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WHAT WAS THE PLAGUE OF 1665? 

The Great Plague was the last major plague in England.

It began in February 1665 and by July the same year 100,000 people - one fifth of London's population - were dead.

In a bid to quarantine germs, victims were shut inside and their houses marked with a red cross, while going to public events such the theatres or football was banned, according to The Museum of London.

An eyewitness wrote in a journal that London was so quiet that grass grew in the streets.

Lots of people were forced to beg or steal food because businesses suffered so much.

There were also reports of people throwing out servants or refusing to let sick family members into their homes, with famous diarist Samuel Pepys writing: 'the plague [is] making us cruel as dogs to one another'.

The last reported plague case was in 1679.

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