Great Fire of London both recorded the events and their own reactions day by day, and made great efforts to keep themselves informed of what was happening all over the City and beyond. After two rainy summers in 1664 and 1665, London had lain under an exceptional drought since November 1665, and the wooden buildings were tinder-dry after the long hot summer of 1666. A fire broke out at Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane a little after midnight on Sunday 2 September. The family was trapped upstairs but managed to climb from an upstairs window to the house next door, except for a
Milk Street, London Milkstrete and Bread Street" in 1264. Sir Thomas More, author of "Utopia" (1516) was born in Milk Street in February 1478 and a plaque at the north end of the street marks the approximate spot. The south end of the street was the site of the parish church of St Mary Magdalen before the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The parish was then merged with the adjacent St Lawrence Jewry and Honey Lane Market built on the site which at one time had 105 butchers' stalls. Edward Hatton noted in 1708 that the market