Prize-Winning Animation Lets You Fly Through 17th Century London

Six stu­dents from De Mont­fort Uni­ver­si­ty have cre­at­ed a stel­lar 3D rep­re­sen­ta­tion of 17th cen­tu­ry Lon­don, as it exist­ed before The Great Fire of 1666. The three-minute video pro­vides a real­is­tic ani­ma­tion of Tudor Lon­don, and par­tic­u­lar­ly a sec­tion called Pud­ding Lane where the fire start­ed. As Lon­don­ist notes, “Although most of the build­ings are con­jec­tur­al, the stu­dents used a real­is­tic street pat­tern [tak­en from his­tor­i­cal maps] and even includ­ed the hang­ing signs of gen­uine inns and busi­ness­es” men­tioned in diaries from the peri­od.

For their efforts, the De Mont­fort team was award­ed first prize in the Off the Map con­test, a com­pe­ti­tion run by The British Library and video game devel­op­ers GameCity and Cry­tek.

Com­ment­ing on the video, one judge from the esteemed British Library had this to say:

Some of these vis­tas would not look at all out of place as spe­cial effects in a Hol­ly­wood stu­dio pro­duc­tion. The haze effect lying over the city is bril­liant, and great atten­tion has been giv­en to key fea­tures of Lon­don Bridge, the wood­en struc­ture of Queen­shithe on the riv­er, even the glit­ter­ing win­dow case­ments. I’m real­ly pleased that the Pud­ding Lane team was able to repur­pose some of the maps from the British Library’s amaz­ing map col­lec­tion – a store­house of vir­tu­al worlds – in such a con­sid­ered way.

You can find more infor­ma­tion about how the ani­ma­tion came togeth­er over at the ani­ma­tors’ blog, plus at The British Library’s Dig­i­tal Schol­ar­ship blog.

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Comments (149)
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  • Margaret Rose STRINGER says:

    Mind-bog­gling­ly WONDERFUL. These stu­dents deserve to grad­u­ate instant­ly in what­ev­er dis­ci­pline for which they’re enrolled. Can’t fin­ish with­out not­ing that their uni is in Leices­ter: does all the very best stuff in his­to­ry get done there …?

    • Robert Kelley says:

      Well, if it’s good enough for Richard III, it should be good enough for any­one!

      • Margaret Rose STRINGER says:

        I BEG YOUR PARDON!!! — is there real­ly any need for this neg­a­tive kind of com­ment? Or are you pulling my leg (I hope!)?

        • trevH says:

          I see a York-ist here. :-) nnOddly Leices­ter does seem to have a big his­to­ry dept as I’ve seen them men­tioned in oth­er sim­i­lar works. Maybe a spe­cial­i­ty of the uni­ver­si­ty?

  • Tudorphile says:

    It’s mag­nif­i­cent. If only you could add in the sounds and smells of the time. I often won­der if my 21st cen­tu­ry nose could with­stand the odor of thou­sands who have not bathed or washed their clothes, waste and refuse in the street, decom­pos­ing food, etc. How would a per­son today react to such a sud­den influx of smells?

  • yodaweed says:

    Man they have got to use this for the basis of a video game of some kind — some sort of swash­buck­ling adven­ture me thinks

  • Mandy Sue says:

    This is spec­tac­u­lar, the images and the music. This will facil­i­tate my dreams of flight, I sus­pect. Just stun­ning.

  • Robert Kelley says:

    All of those I have shared this with have been stunned. This is a mag­nif­i­cent piece of work. The stu­dents deserve the high­est praise!

  • brian beaton says:

    Real­ly great! Enjoyed their work.

  • Fred Yaeger says:

    I won­der if any rep­utable “stu­dents” of Tudor Lon­don have an opin­ion on the degree of authen­tic­i­ty of this ren­der­ing. We humans are very visu­al ani­mals — seems many of us eas­i­ly “believe” a visu­al image to be accu­rate, whether it real­ly is, or is not. The still images near the begin­ning of the video includ­ed (sick/dying?) per­sons on the streets, but the ani­mat­ed scenes do not. Sure, not every detail can be includ­ed with­out a movie-sized bud­get, but I won­der if those things shown **are** accu­rate and I won­der what things are omit­ted. I com­mend these stu­dents for cre­at­ing this thought-pro­vok­ing sug­ges­tion of 400 yrs ago. Well done!!!

