19th March 2010
Finally, we are allowed into the building. The police still don’t know whether they will find out who set the fire and seem resigned to never knowing.
The building has been handed over to the builders to see what’s salvagable and we have been told we can get in today to see for ourselves the extent of the damage and whether any materials and work are still intact.
Over the last few weeks we have been looking at new buildings and getting access in to a donated temporary space out of town in Staveley Mill Yard. Some of us will us that space and others are waiting for the temporary space in Kendal College to come free next month.
Today at 8am we start to go into the Highgate building.
It smells like an old bonfire but surprisingly a lot of the structure is undamaged by fire. The fire ran into the stone building from the rear, ran up tot he top floor and hit the roof.
The first floor looks good, just saturated with water. The top floor is partly burnt out. Half of it is so badly damaged it isn’t safe to venture inside but the other half is better.
We start sifting through the chaos of collapsed charred roof timbers, bringing sad and sorry looking paintings and work of paper out into the street to load into a van and head for Stavely.
I am able to get into my space on the top floor as is Jill and the contractors work hard at helping carry everything down the spiral stone staircase, a listed feature of this Georgian building.
The radio and TV crews arrive and record interviews and film background shots for news pieces.
By 4pm we have moved everything we could but the rest of the top floor needs making safe to see if more can be recovered on Monday.
Importantly, we recover sections of charred timber and agree that we will use this charcoal for some drawings.
Nature sometimes needs a fire to regenerate energy and growth. Some of us are feeling that energy while others are still feeling the impact of the loss of materials and work.
For most of us it’s the last time we will go into the Highgate building.
