FIRE AT NEWCASTLE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 238, 10 February 1855, Page 4

FIRE AT NEWCASTLE.

A terrible conflagration had occurred at Gateshead and Newcastle; the amount of human life and property destroyed could not be ascertained.

The Northern Examiner makes the following remarks —" As the fire of London followed in the year after the great plague, so the present fire has succeeded after the same interval, the cholera, which last September decimated our people, and made the name of Newcastle a terror to the whole world. No language can adequately describe the appearance of the devoted towns ; for no shed, and almost no house, is without some memorial of the work ofdestiuction which has been going on among us. 1'

The same journal says that " when o the roof of Messrs. Wilson's house—where the five first broke out—fell in, the heat became so intense, that it appeared to melt the sulphur in the bond warehouses, whereupon the sulphur came out in torrents like streams of lava, and as it met the external air began to burn, and its combustion illuminated the river and its shipping, the Tyne, the High Level Bridge, itnd the church steeples of Newcastle, spreading over every object its lurid light. The flames towered fast above the masts of the ships moored at the neighbouring quays. From other floors of the same warehouse huge masses of melted tallow and lead flowed in copious streams. The aspect of the burning building was now grand. The eight-storied edifice was one mass of flames, and from every landing melted sulphur and tallow and fused lead were descending in luminous showers. It resembled, as a friend said, a cataract on fire. The five continued also to press towards the river, and it now attacked the last warehouse of the block. This was considered to be a "double fireproof structure.' It was lined throughout with iron sheeting, and supported on metal pillars and floors. The brickwork parted from the sheeting and crumbled away, and nothing remained but the redhot skeleton of the building. This was the centre of fatal attraction on which ali eyes were bent, and it was from this that the fire sprung across the river, igniting Newcastle, and spreading wounds and death in its passage. ° " As soon as the flame reached this compound which was, in fact, nothing but a huge fulminating mixture, there occurred an explosion which no pen can describe, and which made Newcastle and Gateshead shake to their foundation and^their suburbs. The High Level Bridge, shook like a piece of thin wire, and the surface of the river was suddenly agitated as if by a storm. The shock was felt in every street. The front doors of many persons' dwelling were violently opened, and the shutters of the shops particularly towards the quay, were shaken from their fastenings and stiewed above the pavement. Every family was suddenly aroused, and various members rushed together into the streets to inquire the cause of their sudden and unexpected terror.