Historic Amersham shops devastated by fire

11:22am Monday 16th June 2008

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A ROW of historic shops in Old Amersham High Street has been devastated by fire.

The fire began in The Famous Fish Co. restaurant and quickly spread to neighbouring businesses The Artichoke restaurant, Orvis country lifestyle store and a vacant shop on the corner.

Gilbeys restaurant on the other corner did not suffer direct damage, but firefighters broke windows to get inside as they tackled the fire in neighbouring properties.

The blaze, which began shortly after midnight, took forty firefighters until 5am to bring under control.

All of the shops are listed buildings.

Jonny Bennetts, an Amersham firefighter, said: "As we arrived from the Tesco roundabout we could see smoke coming from the buildings and as we pulled up we could see flames inside the fish shop.

"The fire went up into the loft, which was very difficult for us to access, and quickly spread to the other shops."

Some shops owners were called in the middle of the night to be told their businesses were ablaze, while others turned up for work this morning to discover the properties destroyed.

One man, who works from an upstairs office above the vacant shop was shown into the building by firefighters this morning to recover his charred computer.

Incident commander Keith Williams said: "Firefighters were able to create a break between the third and fourth shops. They did really well to prevent the whole terrace from going up in flames."

The High Street has been closed to traffic between Whielden Street and Ward Place while firefighters investigate the cause of the fire and make the buildings safe.

It will remain closed for the rest of the day.