Adrian Tinniswood

It never got the sufficient backing from the city authorities.

If you want to see Rennes, London, not quite the same, but pretty close, go to Washington.

Because 100 years later, Jefferson and Pierre L'Enfant, when they were laying out the federal city on the banks of the Potomac,

they took a published version of Wren's Plan for London and remade that.

So you'll see Wren's London in Washington, DC.

One thing I will say is that I am directionally challenged.

I'm confessing this now.

I'm hopeless.

The only two cities I can navigate around are New York, because everything's numbered.

So I can do that.

The avenues and the cross streets are numbered.

And I can still find my way around the city of London, because I know London in 1666 like the back of my hand, and it's still there.

I tell you, it is still there in spite of all the changes.

you can recognise virtually every street and every court and every alley.

There were several rebuilding acts, which you look at the acts and it's all fairly clear that streets have to be 30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet wide, depending on the states of the street.

All buildings have to be built of brick or stone or at least have a brick or stone facade.

These fire prevention measures are put in place quite early on, three or four years later after the fire.

When you actually look at what happened, most people ignored the building regulations.

The streets are still 20 feet wide.

The houses are still going up made of timber with thatch.