    • trevH says:

      Not a his­to­ry stu­dent, but from what I remem­ber in school, there is quite a bit miss­ing such as throw­ing the rub­bish and oth­er stuff out the win­dows, sew­ers down the mid­dle of the streets and lots & lots of rats.nnBut I sus­pect the peo­ple behind it want­ed to con­cen­trate more on the build­ings and what it might have looked like rather than all the details.nnAs men­tioned above, the build­ing designs are like­ly a guess part­ly based on maps which showed cer­tain busi­ness­es, and our visu­al under­stand­ing of what Tudor build­ings looked like — maybe more based on what we see in Chester for example.nnIs very very well done for sure.

  • Nita Jones says:

    I did­n’t want it to stop, in fact I want­ed to get in there and have a wan­der about! Well done!

  • Diane P. Diamond says:

    I thought that this was absolute­ly amaz­ing. The detail and col­ors are out­stand­ing. Well done to the stu­dents for cre­at­ing this video of 17th cen­tu­ry Lon­don for us all to enjoy. :-)

  • Diane P. Diamond says:

    I thought that this was absolute­ly amaz­ing. The detail and col­ors are out­stand­ing. Well done to the stu­dents for cre­at­ing this video of 17th cen­tu­ry Lon­don for us all to enjoy. :-)

  • Mobyboy says:

    Bril­liant — great job, well done to every­one.

  • Hector says:

    Real­ly excel­lent. Con­grat­u­la­tions on your win­ning entry. Well deserved. I may use this with my class as a stim­uli for writ­ing.

  • Chris says:

    Awe­some, it’s like a smelly ver­sion of World of War­craft. :)

  • Joe Harris says:

    Should have used 17th-cen­tu­ry music, instead of 21st-cen­tu­ry music!

    • Virgil says:

      Joe — it’s a tra­di­tion­al bal­lad of Great Britain — or do you mean the arrange­ment? Appar­ent­ly, it’s thought to be about the Great Plague of the late Mid­dle Ages; it also may have a con­nec­tion to an obscure Scot­tish bal­lad, The Elfin Knight and is gen­er­al­ly believed to have orig­i­nat­ed in the 17th cen­tu­ry.

      • justaguy says:

        In 1666 you had the sec­ond great peri­od of Eng­lish music dawn­ing (after that dur­ing Eliz­a­beth’s reign), and they chose to go with movie music from 2013. It’s a pity, but it’s also indica­tive of how far music as an aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­pline has moved away from the oth­er human­i­ties. The oth­er human­i­ties now know noth­ing about it and pro­duce things like this–excellent in most regards, but fail­ing to pro­duce a true pic­ture of the time. nnnBal­lads are not real­ly appro­pri­ate in any case for the ethos of 1666 Lon­don, which was deter­mined­ly cos­mopoli­tan and very proud of its sec­u­lar and sacred music.

        • justaguy says:

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbuvFkn9CYU Some epoch-appro­pri­ate music which is also very moody and appro­pri­ate. Orlan­do Gib­bons, ear­ly 17th cen­tu­ry, Lon­don.

        • CatherineABC says:

          I thin the depic­tion is not so much to evoke the lat­est upper class fash­ions of that year, but to give a sense of that area of Lon­don at the time. The aver­age per­son would still be play­ing old bal­lads and liv­ing much as their ances­tors did hun­dreds of years pre­vi­ous­ly.

      • StephenJohnAvalyanNewton says:

        Its great.

  • rksully says:

    The tudor peri­od end­ed in 1603, when we’re talk­ing 17th cen­tu­ry we’re talk­ing Stu­arts, just a fyi for his­tor­i­cal accu­ra­cy. (I’m a his­to­ry teacher, I can’t help it!)

    • rksully says:

      I should add that I think it’s a great piece of work! It would be amaz­ing to use in the class­room.

    • Mike Magee says:

      I think the point intend­ed was that most of the build­ing were Tudor, Tudor style, built in Eliz­a­beth’s time and still stand­ing. Just as Dick­en­sian Lon­don was pri­mar­i­ly Geor­gian not Vic­to­ri­an.

  • Taylor says:

    What is the song in the back­ground?

