The Earl of Glasgow and his son escaped unhurt from their castle in Scotland after a fire which broke out in the small hours on Monday damaged a top floor room and the roof.
Around 25 firefighters spent more than five hours fighting the fire at the 13th Century Kelburn Castle in Ayrshire. The earl was asleep when the fire broke out soon after 1.00am and in spite of an alarm sounding, he had to be woken by his son who had been out that evening and had not yet gone to bed.
According to a report in the Daily Herald, the Earl, 69, tried to tackle the fire with buckets of water but was beaten back by the smoke. “It was suffocating,” he said. “I covered my mouth but it was no use. It was clear it was a bad idea, there was no point throwing water into a roomful of smoke. We went outside and sat on the lawn and waited for the fire brigade.”
The Earl’s son, Viscount Kelburn, said that they had been recently experiencing problems with the castle’s alarm system, including false alarms at night.
The cause of the fire is said to have been an electrical fault in an immersion heater.
The castle is considered to be the oldest in Scotland continuously inhabited by one family. The present Earl and his wife started Kelburn Country Centre in 1977, opening most of the castle’s grounds and gardens to the public.
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