Golden Boy of Pye Corner - Definition and Overview

The Golden Boy of Pye Corner is located on the corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane in London.

This was erected where the Great Fire of London (1666) stopped. The following inscription tells the story.

The Boy at Pye Corner was erected to commemorate the staying of the Great Fire which beginning at Pudding Lane was ascribed to the sin of gluttony when not attributed to the Papists as on the Monument, and the Boy was made prodigiously fat to enforce the moral.

He was originally built into the front of a public house called The Fortune of War which used to occupy this site and was pulled down in 1910.

The Fortune of War was the chief house of call north of the river for resurrectionists in body snatching days years ago. The landlord used to show the room whereon benches round the walls were placed with the snatchers names waiting till the surgeons at Saint Bartholomew’s could run round and appraise them.