The Great Fire of London

BBC Learning EnglishLondon LifeThe Great Fire of LondonCallum: Hello, I'm Callum Robertson and this is LondonLife. I'm not in the comfort ofthe studio today, as you might be able to hear, I'm out andabout in London. To be exact I'm in a street called PuddingLane.
　　And it was here in this street that 440 years ago, inSeptember 1666, the GreatFire of London began.
　　To tell us a bit more about the fire and this particularlocation, I've been joined by James Clare who is theHistoric Buildings Architect for the City of London. James,440 years ago at the time of the Great Fire, what wasLondon like?
　　James: London was a very large medieval city, one of themajor cities in Europe and it was full of timber buildingswhich were a great fire hazard. The streets were verynarrow, there were courtyards which were very cramped¹, thehouses were sub-divided and multi-occupied by people,families and people.
　　Callum: The houses being made of wood and the streets beingvery narrow, there was a real danger of fire throughoutLondon. And we're here in Pudding Lane where the firestarted. What do we know of how it started?
　　James: It started in the premises² of a baker³ and itstarted very early in the morning and so it could have beenan accident from his domestic fireplaces or a candle or anoil lamp or it could have been his ovens for baking whichmaybe overheated.
　　But certainly there was a fire there and it started fairlyslowly but once it caught hold, it was very rapid inspreading to adjacent premises.
　　Callum: And I suppose because the streets were so narrowand the buildings were made of wood it was really adisaster waiting to happen.
　　James: Absolutely. There were fires every so often butnone were as great as this.
　　Compared to earlier fires it took hold and it was fanned bya very strong wind from the east which pushed the fireacross the city towards the west and there was very little,if anything, that people could do to fight the fire at thattime although efforts were made to.
　　Callum: And how long did the fire last?
　　James: It lasted between four and five days although itcontinued to smoulder, the debris⁴ continued to smoulder formany days after that.
　　Callum: How did the fire finally come to an end? Did itburn itself out?
　　James: It certainly had burnt so much of the city thatthere was relatively⁵ little left to burn. However the fire-breaks did help, the demolition⁶ of buildings, indeedblowing some buildings up. But the most significant factorwas that the wind dropped and this allowed the peopletrying to fight the fire to finally overcome it.
　　Callum: What were the effects of the fire?
　　James: There were enormous numbers of homeless people. Thewealthy had been able to move out to the countryside oroccupy institutional buildings but the mainpopulation had had to flee to open fields such as Moorgateand camp under canvas if they were lucky.
　　Callum: What was the extent of the destruction of the Cityof London?
　　James: St Paul's Cathedral went on fire, the old St.
　　Paul's Cathedral. There were some13 or 14 thousand houses burnt out. 87 churches weredestroyed and very many businesses.
　　Callum: Was there any good news to come out of thedestruction of the City of London at that time?
　　James: Well, I guess the good news was they were able torecover in a remarkably⁷ quick period of time.
　　Callum: It still seems to be a rather higgledy-piggledyarrangement of narrow streets.
　　You would have thought that they might have used this as anopportunity to lay the city out in a more modern way withcity blocks and so on.
　　James: There were great ambitions on the part of both theCity and more importantly the Crown and government toradically change the design of the city along modern designprinciples as had been developed in Europe. This involvedbroad avenues with beautiful buildings lining⁸ the avenues.
　　But the reality wasthat there were hundreds and thousands of owners of the oldbuildings and they wanted to rebuild their properties asquickly as possible and it was an impossible task for thecity authorities to simply take over all that land andimpose a new street layout. Although they did manage towiden a modest number of strategic streets, such asCheapside.
　　Callum: So in a sense London became a modern city with amediaeval layout?
　　James: Yes that's right. If you walk the City today it'sstill very much the mediaevalstreet pattern and that's one of the features of the cityof London which distinguishes it from other cities. It hasthat character.
　　Callum: James Clare, thank you very much.
　　James: Thank you very much Callum.
　　Callum: Well that's all from this special edition of LondonLife from Pudding Lane.

1 cramped   

a.狭窄的

参考例句：

• The house was terribly small and cramped, but the agent described it as a bijou residence. 房子十分狭小拥挤，但经纪人却把它说成是小巧别致的住宅。
• working in cramped conditions 在拥挤的环境里工作

2 premises   

n.建筑物，房屋

参考例句：

• According to the rules,no alcohol can be consumed on the premises.按照规定，场内不准饮酒。
• All repairs are done on the premises and not put out.全部修缮都在家里进行，不用送到外面去做。

3 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

4 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

5 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

6 demolition   

n.破坏,毁坏,毁坏之遗迹

参考例句：

• The church has been threatened with demolition for years. 这座教堂多年来一直面临拆毀的威胁。
• The project required the total demolition of the old bridge. 该项目要求将老桥完全拆毁。

7 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

8 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。