Unfinished embroidery rescued from Great Fire of London now on show, 350 years later

An unfinished piece of embroidery, reputed to have been plucked from the flames during the Great Fire of London, is going on show in a new exhibition to mark 350 years since the disaster.

The fire, which started in a bakery on Pudding Lane on September 2, 1666, raged for almost five days, destroying thousands of houses and leaving up to 100,000 Londoners homeless.

The Museum of London exhibition, called Fire! Fire!, opens next July and will examine how the city was rebuilt after the blaze.

Among the objects displayed for the first time is the embroidery fragment said to have been saved from a house in Cheapside during the fire and then forgotten about and left unfinished in the chaos. Curator Meriel Jeater said: “One might assume nothing remains from the Great Fire of London. In actual fact some of London’s most exciting archaeological discoveries have been from the fire, which help us to build a picture of why it began and what happened during the blaze. Many of these finds will go on display, with art- works from the time depicting the fire.”

The city, including the ruined St Paul’s Cathedral, was rebuilt after 1666 with streets widened and buildings faced with brick rather than wood to prevent it ever happening again.

More events to mark the anniversary will be announced next year.

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