  • Keith Wakefield says:

    Absolot­ly bril­liant

  • preemiememe says:

    terrific„other than the black plague..It makes me want to live there„ :)

  • Rich Thomas says:

    Am I the only one who feels like I’m here to upgrade my armor and find the next quest-giv­er?

  • Watcher says:

    Very nice. But unpop­u­lat­ed.

  • Keith Parkins says:

    Brilliant!nnhttp://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/pudding-lane/

  • Keith Parkins says:

    Brilliant!nnhttp://keithpp.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/pudding-lane/

  • Kali Farfrae says:

    A bit fast, slow it down, hard on those with motion sick­ness issues. and the drift­ing in and out of focus is a bit tough as well. But that maybe solved with slow­ing it down.. I love it! the details like the flies and garbage is won­der­ful as well. Will there be more?

  • Julia Clarke says:

    Looks like a back­drop to a Fairy tale; so famil­iar and yet so alien.

  • an idiot. says:

    very fable 2‑esque, very good though.

  • purrna2go says:

    Too fast, with scenes that demand lin­ger­ing but are passed over. Bad angles. Poor cin­e­mat­ic direc­tion because it mean­ders with no ref­er­ence points dur­ing the “fly­over” (exclud­ing the begin­ning which was slow and inter­est­ing). I felt a bit nau­seous with the veer­ing. It would have been much bet­ter as a walk-through; not thought out as either a bird nor plane, just crazy veer­ing. But the graph­ic ren­di­tions of old Eng­land were heart rend­ing­ly beau­ti­ful — why not give them their due?

  • Scott says:

    m, Tudor Eng­land end­ed in 1603, when Eliz­a­beth died, and Stu­art Eng­land start­ed, so I am sure you mean Stu­art Eng­land…

    • Mike Magee says:

      I think the point intend­ed was that many, per­haps most, of the build­ing were Tudor, Tudor style, built in Eliz­a­beth’s time and still stand­ing. Just as Dick­en­sian Lon­don was pri­mar­i­ly Geor­gian not Vic­to­ri­an.

    • carole mclean says:

      It DOES say 17th cen­tu­ry, not 16th.

  • Tarja Roffe says:

    Way too fast, had trou­ble focussing and then it was gone already. Half the speed would be good and then I would love it and watch it over and over. Can you slow it down please, as if walk­ing through the allies and stop­ping to look around you every now and then… This could be so good!

  • Kay Sloan says:

    Won­der­ful! Thank you for cre­at­ing this mag­nif­i­cent jour­ney into the past. So much detail. Great tal­ents here!

  • Kevin Yorke says:

    I was total­ly and utter­ly spell­bound by this. Words can’t express just how good this is. To the stu­dents who cre­at­ed this, THANK YOU.

  • Stuart Federhart Holland says:

    I’m won­der­ing about all the win­dows in the build­ings. I had heard that one of the rea­sons the hous­es were so dark is that peo­ple were taxed by the num­ber of win­dows in their hous­es.

  • Kate Mortimer says:

    This is quite amaz­ing but rather sta­t­ic, in my opin­ion. Only once did I see any human shapes in the streets, yet we know from his­tor­i­cal sources that the streets were not near­ly so clean. This city in this era was full of peo­ple, smells, rats, dogs and cats, horse drop­pings and garbage. Where are the mud­larks, those lit­tle kids who swarmed the banks of the riv­er to find pick­ings they might sell for a few pen­nies?

  • owen says:

    Devel­op it a lit­tle more, com­bine it with ipad accelerom­e­ter and map it using gps, and you could walk through old lon­don, look­ing at it through your ipad

  • gary says:

    I real­ly liked it, and can’t wait for the next pro­duc­tion, but that video con­vert­er over­lay at the end is high­ly decep­tive and strikes me as an ille­git­i­mate use of an adver­tis­er’s pre­rog­a­tives, imply­ing among oth­er things both that the pro­duc­tion Is down­load­able and that Video con­vert­er is required to down­load the pro­duc­tion and to run it.. Def­i­nite­ly leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth about the whole show, which is real­ly sad.

