Page:An Historical Essay on the Livery Companies of London.djvu/28

 buildings of Guildhall, the Royal Exchange, Custom House, divers Hospitals and Libraries, fifty-two of the Companies' Halls, and a vast number of other stately edifices, together with three of the City gates, four stone bridges, and the prisons of Newgate, the Fleet, the Poultry, and Wood Street Compters; the loss of which, together with the merchandise and household furniture, was calculated to amount to ten millions seven hundred and thirty thousand pounds. During the whole of this terrible devastation only six persons lost their lives. The City Companies suffered terribly by the fire. It melted their plate, burnt their records, and laid their premises, from which they chiefly derived their income, in ashes; and to crown their calamities they found themselves overwhelmed with a load of debt (the consequence of the compulsory loans to the Crown), and which they had now no means of paying. By extraordinary exertion, however, by subscriptions and collections amongst themselves, and by the donations of their wealthier members (some of them to great amount), the whole of the Companies had their Halls rebuilt in two or three years, and generally in a superior manner to the former buildings. Their houses and premises also, by granting advantageous leases to the tenants, arose everywhere again with the new Metropolis. As early as 1670 the old order of things was quite restored, and the Companies started on a new course of prosperity.

The Monument was erected in Fish Street Hill to perpetuate the remembrance of the Fire; the architect was Sir Christopher Wren. In height it is 202 feet from the ground (being 20 feet higher than Trojan's Column at Rome). Within is a large staircase of black marble, containing 345 steps, ten inches and a half broad and six-inch risers, and a balcony within thirty-two feet of the top, which allows room to walk. It was commenced in the year 1671 (Sir Richard