London has burned down more than once, and Peter Ackroyd argues that rebuilding after disaster is the pattern that defines the city. In this episode he traces three catastrophes: the Iceni rebellion under Boudicca that razed Roman Londinium, the Great Fire of 1666, and the Blitz of the Second World War. He reads from Tacitus on the Roman destruction, from Samuel Pepys's diary on the 1666 fire, and from Virginia Woolf on the city's twentieth-century character, using their words to anchor each era. Actors Derek Jacobi and Harriet Walter voice these historical accounts, giving the source material a dramatic reading rather than leaving it as narration alone. Ackroyd walks the city itself as he talks, tying specific streets and rebuilding decisions to the disasters that preceded them. The episode's case is that London's recoveries were not accidents: each fire cleared ground for a version of the city better suited to what came next, from Wren's postfire London to the reconstruction after German bombing.