On the 5 September 1694 the Great Fire of Warwick engulfed the town in flames for around six hours, destroying the town centre and causing considerable damage to St Mary's Church.

The fire began on High Street where a neighbour was said to have borrowed a light for their house's fire, a spark from which set a nearby thatched roof ablaze.

Given it was such a windy day the fire rapidly spread, burning down most of the wooden and thatched buildings in the town centre.

In particular buildings on Jury Street, Market Place, High Street and Castle Street were destroyed.

And whilst people fled to St Mary's Church for shelter, it too caught fire with the nave and tower destroyed. Only the chancel and the Beauchamp Chapel were saved.

An account of the fire in The Commissioners' Order Book said the "violence of the wind" meant nothing could be done to "hinder the fierceness of its progress".

"Till it had in few hours consumed almost all of the Highstreet, the Church Street and the Sheepstreet intirely, part of the Jury Street, Newstreet, and many buildings about the Market House, together with the great and antient church of St Maryes and severall other buildings on other parts of the towne," it added.

The fire stopped before it spread out of the town centre but at the time it was estimated that as many as 460 homes were destroyed.

However the historian Peter Borsay said this was exaggerated, suggesting that 157 was a more realistic number.

He did say though that the Great Fire of Warwick was one of the ten biggest fires in the 17th century.

Immediately after the fire the hundreds of people left homeless had to be found accommodation.

But attention quickly turned to rebuilding the town - the areas ruined were the more affluent businesses and parts of Warwick.

A nationwide funding campaign was started to raise money for the works and in April 1695 a 'Court of Commissioners' or 'Fire Court' was started to oversee the project.

Borsay estimates that £18,000 was raised from the gentry and nobility but said this was "a small portion of the costs incurred as a consequence of the fire".

But the money was spent, in part, building all the new town centre buildings with stone and with slate roofs to prevent another fire.

Rebuilding the church took at least ten years with Edward Strong, one of the master masons at St Paul's Cathedral drafted in as a consultant.

The court, which was mostly made up of the local gentry, was disbanded in 1704 with the majority of the work complete.

(Header Image by Mark Wordy via Flickr)