AT around 10.45 pm on Saturday 4th August 1923 a fire broke out in the premises of Bailey’s – a draper’s shop at numbers 9 and 10 Cheap Street. The shop was completely destroyed with flames reaching 30ft into the air and was described at the time as, “Probably the most disastrous fire in the history of the town”. The fire occurred in Frome’s oldest street and the ancient wooden framed buildings burned with an intense heat.
The blazing timbers collapsed across the narrow street into number 17, the premises of Jack Dance’s outfitters shop and the fire raged as Mr. & Mrs. Dance slept upstairs narrowly escaping with their lives by managing to get into a small yard at the back to escape the flames and be rescued by means of a rope being lowered down to them.
The fire hooter could be heard as far away as Beckington and raised the whole town with thousands clogging the narrow streets – so much so that they had to be pushed back by the police to allow the Frome Fire Brigade through – and it was only the swift action of the brigade that prevented the fire from spreading and causing casualties. Upon hearing that a small child was asleep in a building next door, a Mr. Benger dashed into the smoke-filled room and rescued the child sustaining severe burns to his face and arms in the process.
So rapidly did the fire take hold that it was feared that the whole street might be consumed and even spread to King Street but gradually the fire brigade gained control and by the early hours of Sunday the threat was contained. So grateful was the town for the prompt actions of the brigade that they presented the station with an ornamental lamp which was hung outside the fire station.
Of the buildings themselves Bailey’s was rebuilt and is now the Hunting Raven bookshop. The badly damaged property next door at number 8 is Frome Wholefoods. Number 17 across the street is now Coiffure the hairdressers. and the old Flora tearooms next door, once the Albion pub is about to enter a new phase.
The cause of the fire was never discovered but is thought to have been an electrical fault.
Report by Mick Davis.
