Great Fire of London general; and more particularly in this business of the fire, laying it all upon him." Pepys was a senior official in the Navy Office by then, and he ascended the Tower of London on Sunday morning to view the fire from a turret. He recorded in his diary that the eastern gale had turned it into a conflagration. It had burned down several churches and, he estimated, 300 houses and reached the riverfront. The houses on London Bridge were burning. He took a boat to inspect the destruction around Pudding Lane at close range and describes a "lamentable" fire, "everybody
St Thomas the Apostle, London St Thomas the Apostle, London St Thomas the Apostle was a parish church in Knightrider Street in the City of London. In existence by the late twelfth century, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and not rebuilt. The patronage of the church belonged to the canons of St Paul's and it is mentioned in the register of the Dean and Chapter as early as 1181. John Stow implies that was rebuilt some time in the late fourteenth century, describing John Barnes, Lord Mayor in 1371 as "a great builder of S. Thomas Apostles parish church