  • niccolonic says:

    they should go into game devel­op­ment…

  • PuddingLane says:

    Hey all, I’m a mem­ber of the team and would just like to say a big thanks for the fea­ture here and the com­ments below. Just to clar­i­fy, we aren’t ani­ma­tors, nor are we his­to­ri­ans, so if there are any his­tor­i­cal inac­cu­ra­cies (of which I’m sure there are many) then we apol­o­gise! As for pop­u­lat­ing the world, we worked on this over a 14 week peri­od, so had nei­ther the time nor resources to pop­u­late it as much as we’d like. Please head on over to our blog to read more about the team and the process­es behind the lev­el. Thanks againnnhttp://puddinglanedmuga.blogspot.co.uk/

    • Julia says:

      Beau­ti­ful work…aesthetically, musi­cal­ly, emo­tion­al­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly. Con­grat­u­la­tions on this accom­plish­ment.

    • MAry Potts says:

      Please share the name of that haunt­ing melody..it also is mar­velous.…

  • antoine de couldn't says:

    Loved it — and as real­is­tic as you’re like­ly to get for this peri­od, unless some­one takes a cam­corder back on Dr. Emmett Brown’s time Delore­an !

  • The Wizard of u00d6zil says:

    Very real­is­tic look­ing, great work! Would make a great game plat­form

  • Tom says:

    I think that this is won­der­ful, but believe that 3 things are miss­ing: the mass of human­i­ty, the dark/dank/dreary/wet cold, and the filth.

  • Roger Benham says:

    Every­thing moves too fast.

  • Jonny says:

    The Elder Scrolls: Lon­don ;)

  • Sarah Lucas says:

    fan­tas­tic, thank you, my eight year loves it.

  • DannyJane says:

    One quib­ble. This is not Tudor Lon­don. The Tudors died out in 1601 with the death of Eliz­a­beth I. This is Stew­art Lon­don.

  • Richard says:

    1603, Dan­ny-Jane, and it’s spelled Stu­art, but your point is well-tak­en.

  • GF2013 says:

    This is superb. Hav­ing worked until recent­ly only a few streets away from Pud­ding Lane, it is bril­liant to see a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what it may have looked like. Well done

  • Sonia Bennett Murray says:

    Breath­tak­ing! Absolute­ly beau­ti­ful! If I may make one sug­ges­tion — slow it down so view­ers can enjoy it more!

  • Joy Ashall says:

    Well I loved it and per­haps yes it could
    have been a lit­tle slow­er to take it all in but I thought it won­der­ful. Thank you.

  • stylus says:

    Nice work! What pro­gram was used to cre­ate? Painstak­ing research (or labor of love) into the build­ings on par­tic­u­lar streets and lanes, if this is all accu­rate. I’ve done the same thing with 1600 and 1700s Boston, in a pic­ture­book form (not yet pub­lished). Beau­ti­ful work!

  • Steve Bouler says:

    http://www.historicalplayhouses.com Here are 18 VR recon­struc­tions of lost the­atres and play­hous­es from his­tor­i­cal eras from the Ancient Greeks through the 17th Cen­tu­ry. “Worls of War­craft for the­atre his­to­ri­ans.”

  • Dave Anderson says:

    Inspired choice to use the Hans Zim­mer music as the sound­track. As an archae­ol­o­gist who has just been involved in exca­vat­ing part of a medieval burgh, I found the whole thing real­is­tic and absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ing

  • victoria says:

    As a stu­dent if this peri­od, I found it amaz­ing that the archi­tec­ture and the views of the dai­ly life, could be so real­is­ti­cal­ly repro­duced.

  • Dorothy (Dot) Commie says:

    Em! Yes — I sup­pose a rather ide­alised video por­tray­al with­out the efflu­ent and streets run­ning with ‘you know what’. And, where were the peo­ple, beasts of bur­den, mis­cre­ant mal­nour­ished urchins and dic­ta­to­r­i­al mili­tia, etc? And, please can you add an app that could give us the putrid smell of the times as well as the quaint cot­tage upon cot­tage strug­gling pover­ty peo­ple of the time view?nnEver so sor­ry! This is a trav­es­ty of his­to­ry. And, we all know it!

  • Christopher Barnett says:

    I’ve worked with games engines for about 9 years as an ani­ma­tor and 3D mod­el artist so I guess I’ve come to expect more from peo­ple =/

  • Louise says:

    not very evoca­tive — few dis­tinc­tive Lon­don places, most of it might be any­where. no Lon­don bridge, white­hall palace, st paul’s church­yard full of book­shops, no the­atres etc. and no peo­ple — where are they all? the thames was a busy thoeough­fare, full of. Boats of all kinds — where are they?

