GAMLINGAY FIRE
On the morning 21st April 1600 the Great Fire of Gamlingay
started. In James Brown’s Gamlingay he gave, by his own admission, a
fanciful account of the event, based on the research he had done into the
parish’s history.
One of those chill,
blustery east winds which often cut across
The searing, fearsome
wall of flame drove the villagers back, and showers of sparks leapt high in the
air every time a beam or a wall fell to the ground. They watched as the entire
manor – houses, barns, stables, dovecotes, carts, ploughs and outhouses – was
swallowed up by the fire. Soon the sparks filling the air had set alight to the
nearest cottage and it too was engulfed.
The wind was now gusting the flames towards the very heart of the village.
Within an hour the fire had eaten its way westwards through home after home
until it was threatening the church itself. But where the road curved to the
left the wind blew the sparks across it and onto the defenceless houses and
barns on the northern side of the street, and the church escaped.
These houses were soon blazing. The blustery gale meant that some houses in the
direct line of the fire survived by chance, while others, apparently safe one
minute, were consumed the next.
Where the road curved
again, to the right this time, the fire spread back to the south side of
Behind the buildings
now ablaze lay open land, the remains of the village green, which would act as
a fire-break, and although a few flames and sparks blew across it in search of
still more combustible material the danger was slowly passing. As the fire
moved up
Most of the village
was now a smoking, smouldering mess. People gazed in dazed bewilderment at the
charred remains of their homes. Giant timbers stuck up into the twilight and
reminded them that their immediate worry was to find somewhere to sleep for the
night. Most of the homeless were able to find a bed with friends or relatives
luckier than themselves; others curled up to sleep in a straw=filled barn, or
else took refuge in the church.
As they settled down
for the night each reflected upon the day’s events. For some it seemed like the
end of the world, especially the poorer ones who had lost what little they had.
Others, better-off, had lost more in material terms but were already starting
to calculate the cost of rebuilding their homes. Someone thought of appealing
to the Queen for help, but that would have to wait for another day. Many were
just too tired to talk. What little talk there was centred around
the amazing fact that not a solitary death had been reported. To most of them,
that seemed like a miracle.
(Brown, J. op.cit.
pp.109-112)
The Master of
Merton College which lost the most property and John Manchell of Woodbury Manor would have put
together a request for financial assistance. On Sunday 25th May,
1600 the Privy Council discussed it at their meeting at
Whereas divers of the
Justices of the Peace in the countie of Cambridge
have certified us the lamentable accident that hath fallen upon the inhabitantes of Gamlingay in the said countie,
by casualltie of fire that happned
on the 21st day of April last, whereby the most parte
of the said towne to the number of 76 houses with
divers barns and stackes of corn were suddainlie consumed. By which means the poore
inhabitants there are brought to greate extremytie and are unable of themselves to re-edefie theire wyves
and children. And therefore they have made humble suite unto her Majestie that some charitable course might be taken for a contribucion to be made in he counties adjoynynge,
towards the building up of those howses that were so
consumed by the violence of the fire, and for theire releefe in their lamentable dystresse.
(Quoted in Brown,
op.cit. p.108)
Brown considered
the number of houses destroyed to have been exaggerated, suggesting it included
barns. He argues that, 300 years later, there were weren’t many more than 76
houses in the whole village. The only documentation of a contribution came from
Knebworth whose parishioners donated two shillings
(£0.05)
A map of the
village drawn by Langdon in 1602 showed that large-scale rebuilding work had
returned the village to as it was. There must have been quite a boom with work
for brickmakers, carpenters, builders and labourers.
Whilst a lot of the dilapidated timber dwellings and outbuildings had been
destroyed, wealthier inhabitants were able to build themselves more modern
houses. Some of these still stand today. A new vicarage was
built ***. The churchwardens were ordered to use 20% of the profits from the
vicarage each year ‘upon repaireinge the howse to the Queen’s instructions until it be fully
repaired’.
Brown argues that the fire has been incorrectly blamed
for the demise of Gamlingay Market. He states that, apart from a few years when
it was first introduced in the 13the century, it was never of much economic
importance. By 1600 it was ripe for extinction. It had been moribund for
most of the previous century. Potton market was a different matter. Ancient and
well established, it dd not need the addition of
Gamlingay’s negligible business to sustain it. The thriving rival a couple of
miles away must have been one of the reasons why Gamlingay’s failed. (Ibid.
pp.112-113)