A fire occurred at Sydenhams on Friday 8th October 1869 at around 8pm. One of Giles Driver’s daughters saw a rick on fire in the yard and alerted her father who was stabling his horse after returning from Stroud market.
Owing to a lack of water in the locality, the fire brigade were not called. The Police instead adopted a sort of fire fighting role, ordering the removal of the other ricks. Thanks to this action and a lack of wind to spread the fire, no buildings or other ricks were damaged.
The rick holding 40 quarters of wheat, approximately 8 acres worth, was left to burn out by itself. It was reported in the Stroud Journal that the cause of the fire was ‘unknown but it was highly probable that it was spontaneous combustion’. Thankfully, Giles was noted as being insured by the Norwich Union Office.
Follow up: The Norwich Union Office eventually became the current Aviva – they keep their archives in Norwich still. They very kindly did a search to see if Giles claimed… they couldn’t find any specific reference to his name/farm but did find 2 possible reference although these may both be completely unrelated.
25/10/1869 :
- Gloucester – £77 4s – loss of stock of beans and straw destroyed
- Bisley – £81 – no more detail
At this time, insurance companies such as the Norwich Union, possessed their own private fire brigades. Policy holders attached plaques to the outside of their building to make them easily identifiable when the need for service arose.
As noted above, sitting high on the hills between the Slad and Toadsmoor Valleys, Bisley did not possess a water source suitable for fire fighting. Judging by newspaper reports fires were rare, however their quenching suffered as a result of the village’s location. Just before Christmas, in the early morning of December 23rd, 1849, a house fire was unable to be extinguished by Stroud’s engines owing to the lack of water, despite their ready attendance. Sadly the uninsured Rev. Edward Pydoke, a curate and tenant of the Rev. Thomas Keble wasn’t as lucky as Giles, and lost all his furniture, books and valuables.