  • Bob Locke says:

    I assume that this was in the first half of the 17th cen­tu­ry, pri­or to the Great Fire? This was a time when cham­ber pots were emp­tied by being dumped out the win­dow. The stench must have been ter­rif­ic.
    Bob Locke

  • Helen A says:

    won­der­ful images of Lon­don in 16 cen­tu­ry. I watched it over again. As oth­ers have said, would be bet­ter a lit­tle slow­er. Please make some more.….love it.

  • Alathea A says:

    Very inter­est­ing, but (as oth­ers have said) too fast, and the “cam­era” swoops and veers too much. An indi­ca­tion of street names would have been good.

    I won­dered about some of the inci­den­tal detail. For instance, was any effort made to iden­ti­fy the kind of cloth­ing that might have been hung out to dry? I saw lots of longjohns, but no bag­gy breech­es and no wom­en’s shifts (though giv­en the speed, maybe I just did­n’t notice them).

    How accu­rate is it to show tomb­stones in a grave­yard at this peri­od? The tomb and grave­stones shown look typ­i­cal of the 18th and 19th cen­tu­ry. My under­stand­ing is that mon­u­ments would have been inside the church­es: it was­n’t till lat­er that a. the rich would have buried in the church­yard, and b. the less rich would have been able to afford grave­stones.

  • Clivus says:

    Nice, but I missed see­ing all the peo­ple ( Yes I know that makes the ani­ma­tion that much more com­pli­cat­ed) it was like look­ing at a ghost town!

  • Clarice says:

    amaz­ing­ly clever,i feel it could have been slowed down a lit­tle so you could read signs and actu­al­ly take in more of the buildings.We were kind of whizzed through.

  • Carolyn E. Crist-Schwab says:

    I’m inter­est­ed. Please for­ward any nec­es­sary details to sub­scribe.

    Thank you,

    C. E. Crist-Schwab

  • Judy Hunt says:

    Absolute­ly amaz­ing! The only thing I would change is the speed, I would love to see it slow­er so you can take more in.

  • Stephen says:

    Thank you-real­ly enjoyed your work.
    So much so that I wish it moved a bit slow­er.
    Keep up the good work-look­ing for­ward to see­ing your next project.

  • Jack Holloway says:

    What might it have been like liv­ing in 17 cen­tu­ry Lon­don before the great fire of 1666? This short video feast with music is a GREAT pos­si­ble depic­tion. This is fun to watch and quite well done. Read the back­ground infor­ma­tion first for the best expe­ri­ence. Best in full screen with your sound up. Hav­ing walked the streets and back alleys of mod­ern Lon­don myself a few times I found this more than inter­est­ing. I even did a pub walk one time with a his­to­ri­an lead­ing the group through the area of “Jack the Rip­per”.

    Lon­don is one of the great cities of the world (one of my 5 most favorites of Europe), and this is a new and dif­fer­ent way to expe­ri­ence it.

    Enjoy! Jack.

  • sam says:

    if it was a tad faster we could wave our hands in the air and squeal.

  • Fiona Brannon says:

    I real­ly enjoyed watch­ing this but agree with oth­er com­ments that is have liked it to be a lit­tle slow­er. I would also like to com­ment on the music. Why choose some­thing that is not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of 17th cen­tu­ry Lon­don? You’ve gone to all this effort to cre­ate an amaz­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion but the music is com­plete­ly inap­pro­pri­ate. Shame.

  • Mudhooks says:

    Those com­plain­ing about the ref­er­ence to this being “Stu­art Eng­land” not Tudor are miss­ing the mark. While the time-peri­od was Stu­art Eng­land, the area of Lon­don being por­trayed was built in Tudor times and had not changed one iota. It quite lit­er­al­ly WAS Tudor Lon­don. One does­n’t refer to a Tudor build­ing as 21st cen­tu­ry sim­ply because we are view­ing it in 2015. Old Tudor Lon­don was destroyed by the fire of 1666 and rebuilt. Until then, it remained Tudor Lon­don.

  • Mudhooks says:

    I meant to say “com­plain­ing about the ref­er­ence to this being Tudor Lon­don, not Stu­art Lon­don”.

  • pam sekula says:

    Excel­lent but a lit­tle bit spooky hav­ing non of the res­i­dents of old Lon­don on the scene. The first and sec­ond images remind me of Fish Street in Shrews­bury, it still looks very much the same today.

