Firefighters Save Hundreds of Artefacts From London Museum

More than 500 artefacts have been saved from a fire that broke out on Monday in a 107-year-old South London Museum.

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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.

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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.

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@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