Browse content similar to The Great Fire of London. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
This story belongs to Finley and his grandad Laurence. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
It's a tiny tale about how children, just like you, | 0:00:28 | 0:00:32 | |
lived in the olden days, about 350 years ago. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
Grandad Laurence used to be a firefighter. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
He and Finley are visiting a modern fire station. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:44 | |
Look, Finley, this is a real modern-day fire engine. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
It's got a hose on here. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:02 | |
This fire engine carries its own water | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
and it's got ladders on the roof. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
The ladders are for going up high buildings | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
so you can rescue people there. Then we come to the front, | 0:01:10 | 0:01:13 | |
and it's got the lights and the noise the siren makes. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
SIREN WAILS | 0:01:17 | 0:01:19 | |
Wow! | 0:01:19 | 0:01:22 | |
Do you want to be a firefighter when you grow up? | 0:01:22 | 0:01:25 | |
-Yes. -Yeah, you do? You know, your daddy's a firefighter. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
Did you know your daddy's grandad was a firefighter? | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
He's your great-grandad. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
-Oh, wow! -I know a story about a young lad called William Taswell. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
He lived a long time ago in London | 0:01:37 | 0:01:39 | |
and he saw one of the biggest fires in history. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:43 | |
They called it the Great Fire of London. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:45 | |
The Great Fire of London happened in the year 1666, | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
which was a long, long time ago. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
The fire lasted over four days and it nearly destroyed | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
the City of London. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
They didn't have big red fire engines in those days. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
-Shall we go on an adventure to see how it happened, then? -Yay! | 0:01:59 | 0:02:03 | |
Finley and Grandad Laurence are going on a journey of discovery. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:07 | |
Together, they're going to find out what life was like | 0:02:07 | 0:02:10 | |
all those years ago. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
Finley and Grandad Laurence have come to | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
Weald And Downland Open Air Museum. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
These houses and streets look similar to ones in London | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
when William Taswell was young. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:26 | |
Finley, what do you think about your costume? | 0:02:26 | 0:02:30 | |
-I like the buttons and the buckles. -They make you look very smart. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
That's the sort of clothes that William Taswell | 0:02:34 | 0:02:37 | |
would wear to school. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:38 | |
William went to school at the time of the Great Fire. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
Only wealthy children like William went to school then. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:45 | |
He would wear a lace collar and a funny tall hat. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
What do you think about your costume? | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
I think my costume is ever so heavy. And look at the trousers! | 0:02:50 | 0:02:54 | |
-They're more like a lady's dress! -FINLEY LAUGHS | 0:02:54 | 0:02:57 | |
What's the funny hat for? | 0:02:57 | 0:02:58 | |
My funny hat is for when I have to go and fight the fires. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:02 | |
This is what this big skirt is for at the back, | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
so all the fire embers don't go down my neck. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
It's made of leather so it doesn't burn your head too easily. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
And...throw it! | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
When William was a boy, only the richest children had toys. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:29 | |
Even things like balls were too expensive for most families, | 0:03:29 | 0:03:33 | |
so children made simple toys or played with things that they found. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:37 | |
Finley and Grandad Laurence are playing a game called apple ball. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:41 | |
Children poked a strong stick into apples that were too rotten to eat | 0:03:41 | 0:03:45 | |
and then had a competition to see who could throw it the furthest. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:49 | |
It looks like a fun game! | 0:03:49 | 0:03:51 | |
Caught you! | 0:03:52 | 0:03:53 | |
These children are playing a game William might have played. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:57 | |
The blindfolded girl has to find her friends and catch them. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:01 | |
Do you like playing catching games with your friends? | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
William and his friends played some great games. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:10 | |
William went to school in London. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
During the Great Fire, he wrote about what he saw in his diary. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:18 | |
A diary is a book for writing down news. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
We know about what happened in the fire because of diaries | 0:04:21 | 0:04:25 | |
that William and other people wrote. | 0:04:25 | 0:04:27 | |
The Great Fire of London started in the middle of the night in a bakery | 0:04:27 | 0:04:32 | |
in a street called Pudding Lane. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:34 | |
