Return To Blankney - Part 2

Today, in Part 2, we continue the story of Reginald Williams, who was stationed at Blankney Hall whilst in the RAF. during the second world war. Fifteen years after being demobbed he returned to Blankney and recalls the tragic events of the evening of July 15th 1945 when the Hall caught fire never to be restored.

Return to Blankney by Reginald Williams

As I wandered round the building and gardens, some of the atmosphere of former years seemed to crowd in on me. The fire which reduced Blankney Hall to ruins started on St Swithins Day -July 15-1945. It was a sunny Sunday evening following a very hot day. We airmen were sitting in the Dining Hall having tea, when one of our corporals came in and said "There's a fire at the top of the house." We went out to the south end of the building where some of our fellows were on the roof trying to reach a tank of water with a hose which they had already laid out on the top of the building: the hose. however, was too short to reach. A fire-tender from our parent station-Digby-arrived and we tried to connect hose carts to the nearest hydrant which we found near the front of the Hall. The hydrant, however, was of an obsolete type and the modern hose unions would not fit it. Consequently we couldn't get any pressure of water to the fire and valuable time was lost. Here was the delay, which, I believe, lost the battle for the Hall.
In the meantime a bucket-chain had been started and as the fire, which was in the WAFF quarters, became fiercer, we helped all the WAFFs out with some of their belongings, as much as they could carry. Soon fire brigades from Lincoln, Sleaford, Metheringham, Woodhall Spa and Billinghay arrived and started to pump water from a large pond in the grounds. They pumped it almost dry and the smell of rotting vegetation afterwards was terrible. Eventually a hydrant was fixed in the centre of the building, but a strong breeze which was now blowing helped the flames at the north end of the hall to creep gradually towards the south.
Some of us turned our attention to salvaging as much as we could of the girls' belongings. Owing to the relaxation of regulations governing the wearing of civilian clothes, all the WAFFs had quite a bit of civilian clothing with them in camp. Our task was to race through the top floors of the Hall, emptying all drawers and cupboards we could find, throwing the items out of the windows onto the grass below and trying to keep ahead of the fire which was creeping along beneath us. Clothes, suitcases and the contents of chests of drawers were dropped to the waiting girls and airmen down below, to be sorted out later on.
By this time, the floors and roof were beginning to collapse and we were ordered out of the building as half the Hall was ablaze. In the meantime the Countess of Londesborough, who had been living in part of the hall, was being helped by her staff. Together with some American servicemen from a nearby camp they managed to get a grand piano out onto the Lawn.
Years ago a former resident, the Second Earl of Londesborough, had a passion for fire-engines. If a fire broke out within a radius of twenty or thirty miles of the Hall, he would leave his guests to their own devices and tear off on his little red fire-engine. No doubt it was he who had had the little fire-station built, from which came some of the antiquated equipment with which we tried to save his Hall.

Part 3 continues in the Journal tomorrow.