The 17th-century carved oak screen of one of the oldest livery halls in the City of London has been damaged after fire broke out at the Stationers’ Hall in Ave Maria Lane, near St Paul’s Cathedral.
More than 200 people were evacuated from the Grade I listed building, including 181 members of the Worshipful Company of Musicians who were holding their annual midsummer banquet in the hall on Wednesday evening. They were tucking into their medallions of Scotch beef, braised oxtail and garlic-scented fondant potato when fibre-optic lighting caught fire in a display cabinet in the western side of the screen, carved in 1673 by Henry Foord.
Minutes before the fire began the Fanfare Trumpeters of the Royal Yeomanry Band had been playing in the minstrels’ gallery above the screen to announce dinner. No one was hurt in the blaze, which damaged a section of the screen about 15ft high and 12ft wide, scorched the ceiling, paintwork and destroyed one of the standards (flags) of a Master of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers who became Lord Mayor.
The contents of the cabinet — silver and gold loving cups, bowls, plates and claret jugs — were largely unaffected by the flames; all the treasures will need cleaning but only four should need regilding, the Company says.
Maggie Alford, clerk of the Company of Musicians, said: “We noticed smoke coming from the cabinet and asked someone to have a look as it was gradually getting worse. The Beadle came running up with his fire extinguisher, and then I said to the Master that perhaps we needed to evacuate the hall. We left table by table, quite calmly, and some people were lucky enough to take their wine with them.”
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By the time the guests, who had paid to use the hall, had vacated the building the fire brigade had arrived and the fire was quickly brought under control, but not before the diners, who included the composers Debbie Wiseman and Stephen Dodgson, had seen “a wall of fire” eat up the standard through the window.
Alford added: “The Dean of St Paul’s, the Right Rev Graeme Knowles, could smell the smoke from the cathedral and came to find out what was happening and to see if everyone was OK.”
The evacuees walked up the road to the Cutlers’ Hall, but it already had an event on and could not accommodate such a large group. Alford said: “We moved on to Warwick Square, where the Aquarelle Guitar Quartet put on an impromptu open-air concert, which cheered us up no end. They had been due to play at the end of the dinner.”
The Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers originated in 1403, when the text-writers who made copies of books and the “lymners” who illuminated them petitioned the Lord Mayor of London.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, is a Freeman of the Company, and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, owner of The Times, is a Liveryman. The next Master of the livery company, to be elected next month, is expected to be Christopher McKane, the deputy managing editor of The Times, currently Upper Warden.
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The Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers has occupied halls on three sites in its history. It moved to its present site in 1606, when it purchased Abergavenny House from the widow of the Earl of Pembroke. The hall was burnt down in the Great Fire of 1666 and rebuilt between 1670 and 1673. The hall roof was badly damaged by incendiary bombs in 1940, but amazingly there was hardly any damage to either the screen, windows or pannelling. William Alden, the Clerk of the Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, said: “The hall survived the war but not, it seems, the Worshipful Company of Musicians.”
He said that the hall — popular with wedding parties — would be available for use by next Wednesday, and that the screen should be fully restored by the end of August 2011. “We have been inundated by offers of help from the other livery halls in the City, of which there are nearly 40. It is a close-knit community, and I am sure that we will be able to arrange alternative livery halls for anyone affected by our temporary closure.” He added: “The most important thing is that no one was hurt. We have been going for 600 years, so to wait 18 months to have it back as it was is not a very long wait.”
Maggie Alford takes a similar view. “It was an interesting evening. We have decided, however, that the entertainment next year will be sparklers.”