Great Fire of London able to tread on them." The cathedral was quickly a ruin. During the day, the flames began to move eastward from the neighbourhood of Pudding Lane, straight against the prevailing east wind and towards Pepys's home on Seething Lane and the Tower of London with its gunpowder stores. The garrison at the Tower took matters into their own hands after waiting all day for requested help from James's official firemen who were busy in the west. They created firebreaks by blowing up houses on a large scale in the vicinity, halting the advance of the fire. In a letter to
Pudding Lane by the Company of Bakers in 1986, commemorates the fire. According to the chronicler John Stow, it is named after the "puddings" (a medieval word for offal) which would fall from the carts coming down the lane from the butchers in Eastcheap as they headed for the waste barges on the River Thames. In Stow's words, "the Butchers of Eastcheape have their skalding House for Hog there, and their puddings with other filth of Beasts, are voided down that way to their dung boats on the Thames." The original name of the lane was "Offal Pudding Lane", which changed to