It is generally believed that the Fire left nothing standing where it had passed. This was not the case. Many of the church towers were left in part. Only the other day in building offices in the City on the site of a church—St. Olave’s, Old Jewry—it was discovered that the lower part of the tower with the stone turret outside belonged to the old church. Many crypts escaped; the walls where they were of brick remained standing in part; in one case a whole court survived the Fire. This case is very curious. On the north-east of Apothecaries’ Hall, with an entrance from Castle Street, was, until a year or two ago, a court called Fleur de Lys Court. At the time of the Fire there stood close beside the court, on the east side, the church and churchyard of St. Anne’s, built after the Dissolution upon part of the old Blackfriars. Remember that the wind was easterly and strong during the Fire. When the roof of St. Anne’s caught fire, therefore, the flames were driven across this court and over it. It would appear that the roof had been injured and part of the upper stories, but not the lower part. The court looked strangely out of keeping with the other buildings. I took my friend Mr. Loftie to see it. He gave it as his opinion at once that the mullions of the windows were of earlier date than the Fire. I afterwards took Mr. J. J. Stevenson, the architect, who made one or two sketches and came to the same conclusion. A few weeks later I found that they were pulling the court down. The causes of the Fire and the conditions which made its existence possible are thus enumerated by Strype:— “First, They consider the time of the night when it first began, viz. between one and two of the clock after midnight, when all were in a dead sleep. Secondly, it was Saturday night when many of the most eminent citizens, merchants, and others were retired into the country and none but servants left to look to their City Houses. Thirdly, it was in the long vacation, being that particular time of the year when many wealthy citizens and tradesmen are wont to be in the country at Fairs, and getting in of Debts, and making up accounts with their Chapmen. Fourthly, the closeness of the Building, and narrowness of the street in the places where it began, did much facilitate the progress of the Fire by hindering of the Engines to be brought to play upon the Houses on Fire. Fifthly, the matter of which the Houses, all thereabouts were, viz. Timber, and those very old. Sixthly, the dryness of the preceding season: there having been a great drought even to that very day and all the time that the fire continued, which has so dried the Timber, that it was never more pat to take Fire. Seventhly, the Nature of the Wares and Commodities, stowed and vended in those Parts, were the most combustible of any other sold in the whole City: as Oil, Pitch, Tar, Cordage, Hemp, Flax, Rosin, Wax, Butter, Cheese, Wine, Brandy, sugar, etc.