2-889-562 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ruins of the Great Fire in Mark-Lane - sketched from Seething-Lane, [in the City of London], 1850. 'The three warehouses belonging to Mr. Joseph Barber...burned down, were insured by Mr. Barber for £10,000 in the Phoenix-office (a sum inadequate to rebuild the premises). They cost the East India Company £23,000 to erect..Very little salvage is expected to be cleared from the ruins of Messrs. Barber's warehouses...Such was the intensity of the heat on Wednesday afternoon in Messrs. Cunliffe and Dobson's wine-cellars...that the thermometer rose as high as 74 degrees, independently of the immense stock of wines in wood, there were no fewer than 6798 bottles in racks, and, from the strong heat, it was feared that the whole would be spoiled'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.