The Great Fire of London with Dan Snow

London in 1666 was a city already on its knees – ravaged by plague, drained by war, and bone dry after months of drought. On this walking tour with historian Dan Snow, you'll track the Great Fire from its origins in a baker's forgotten oven to the smouldering ruins of a city transformed. You'll also discover how four days of catastrophe reshaped London's streets, institutions, and sense of itself forever.

The tour starts on Pudding Lane, steps from the plaque marking Thomas Farriner's bakery, where a single spark in the early hours of 2nd September ignited one of London's most consequential disasters. From here, you'll walk south to the Monument – its height of 202 feet precisely matching the distance to Farriner's shop – before heading down Fish Street Hill to the church of St Magnus the Martyr, where Lord Mayor Thomas Bloodworth's catastrophic indecision allowed the fire to take hold unchecked.

Crossing London Bridge, you'll hear how thousands of panicked Londoners fled onto its overcrowded wooden span, their city reflected in the burning Thames below. Samuel Pepys described the river as choked with boats and possessions, a floating refugee camp lit by falling embers. You'll continue through Leadenhall Market, the alleyways of St Michael's Alley, and the ruins of the Royal Exchange before reaching St Paul's Cathedral, where hundreds of thousands of books stored for safekeeping became fuel for the inferno. The tour ends at the Golden Boy of Pye Corner – a gilded, grinning figure marking where the fire finally stopped, placed here by Londoners who believed their city had burned as punishment for the sin of gluttony.

On this 75-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Stand inside Leadenhall Market, built over the ruins of Roman London's basilica
• Hear how an innocent French watchmaker, Robert Hubert, was executed for a fire he didn't start
• Walk St Michael's Alley and understand how narrow medieval lanes acted as vertical chimneys
• Visit the Guildhall, the only secular stone building in the City predating 1666
• Learn why King Charles II personally overrode his Lord Mayor to order the firebreaks that saved London

This tour brings one of history's great urban disasters to life on the streets where it unfolded.

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