We all know about the Great Fire of London in 1666, but fires continued to be a pretty regular occurrence in London, even into the next century. Looking through Georgian records, there are reports of a fire in the city every few months, something that is unsurprising when we consider that despite the rebuilding of London after 1666, there was still a large quantity of wooden buildings huddled together in the capital during the eighteenth century. Post-fire building overseen by Charles II and his queen, Catherine of Braganza, was also concentrated most urgently on the areas directly affected, and so surrounding areas were still filled with medieval and Tudor buildings that could cause serious damage if accidentally set alight.

Joseph Highmore, 1692–1780, Figures in a Tavern or Coffee House, ca. 1725 or after 1750, Oil on panel, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B2001.2.86. Public Domain

In Sweeting's Alley in central London in 1759 a fire broke out at around 5am one morning at Hamlin's Coffee House, near the Royal Exchange. Hamlin's, like other coffee houses of the time, would have been a fashionable place not only to sip a hot bowl of black coffee but to do business, chat with likeminded people and attend the odd auction of goods or property. Next door was another coffee house, The New York Coffee House, and in the immediate community, other shops such as one run by a fan maker named Mr Vaughan, a print-seller's by Mr Withy and a woollen draper's run by Mr Fleatham. There were others, too. Mr Hunt was a linen-draper, Mr Legg a woollen draper and Mr Bakewell a print seller, situated at the front of Cornhill. Nearby was a lawyer's office, another coffee house (The Virginia Coffee House), a barber and a broker. 

All these businesses would suffer on the morning of the fire at Hamlin's, showing how quickly fire could take hold of a small community. The Annual Register noted that thirteen houses stood in smouldering ruins, and two small shops - a shoemaker's and a watch-maker's - had completely burned down. The following day, at 3pm, the fire was said to have broken out again, now consuming the Red Lion and Sun alehouse in Sweeting's Alley. The culprit of the fire was believed to have been a lodger at Hamlin's, a musician who 'played music upon glasses' and who sadly died in the flames. Others died, too, unable to escape the smoke-filled buildings or tragically buried in the ashen rubble as the upper floors and walls crumbled around them. 

The devastating fire at Hamlin's tells us so much about Georgian London. First, the report in The Annual Register details the many businesses that traded here, and although the area is known to have been the centre of London's trading community, barbers, shoemakers and woollen drapers had also set up businesses here. These, and the many coffee shops that emerged in the area were no doubt supported by fashionable merchants, bankers and lawyers who had offices near the Royal Exchange. The report not only describes the premises that were damaged but where they stood, what they offered and who ran them, giving us a fascinating glimpse into the Cornhill area of central London in the mid-1700s. 

The report also underlines the severe fire risk that was still very real after 1666. We tend to focus on the Great Fire during the reign of Charles II and his rebuilding of London in stone and the city's reorganisation into wider public squares and other spaces. But there were still frequent fires all over London during the eighteenth century. Closely-huddled buildings, flammable materials and a reliance on flame for light, cooking and warmth all combined to make London's narrow streets a potential hazard to live or do business in. It's worth adding that it wasn't just London that suffered with fires - Portsmouth Dockyard was damaged by fire in 1770 and 1776, and there are other mentions of devastating blazes in other towns around the country during the period.

Liked this? You might also like What Was it Like During the Great Fire of London and The Old White Hart Inn, Southwark. 

Source: The Annual Register, 1759, via archive.org

While many of you were enjoying the bank holiday weekend sunshine, and lighting up the BBQ, I was peering at seventeenth- and eighteenth-century texts to try to unravel a Restoration-era ghost story. 

'Haunting', Redon. Met Museum, Public Domain.

The story, told in various sources in the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, concerns a man named Sir Charles Lee. His first wife had died in childbirth, but the newborn lived. A daughter, she was brought up by her mother’s sister the Lady Everard. A marriage was arranged for her with a Sir William Perkins, but until the couple were wed, the young woman lived with her aunt in Waltham in Essex while her father remained at his base in Warwickshire. One night she noticed a glow from her chamber, and called a maid to check whether she had left a lit candle in her room. The maid told her all the candles were out, and so she went to her room and settled to sleep. At 2am she woke, seeing the ‘apparition of a little woman between her curtain and her pillow, who told her she was her mother, that she was happy, and that by twelve of the clock that day she should be with her’. 

