Great Fire of London 1666 Anniversary

Three hundred and 50 years ago, London was a different city, a maze of streets made up of tightly-packed wooden houses. Fires were not uncommon in the city, and at first, no-one took much notice. But the conflagration quickly spread and the fire that took hold on 2 September 1666 was devastating. It took a united effort to extinguish it. London 1666 takes the history and makes it a modern day story. As part of London’s Burning, this hugely ambitious project brought together young Londoners not in education, employment or training, to recreate a vast 120-metre-long wooden sculpture of Restoration London. Designed by American artist David Best, this extraordinary representation of the 17th-century London skyline will eventually be floated on the river Thames and set alight in a dramatic retelling of the story of the Great Fire.