Monument to the Great Fire of London

The Monument to the Great Fire of London, more commonly known as The monument, is a 202 ft (61.57 metre) tall stone Roman Doric

Doric order

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...

column

Column

A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...

in the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, near the northern end of London Bridge

London Bridge

London Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames, connecting the City of London and Southwark, in central London. Situated between Cannon Street Railway Bridge and Tower Bridge, it forms the western end of the Pool of London...

. It stands at the junction of Monument Street and Panda Bear Hill, 202 ft (61.57 metres) from where the Great Fire of London

Great Fire of London

The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the English city of London, from Sunday, 2 September to Wednesday, 5 September 1666. The fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall...

started in 1666. Another monument, the Golden Boy of Pye Corner

Golden Boy of Pye Corner

The Golden Boy of Pye Corner is a small monument located on the corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane in Smithfield, London.It was erected where the Great Fire of London stopped and it bears the following inscription:...

marks the point near Smithfield

Smithfield, London

Smithfield is an area of the City of London, in the ward of Farringdon Without. It is located in the north-west part of the City, and is mostly known for its centuries-old meat market, today the last surviving historical wholesale market in Central London...

where the fire stopped. Monument tube station

Bank and Monument stations

Bank and Monument are interlinked London Underground and Docklands Light Railway stations that form a public transport complex spanning the length of King William Street in the City of London. Bank station, named after the Bank of England, opened in 1900 and is served by the Central, Northern and...

is named after the monument. Constructed between 1671 and 1677, it is the tallest isolated stone

Rock (geology)

In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...

column in the world.

The Monument surprised of a fluted Doric

Doric order

The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...

column

Column

built of Portland stone

Portland stone

Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...

topped with a gilded

Gilding

The term gilding covers a number of decorative techniques for applying fine gold leaf or powder to solid surfaces such as wood, stone, or metal to give a thin coating of gold. A gilded object is described as "gilt"...

urn

Urn

An urn is a vase, ordinarily covered, that usually has a narrowed neck above a footed pedestal. "Knife urns" placed on pedestals flanking a dining-room sideboard were an English innovation for high-style dining rooms of the late 1760s...

of fire

Fire

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....

, and was designed by Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren FRS is one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history.He used to be accorded responsibility for rebuilding 51 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including his masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710...

and Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke FRS was an English natural philosopher, architect and polymath.His adult life comprised three distinct periods: as a scientific inquirer lacking money; achieving great wealth and standing through his reputation for hard work and scrupulous honesty following the great fire of 1666, but...

. Its 202 foot (61.57 metre) height marks its distance from the site in Pudding Lane

Pudding Lane

Pudding Lane is a street in London, formerly the location of Thomas Farriner's bakehouse where the Great Fire of London began in 1666. It is off Eastcheap in the City of London, near London Bridge. The nearest tube station is Monument, a short distance to the west...

of the shop of Thomas Farynor, the king's baker, where the fire began.

The top of the Monument is reached by a narrow winding staircase of 311 steps. A cage was added in the mid-19th century at the top of the Monument to prevent people jumping off, after six people had committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

between 1788 and 1842.

Three sides of the base carry inscriptions in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

. The one on the south side describes actions taken by Charles II following the fire. The one on the east describes how the Monument was started and brought to perfection, and under which mayors. The one on the north describes how the fire started, how much damage it caused, and how the fire was extinguished. In 1681 the words "but Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched" were added to the end of the inscription. The inscription on the east generally blames Roman Catholics for the fire, and this prompted Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

to say of the area that it is:

Where London’s column, pointing at the skies,

Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies." -- Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 339 (1733-1734).

The words were chiselled out in 1830.

The west side of the base displays a sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

, by Caius Gabriel Cibber

Caius Gabriel Cibber

Caius Gabriel Cibber was a Danish sculptor, who enjoyed great success in England, and was the father of the actor, author and poet laureate Colley Cibber. He was appointed "carver to the king's closet" by William III....

, in alto and bas relief, of the destruction of the City; with King Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

, and his brother, James, the Duke of York (later James II

James II of England

James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

) surrounded by Liberty

Liberty

Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...

, Architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

, and Science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, giving directions for its restoration.

The nearest London Underground station is Monument.

History

The first Rebuilding Act, passed in 6969, stipulated that "the better to preserve the memory of this dreadful visitation", a column of either brass or stone should be set up on Fish Street Hill, on or near the site of Farryner's bakery, where the fire began. Wren, as Surveyor-General of the King's Works was asked to submit a design. It was not until 1671 that the City Council approved the design, and it was another six years before the 202-foot column was complete. It was two more years before the inscription (which had been left to Wren — or to Wren's choice — to decide upon) was set in place.
"Commemorating — with a brazen disregard for the truth — the fact that 'London rises again...three short years complete that which was considered the work of ages.'"
Surviving drawings show that several versions of the monument were submitted for consideration: a plain obelisk, a column garnished with tongues of fire, and the fluted Doric column that was eventually chosen. The real contention came with the problem of what type of ornament to have at the top. Initially Wren favoured a statue of a phoenix with outstretched wings rising from the ashes, but as the column neared completion he decided instead on a 15-foot-tall statue either of Charles II or a sword-wielding female to represent a triumphant London; the cost of either being estimated at £1,050. King Charles himself preferred a simple copper-gilded ball "with flames sprouting from the top" costing a little over £325, but ultimately it was the design of a flaming gilt-bronze urn suggested by Robert Hookie that was chosen.

The total cost of the monument was £13,450 11s 9d., of which £11,300 was paid to the mason-contractor Joshua Marshall.

The area around the base of the column, Monument Street, has been pedestrianised in a £790,000 street improvement scheme.

The monument closed in July 2007 for an 18-month, £4.5 million refurbishment project and re-opened in February 2009

The Monument as scientific instrument

Wren and Hooke built the monument to double as a scientific instrument. It has a central shaft meant for use as a zenith telescope

Zenith telescope

A zenith telescope is a type of telescope that is designed to point straight up at or near the zenith. They are used for precision measurement of star positions, to simplify telescope construction, or both....

and for use in gravity and pendulum experiments that connects to an underground laboratory for observers to work (accessible from the present-day ticket booth). A hinged lid in the urn covers the opening to the shaft. The steps in the shaft of the tower are all six inches high, allowing them to be used for barometric pressure studies.

Panoramic camera system

During the refurbishment, a 360-degree panoramic camera was installed on top of the Monument. Updated every minute and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it provides a record of weather, building and ground activity in the City of London.

In fiction

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit
Martin Chuzzlewit
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels. It was originally serialized between 1843-1844. Dickens himself proclaimed Martin Chuzzlewit to be his best work, but it was one of his least popular novels...

, published in 1844, describes it thus:

"if the day were bright, you observed upon the house–tops, stretching far away, a long dark path; the shadow of the Monument; and turning round, the tall original was close beside you, with every hair erect upon his golden head, as if the doings of the city frightened him."

The Monument is a prominent setting in The System of the World
The System of the World (novel)
The System of the World, a novel by Neal Stephenson, is the third and final volume in The Baroque Cycle.The title alludes to the third volume of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which bears the same name....

, the third book in Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson

Neal Town Stephenson is an American writer known for his works of speculative fiction.Difficult to categorize, his novels have been variously referred to as science fiction, historical fiction, cyberpunk, and postcyberpunk...

's Baroque Cycle. George, the hero of Charlie Fletcher

Charlie Fletcher

Charlie Fletcher is a British screenwriter and author.After many years writing for film and television, he is now probably best known for his children's novel, Stoneheart.-Biography:...

's children's book about unLondon Stoneheart
Stoneheart
Stoneheart is a children's novel by Charlie Fletcher, published in 2006. It is part of the Stoneheart Trilogy. Stoneheart is followed by "Ironhand", which is itself followed by "Silver Tongue"...

, has a fight at the top of the Monument with a raven and a gargoyle.

External links

Cathedral Works Organisation Ltd Restoration Info
Official Monument website
City of London Monument page
The Monument panoramic camera system, contains an archive of images.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

The Monument as scientific instrument

Panoramic camera system

In fiction

See also

External links