The Fire of London
Another day, so another day trip for bored children during the holidays. Today, Mum and I took the kids to the Museum of London. Aimee and Liam have both learned about the Great Fire of London at school and Cerys has recently finished learning about it, very enthusiastically too! So, when I found out there was an exhibition at the museum ending soon to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire, we just had to go!
Now as I have often been heard to say, one reason I like museums for days out is that they are free, and the Museum of London (https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london) is no exception. But, for this special exhibition, we did have to pay. Thank God for the bank of Mum because I couldn’t have afforded that exhibition without her.
They had it all laid out so we were almost walking through a narrow, 17th century London alleyway. The children were fascinated with the big wooden brackets that held up the upper levels of the buildings and got a real sense for just how narrow those streets were. We walked through the walled timeline which detailed just how long the fire raged and how it had spread.
Around the corner, was the main room of the exhibit. The children were in awe of all the items on display that had been saved from the flames, the massive trunks in which people had tried to carry away their most treasured possessions, and written accounts of fleeing the fire. They got to feel the difference between normal roof tiles and ones that had been burned and destroyed. Liam particularly liked the interactive computer game, to show what tools they had to fight the fire with and get them to experiment with how they would have fought the fire and if they’d have been able to save more buildings.
Across the back of this room they had a huge projection of burning buildings and set up in the middle was old fashioned firefighting equipment, leather fire helmets and even 17th century style clothing. The kids loved dressing up but realised they could hardly move in this incredibly heavy clothing. Even I tried on a leather helmet and was shocked at just how heavy it was. Imagine trying to fight a fire, wearing these ridiculously heavy clothes and the even heavier helmet! Take my word for it, it would have been seriously hard, and very hot, work!! The leather buckets weighed a lot on their own, even without being full of water, so you can imagine how much effort it would have taken to fight this fire. It really gave the children an idea of just how hard London was hit by this fire, but also of the spirit of Londoners to overcome such a disaster and rebuild their lives and homes.
The rest of the Museum
After the Great Fire exhibit, we had a wander around the rest of the museum. Starting with London back way before the stone age! The kids were fascinated by all the arrow and spear heads that had been found in the London area from hundreds of thousands of years ago, especially when they realised that a lot of them had been from around where we live. Moving through the stone age, and into the Roman era, Saxon and into Medieval the children were enthralled by all the different objects on show and the ways people had lived in the past, in the city we live in. Aimee particularly liked seeing a model of how St. Paul’s Cathedral had looked before burning down in the Great Fire of London, and even more interested to learn how long it had taken to rebuild, with some of the original design sketches on show.
Unfortunately, we only made it through to the English Revolution before the kids were moaning about being tired and wanting to go home and, to be honest, my back was starting to scream at me by that point so going home was a great idea to me. Even though there was still quite a bit we didn’t see, it will make for another great day out in the summer holidays!!!