Spare a thought for Dartmouth

[chris@panteg]

This is awful

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1282395/Ancient-buildings-destroyed-blaze-sweeps-Dartmouths-Tudor-town-centre.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

[Beechwoods]

Bloody hell. My thoughts are with Dave Cawley and the other people of Dartmouth. This kind of damage can't easily be fixed...

[Marco]

I echo Nick's sentiments - that's awful! :(

Marco.

[DSJR]

+1

Old and very valuable documents should be kept in a fireproof safe at least, surely?????

[chris@panteg]

+1

Old and very valuable documents should be kept in a fireproof safe at least, surely?????

You would have thought so ?

The local people have reacted fantastically though ! look here from the beeb , at the bottom of the page .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/10189310.stm

[Spectral Morn]

Dreadful news :(

I hope those injured by smoke inhalation (had a mild form of that from a Chimney fire at home) make a speedy recovery. Its awful when our shared heritage is lost in this sort of way.


Regards D S D L

[Barry]

+1

Old and very valuable documents should be kept in a fireproof safe at least, surely?????

+2 You would have though so, or possibly in the British Library. The loss of the documents is bad enough (they may have taken copies) but the loss of the buildings is even worse.

Regards

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Tis a shame indeed it's a very pretty town and with how proud dave seemed of it when he gave me and martin the tour. There was a fire of sorts when we were down there - smoke billowing from somewhere hiding the view of some of the town from daves... And I'm sure there was another fire, or at least the same one a few days later ... We are asuming of course that dave wasn't one of the injured, unlikely I guess but im gonna email him anyway...

[Themis]

:(

(no comments on my sig, please)

[Dave Cawley]

Guys

Thank you so much for your concern.

I believe that no one was actually hurt apart from shock and a bit of smoke. It was one of the oldest and prettiest buildings in Dartmouth. The fire was still burning last night. Dartmouth is a wealthy place and I have already agreed with my fellow trustees of the Dartmouth Trust to release up to £50K for short term problems if necessary. There are many other ways of getting money in Dartmouth and no one will suffer hardship.

The oldest building had the most attention from the fire brigade who had over a dozen engines and were using the water from the river. It is possible the front of the building has been saved, quite how you glue it onto a replacement no one knows. They are grade one listed.

I gave a live 'on the scene' report for Radio Devon and the local daily paper had a photograph of mine and Kevin Pyne's and a description of the speed and damage from me. In essence although a tragedy, it could have been much worse if the wind had been in a different direction or if the Fire Brigade had not brought so many vehicles from all over Devon and Cornwall. It did look like a war zone, even the Salvation Army rocked up with a mobile drink/food wagon for the fire fighters.

Regards

Dave

[Beechwoods]

Thanks for the update Dave, I'm glad that all is not lost and there's some positivity about what can be done to get things sorted. Good luck to everyone involved in the cleanup and restoration.

[Spectral Morn]

Thanks for the update Dave, I'm glad that all is not lost and there's some positivity about what can be done to get things sorted. Good luck to everyone involved in the cleanup and restoration.

+1


Regards D S D L

[Marco]

Hi Dave,

Glad you're 'on the case', as it were!

I sincerely hope you can resolve the situation and return the affected areas of the town as much as possible to their former beauty :)

Marco.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Hi dave
good news on the positive reaction and that no one was hurt!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Hi Dave,
The most important thing is that no-one was hurt, or worse, so that's good.
The other great thing is that your community is able to start the ball rolling with getting things back together again.

Although the circumstances could have been more happy, it's nice to see you back in this community.

Cheers

[REM]

You have to look on the bright side in these situations, car parking was always a nightmare in Dartmouth but now you have space for a wonderful new multi-story right in the town center......what....:lol:

Seriously though glad nobody was hurt, buildings can be replaced plus it's good to see DC back,

Cheers:cool:

[Alex_UK]

Glad to hear you are all ok Dave, and positive too.

A similar thing happened to Norwich library 15 years ago or so - all the important documents were saved from the fire but were soaked by the water used to put it out (in a lot of cases, the water does as much if not more damage than the fire.) A lot of stuff was lost, not to mention many thousands of books, and of course records (as in vinyl) and CDs. In Norwich's case the lost building was modern (60s) so it was a great opportunity to redevelop the site - a real phoenix from the ashes - Norwich Forum (http://www.theforumnorwich.co.uk/about-the-forum-building.htm) - hopefully Dartmouth will be as creative (but not take 7 years like Norwich did!)

[Alex_UK]

PS - will we be seeing you again around these parts now Dave? Hope so, and that whatever happened can be resolved by whoever somehow...

[hifinutt]

sad to hear , until recently one of our family had a boat permanently moored at dartmouth but at 86 he had to give up , we love this place .

[goraman]

The new construction will help your econamy,so there is a bright side.

[MartinT]

I've only just caught up with this. Shocking for such a pretty town and where there seemed such a community feeling. I'm glad no-one is hurt and hope the rebuilding will be done sympathetically.