where did the great fire of london start

The Great Fire of London started in a small bakery on Pudding Lane, in the house of the king’s baker, Thomas Farriner, shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September 1666.

Quick Scoop

In the early hours of the morning, a blaze broke out inside Farriner’s bakery, probably when embers or sparks from the bakery ovens ignited nearby combustible materials such as flour dust or stored fuel. This modest shop on Pudding Lane, near London Bridge in the City of London, became the point from which the fire spread rapidly through the crowded wooden buildings around it.

A Tiny Spark, A Huge Disaster

• The exact cause is not known with certainty, but many historians point to unattended oven fires and nearby flammable goods as the most likely trigger.

• The first flames were seen around 1 a.m., when members of the household woke up choking on smoke and found the bakery already alight.

• Pudding Lane’s narrow streets and timber-framed houses allowed the fire to leap quickly from building to building, turning a local accident into a city-wide catastrophe.

Why Pudding Lane Matters Today

• Modern London still marks the origin point: the Monument to the Great Fire stands close to where the bakery on Pudding Lane once stood.

• The disaster reshaped the city’s building regulations, encouraging brick and stone instead of wood, and widening streets to prevent a repeat of what began in that single bakery.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.