Park Hall Camp: The great fire
Just before midnight on Boxing Day, 1918, a fire started in the Chapel of the Hall and quickly spread to the rest of the building. The Oswestry Fire Brigade was in attendance very quickly, but the lack of an abundance of water restricted their efforts to a great degree. The Shrewsbury Brigade was called to assist, and it was a matter of pride in the local newspaper that they arrived at the blaze within one and a half hours! The timber framed building burned so quickly that there was little the Brigades could do, and the Hall was destroyed.
The actual cause of the fire was thought to be an electrical wiring fault that had ignited dry timber on a beam. It was later believed that there had been a chain of events leading to the fire. Only one month before there had been a large fire in the military electricity generating plant, situated in the old coach house. This had meant the diverting of power and an extra load put on the house generator, so putting a strain on the old and decayed wiring.
This second tragedy in Major Corrie's life seems to have affected him greatly, for he died in the following April.
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