At that time, people used candles and fires inside buildings | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
for light and heat. The buildings often went on fire, | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
but this one spread really quickly. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
By the morning, over 300 buildings were on fire. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:47 | |
The rest of the city had to be warned. | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
There was no TV, and people couldn't phone or text | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
in the time of the Great Fire, so the only way to warn the city | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
was by ringing the church bells. | 0:05:10 | 0:05:12 | |
Finley and Grandad Laurence are going to try bell ringing. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:18 | |
Laurence, we're going to show you how to ring the first stage | 0:05:20 | 0:05:24 | |
of a bell, and Finley has got his | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
own special bell to join in, as well. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
So, here we go. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:30 | |
-Right... Up... -BELL RINGS | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
..and down. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
BELL RINGS | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
The loud church bells could be heard right across the city. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
There was no proper fire service. Instead, volunteers would | 0:05:40 | 0:05:44 | |
hurry to help put out fires if they heard warning bells. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
-That's good. -And the noisy bells also told other people | 0:05:47 | 0:05:50 | |
living in the city that they needed to escape from the fire. | 0:05:50 | 0:05:55 | |
William found out about the fire | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
when he was in a big church called Westminster Abbey. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:13 | |
He heard a lot of people outside shouting. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
He ran out to a nearby bridge to see what was going on. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:20 | |
In the distance, he saw flames going high into the sky. | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
The wind was blowing the flames, helping the fire to spread. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:27 | |
To find out why the fire spread | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
so quickly in London all those years ago, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
Finley and Grandad Laurence are looking at some old houses. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:38 | |
-What do you think these buildings are made of? -Wood. -That's right. | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
Even inside. All the walls are made of wood. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:46 | |
And the wood is all covered with straw and...horses' poo. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:50 | |
FINLEY LAUGHS | 0:06:50 | 0:06:51 | |
And it's a real problem making buildings out of wood, because it | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
burns very easily. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:56 | |
So, when there's a fire, that house will burn very, very quickly. | 0:06:56 | 0:07:00 | |
What else do you notice about the buildings? | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
-They're really close together. -Yep, they are, and that can be | 0:07:03 | 0:07:07 | |
a big problem when there's a fire, | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
cos it can jump from one building to the other very easily. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:13 | |
Do you notice anything about the shape of the buildings? | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
The front of the houses stick out. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
Because they stick out at the front, | 0:07:19 | 0:07:21 | |
the fire can get across the streets. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
At the time of the fire, it had been a hot summer, | 0:07:23 | 0:07:27 | |
so all the wooden buildings in London were very dried out. | 0:07:27 | 0:07:31 | |
The wind blew the fire, helping it to spread from building to building. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:36 | |
It spread so quickly that by the end of the first day, | 0:07:36 | 0:07:39 | |
over 100 houses were catching fire every hour. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
During the Great Fire, | 0:07:56 | 0:07:58 | |
people had to leave their houses really quickly. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
They only had time to take a few things with them. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
Look - lots of things we've got to save from the fire. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
-Can we save everything? -No. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:10 | |
We can only save what we can carry. | 0:08:10 | 0:08:12 | |
Finley and Grandad Laurence | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
are choosing what to save from this room. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
But they have to be quick. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:19 | |
-How about this picture, Finley? -No. That's too big and heavy. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:23 | |
-How about this money? -Yeah, put it in the box, | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
then put it into this pouch here. | 0:08:26 | 0:08:29 | |
-Can we get any more in? -Bracelets. -Bracelets, yeah. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
-How about off this table? Anything we need? -Yeah. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:39 | |
-How about some bird seeds? -Some bird seeds, yes. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:42 | |
William's family put their precious things in the cellar. | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
Other people had to bury their items to keep them safe. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
Is there anything else? | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
And your diary, yeah. Put it in the bag. Let's put it in. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
I think that's it. It's full. Come on, let's go. | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
