ST MARGARET, NEW FISH STREET HILL. THE FIRST CHURCH TO BE DESTROYED BY THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON 1666.

Street Hill, and St Margaret, Bridge Street. This church will always be remembered for its rich history but more importantly as being the first parish church, out of eighty-seven, to be destroyed during the Great Fire of London. St Margaret stood close to Pudding Lane where the Fire started. The story goes that the Fire started at the bakery shop of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane. On that fateful night of Sunday the second of September, Mr Farriner had forgotten to dampen down his oven in his shop. By midnight, a fire broke out in his shop than quickly spread to the nearby Star Inn, and then to the church of St Margaret. It did not take long for the church to be destroyed by the uncontrollable flames.

Prior to the Fire, St Margaret was a popular church and over the years was known to many pilgrims. It was a stopping place for pilgrims as they passed it on their way to, and from, the old wooden London Bridge. The church received many gifts from the pilgrims.

St Margaret is mentioned as early as the twelfth century when a fish market was set up there. A later City Ordinance in the fourteenth century required that lampreys which were sent from France were to be sold “from under the walls of the church”. A Lamprey is an ancient type of eel-fish with a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth.

The Monument was built between 1671 and 1677 by Sir Christopher Wren and Dr Robert Hooke to commemorate the Great Fire of London and to celebrate the rebuilding of the City. It is built on the exact site where St Margaret once stood. The Monument is topped by a flaming urn of gilt bronze that symbolises the Great Fire. It stands two hundred and two feet tall which is the same height as the distance to where the fire started in Pudding Lane.

The Corporation of London has marked the site of St Margaret with a blue plaque as a reminder of it being the first parish church to be swallowed up by the mighty flames of the Great Fire. The fire that was so great that in a matter of days it destroyed the medieval City of London.

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