HOTEL DESTROYED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20139, 8 January 1940, Page 10

HOTEL DESTROYED

RAGING INFERNO BUCKET BRIGADE EFFORTS UNAVAILING

(for .cress Association.) BLENHEIM, this day. The Starborough Hotei at Seddon, one of the oldest and best known licensed houses in Marlborough, was totally destroyed by lire on Saturday night. A large two-storeyed wooden building, erected in 1902, the hotel offered little resistance to the flames, which were discovered about 8.15 p.m., and within 15 minutes the whole building was a raging inferno. In less than an hour the walls and roof collapsed, leaving a fiercely-glowing mass of embers which burned into the early hours of the morning, necessitating a close watch in case sparks should set fire to nearby stables and pine plantations.

The cause of the fire is a mystery, but when a traveller called in at the hotel about 8.15 he noticed smoke issuing from a small room downstairs at the rear of the building. He immediately gave the alarm and frantic efforts were made with tubs of water to extinguish the flames, the township being without a water supply. However, the efforts were hopeless and the fire spread with amazing rapidity to the upstairs portion of the building and then, apparently fanned by draughts, soon spread to the other portions until the whole structure was enveloped.

Nearby residents, many oi whom were attending a picture entertainment in close proximity, worked with energy and courage in trying to save furniture and clothes, but a tragically small amount of the hotel’s contents could be removed before the flames drove everyone from the building. The licensee of the hotel was Mrs. E. Limbrick, widow of the late Mr. Ernest Limbrick, and the hotel was owned by Mr. William Isaac Limbrick, Waipawa, a brother of the licensee’s late husband. Insurances were held over the building, stock and personal effects, but details are not yet available.