More than 500 artefacts have been saved from a fire that broke out on Monday in a 107-year-old South London Museum.
The fire broke out on the roof of the Grade-II listed Cuming Museum at around 12:30 p.m., and more than a hundred firefighters were in attendance to bring the fire under control.
The owners of the museum, Southwark Council, have dismissed media speculation that work on the building’s roof tiles was linked to the fire, saying that it is “not helpful”_to speculate on the cause of the fire. However, they have confirmed that tiles were being replaced when the blaze broke out.
The Cuming Museum was opened to the public in 1906 in Walworth Town Hall and houses the collections of the Cuming family as well as historical artefacts from the area dating as far back as Roman times.
London Fire Brigade Station Manager Peter Critchell described how the blaze left all three floors and the roof of the museum seriously damaged:
At the height of the incident the flames were coming through the roof and there was thick billowing grey smoke. We had well over a hundred firefighters at the scene and used water jets to attack the fire from all four corners of the building which was fully alight. We evacuated 30 people and firefighters managed to salvage around 500 artefacts from the museum.
Firefighters took almost five hours to bring the fire under control, with officers still on the scene damping down 24 hours later.
There are now twenty fire engines at the blaze in Walworth.
— London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) March 25, 2013
Among the artefacts that may have been lost include iconic ‘Wally Birds’, on loan from the British Museum, produced by the renowned Martin Brothers in their Victorian pottery studios.
Council leader Peter John told the Guardian:
In terms of museum artefacts, there are three galleries and some artefacts have been recovered from one by the London fire brigade and taken to nearby council premises for storage. Thankfully only around 1% of the Cuming collection is out on display at any time and it is believed that those items that are in storage should be OK, although there may be water damage.
The fire brigade has left the site, with a health and safety assessment and structural survey now taking place. The investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.
@londonfire not the greatest quality but view from the E&C shopping centre #SE17 twitter.com/samcousins25/sA cent a’-A|
— Sam Cousins (@samcousins25) March 25, 2013
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It is such a loss to see a treasure trove go up in flames but a shout out to the brave fighters who tried to save it!
@Rafique Sheikh Indeed. I’m sure the disaster recovery plan came in handy. Hopefully the collection in storage hasn’t been the victim of water damage from the firefighting operations.
Good point Rob, didn’t even think about that!
These firefighters must be commended for this heroic feat. Saving more the 500 pricey artefacts is no less achievement. Its important to carry out detailed structural survey to ascertian building strenght. The museum could be shifted to elsewhere if the damage has gone beyond acceptable safety standards. Addtionally, the firefighters must be given some cash prizes to boost up their morale and infuse renewed spirits in them.
I am not so familiar with the museum location but I know real estate in London is hard to find ad is expensive! Hopefully the museum can be refurbished right where it is.
Cash prizes? They’d love you to be in charge Sheh!! I’m sure something along the lines of ‘all in a day’s work’ is what you’d hear from them.
I’m sure it will be fine to refurbish where it is. I can definitely confirm real estate in London is very expensive!
It would be a shame if the damage is too great to refurbish or repair the museum in the same location.
They do deserve commendation for saving all those artifacts, most of which are probably rare, extremely valuable, and irreplacable. It’s probably safe to assume that they had a good disaster recovery plan in place, which just goes to show that planning goes a long way when disaster actually strikes. I’m not sure about the cash prizes, since this was part of their jobs, but some form of commendation would suffice.