BOARDING HOUSE BLAZE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 20 February 1935, Page 4

BOARDING HOUSE BLAZE

OLD BUILDING DESTROYED NARROW ESCAPES (By Telegraph—Presß Association) ASHBURTON, Phis Day. Twenty seven people made a hasty exit from the two-storied wooden Prince Albert boarding house in Wills street at 6 30 o’clock tin's meriting when fire swept the building. Flames wore discovered in the kitchen, and in ten minutes the whole structure was a ball of, fire Tiie boarders, roused from sleep, made their way down the blazing staircase, pictures falling about them as they rail. One man’s faeo was scorched. A very old man got out with, great diffiinlty. and another hoarder fell io the ground when the fire burnt through a rope on which lie was sliding from a window. Several boarders lost sums of monev. one .having £35 in notes under his pillow The money and watch of another were recovered from his charred mattress after the fire.

The building wap 60 years old. and the brigade was unable to do anything to save it, and concentrated on a wooden mission building next door which was severely blistered and scorched. On the other side a butcher’s shop owned bv D. H. S. Samuels, who was also occupier of the hoarding house, rook fire and considerable damage was done. The boarding house was owner! bv Mrs Elizabeth Coulter, of Belfast, Ireland The insurances were £450 on the. building and £l5O on the furniture, bath in the Norwich Union.