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The Great Fire of Dunloe
– and none dare call it arson
It is curious how a fire could spontaneously start in an old property without mains gas or electricity in weather so wet that flood alerts are operative on the Thames only 20 feet away from the site. We speak, of course, of the fire at Dunloe Lodge, which happened at the end of July. There was a similar mysterious fire in Mill Lane to the south of Dunloe Lodge in February, which necessitated evacuation of nearby residents for 48 hours. In this latter case, residents were assured that the fire had started on a boat with faulty electrics when it was apparent that the fire had actually started in a portacabin nowhere near a boat. Given the opening comments of this paragraph it is hardly surprising that even the police suspect arson. So what is going on? In the case of the portacabin fire no arson was posited by the police and therefore no forensic examination carried out; in the Dunloe case it is assumed that arson took place but, at the time of writing, no forensic examination has taken place on the grounds that it is unsafe – even given the existence of CCTV evidence that it is highly probable that arson did take place. Yet, following a serious hotel fire in Cornwall in August, forensic examination began almost immediately the fire was out. Judging from the photographs, Dunloe looked by far the safer option to investigate.
This fire represents the loss of still another of the great houses in our parish. John Brushe, the Conservation Officer for South Bucks, was hoping that the present owners would restore the property to its former state. The house has an interesting background; it was formerly known as Millstream and acquired the name Dunloe Lodge following its purchase by the 5th Earl of Clancarty (family name Trench), apparently a descendant of Mary Tudor, whose other title was Viscount Dunlo, and who died in 1929. He married a music hall actress whose stage name was Belle Bilton but who was more formally known as Isobel Maud Penrice Bilton, Countess of Clancarty. The Earl’s fifth son, William Francis, became the 8th Earl and gained an interesting reputation as a flying saucer proponent – he was firmly convinced they came not from space but beneath the Earth itself. He founded a UFO study group at the House of Lords, and introduced Flying Saucer Review to its library.
Possibly the owner of these properties is not terribly concerned about the origins of the fires since the whole area is earmarked for a major redevelopment programme anyway. The police would therefore be glad of a reason not to spend their valuable time investigating fire damage, which is unlikely to trigger a criminal or insurance investigation. No arson, no crime, doesn’t go on the record, no comment.
Fred Russell