FOR this week’s Flashback, we are sharing one of the columns written by the late historian and photographer Robert Brown for The Gazette in April 2005.

In APRIL 1905, the large house-furnishing store of Thomas Burberry was burned down in Winchester Street, with several other shops.

For many years afterwards the blaze was declared as the town’s greatest fire, and even today local people look upon it as “the worst fire” to take place in Basingstoke.

To tell the full story of this calamity we must go back to 1838.

It was one year after Queen Victoria came to the throne and a meeting at the Town Hall between local residents and the town council came to the decision to form a voluntary fire brigade.

Three manual operated steam engines were bought and, with a team of volunteers, a superintendent and three engineers, the brigade was formed.

At the same time, the Norwich Union fire office provided another power engine should a conflagration occur in the town.

Horses were kept by a local innkeeper in his field near the railway station, which would be hitched up to one of the engines to go to any fire in the area.

One engine was kept in a room underneath the Corn Exchange in Wote Street after its construction in 1865, and another in a building near St Michael’s Church.

In the years following the creation of the volunteer brigade, there were a succession of serious fires in the town.

In 1864, the Flowerpots tavern in Hackwood Road burned down; the malthouse at John May’s brewery in Brook Street was destroyed by fire in 1871; and in 1890, the Basingstoke Canal timber wharf and steam sawmills of Mr E C White were gutted by flames.

In that last year, on December 18, 1890, a very small fire occurred in the window of Thomas Burberry’s shop in Winchester Street, caused by a girl assistant lighting a gaslight with a taper and accidentally touching nearby materials with the flame.

Another assistant quickly threw a bucket of water over the spreading fire and put it out, but some damage was done to the window display. When Mr Burberry heard about this accident he gave all his staff a warning that, with the shop being full of flammable stock, another accident of that nature could lead to the destruction of the whole building.

Little did he realise what was to happen in 15 years’ time!

Mr Burberry came to Basingstoke in 1868 to start a small clothing firm in New Street, before later moving to London Street.

Over the years he opened up a few shops in the town.

It was about 5.55pm on April 17, 1905, that a girl shop assistant accidentally knocked over a gas lamp in the window of Mr Burberry’s shop in Winchester Street, and set light to the various fabrics close by.

Unfortunately, this time, no-one came forward to put the flames out, and, within minutes, the whole window was ablaze. The fire quickly spread into the shop, so the alarm was raised and staff and customers were evacuated from the building. The local fire brigade were called and they arrived within minutes, but a series of incidents caused a delay in getting water out of the nearby street hydrants.

First of all it took some time to start up the steam engine to pump the water through the hosepipes, then, when it finally worked, only a trickle of water came through.

Another engine was tried but again the water failed to pour through and the pipes began to leak.

Due to low water pressure in the area, the fire brigade was left to get buckets of water, and, with the small amount of water coming through the pipes, the firemen made an attempt to stop the flames consuming the Burberry store.

The brigade captain scattered his men around the building to cool the walls with the water they had, but, as the wind veered round from south-west to south-east, so their efforts proved in vain.

The flames spread to an ironmongers shop, owned by Mr Wagstaffe, and a clothing factory kept by Mr John Mares.

At 6.30pm, the roof of Burberry’s building fell in with a mighty roar, causing cinders and debris to be blown into the air and onto properties opposite, but the burning materials were extinguished by members of the crowds that had assembled to watch the blaze.

By this time, other brigades at Winchester and Andover had been notified and arrived.

They laid a series of hosepipes down Church Street to the River Loddon and pumped fresh water onto the fire, whereby they managed to bring the blaze to an end in the early hours of the morning.

Most of the properties along the north side of Winchester Street, towards New Street, were gutted, and it was later estimated that some £30,000 worth of damage was done by the fire, but no lives were lost.

Mr Burberry managed to conduct some form of business in a shop opposite for 17 months, until his larger and more modern store was built on the site of his old shop in August 1906.

This “Emporium” was acquired by Mr Lanham in 1914, then in 1964 by Thomas Wallis.

In July 1970, the store was evacuated as the cry of “fire” went up.

As customers and staff fled the building, so the more modern fire service arrived to extinguish the flames. This time there was no huge blaze, but just a smoke-filled building. The business was hardly affected and within a few days everything was back to normal.

A regular columnist for the Gazette, Robert Brown has written eight books on Basingstoke history. He passed away on March 25, 2019.