  • Mary says:

    This is amaz­ing, I’ve watched it three times so far! The music is love­ly and fits my idea of what a tune could sound like at that time. Great work, stu­dents!

  • Clare fraser says:

    My archi­tect friend shared this on face­book with me, it is won­der­ful.
    Would love to show it to a year 2 class( age 6–7) in a pri­ma­ry school in Lon­don if pos­si­ble? They are cur­rent­ly study­ing the great fire of Lon­don, soon to vis­it pud­ding lane ‚and this would no doubt tru­ly inspire them.
    Could you sug­gest how I would do this.. We have a white­board and com­put­ers but might you have a link please.
    You should copy­right this ASAP and sell it to the schools in the uk as it is on the cur­ricu­lum! Go for it.
    Good luck
    Clare fras­er( moth­er of 3 and teach­ing assis­tant)

  • Sarah Howell says:

    Excel­lent! An amz­ing job! I can think of so many uses for this with my stu­dents.

    Only one comment…it might be nice to slow it down a little…but that might be an age thing and me need­ing more time to pick up detail. My stu­dents seem to be much faster at pick­ing up visu­al detail — that itself is an activ­i­ty!

    Thank you.

  • John Dalton says:

    It’s a great piece of work, but I feel the view­er is hur­ried along at ‘mod­ern’ dizzy­ing speed, rather than walk­ing pace. Also: should­n’t all the paths and cob­bled streets have run­nels in the cen­tre, for the slops, dead dogs and oth­er rub­bish?

  • Anska says:

    Gosh, this is awe­some.

    I would have LOVED to have explored 17th cen­tu­ry Lon­don Bridge which is SO amaz­ing­ly dif­fer­ent to that which we have today. There was a tan­ta­lis­ing moment I thought we were going to go onto it.

    Lon­don Bridge Fan­ta­sy. Would be great to see under it, over it, from a dis­tance and through it from north to south and back again.

    Please please please can you do a tour of Lon­don Bridge please???? Pret­ty please?

  • Sally says:

    Won­der­ful detail but it needs to pan a lit­tle slow­er to give the view­er time to take in what they are see­ing. Also, some of the sequences are too short. Walk­ing pace would make this so much bet­ter.

  • Michele says:

    very cool!

  • Lylah Guptill says:

    I was lucky enough to have a month in Britain just 2 weeks ago and got a glimpse of the old build­ings every so often and loved them, com­ing from a coun­try that does not have build­ings much old­er than 100–150 years old, I would have loved to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have seen these in their orig­i­nal state although life would prob­a­bly have been too hard for me, so thank you for the lit­tle trip into the past

  • Phil Cosland says:

    too much glass I think — most places would be shut­tered and shut­ters closed at night. Pane glass was very expen­sive and rare but seems almost abun­dant here.

    Those say­ing about open sew­ers, many sew­ers were under­ground in the walled city of Lon­don, romans built sew­ers that weren’t weren’t replaced till 1800 or so.

  • exDMUstudent says:

    This project was­n’t by his­to­ry stu­dents, so just a shared inter­est I think.

  • Uncle Joe says:

    Insist­ing this be labeled “Stu­art” Lon­don and not, “Tudor,” is the height of pre­ten­tious absur­di­ty.

  • Dale M says:

    Very nice indeed.

    No bad there weren’t peo­ple in the video though,

  • Cloud Ponderer says:

    Well, they’ve cer­tain­ly got the Thomas Kin­caid light­ing down.

  • Pandora says:

    Hope they do it so that we can watch with 3D glass­es, using the map­ping ‘Street View’ tech­nique.

  • michael rice says:

    thank you

  • michael rice says:

    THANK YOU.….…

  • chizl says:

    PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO GAME BASED ON THIS!!!

    There are so few actu­al­ly good his­tor­i­cal games. Red dead Redemp­tion took advan­tage of this and turned out MAGICAL.

  • Robin Burcham says:

    Wow, this is the peri­od and place I have found most inter­est­ing, and I have chill bumps. This was incred­i­ble.

  • 3Dflythrough says:

    Great post full of great points

  • Nik says:

    youtube have a fea­ture if you press the video qual­i­ty icon you can select a slow­er speed.

  • Sally Clarke says:

    Brilliant.…magical even.

