Great Fire

[retrocop]

Can anyone answer how many perished in the Great Fire of London? No cheating and looking it up. I am surprised at the answer.

[retrocop]

O-G
I don't think so. A reasonable suggestion (for the site in question) but not the one I am looking for.

[Jackdaw33]

Not Nelson's Column, then?

[Islay]

Was Eros taken down for cleaning?

[stuey]

Something to do with Big Ben stopping because of a accident to the mechanism?

[jourdain2]

Been off preparing, serving, eating and clearing up after dinner - then sorting newspapers etc. for bin collection - but admit that I am baffled by this one. Thinking cap firmly being placed on.

[retrocop]

Good thinking all but stuey, being our resident horologist, is on the button.
Any guesses what and why it happened for a
Bonus ( case of Moulson) prize :-)

[Jackdaw33]

Some birds landed on one of the hands and caused the clock to run slow.

[retrocop]

JD
Got it. Happy sharing half the case with stuey? A flock of starlings landed on the second hand putting it back 5 minutes.
I am enjoying this. Anyone for more? Congratulations to our colonial buddy. The
Questions are a bit locally biased. :-)

[Jackdaw33]

Big Ben does not have a second hand. It must have been the minute hand.

[retrocop]

Can any one suggest why the construction of Waterloo Bridge,London, UK was deemed unusual ?

[Hopkirk]

Quiz question:

What did Samual Pepys bury in his garden to protect from the Great Fire?

A. His wallet
B. His diary
c. His parmesan cheese.

[Jackdaw33]

His cheese.

[Hopkirk]

Correct, have a cigar.

[retrocop]

JD
Of course. Just testing. You win another bottle of Moulson for spotting my mistake. Personally I would prefer the wooden spoon but they are so common on AB these days :-)

[jno]

officially, single figures (including the baker's maid and the migrant executed for starting the fire), but it's not necessarily remotely accurate. Record keeping was already in some disarray after the plague, and plenty of people had no official existence. Some historians reckon hundreds would have died.

There's an old story that more people have died falling off the Monument than in the fire itself.

[retrocop]

Jno
Thanks for that input. I'm surprised any records survived at all let alone be inaccurate after the fire.

[Jackdaw33]

Brandy Nan, Brandy Nan
Left in the lurch.
Face to the gin shop
And back to the church.

To whom does this refer and why?

[retrocop]

Last History quiz question from me tonight ( sorry London again).
Why was the upper span pedestrian walkway closed on Tower bridge in 1910?

[shaneystar2]

Queen Anne .They say she liked a drink :)

[Jackdaw33]

Quite right, Shaney. When her statue was erected outside St.Paul's it faced away from the cathedral and towards what was then a gin palace.