11:10 29 December 2015
The destruction at Cupola House in Bury St Edmunds, caused by fire. Picture taken from an aerial ladder.
Mariam Ghaemi
From wattle and daub cottages to grand half-timbered medieval houses, Suffolk’s many heritage listed buildings are undoubtedly a big part of the county’s character and charm.
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Firefighters and emergency services at the scene of the huge blaze at the Market Hill end of Friars Street in Sudbury.
But the quirky nature and ancient construction methods used to create these architectural gems also poses one of the most significant challenges to fire safety officers.
While the number of building fires in the county has fallen considerably in recent years, two of the most devastating ones firefighters have had to deal with in the past four years have both been in heritage listed buildings.
In June 2012, the Grade-I listed Cupola House in Bury St Edmunds was virtually destroyed by a fire and it has taken more than three years to restore the five storey 17th century property.
Then in September this year, the 18th century Goldsmith’s Mansion in Friars Street, Sudbury, was completely demolished by a blaze that affected centuries old buildings either side of it and left 20 people homeless. As with the one at Cupola House, the fire engulfed the building so rapidly and caused such extensive damage due to the construction and materials used.
In the aftermath of the Sudbury blaze, fire officers hosted workshops for landlords and property owners in a bid to hammer home the need to make period buildings more fire safe. But according to Suffolk’s Chief Fire Officer, Mark Hardingham, the uptake was disappointingly poor.
He said: “The sessions we held for landlords were not very well attended which reinforces the fact that despite people having this very visual reminder for an extended period of time right in the middle of the town of what fire can do, people still have this ‘it will never happen to us’ attitude which poses a significant challenge.
“What we have learned is that because of the nature of heritage buildings, people who own them or work in them need to be really careful about what they do and they simply cannot take the approach that fire will never happen to them.”
Several of the same firefighters attended both the Cupola House and Sudbury fires where the make up of the buildings was very similar. Both were very old buildings, of timber construction with lath and plaster walls and lots of hidden voids.
Mr Hardingham added: “I often refer to the difference between a fire in a building and a building on fire and I think what we saw with Cupola House and the fire in Sudbury quite quickly was that it was the structure of the building that became engulfed in the fire as opposed to an oven inside the building.
Emergency services at the scene of the fire in Sudbury town centre.
“Once a fire gets into the structure, particularly with that type of building, it’s very difficult to extinguish because you can be stood in the middle of the room and almost not know that the fire is above your head and along the walls behind you because it’s moving between the voids which by their very nature are full of timber and are very dry, so the fire spreads extremely quickly.”
He believes some lessons would have been learned from the Cupola House blaze that gave fire crews an early steer on how to tackle the Sudbury fire, which put them several hours ahead.
But although a big percentage of Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service’s work these days is fire prevention, the chief fire officer admits it is “extremely difficult to protect heritage buildings”.
There are protective measures that can be taken but if a fire does start it is going to be more difficult to deal with than if it’s in a modern three bed semi-detached house on a new housing estate.
According to Mr Hardingham, there are three main elements to protecting heritage buildings from fire, including installing good quality smoke detection and fire alarm systems, which can be done in a “sympathetic way”.
Another safeguard is to ensure that owners or managers of heritage buildings are aware of their responsibility to have a fire risk assessment in place.
He said by far the most effective method of fire prevention in a listed building is to install a sprinkler system, but that Suffolk Fire and Rescue Service’s (SFRS) officers “rarely see them” in this county.
“There’s a perception with sprinkler systems in listed buildings that they are going to keep going off with false alarms and flooding the building, but that’s just not the case,” Mr Hardingham said.
“The systems are so good nowadays that it’s not the same as a smoke alarm that goes off every time you burn toast. It doesn’t work like that, so you are not going to get those sorts of incidents and a sprinkler system is by far the best way to protect a building.
Firefighters and emergency services at the scene of the huge blaze at the Market Hill end of Friars Street in Sudbury.
“In terms of some of the discussions we have had about installing sprinkler systems, the fact that it’s a listed building can be used as an excuse that you can’t have sprinklers – you can, but it’s just a little bit more complicated.
“We haven’t come across many that have installed them in Suffolk but where we do, what I would say to people is that if you engage the planners and the fire service at the very early design stage, then we can pretty much always work a suitable outcome.”
SFRS has dedicated fire officers carrying out work around making heritage buildings fire safe.
Information about how to implement some fairly simple measures to keep your heritage building safe can be found on the internet or by contacting SFRS at www.suffolk.gov.uk/emergency-and-rescue/
Sudbury’s great fire of 1922 brought the demise of a property made famous by Charles Dickens
The Friar’s Street blaze was not the first time a prominent heritage building had been destroyed by fire in Sudbury.
The Rose and Crown Hotel in King Street, which dated from the 15th century and was the old ‘Town Arms’ mentioned by Dickens in Pickwick Papers, was razed to the ground by a similarly ferocious blaze which stuck in January 1922.
The Suffolk Fire Brigade fighting the Rose and Crown blaze in january 1922.
According to local historian Peter Thorogood, the fire had a disastrous effect on the town, displacing dozens of clubs and societies. The flames were discovered at the Rose and Crown Hotel and fanned by high wind spread rapidly to the adjoining premises.
Five large shops were burnt down before the blaze was brought under control. Valuable help was provided by the Colchester Fire Brigade who motored the 14 miles to Sudbury in 40 minutes.
Ipswich firefighters meanwhile arrived by train to assist. Many of the occupants escaped in nothing but their night attire. Despite walls collapsing into the street, miraculously, as with the recent fire, no-one was hurt.