  • Griffin Lang says:

    Yes they should have used some music record­ed in 1666 on records made of sliced oak trunk.

  • Brenda Hascall says:

    I real­ly enjoyed your pro­duc­tion. You did a fan­tas­tic job and you can be proud. Okay, you did­n’t choose music from that time peri­od, but I still liked the mood that the music you chose set. I think it cre­at­ed an inter­est­ing affect and real­ly that’s what music is about, to enhance the over­all expe­ri­ence. Good Work!

  • Will Musgrave says:

    Excel­lent piece of work. I think peo­ple who make minor com­plaints are being pedan­tic — this is not a Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tion! As for one of the ear­ly com­ments about there being no smell, I think if you go to Yorvik in York they do a roller-coster type of tour through the ‘old town’ with authen­tic odours. I don’t actu­al­ly know as the woman in the car­riage in front of me was wear­ing a real­ly pun­gent per­fume which knumbed my nasal pas­sages! Any­way, great job, although it did rather remind me of parts of mod­ern-day Bris­tol!

  • Jennidia says:

    The plat­form reminds me a lot of Sec­ondLife. I have met many builders and gam­ing engi­neers craft­ing make your “sims” — servers just.like this. Very well done. If you are ever look­ing at a sim­i­lar plat­form to work on check out that pro­gram.

  • Jennidia says:

    Craft­ing on a plat­form such as this called sims.* Which are servers. Sor­ry my auto­cor­rect killed my ear­li­er post.

  • Graham WEEKS says:

    Too clean and under­pop­u­lat­ed.

  • Steve.. says:

    Turn it into a ‘Streetmap’ with street names and allow the view to con­trol the speed/direction/aerial con­trols then add life..rats,people,horses,donkeys,cat, dogs.… Vom­it enduc­ing images would make it real­is­tic also as the place looks far too clean for the peri­od. Thor­ough­ly enjoyed but was over in a flash… I want to look in the win­dows and see life going on ;) great work oth­er­wise thanks.

  • John Handforth says:

    Excel­lent, first-rate, and speak­ing as a writer, inspir­ing!

  • Geeorgena Pole says:

    First time I have seen this. It is love­ly… sets the imag­i­na­tion going, Could “smell” the atmos­phere and feel the heat form the braziers…Would have liked it a bit slow­er and looked into the shops and wan­der up the alleys…Are you going to make anoth­er one about anoth­er sub­ject? It must take many, many hours…Thank you.

  • James says:

    Any­one ever tell you you’re a tire­some, bor­ing snob? This video is amaz­ing and took a tremen­dous amount of skill — skill I’m sure you don’t have. Appre­ci­ate what is there, which is mas­ter­ful, instead of whin­ing about the lack of “beasts of bur­den, mis­cre­ant mal­nour­ished urchins and dic­ta­to­r­i­al mili­tia” in a vain attempt to impress peo­ple with your “knowl­edge”. You sound like the kind of per­son who knows she will nev­er cre­ate any­thing of val­ue, so needs to pedan­ti­cal­ly throw cold water over those who do.

  • John Burgess says:

    Real­ly enjoyed that.…Fantastic imagery..Along with a lot of oth­er observers I would have liked more time though.It did fly past a lit­tle to quick­ly to take in ful­ly.

  • John Burgess says:

    Real­ly enjoyed that.…Fantastic imagery..Along with a lot of oth­er observers I would have liked more time though.It did fly past a lit­tle to quick­ly to take in ful­ly.

  • John Burgess says:

    Sor­ry about the spelling.…Didn’t check

  • Margaret Little says:

    I think this is just bloody mar­vel­lous. Be proud young peo­ple of your fan­tas­tic achieve­ment. To the naysay­ers, just ignore them. I have played it through twice now and will do it again and again to enjoy it.

  • A Person says:

    I would imag­ine nose blind­ness played a big part. Sur­round­ed by all the hor­rid smells 24/7 you’d even­tu­al­ly stop notic­ing. Some­one new com­ing into the city though, you’d smell it a mile away I’d bet.

  • tresakon says:

    This is FABULOUS!! I love it. Is there a way to slow it down? I would so very much like to watch it so I could look at the details. Con­grat­u­la­tions on a won­der­ful piece of work. I hope to see more in the future.

