View of Swan and Royal from Castle Street

The first picture shows the Hotel from the front, looking completely undamaged – only the white hoardings suggest something is amiss (our front entrance is the brown door to the left).

The view from the ramparts of Clitheroe Castle shows a different story, the roof at the rear has been severely damaged and the people who were trapped inside this area had a very lucky escape.

View of Swan and Royal from Clitheroe Castle

The next photo was taken from our car park to the rear of our building and shows how close the fire was, and how incredibly lucky we were.I write this blog from the office in the corner on the first floor of the white building – just a little too close for comfort I think!!

This is a close-up view. I reckon if I had managed to find a toasting fork and a couple of loaves I could havepoked it out of the window and supplied the guys from the Clitheroe Fire Brigade with tea and toast all night!

By the way the good news is that the hotel is going to be rebuilt, but from talking to the contractors involved it looks like it will be a long job, anything up to a year.  It would have been a shame if it had been demolished, because as I discovered after a few Google searches, the place has had quite a history. Ghandi stayed there in the 1930′s and Winston Churchill stayed there during the second World War in 1942 when he came to meet Sir Frank Whittle, often referred to as the founder of the jet age, who was at  that time based at the Rolls Royce factory in Barnoldswick where he was developing his jet engine.

This last photo shows a group of contractors working on their battle plan to rebuild the Hotel. Note the boarded-up windows belonging to our neighbouring businesses who were less fortunate than ourselves. Over the past week there has been a steady stream of people carrying out boxes and filing cabinets – it looks like they will have to relocate for the foreseeable future.

 By the way, does anyone out there know the collective noun for a large group of people wearing hard hats and carrying clipboards?

Answers on a postcard please…………………..

See the articles in the local and national press:

Clitheroe Advertiser

BBC News

Our office shares an adjoining wall with the pub. So we were called out to allow Fireman Sam and his pals into our office to check the temperature of the walls !!

You know those contingency plans that are fully thought through but never tested – well as from now we can categorically state OURS WORKS.

Shut down the primary server – move the systems to a different server (in a cooler spot) and up-load all the live data from the mirror array – 15 minutes off-line…

Not bad for a group of guys with serious on-going hangovers – well it was Saturday night !!!

New beer venue required