Phoenix from the Ashes Trivia Quiz

Answer: A plague epidemic

London was devastated by plague from 1665-6. Around 100,000 people, or 20% of the city's population, were killed. It has been argued that the fire actually saved lives in the long term by destroying much of the affected area and wiping out the virus, although it seems that the plague was dying out by the time the fire struck anyway, and the most affected areas were largely untouched by the fire.

There were strong religious and political tensions between England and Spain throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the closest any Spanish ships came to attacking English territory was the failed Armada of 1588.

The army, along with Parliament, had overthrown Charles I and dominated English politics in the 1640s and 1650s. However, his son Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, and the army's loyalty to the crown no longer an issue by 1666.

London's buildings were not in great condition in 1666. The famous diarist John Evelyn compared London unfavourably with Paris, calling it a "wooden, northern and inartificial collection of houses." The fire provided an opportunity to plan and rebuild London's buildings but their greatest danger at the time was simply as a fire hazard.

Answer: Nicholas Hawksmoor

Wren and May were two of three men appointed by the king, along with Roger Pratt. Wren was also an extremely prolific architect for crown and university patrons, and was the Surveyor of the King's Works from 1669-1719, as well as rebuilding St Paul's and many of London's churches following the fire. May was known as a country house architect at the time, and later completed work for the Crown at Windsor.

Hooke was appointed by the City of London, along with Edward Jerman and Peter Mills. Along with Wren, he was responsible for several city churches and the Monument. He also designed Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as Bedlam, Montagu House, and the Royal College of Physicians, none of which survives.

Hawksmoor was not born until 1661, although he did work as Wren's clerk at St Paul's from 1679. He was involved on many of Wren's projects, notably the hospitals at Chelsea and Greenwich. He also worked in conjunction with John Vanbrugh on the vast country houses of Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace.

Answer: Paris

Wren took a trip to Europe from September 1665 to March 1666, during which time he visited Paris. He was taken with many features of the French capital, notably the grid-like planning of streets and riverside quays, which he incorporated into his (unbuilt) design for London. It is also likely that Wren saw the use of domes in Paris at the Val de Grace and College des Quatres-Nations, which influenced any of his later designs such as St Paul's Cathedral, St Stephen Walbrook and Greenwich Hospital.

Both Amsterdam and Madrid were expanded in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in a formal and planned manner, but there is no evidence that Wren visited them or was influenced by them. Rome was often seen as the home of architecture during this period due to its ancient heritage and prestige as the seat of the papacy. As such it had an indirect influence in the mind of Wren, even though he never visited.

Answer: 51

89 churches were destroyed during the fire, but Wren's initial plan for London only included 19. In the end the 1670 Act for Rebuilding the City made provision for 51, as several parishes were united. The churches were paid for by a tax on coal coming into the city. Several richer parishes raised some of their own funds to hurry the process and gain greater prestige, like St Stephen Walbrook and St Mary-le-Bow. Wren was at the head of the redesigning and rebuilding process, although much of the work has also been attributed to Hooke.

Answer: St Mary-le-Bow

In Parentalia, a history of the Wren family published in the mid-eighteenth century, St Mary-le-Bow is noted for using all five orders in ascending order of ornamentation moving up the church's tower. These are Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite.

The church became well-known in its time and featured in "Vitruvius Britannicus", a 1715 volume celebrating English architecture by Colen Campbell. It was one of only four churches to appear in this work alongside Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, Michaelangelo's St Peter's in Rome and Thomas Archer's St Philip's in Birmingham (now Birmingham cathedral), showing its pre-eminence in church design at the time.

Answer: A flaming urn

Parentalia also details the options for the top of the Monument, which commemorated the fire and London's rebuilding. A phoenix with a 15ft wingspan was rejected due to fears it might be blown off by the wind, while the wounds of Civil War and the Protectorate were too raw for a statue of the king to be erected in the City of London, one of the heartlands of the rebellion.

It was also deemed too expensive, as was the statue of London itself.

Answer: Catholics

In the period from the Monument's construction until the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1830, excepting James II's brief reign from 1685-88, an inscription on the base of the column read "but Popish frenzy, which wrought such horrors, is not yet quenched". Anti-Catholic sentiment was strong in England at this time, and had even been one of the causes for the Civil War and led to the deposition of the Catholic king James II in 1688. Spain was a Catholic state but was not specifically blamed for the fire.

Jews had been expelled from England in the Middle Ages but were readmitted by Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s and there was no strong feeling against them. Women had less social status than men in this period but were not used as a scapegoat for the fire.

Answer: 5

There were five monarchs in this period: Charles II (1660-85), James II (1685-88), William III and Mary II (1688-1702, although Mary died in 1694) and Anne (1702-14). A statue of Anne stands outside the cathedral in recognition of the fact that she oversaw the completion of the building.

Answer: London was to be rebuilt in a more magnificent, European style

Although the Act called for the widening of certain streets no plan was laid down and the redesign was left largely to circumstance and pragmatism. As most landowners and tenants wanted to keep their property as it was before the fire, the new street plan stayed much the same as it was pre-1666.

All the other three stipulations were included to speed up the building process by resolving legal disputes and having as many skilled craftsmen available as possible. Buildings were to be made of stone and brick to reduce the risk of fire in the future.

Answer: Portland Stone

St Paul's was rebuilt was Portland stone, a light grey stone which originated from the Isle of Portland in Dorset. It was shipped to London in huge quantities throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to fill the demand for high quality stone. Other post-fire buildings such as the churches of St Mary-le-Bow and St Stephen Walbrook also used Portland stone, although the largest and best quality pieces were reserved for St Paul's.

Many other famous British buildings used Portland stone, including Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and the Bank of England, among many others. It has also been exported, notably for the United Nations building in New York.

Bath Stone is a darker, yellow coloured stone found in Somerset. It gives a distinctive appearance to the English city of Bath.

Yorkstone is a type of sandstone found in Yorkshire, often used for building walls and as paving slabs.

Granite is an igneous rock found all over the world. It has many uses: for building, gravestones and curling stones among others.