A Doctor Who story with a conclusion set in London, 1666? It can only mean the Great Fire.
The bulk of this story sees the Fifth Doctor, with companions Tegan, Nyssa and Adric, encountering the survivors from a crashed alien escape ship. These reptilian Terileptils do not want to be rescued, however, as they are escaped convicts. They would rather take over the Earth as their new home - getting rid of the human inhabitants using a genetically engineered variant of the plague. This takes place in 17th Century Middlesex - round about where Heathrow Airport will be built in a few centuries time.
The Doctor must track the Terileptils to their secondary base which has been set up in London. The plague-infected rats are being stored in a bakery here awaiting release. In a struggle, a burning brazier is knocked over and one of the alien handguns falls into the flames. The aliens use a highly flammable gas to compensate for Earth's atmosphere - and when the gun explodes it starts a major conflagration. The Doctor works out what this means for history - saying this fire should be allowed to run its course. When the TARDIS dematerialises, we see the name of the street where the bakery is situated - Pudding Lane...
One of those occasions when the Doctor is responsible for a major historical event - one that he is unable to alter.
The real Great Fire did indeed begin in a bakery - that of a Thomas Farriner (or Farynor) - in Pudding Lane. It started in the chimney of the shop just after midnight on September 2nd. Apart from the big civic buildings, this was a city of wood, with houses crammed together on narrow streets. The fire quickly spread to adjoining properties.
There wasn't any fire brigade in these times, just the watchmen who patrolled the streets plus local militia known as the Trained Bands. Each parish church had to hold equipment for fire-fighting - ladders and long fire-hooks. The latter were to help pull down building that were already ablaze or at risk of fire. This would create fire-breaks, that a fire would not be able to cross.
When the Lord Mayor of London - Sir Thomas Bloodworth - was informed of the fire, he is supposed to have exclaimed: "Pish! A woman could piss it out." Diarist Samuel Pepys was woken by a maid at about 3am. He took a look, considered it not much of a threat, and then went back to bed. By morning, the full extent of that threat was becoming apparent.
The Mayor's failure to take the fire seriously and create fire-breaks in the first few hours had meant that it had spread over a wide area of the City. The previous month had been extremely dry, and there was now a strong easterly wind. Once the fire reached the river side, it met with a number of highly flammable materials being stored in the numerous wharves and warehouses. Pepys went to the Tower to observe the fire from on high, then set off by boat to Whitehall Palace to report to King Charles (II) and his brother the Duke of York. Later, Pepys settled himself at an inn on Bankside, in Southwark, to watch the progress of the fire from there. When his own home was threatened, he buried his most prized possessions in the garden - including his cheese.
People whose homes had burned were forced to move further and further away - some having to transport their belongings four or five times in a day, as the fire continued to spread wider and wider. The various city gates became congested with people fleeing the city. Finsbury Fields would eventually become a tented town for those made homeless.
The fire did not abate until September 5th.
It had destroyed more than 13,000 houses, 87 churches, 44 Company Halls, and three City Gates, as well as major buildings such as the Royal Exchange and the Guildhall. Its most famous casualty would be the medieval St Paul's Cathedral. The lead from its roof melted and ran down the streets.
The official death toll was only 6, but this is widely believed to be a gross underestimate. There would have been many people living in the affected areas who were not properly registered with the authorities. The heat from the fire would have totally cremated bodies - leaving little sign.
One thing the Doctor might have found ironic is that aliens were blamed for starting the fire. These aliens were foreigners - especially Catholic ones. One Frenchman did actually admit to starting the fire deliberately, and he was hung for it. However, it was then discovered that he did not arrive in the City until after the fire had been raging for two days. He was at sea when it began.
Some lynchings and other attacks were reported on foreign tradesmen, though many thought these merely used the fire as an excuse to get rid of business competitors.
Plans to totally redesign the layout of the city came to nothing, due to the complexity of the land ownership. This means that the narrow winding street named Pudding Lane can still be visited today.
"Pudding" does not refer to delicacies cooked up by Thomas Farriner's bakery. "Puddings" were piles of stinking offal from slaughtered animals which dropped to the ground as they were transported down this street to be dumped in the Thames.
There are two monuments to the Fire to be seen in London today. One is the golden cherub statue at Pye Corner, Smithfield (subject of an earlier post), and of course The Monument.
Until 1830, the plaque at the base of the Monument continued to explicitly blame Catholics for causing the fire. The height of the Monument is the same as the distance from its base to where Farriner's bakery stood. At the top is a golden urn with flames. Sir Christopher Wren wanted to place a statue of King Charles on top, but he refused, saying "It wasn't me who started the fire...".
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