She got up, went to her closet and wrote a letter, not emerging until 9am, sealing it and giving it to the Lady Everard. She told her aunt that she was convinced that she was going to die that day, and asked her to send the sealed letter to her father once she was dead. Thinking her niece had gone ‘mad’, Everard called for a physician and a surgeon to come from Chelmsford. Neither could figure out what was wrong, and, to be on the safe side, carried out a bloodletting. The young woman then called for the chaplain, and prayers were said for her. She spent the morning listening to music and singing while the bemused household watched over her, and just before twelve midday, the young woman sat down in a chair, ‘presently fetching a strong breathing or two, immediately expired, and was suddenly cold, as much wondered at by the physician and surgeon’. Sir Charles was immediately informed, and was sent the letter his daughter had written. Inside, it stated that she wished to be buried with her mother at Edmonton. It was said that her father was so upset and affected at the news that he didn’t arrive at Waltham until after his daughter had been buried. He had her body removed from its burial place and taken to Edmonton to fulfil the wishes in the letter. 

The story was told to the Bishop of Gloucester by Sir Charles himself and was said to have happened in around 1662. But is there any trace of this in the historical record? As it turns out, Sir Charles Lee was a prominent man of administration and local justice during the reign of Charles II. 

His father was Sir Robert Lee, from Billesley in Warwickshire. With his wife, Anne Lowe, he had a large family. They had married on 10 November 1600, during the reign of Elizabeth I, at St Peter le Poor church in London, the same year that Robert purchased the manor of Billesley for £5,000. Robert served as Lord Mayor in 1602-3 as well as Alderman of London and the couple had four daughters and four sons, although two of their sons died young. Charles was baptised on 30 June 1620 at the church his parents had married in twenty years before. At the age of 22 he was knighted by Charles I at Oxford on 28 December 1645. In 1637 his father died, and his eldest brother Robert inherited the family estates. However, in 1659 Robert died without issue, and Charles inherited the Lee estates. 

Charles married four times. His first wife was Elizabeth Elwes, who died in 1652, the genealogist George Cokayne stating that she left ‘issue’, but doesn’t mention any sister, only a brother named John, who lived at Barton Court in Berkshire. Another wife was Catherine, the daughter of Sir Lionel Tollemache, and widow of Sir Charles Mordaunt, who had died in 1648. Charles was Catherine's second husband and we can assume the marriage took place fairly soon after both partners became widowed, within four years of one another. Charles married again in December 1679, to Sarah, Viscountess Corbet of Edmonton. She died in 1682. Finally, he married Letitia (or Lettice) Fisher, who was born on 20 July 1659. She is mentioned as Charles’ widow on her later marriage to Bishop John Hough in 1702. He was Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry at the time, and Hough referred to her as the ‘dear companion of my life’. She died of an illness which began in 1722, when doctors were called. Her health improved a little and she died at the end of the year, 12 November 1722. Letitia was buried in Worcester Cathedral, the bishop choosing to be buried alongside her after his death. On 28 April 1719 she wrote her will, and remembered Charles. Bequeathing diamond rings, ruby rings, diamond earrings, a diamond buckle and pearl necklace to various relatives, she wrote, ‘and in token of the respect I bear to the memory of my former husband, Sir Charles Lee, I give to his unfortunate grandchild, Mrs R. Bradshaw, one hundred pounds’.

Charles served Charles II after his Restoration to the Crown, primarily as a juror in criminal cases, such as that of Edward Coleman in 1678, who was charged with an attempt on the king’s life. He was part of the jury again at the trial, on charges of treason, of William Ireland, Thomas Pickering and John Grove in December 1678. In 1680 he appears in a list of the king’s justices at Southampton, alongside George, Duke of Buckingham. In 1689 he sold the family manor of Billesley to Bernard Whalley, a Leicestershire man, who subsequently rebuilt the parish church in 1692. Sir Charles died in the autumn of 1700 and was buried on 18 October of that year at Edmonton in Middlesex. It’s believed that one daughter survived him, named Elizabeth, who married James Mundy. They had a daughter called Catherine, who sold Sir Charles’ lands and properties in Edmonton in 1711. 

