COUNTRY MANSION BURNT OUT

Hokitika Guardian, 20 February 1928, Page 1

COUNTRY MANSION BURNT OUT

STANDON, Hertfordshire, Dec. 28. While firemen were making desperate efforts to fight their way through snow-bound roads, tlie ancient manor house at Standon Lordship, famous as the residence of tlie first Duke of Wellington, which has stood in lonely grandeur amid the hills of Hertlordshire, was burned out early to-day. The mansion, the property of the present Duke of Wellington, was built in 1545 and was the oldest manor house in the county, but tlie history of the manor itself dates back to the time of Edward the Confessor. The house had been occupied since 1920 by Air Harold Swann, a member of. the London County Council and vice-chairman of the Regional Committee for Greater London, who, with his wife and only son, left it on Saturday to spend the holiday with his brother at l:l,utfield, The heavy fall of snow cut off the mansion, and the three servants who had been left in the house were completely isolated. In the quarter-mile long drive the snow was between five : and seven feet deep, and the nearest ; house—apart from the cottage ocen- i pied by the gardener, Al,r Samuel I Tuffs, and his wife, close to tlie man- • sion—was more than a mile away. The three servants lived in the north wing of the house, and it was , shortly before two o’clock this morning that the pai;l.ou.nnaid, Afiss Ivy : Bird, who slept in a room facing the ! main part of the house was awakened by a crackling sound. SERVANT’S ALARAL Jumping out of bed. she found the south wing on fire. She roused the other servants, and all three, throwing coats over their nightdresses, picked up their clothes and ran out on ike snow-covered lawn, where they dressed. Afiss Bird roused the gardener and then telephoned to the police at AY a re. The Bishops Stortford Fire Brigade, six miles away, was also summoned, but was unable to reach the burning mansion, as the road was in places blocked with snowdrifts 7it deep. The AVare Fire Brigade, a volunteer force with a tiiiy steam pump hauled by a motor-lorry, ran into a deep bank of snow on tlie narrow road two miles from the house. The lorry had to be dug out, and another route was Taken. They reached the entrance to the drive—s}- pules from AVare—in three hours, and then found it impossible to get to the house. By this time the ,-oof had fallen in and the flames were shooting high into the air. The firemen dug a passage through the snow, and after an hour they were able to haul the diminutive pump along the drive and across the Inn to the Rib, a tributary of tlie Lea. By this time only tlie outer walls, cracked by tlie intense heat, remained. and all the brigade could do was to play on the burning timbers--and massive oak beams inside the walls.