Baynard's Castle refers to buildings on two neighbouring sites in the City of London, between where Blackfriars station and St Paul's Cathedral now stand. The first was a Norman fortification constructed by Ralph Baynard, 1st feudal baron of Little Dunmow in Essex, and was demolished by King John in 1213. The second was a medieval palace built a short distance to the south-east and later extended, but mostly destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. According to Sir Walter Besant, "There was no house in [London] more interesting than this".
The first Baynard's Castle
Seal of Robert Fitzwalter
Long View of London from Bankside, detail from a 1647 engraving by Wenceslaus Hollar. Baynard's Castle is at far right, on the far side (north side) of the River Thames, with the Church of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe behind it. The Blackfriars is a short distance upstream at left.
William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1501–1570), owned the castle when Mary I was proclaimed Queen there in 1553.
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the wall to the west. The death toll is generally thought to have been relatively small, although some historians have challenged this belief.
The Great Fire of London, depicted by an unknown painter (1675), as it would have appeared from a boat in the vicinity of Tower Wharf on the evening of Tuesday, 4 September 1666. To the left is London Bridge; to the right, the Tower of London. Old St Paul's Cathedral is in the distance, surrounded by the tallest flames.
A panorama of the City of London in 1616 by Claes Visscher. The tenement housing on London Bridge (far right) was a notorious death-trap in case of fire; much would be destroyed in a fire in 1633.
King Charles II
"It made me weep to see it." Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) painted by John Hayls in 1666, the year of the Great Fire