Wimborne pub reopens – one year after the great blaze (From Bournemouth Echo)

Wimborne pub reopens – one year after the great blaze

10:00am Saturday 31st July 2010 in

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A 17th-century pub in the centre of Wimborne will reopen its doors today almost exactly a year after being engulfed in flames some 30 metres high.

The Albion Inn was severely damaged by fire on July 4, 2009, in a blaze that also claimed the town’s post office.

Landlady Sue Chandler relived the moment she learned the pub was on fire.

“I wasn’t living at the pub at the time, and I got a phone call at 3.15am basically saying, ‘Your pub’s on fire’. I got dressed, went out of the gate and could see a huge cloud of smoke hanging over Wimborne,” she said.

“I was met by a policeman, and I asked him how many people were upstairs. When I saw everybody had got out, that’s when I burst into tears. I was just so relieved that everybody had got out alive.”

The two upper floors of the three-storey pub had been given over to guest and staff accommodation. Five members of staff, including one who raised the alarm, had been living in rooms on the top storey.

Relief turned to resignation as Sue and her husband Simon embarked on a year of “putting it out of our minds and getting on with life” while the pub was rebuilt. Framed articles and photographs from the Echo are the only evidence of the fire which almost claimed the pub.

Many original fixtures remain, including the wooden panelled wall, but a new floor and bar surface have been fitted.

Extensive structural repair has seen the two upper storeys combined into one private flat into which Sue and Simon moved this week. * The pub reopens at 10.30am today. An official “grand opening” takes place next Saturday.