Quick, get out of here. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
While some people tried to save their things, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:11 | |
others tried to put out the fire. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
Quick, Fin - the house is alight. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
We've got to put it out with these squirts. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
Firefighting was very different then. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
There were no big, long fire hoses, | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
so people used big water pistols, called water squirts, instead. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:30 | |
Now squirt the house. Squirt as quick as you can. | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
FINLEY LAUGHS | 0:09:33 | 0:09:34 | |
-Fill up again! -Finley and Grandad Laurence are using toy water pumps | 0:09:36 | 0:09:40 | |
-that work the same way as the squirts. -Right onto them flames. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:44 | |
We'll get the fire out eventually. | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
Fighting fires this way took a long time, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
because people had to keep refilling the water squirts. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
Keep going. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:54 | |
We'll never get the fire out at this rate, Fin. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:58 | |
But there were other ways of getting water to the fire, too. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
Look - a fire! We've got to put it out! | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
-What shall we use? -ALL: -Water! | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
That's a good idea! | 0:10:20 | 0:10:21 | |
We need to get water from the trough to the fire using a line. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
William and his friends were marched | 0:10:25 | 0:10:27 | |
down to the river Thames by their teacher, | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
to try and help fight the Great Fire. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
People got water from pumps in the street, or from rivers, or wells. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:41 | |
William and his friends passed buckets of water | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
to the firefighters, like Finley and the children are doing. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
More water! | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
Passing buckets of water along a line of people gets water to | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
the fire more quickly. | 0:10:56 | 0:10:57 | |
-It's working, it's working! -Put it out! | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
The empty buckets are passed back along the line to refill them. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:06 | |
That's it! We've done it! It's all out. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
-Hurray! -THEY CHEER | 0:11:11 | 0:11:14 | |
Hip-hooray! Yay! | 0:11:14 | 0:11:16 | |
Lots of brave people did everything they could to fight the fire. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:34 | |
Lots of buildings were knocked down to stop it spreading | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
from house to house. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:39 | |
After four days, the wind died down, and eventually the fire went out. | 0:11:39 | 0:11:43 | |
But, like most people in London, William's family lost their home. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:48 | |
There was lots of rebuilding to be done in the years that followed. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
William would have seen stone masons | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
making new buildings from stone or brick. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:57 | |
No-one was allowed to build wooden houses in London any more. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:01 | |
A great fire like that could never happen again. | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
-Have you had a nice day today, Finley? -It's been brilliant. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:19 | |
It's been fun finding out what happened a long, long time ago. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
Can you remember some of the things we did? | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
What did Finley and Grandad Laurence use as a ball? | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
A sausage? Or an apple? | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
Yes! They used an apple to play apple ball. | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
What did we discover people did to warn everyone about the Great Fire? | 0:12:37 | 0:12:41 | |
Phone them up? Or ring the church bells? | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
BELLS RING | 0:12:44 | 0:12:45 | |
They rang the noisy church bells. | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
What did Finley choose to save from the pretend fire? | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
His diary? Or his best hat? | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
Yes, he rescued his diary. Well done! | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
What did you enjoy most about today? | 0:12:58 | 0:13:00 | |
I enjoyed squirting the buildings with water. | 0:13:00 | 0:13:03 | |
What was your favourite thing, Grandad? | 0:13:03 | 0:13:06 | |
Mine was making the bucket line and putting the fire out. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
But my most favourite thing was being with you all day. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:14 | |
What a journey of discovery. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:19 | |
That was Finley and Grandad Laurence's tiny tale | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
about what it was like living during the Great Fire of London, | 0:13:22 | 0:13:26 | |
about 350 years ago. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:28 | |
Now, Grandad Laurence has shared this story with Finley, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
it's time for Finley to start his very own story. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
Do you know someone with a story to share? | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 |