopped raining now,” said Godmother as a gleam of sunshine lighted her pretty parlour. “Shall we go to Whitehall and look at the only part of the Palace that is left?”
“Oh yes. I want to hear what happened to it after Charles the Second’s time. It wasn’t burnt, of course, because the Great Fire didn’t reach so far as Whitehall.”