  • Deborah says:

    I was think­ing Fable 3. And I was seri­ous­ly won­der­ing if this was­n’t pla­gia­rized from Lion­shead.

  • Frederick Toates says:

    just bril­liant!! many thanks.

  • Les Cooper says:

    It’s Bree Town from lotro! :)

  • Cynthia says:

    Must admit, I was imag­in­ing the smells, noise, and crowd­ed­ness of as the video advanced.

  • Lynn says:

    I was curi­ous to know the name of the music used with this video. It’s love­ly. :)
    Also would be inter­est­ed to know which bal­lad it’s based on.
    Thanks for the ref­er­ence to The Elfin Knight. That one’s clear­ly relat­ed to the more mod­ern Scar­bor­ough Fair.

  • Alan says:

    Real­ly well done despite some pet­ty crit­i­cism. I vis­it­ed Dick­en’s World at Chatham on my last vis­it ‘home’ about 3 years ago and thought that was fan­tas­tic also.

  • Bob L says:

    Beau­ti­ful and very mov­ing, thank you.

  • Emma Walden says:

    Absolute­ly amaz­ing! Would be great to slow it down a lit­tle bit, but can always pause it. The detail though is phe­nom­e­nal. My son is 6 and has been learn­ing about the Great Fire of Lon­don and has been con­stant­ly ask­ing what Lon­don real­ly looked like back then. This just answered all of his ques­tions, thank you! Six years on from cre­at­ing this, it would be fas­ci­nat­ing to see what the team could add fur­ther to this with new­er tech­nol­o­gy.

  • Susan Dionne says:

    I teach British Lit­er­a­ture to high school stu­dents. Is there any way to get this in the class­room? I would love for them to see this!

  • Glenn says:

    Won­der­ful Imag­i­nary, the streetscapes of the city were so gloomy and I could­n’t imag­ine myself liv­ing in such a dis­mal place? But the stu­dents “should” be com­mend­ed on such an excel­lent ren­di­tion of time and place back when! I loved it! Now I know why explor­ers sailed the sev­en seas to dis­cov­er new worlds and the Amer­i­c­as? I sure as hell would have lived in the coun­try­side! My God man?
    Glenn Ford, Cana­di­an

  • Desiree St.Paul says:

    This was absolute­ly amaz­ing!!! I loved it. Thank you!!!

  • Loralyn Costigan says:

    This is just like when I fly in my dreams!! INCREDIBLE!!
    MORE, PLEASE!

  • peita leah smith says:

    I loved it, did­n’t real­ize there were so many church­es then, and Oh! how I longed to peer into those win­dows!

  • blockhead says:

    wheres all the crap and filth on the streets.

  • Maureen Cadle says:

    I came across this via a Tudor page and was thor­ough­ly enthralled by the con­tent. I could almost have been ‘in there’ it was ‚to me, very real­is­tic and left me want­i­ng more. Thank you to the bril­liant stu­dents who cre­at­ed this video and I wish them every suc­cess in their future.

  • geofff says:

    Ter­rif­ic. Thanks.

    Dur­ing covid, & its bud­get cuts, it was sur­pris­ing how tall weeds quick­ly sprang up along mod­ern tar­mac-sealed roads.

    With ancient streets awash with human & ani­mal nutri­ents, & no weed­killer sprays, & lit­tle cen­tralised clean­ing, I’d imag­ine patch­es of quite thick weeds would be in almost every view. Loved the falling leaf effect in the film, but leaves would drift & rot against walls.

    Sim­i­lar­ly with nar­row, very damp streets, the walls them­selves would tend to grow patch­es of weeds & have mould patch­es amongst the soot stains. Hors­es’ hooves & cart wheels would tend to splat­ter an excre­ment stain, say 2ft up most walls.

    But per­haps Lon­don was far more sophis­ti­cat­ed, & its just a Mon­ty-Python-style urge to imag­ine his­toric images cov­ered in far more crap?

  • geofff says:

    Per­haps a decent smat­ter­ing of der­il­ict prop­er­ties & build­ing plots, if own­er­ship was less clearcut & inher­i­tance courts glacial­ly slow?

    Also a healthy per­cent­age of prop­er­ties under­go­ing build­ing work? Semi-per­manant rebuild­ing projects seems to be a stan­dard fea­ture of most world cities, espe­cialy where mort­gage-finance is rare?

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.