A boarding house at a historic school in Essex was destroyed on Sunday night.
Follyfield House was well ablaze by the time firefighters arrived at the scene on Sunday evening at around 7pm with the officer in charge reporting that around half of the roof was on fire.
The boarding house – which is part of Felstead School, an historic £25,000 a year school that Oliver Cromwell’s sons attended in the 16th century – was believed to be empty when the fire broke out as the girls who board there had left for their summer holidays.
However, it later turned out that around 25 students were staying there from an international school, who were all safely evacuated.
Divisional Officer for Essex County Fire & Rescue Ray Skinner said: "On arrival crews were faced with an already well developed and fiercely burning fire in a building of three floors and a basement.
"The building was empty.”
He went on to say that firefighters had been withdrawn to tackle the fire externally and using an aerial ladder platform as the blaze was of such high intensity and there was no risk to life in the building.
Despite having run extensive exercises with the school just 18 months ago, fire crews struggled to control the fire, particularly suffering from a difficulty in water supplies.
That exercise was billed as a ‘worst case scenario’ and involved up to 45 firefighters tackling a fire in their oldest boarding house, School House, with up to 60 students sleeping in the building. It was said to have gone off without a hitch at the time.
In an update shortly before 10pm on Sunday, the fire service explained that appliances were operating a water relay “in which fire engines take it in turns to leave the site and replenish the water supply in their tanks”.
Later however, they were able to set up a high volume pump to get water from a lake around half an hour from the school.
The fire was brought under control shortly before midnight, with crews able to prevent the blaze spreading to another house just four metres away from the burning Follyfield House.
A full investigation has been launched into the cause of the fire.
Deputy Headmaster Chris Townsend said: “A fire broke out this evening, Sunday 15th July, at Follyfield House, a girls’ boarding house at Felsted. No Felsted pupils were in residence as the school term had ended. However, Stafford House International Summer School were in residence and all children and staff were evacuated immediately the alarm was raised.
“We would like to thank the Essex Fire Service for their prompt action in attending to the incident. The damage will be assessed over the coming days and parents, pupils and staff will be kept informed of any subsequent arrangements before the start of term, we intend to ensure that school will be open as usual in September.”