If audience enthusiasm encourages then there will be more on the way. It was a good learning process and great fun to make. Each year, a special service commemorating Samuel Pepys is held on or near May 26 at St. Olave’s - was buried at 9 o’clock at night, in a vault by ye Communion-table. And he was there during the Great Fire of London the following year, playing an active role. Pepys died on May 26, 1703, and on June 5 - after nearly 40 years as a parishioner at St. This podcast was recorded shortly afterward and I have been waiting for September to come round again before releasing it. Pepys was there, in London, during the terrible Plague of 1665. Perhaps the reason why the decade of the 1660s has always particularly stood out for me in this century of turmoil and destruction, regicide and renewal, is the remarkable record passed down to us by the diaries of Samuel Pepys.Īs some of you may know, I spent much of the first lockdown of 2020 recording readings on The London Storyteller’s youtube channel from Pepys’s dairies during the Great Plague of 1665. London would never be the same again and today. He and his servants rowed across the riverThames as the fire grew. As soon as he realized it was possible, he realized it would destroy London Bridge.

On September 2nd, 1660, he was awakened by a servant and saw a fire in the distance. In September 1666, the Great Fire of London tore through and devastated the city creating a watershed in its history. Samuel Pepyss description of the Great Fire of London is considered the most vivid contemporary account of the event. The Great Fire of London was recorded in Samuel Pepys’ famous diary. Too big an event to cover in just one film, this is the first in a 5-part series, Samuel Pepys' personal experience of the initial outbreak. The Great Fire of London in September 1666 is one of the reasons why, though perhaps I should write “most fascinating” rather than “best” when one thinks of its devastation. I have often described the 17th century as the best century in history.

The great fire of london samuel pepys