It's not clear which of Sir Charles’ wives was the mother referred to in the ghost story that has become so well associated with him. Considering that the story was said to have happened in 1662, it’s possible that it was Charles’ first wife, Elizabeth, who died in 1652. His marriage to Catherine Tollemache could not have occurred earlier than 1652, and so makes it unlikely that it was her. If her mother was Elizabeth, the young girl - who was not named in the Bishop of Gloucester's account - would have been around the age of ten when she was visited by her mother’s spirit. This is also supported by the account stating that she was living with a relative, being too young to consummate an arranged marriage. It’s also possible that the vision that she experienced wasn’t a spirit at all, but neurological or medical symptoms related to the circumstances of her death, occurring so soon after the sighting. With so much still unknown about Sir Charles, and the lives of his wives and children, it is difficult to pin down the source of the legend further, until more secure evidence arises. 

Do you know about the legend of the Lee ghost? Let me know in the comments below... 

You might also like 7 Historic Events That Happened at Hampton Court and Catherine of Braganza's Women.

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Sources consulted

A catalogue of the names of all His Majesties justices ... 1680, archive.org

'Parishes: Billesley', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 3, Barlichway Hundred, ed. Philip Styles (London, 1945), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol3/pp58-61 [accessed 3 May 2025].

John Eardley-Wilmot, The life of the Rev. John Hough, D.D., successively bishop of Oxford, Lichfield and Coventry, and Worcester: formerly president of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, in the reign of King James II. Containing many of his letters, and biographical notices of several persons with whom he was connected, 1812, archive.org

The tryals of William Ireland, Thomas Pickering,... 1678, archive.org

Augusta Elizabeth Brickdale Corbet, The family of Corbet; its life and times. 1914. Archive.org

William Robinson, The history and antiquities of the parish of Edmonton, in the county of Middlesex. Comprising an account of the manors, the church, and Southgate chapel ... 1819. Via archive.org

Edward Coleman, 1888. The tryal of Edward Coleman, gent., for conspiring the death of the King, and the subversion of the government of England, archive.org

George E. Cokayne, Some account of the Lord Mayors and Sheriffs of the city of London, during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, 1601-1625. 1897, archive.org

Richard Boulton, A compleat history of magick, sorcery, and witchcraft; ... 1715: Vol 1, archive.org

The Royal Observatory was England's first building dedicated solely to astronomical research, founded by Charles II in 1675. But for Margaret Flamsteed, it was also her home. 

L'Astronome, Metropolitan Museum, Public Domain

Margaret's husband John was England's first Astronomer Royal, tasked with observing the night skies, pursuing the problem of measuring longitude at sea and collecting reams of data. John Flamsteed was passionate about the study of astronomy, spending long hours in observations and paying to have his own tools designed and built. Between 1677 and 1689 he recorded 20,000 observations which furthered our understanding of the heavens. In 1694 Flamsteed worked with Sir Isaac Newton, after Newton had asked for his help in testing his theories of gravity. Despite Newton's insistence that Flamsteed should publish his works, the astronomer considered that they were not yet complete and not ready for publication. Tensions sprang up between Flamsteed and Newton, as well as with Edmund Halley, and some of the Royal Astronomer's works were nonetheless published without his full consent, in 1707. 

At the the Observatory in Greenwich was a woman as assertive and bold as Flamsteed himself: his wife, Margaret. With his role, John was also given lodgings at the observatory so that he and his wife could live there. It's very likely that Margaret was involved in some of John's work, and we know that she took a faithful and passionate interest in it. On John's death in December 1719 she was asked to leave the observatory, so that the new Astronomer Royal could take up residence. But Margaret didn't go quietly. She embarked on a campaign to seize any works of her husband's that were not approved by him and protected his memory. As John had paid for and designed the tools he used in his work out of his own income (he was granted a salary of £100 a year as Astronomer Royal), she gathered them all up, along with his data, and took it all with her. 

