Dome

View showing the base; As part of the rebuilding, it was decided to erect a permanent memorial of the Great Fire near the place where it began. Sir Christopher Wren, Surveyor General to King Charles II and his friend and colleague, Dr. Robert Hooke, provided a design for a colossal Doric column in the antique tradition. They drew up plans for a column containing a cantilevered stone staircase of 311 steps leading to a viewing platform. This was surmounted by a drum and a copper urn from which flames emerged, symbolising the Great Fire. The Monument, as it came to be called, is 61 metres high (202 feet) - the exact distance between it and the site in Pudding Lane where the fire began. It consists of a pedestal about 21 feet square and 40 feet high, with a plinth 28 feet square, and a fluted shaft 120 feet high and 15 feet in diameter; on the abacus is a balcony encompassing a moulded cylinder, which supports a flaming urn or vase of gilt bronze, symbolizing the Fire. The quantity of Portland stone contained in the column, as estimated by the architect, is 28,196 cubic feet. Source: City of London, The Monument [website]; http://www.themonument.info/ (accessed 6/13/2009)