Another example was
Leiscester Square. Main streets had to be wide enough to stop a
fire. The street selling that had caused so much congestion was
removed to new market places. The massive rebuilding of London
ended the monopoly of the building trade claimed by the Mason's
Company. Astronomer and geometrician Christopher Wren designed and
built a new St. Paul's Cathedral and many churches in London, thus
becoming England's first architect. He worked up from a square
base through all sorts of shapes to a circular double dome on top.
The fire put an end to Whitehall as a royal residence and St.
James Palace was used instead. But at least one fire hazard
remained: the practice of lighting new fires by taking buckets of
hot coals from one room or house to another. This was faster than
the several minutes it took to use a tinder box to start a flame,
i.e. striking a piece of flint upon a piece of steel making a
spark which was dropped onto tinder and then blown upon. Matches
were invented in this period, but expensive and unsafe.
Nicholas Barbon began fire insurance in the 1670s. If fire broke
out on an insured premises, the insurance company's firemen would
come with leather buckets and grappling irons, and later small
hand pumps.
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