In 60 or 61, the fledgling Roman city of London was set on fire and razed to the ground by Boudicca, the flame-haired queen of the Iceni. Sixty years later, the city was ravaged by fire – and rebuilt – once again.

This time, Londinium, as the Romans knew it, was a planned city with a gridded street layout. Two major roads running east to west led to a large forum, basilica, amphitheatre and temple of Jupiter. The city’s life was focused on these major public buildings and spaces as well as on its busy docks and traffic-laden bridge over the Thames, where London Bridge stands today.

Intriguingly, the plan of Roman London proves to be not so very different from that of Sir Christopher Wren’s, drawn up 350 years ago after yet another blaze: the Great Fire of 1666.