GREAT HOUSE BURNED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 974, 17 May 1930, Page 16

GREAT HOUSE BURNED

MYSTERY FIRE DESTROYS OLD HOMESTEAD OUTBREAK AT PALMERSTON Special to THE SUN PALMERSTON N., Today. A well-known homestead adjoining the Awapuni racecourse, built by Mr. Southey Baker and until recently owned by Mr. W. I. Lovelock, was completely destroyed by lire early last evening. The fire was one of the fiercest ever seen in the district.

No water was available and the crowd which gathered was powerless to prevent the two-storeyed, 22-roomed building from being engulfed in a mass of flame. The building was out of the Palmerston North Fire Board's area.

The outbreak is a mystery. Mr. Lovelock recently sold the house to Mr. A. Candy, of Ormond, Gisborne, and vacated it at Easter. It was unoccupied at the time of the outbreak and a billiards table was practically the only furniture in it. Mr. Lovelock is at present in Gisborne.

The house was an old one, but was known in the district on account of its beautiful interior panelling and spacious grounds.

The flames lit up the lowering clouds over Palmerston North and a considerable number of people went out to Awapuni, thinking it was either the grandstand at the racecourse, or the Girls’ Flock House. MOTOR-CYCLIST HURT Arthur Smythe, aged 24, of Halcombe, in his eagerness to get to the blaze, drove his motor-cycle into a cattle stop, with the result that he is now a patient in the Palmerston North Hospital. He escaped with injuries to his ankle, however, and his condition is not serious.