Great Fire of London Investigation

We have been learning about the Great Fire of London, we know that there are many reasons as to why the fire spread so rapidly including the wind, the houses mainly being made from wood and also because the houses and buildings in 1666 were built so close together that the fire could easily move between them.

We wanted to investigate how the houses being close together was such an important reason as to how the fire spread so quickly and for so long, so in DT we built our own houses. We had to research the houses first to find out how they were made and what they were made from, we sketched the houses with a big focus on the tell tale beams that were used in the houses, and then we made our own. We used cardboard boxes but took them apart at the seams and glued them back up the wrong way round so that the shiny part was on the inside; some children found this really hard as it took a lot of patience and was very fiddly. We used our research to create the aesthetic of the houses with the straw on top and beams across them.

When we took them outside we had two groups; one group of houses were very close together, and one group had space between them.

Mr Quarrell our caretaker lit the houses on fire so we could observe the difference between the two groups. We were all amazed when the fire put itself out in the group where the houses were spread out, showing us all just how important the houses being close together was to the spread of the fire.