About two hundred yards north of London bridge, is situated one of the
finest pillars in the world, erected by Sir Christopher Wren, in memory
of the great fire, which, in 1666, broke out at a house on this spot,
and destroyed the metropolis from the Tower to Temple Bar. It is a
fluted column of the Doric order; its total hight is two hundred and two
feet; the diameter at the base is fifteen feet; the hight of the column,
one hundred and twenty feet; and the cone at the top, with its urn,
forty-two feet. The hight of the massy pedestal is forty feet. Within
the column is a flight of three hundred and forty-five steps; and from
the iron balcony at the top is a most fascinating prospect of the
metropolis and the adjacent country. It is impossible not to lament the
obscure situation of this beautiful monument, which, in a proper place,
would form one of the most striking objects of the kind that
architecture is capable of producing.