Life in 1666

MJRevell · Nov 1, 2013

Hi there,

I'm writing a story around the Great Fire of London in 1666.

I'm trying to paint a picture in my mind of what city life would have been like.

Does anyone know what the roads would have been like? I understand Britain didn't really have main roads until about the 18th century... so what would London have looked like?

The roads the carriages travelled on - what would they be made of?

Cath · Nov 1, 2013

Google is surprisingly good at natural speech searches, such as "what did London look like in 1666?". It's also really well documented online. Here are some resources that might help:

Old maps: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/lon.htm
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclopedia/324/

Fly through of London streets: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/d...ondon-as-it-looked-before-the-Great-Fire.html
http://faculty.franklin.uga.edu/ctcamp/content/what-would-john-donnes-london-have-looked

You might also want to research the plague of 1665, which was still rampant at the time of the fire. Records on the plague should give you information about life in the slums at the time.

Main roads were definitely around, thanks in great part to the Romans, pilgrims, and other travelers.

mirandashell · Nov 1, 2013

We did have main roads. We'd had main roads for centuries. They were the ones most of the traffic was on. They just weren't tarred.

I think a good thing to do would be to get a copy of Samuel Pepys' Diary.

King Neptune · Nov 1, 2013

There were major roads around Great Britain since before the Romans got there.

mirandashell · Nov 1, 2013

That fly through of London is fantastic.

bookworm92 · Nov 1, 2013

I'm not sure if this is true, but I read somewhere that they thought that 1666 was the Doomsday year as 666 was the mark of the Devil.

Maybe some people could think that the fire was the beginning of the apocalypse.

Rachel77 · Nov 1, 2013

There's a book called "London: A Biography" by Peter Ackroyd that gets into that level of detail. It covers a large range of time periods and is organized by theme rather than date, so if you're after a particular century, you'll have to do some skipping around. It has a section specifically on maps and roads and how they changed over the years.

Steve Collins · Nov 1, 2013

Actually the fire was in some ways a good thing as it wiped out the plague which was spread by rats carrying the plague ridden fleas. Interesting to not that so many people were buried in mass graves the stretched from Blackheath to Gravesend.

mirandashell · Nov 1, 2013

Well.... it was a good thing if it wasn't you that lost your house and all your possessions and possibly members of your family........

Siri Kirpal · Nov 1, 2013

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Seconding Samuel Pepys' Diary.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

King Neptune · Nov 1, 2013

mirandashell said:
Well.... it was a good thing if it wasn't you that lost your house and all your possessions and possibly members of your family........

Given the choice of losing house and losing life, I know what I would choose.

Alessandra Kelley · Nov 1, 2013

Also look up the book "A Journal of the Plague Year" by Daniel Defoe. It's a brilliant fictionalization of the plague by someone who lived through it (albeit he was only five at the time).

shestval · Nov 1, 2013

Not a primary source, but the "Daily Life" series is fantastic for this sort of thing. My knowledge of British history isn't strong enough to recommend a specific book for you, but you should take a gander at the series. They are considered textbooks so they are on the pricy side, but try your library.

I've got a copy of Daily Life in the Age of Sail sitting on my coffee table.

ETA: And I'm going to second Daniel Defoe!

amergina · Nov 1, 2013

Someone "live-tweeted" the events of the Great Fire recently... Let me see if I can dig it up.

Ah, here's an article about it:

http://www.historyextra.com/news/re...n-kate-williams-live-tweets-1666-london-blaze

bookworm92 · Nov 1, 2013

Why not check our Horrible Histories? The do great sketches about British History. I'm not sure if they have anything on the fire (but they should). It's worth checking out. Some of the sketches are available on YouTube.

Alessandra Kelley · Nov 1, 2013

I would also recommend looking at unorthodox histories. A great deal of the feel of a place can be gotten from its art, cooking, clothing, and music, all of which are available to learn about/listen to/taste (I honestly do not recommend the last, since from my experience London cooking in 1666 was pretty unappetizing. Well, unless you like fudge-like gingerbread.)

There is a good history, "Lord Rochester's Monkey," by Graham Greene, written in the 1930s but not published until the 1970s because of obscenity concerns. It's not day-to-day life, conditions of roads, or anything like that, but it is an interesting exploration of the somewhat debauched court life of the time.

shestval · Nov 1, 2013

Alessandra Kelley said:
Well, unless you like fudge-like gingerbread.

Maybe it's more appealing if you think of it as a "gingerbread brownie." I'd eat a gingerbread brownie!

/off topic

L.C. Blackwell · Nov 1, 2013

http://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/

This is simply a great place to mine for historical trivia. Go to the bottom of the page for "Blogs We Follow" and "Sites We Visit." There's even a link to Old London maps. Also, The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies is one of the blogs listed, and while it mostly features 18th and 19th century recipes, I'd bet some of the earlier 18th century ones hadn't changed all that much from the previous century.

Research for the kind of story you mentioned tends to be pretty immersive, so dive in and enjoy.

Alessandra Kelley · Nov 3, 2013

This thread reminded me of how interesting Defoe's "Journal of the Plague Year" is, so I've pulled it out to reread.

Here's something interesting about travel and roads:

This hurry of the people was such for some weeks that there was no getting at the Lord Mayor's door without exceeding difficulty; there were such pressing and crowding there to get passes and certificates of health for such as travelled abroad, for without these there was no being admitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to lodge in any inn. ...

Life in 1666

MJRevell

www.mikerevell.com

Cath

The mean one

mirandashell

King Neptune

mirandashell

bookworm92

Rachel77

Steve Collins

mirandashell

Siri Kirpal

Swan in Process

King Neptune

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

shestval

No more horror books at 1am

amergina

Pittsburgh Strong

bookworm92

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

shestval

No more horror books at 1am

L.C. Blackwell

Keeper of Fort Blanket

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian