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The Great Fire of London | Year 2 | Autumn

Key Knowledge

The Fire of London started on 2nd September 1666 and lasted for five days.

The weather in London was hot and it hadn’t rained for ten months. Houses in London were mainly built from wood and straw which is flammable, especially when it is dry. The houses were also very close together, which meant the fire could easily spread.

Key People

Thomas Farriner : owner of the bakery where the fire started

Samuel Pepys : a famous man who wrote a diary about the fire

King Charles II : the King of England in 1666

What should I already know?

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Where the Tower of London is.

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Vocabulary

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Bakery :

Oven :

Flammable :

Eyewitness :

Leather bucket :

a shop where bread and cakes are made.

where food is cooked. Today we use gas or electricity to heat ovens but in 1666 they burnt wood to heat the oven.

when something burns easily.

a person who saw an event with their own eyes and can therefore describe it.

leather is the material that buckets were made from before plastic was invented.

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Key places

Pudding Lane the street on which the bakery was, where the fire started.

St Paul’s Cathedral : a famous church which burnt down during the fire. It was rebuilt and still exists today.

Tower of London : where the king lived in 1666. It did not catch fire because the fire was stopped just before it reached the palace.