Very little about Margaret's life has survived in the sources, but we do have some letters written after John's death, where she discusses his work with others. In one letter, written on 15 August 1720 to Flamsteed's assistant Abraham Sharp, she writes of 'the greatest grief possible' that she has experienced since John's death, 'which made me incapable of almost everything'. With Sharp, she set out to publish an official copy of her husband's work and she wrote to Sharp to thank him for his efforts. 'If your friendship to poor Mr Flamsteed during his life and regard to his memory, now dead', she wrote, 'had not prevailed with you to undertake so troublesome a work, I know not what I should have done'. She had taken care to approach only those she trusted to finish the work true to John's intentions, writing that Sharp 'exceed[ed] all others as much in fidelity as you do in accuracy'. Margaret also co-ordinated the content of the book, assuring him that she would 'put those six constellations you sent into the hands of a person to draw as soon as possible'. The book, named The Historia Coelestis Britannica was eventually published in 1725, comprising of beautifully-drawn constellations with all the stars marked within them. Strangely, the nineteenth century writer William Cudworth pointed out that two main collaborators on the work, Abraham Sharp and Joseph Crosthwait, were not credited for their input, which is odd considering Margaret's keen sense to see her husband credited with the correct research. It's possible that if true, this may have been a personal agreement between Margaret and the men. In the 1729 edition of Atlas Coelestis Margaret's name is given on the frontispiece above that of the editor James Hodgson. The work was dedicated to George II. 

Margaret was also on the lookout for works that falsely claimed to be authored by her husband. Learning that a copy of a work of 1712 called Historia Coelestis remained in one of the libraries at the University of Oxford, she wrote to the Chancellor on 22 March 1726. 'I have been since told', she wrote, 'that there remains in your public library, one volume printed in the year 1712, which passes as the genuine work of Mr Flamsteed. I most humbly intreat that you will please to order that single volume to be removed out of your public library, the greatest part of which is nothing more than an erroneous abridgement of Mr Flamsteed's works, he not being concerned in the printing any more of that book than 97 sheets', the rest being done without his knowledge or consent'. She signed off with a telling line, writing that she was 'under an obligation not only to do justice to the memory of Mr Flamsteed, but also to prevent the world's being imposed upon by a false impression'. 

Margaret died in 1730, having written her will two years before. She added a clause requesting that a monument be built to her husband where he had been buried in Burstow Church in Surrey. 'I further order and direct that my executor (if it please God I do not live to do it myself) do cause to be placed in the aforesaid Chancel of Burstow in Surrey, a Marble Stone or Monument with an inscription in Latin, in memory of the late Reverend Mr John Flamsteed, and I allow £25 for the existence of it. I would have my own internment mentioned in that inscription'. Even as she considered her own death, she was occupied with preserving the memory of her husband John.

John Flamsteed, throughout his career, observed and documented thousands of measurements, researched stars and helped Isaac Newton develop his ground-breaking theories on gravity. He also worked on our modern understanding of the behaviour of the moon and sun, and was known well to royals and scientists of the age. But while he measured, gazed and scribbled, Margaret was there at his side. Her knowledge of his work shows that she was involved in and knew of his research, his relationships with others and his worries about his work being published without consent. She protected his legacy and worked to seize his own personal instruments and remove copies of work falsely claimed to be his. She personally vetted those who worked on Flamsteed's works after his death and dealt with engravers, editors, astronomers and publishers to see it come to fruition. It is because of Margaret that authorised versions of his work appeared in print after his death, allowing others to learn from it, and test his observations and theories. Discussions of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich or astronomy generally in seventeenth-century England don't often refer to Margaret Flamsteed, but I think she should be given more credit for the impact she had on science, and her age.

You might also like: John Flamsteed, The First Astronomer Royal, Oxford's Oldest Coffee Houses and How Charles II Dealt with the Plague in 1665.

Thank you to the Royal Observatory for alerting me to Margaret Flamsteed's significance to history and science. Visit the Royal Observatory website for more details and how to visit.

Sources:

Cudworth, William. Life and Correspondence of Abraham Sharp, the Yorkshire Mathematician an Astronomer. Searle and Rivington, Marston. 1889.

Flamsteed, John. Atlas Coelestis. London, 1729.

NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service, The Observatory. 1892, via archive.org

The church of St Laurence in Reading's town centre is not generally open to the public. No longer in service as a traditional church as such, it is used today as a space for young people to collaborate and meet. Thought to have been established at the same time as Reading Abbey, the church is believed to date from the twelfth century and has seen royalty, town celebrations and the brutal administration of Tudor justice. It even sustained bomb damage in the Second World War, still visible today on the left side of its tower. But back in the medieval and early Tudor periods, before the religious divisions of the 1530s and onwards, St Laurence's church would have looked very different inside. Today's white-washed walls were once brightly coloured, and flanked with statues and images of saints. As worshippers filed into the church their eyes would have flickered over wall paintings intricately-worked to help inspire parishioners' spiritual imaginations.

In 1503-1504 the churchwardens paid out eight shillings and fourpence to a painter called Mylys [Miles] 'for painting of Saint Christopher'. Another payment of sixpence was paid 'for new plastering of the wall where St Christopher is painted'. Another payment in 1521 specified a painting of St Leonard, painted by a painter named John. 

A larger work was commissioned in 1526, described as 'the transfiguration over the high altar' and paid for by parishioners. It was decorated with gold, the account paying 'diverse persons towards the gilding and painting of the transfiguration'. Bosses in the ceiling - knots of wood created to hide joins - were also made and covered with gold in 1524. In 1547, after mid-Tudor religious changes and Henry VIII's break with Rome, church accounts show payments to workmen for whitewashing and adding lime to the walls to cover up the medieval and early Tudor paintings. They were replaced with lines from scriptures, which were then whitewashed over in 1556. Finally, the medieval stained glass was removed in 1549, and replaced with clear panes of glass.

The paintings lurked for centuries under whitewashed walls, but in 1848, there was a chance discovery. A wooden screen dating from the early eighteenth century was removed from the east wall of the chancel, and some layers of whitewash carefully removed. Observers noticed five different paintings, all created on top of one another. They recorded them as 'portions of the Creed and Ten Commandments', with a layer of scripture. Some of these phrases of text were decorated with a border of blue paint and finished with leaves and sprigs. Underneath this layer of paint was the remains of a fresco depicting the Annunciation with a full-sized figure believed to have been an angel, likely to have been Archangel Gabriel. It was a stunning work, with the angel's wings painted in red, with rainbow colours and traces of a building in the background. A figure of the Virgin Mary was also seen kneeling, with a pot of white lilies placed next to her. The Victorian spectators also noted traces of red and blue with gilded decorations on the internal columns of the church's windows. The Transfiguration referred to in the churchwardens' accounts in the early 1500s was also peeled back and recorded. It was 'a large painting of seven figures, nearly the size of life, the subject being the Transfiguration on the Mount.' Christ was depicted in the centre with his right hand lifted, a gilded halo around his head. Moses stood at His right, holding the Tables of the Ten Commandments in his hands. Elias and the Disciples were also pictured, their faces all 'exquisitely painted'. This painting was said to have covered the whole of the chancel wall to each edge and so would have been imposing to medieval and early Tudor spectators.

There are no traces of these paintings today. Once the architects at the church in 1848 had peeled back layers of whitewash, lime and paint to get to St Laurence's earliest works the walls seem to have been washed back over. It is uncertain what damage they may have done through their curiosity, and their reports suggest they did not gently peel a small amount of paint and plaster back but set out to unravel, at some speed, the walls of the rest of the church. They described large paintings spanning from wall to wall, with large groups of people and detailed scenes, and I can't help but think they might have stood a better chance of survival if had been stumbled on today, with our modern conservation and recording techniques. But then, without a chance removal of a wooden screen in the mid 1800s we might still know nothing of St Laurence's lost wall paintings. It's possible though, that they might still one day emerge. I for one would love to see them. 

Liked this? You might also like: Walk in the Footsteps of the Tudors in Reading, Medieval Residents of Reading: Thomas and Elizabeth Clerk and my other posts on the history of Reading.

Sources:

Charles Kerry. A History of the Municipal Church of St Lawrence, Reading. Derby, 1883. 

Visit to St Laurence's Church, Reading. July 2025.