Ep. 9 - London, United Kingdom
Join us on another adventure into the history of one of Europe's greatest cities. Learn how London came to be the unique metropolis it is today and how an incredible inferno almost wiped the city off the map.
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Transcription:
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Hello! Happy Friday! Welcome to episode 9 of your favorite podcast - The Friday Take Five! Thanks so much for tuning in - we appreciate you sharing your time with us. I’m your host, Mark Moran, and each week, we scratch an itch for travel bugs and history lovers alike by discovering a new place, and a new story. We try to do our best to inspire our listeners to travel and experience the world. By the end of this episode, if you’re itching to hop on a boat, plane, or train, then I’ve done my job. With that, let’s get exploring!
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Today’s episode covers another destination that I’ve yet to tick off my bucket list. Even though I’ve been fortunate enough to travel a ton, there are just so many fantastic places I still want to hit. Plus, this city, like the other ones we cover, has some real great stories. Govna, we’re headed to London.
I initially considered making the hop over the English channel when studying in France years ago, but figured I wouldn’t have had enough time to explore all the island has to offer. When I do ultimately make it to London, the plan is to make it part of a multi week trip to Ireland, and the UK. The Cliffs of Moher, Dublin, Edinburgh, Stonehenge, and London are all very high on the travel list.
The interest was renewed further when seeing the great pictures and hearing the great stories of my parents in their recent trip there. I knew London had to be an episode we covered on the pod before too long, so let’s get into it.
London is a sprawling city; quite different from massive metropolises across the globe. It doesn’t have a clearly defined center, but rather has grown from three different “centers” that have influenced the city in a multitude of different ways. The official “city” of London grew out of the walled settlement built by the Romans in 47 AD. London, or Londinium as it was called by the Romans, quickly became a hub of commerce and trade. Southwark, the second “center” sitting across the Thames, became well known for its inns, monasteries and famous theaters including the Globe Theater. The third “center” is Westminster, which grew up around the Westminster Abbey and brought along with it a home for the British government and the world-renowned West End.
Though beginning with the Roman settlement, London has grown, shrunken, and grown again throughout the ages to become the metropolis with multiple unique centers that we know today. Fires, Viking raids, fires, plague, more fires, and war created periods of great difficulty for the people that have called London home throughout the ages. One of the most impactful events affecting the course of life in London was the Great London Fire of 1666. Having the year prior dealt with the Great Plague, which took the lives of over 100,000 people, the city of London was undoubtedly still reeling.
The Great Fire began at the end of a blistering summer, which made the primarily wooden city a tinderbox, ready for disaster basically. The fire began on September 2nd and quickly spread. Over the course of 5 days, the fire consumed most of the city and only about ⅕ of it was left standing at its end. Officially, long after the fire was extinguished, it was discovered that the fire began in a bakery, however a French watchmaker confessed to intentionally starting that fire and was summarily hanged before that discovery was made. The fire only killed 6 people, but left many, many, many thousands homeless, and much of the city as just a shell of itself.
The silver lining of the fire, if any can be found, is that it led to a great rebirth of the city. The city was cleansed of some of its issues with plague ridden rats and overcrowding. Moreover, it led to a somewhat mandatory architectural renaissance and the construction of many great buildings that still stand in London today, such as Buckingham Palace and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Thankfully, the rebuilt London today, like most cities, is now not mostly wood. If the fire didn’t happen when it did, we might have had a totally different London today. For all we know, without the fire, the plague might have continued to rampage throughout, and , you know, it could have wiped out the inhabitants of the great city completely. So remember when you’re next in London, take a look around, take a moment to feel the history around you - realize what might have, or might not have been, if not for the great fire, and then go ahead and enjoy some afternoon tea.
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Hey - Thanks for listening! If you’re liking what you’re hearing, please give us a rating on podcasting platforms, and be sure to enable notifications and automatic downloads to keep up with new episodes. Have your own stories of London, feedback or recommendations on places or stories for us to cover? We’d love to hear it so follow and DM us on socials @FridayTakeFive or email us at thefridaytakefive@gmail.com. Stay curious, stay adventuring, and have a great weekend!
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