Skegness Pavilion Gutted by Fire

Written by Angela Gooch on February 17th, 2008 in Disasters, Social History.

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AN auctioneer’s office was burnt out and all records of recent transactions destroyed in a 5 am fire at the Pavilion in Tower Gardens, Skegness, on Monday. Residents in Rutland Road were awakened by explosions as the flames shot through the asbestos roof and ft took 18 firemen, some wearing breathing apparatus, an hour to get the blaze under control.
Three young men were later helping the police with their enquiries into the cause of the fire, which also closed down the adjoining day nursery and caused residents of flats at the back to be evacuated.
The fire is believed to have been discovered by a Co-op milkman on his round. The alarm was raised by phone from a Rutland Road flat at 5.06 am and Skegness fire brigade sent two appliances to the scene. Later they were joined by a third.
They confined the fire to the office at the western end, the rest of the timber building suffering only heat damage.
ADO Alex Lawrence, acting deputy divisional commander, was in charge of the operation, in which four main jets, two hose reels and four sets of breathing apparatus were used.
“All that end was well alight when we got here,” he said. “A gas intake meter had disintegrated and we had a huge gas jet alight in the corner.”
They could not put this out as the gas would then be escaping and might explode. The gas board attended later and the supply was turned off.
He said he was very pleased at the way the first crew had stopped the flames from spreading into the rest of the pavilion.
The police evacuated tenants of the pavilion flats, including Mr and Mrs John Dennis and their baby daughter.

LIKE FIREWORKS
About 40ft of the roof was completely destroyed but the facade of the pavilion, which was built about 90 years ago, remained intact and even the windows were unbroken and furniture undamaged in the eastern half.
“It was like Guy Fawkes Night with rockets and things flying about,” said Mr Wilfred Spearing, of 25 Rutland Road, who was awakened by the sound of crackling wood and exploding asbestos.
One of his neighbours, Mr Frank Webster, said: “When I woke up I thought it was someone letting fireworks off and it got louder and louder.”
It was still dark and snow was falling, he said. There was a series of minor explosions and the flames were leaping over 20ft into the air.

The Rutland Road day nursery had to turn their 14 children away and close down for the day because the play room roof had large holes in it and had been flooded. The floorboards had to be taken up to stop the water spreading to the rest of the building. The electricity was also cut off.
The building was in the process of being redecorated.
The matron, Mrs E. Lapthorne, who has been there for 23 years, said she planned to open as usual the following day without the use of the play room.

CANCELLED
“The parents were all very nice about it,” she said. “They all understood. I think they were sorry for us.”
The auctioneers who occupy the main building under lease from the East Lindsey District Council, are William Bacon, of Grimsby.
The resident partner, Mr Alan Wright, said they had had to cancel the gun sale due to be held there on 18 March. All the office equipment and records had been destroyed together with the safe and its contents, which were to have been auctioned.
The old files were in the other part of the building but they had lost their more recent records covering the last six—nine months and were trying to build them up again with the help of their clients and solicitors. The phone was being transferred to his home in Roman Bank and the Louth office would deal with enquiries from out of Skegness.
We hope it won’t have any detrimental effect on our business,” he said.

The firm took over from another auctioneer, Mr Harold Bayes, in 1972. He had used the pavilion as an estate office and saleroom for 17 years.
Originally it contained dining rooms, a concert hall and ballroom and was one of the resort’s foremost places of entertainment with a bandstand immediately in front of it.
Between the wars it became known as the Pavilion Refreshment Rooms with accommodation for 800 at one sitting and specialising in party catering.

Photo above: Undamaged chairs in the foreground show how well the fire was contained in the western end of the Pavilion. This was the scene on Monday morning, looking out to Rutland Road through the gaping hole and charred timber.

1976 local news story