In August 1944, as the Third Reich was forced to retreat from Paris, Hitler, in a last fit of vindictiveness, ordered the capital to be set ablaze. Fortunately the general in charge of the German forces surrendered rather than carry out the instruction of the dictator who was by then clearly insane.
Nearly seventy-five years on, the (even for non-Catholics) iconic cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris is a smoke-darkened shell after an appalling conflagration. Since no terrorist organisation has claimed responsibility, it is virtually certain that the origin of the blaze lay in the restoration work whose necessity was described in the New York Times here.
It is astonishing that such events still occur. One wonders how aware the French restorers were of accidents elsewhere in the world and whether there is an international protocol. In 1989 a devastating fire broke out during the reconstruction of the roof at the English mansion, Uppark House. The National Trust describes the effects and - appropriate to the French situation - the decisions made as to what to preserve for the future and what to recreate. Granted, the Sussex stately home was of mainly British significance, but there is no doubting the international importance of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Glasgow School Of Art. This has caught fire twice, the second time as a direct result of restoration work.
One hopes that the dithering over the long-overdue work on the Palace of Westminster has at least given the planners time to consider the increased susceptibility of historic buildings to fire as a result of modern equipment used during rebuilding and to draw up safety rules accordingly.
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By complete coincidence, Peter Black was blogging on the same subject this morning but with more imminent concern for the Houses of Parliament. I hesitated to mention our local Victorian bequest in such elevated company, but since Peter has, I should point out that the Gwyn Hall fire also occurred during restoration work. As far as I know, if there has been an investigation as to the exact cause, the results have not been made public.
The restorers of Durham cathedral learned from the fire at York Minster in 1984. Roles in preventing fire were clearly defined and, if the worst should happen, any fire would have been restricted and would not have spread to other parts of the building.
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