Recently, we suffered a devastating fire which wiped out the thatched roof. It was caused by heat build-up in hairline cracks in the chimney.

A passer-by noticed the roof was on fire at about 4:15 on the 27^th of March.

Fire crews from Christchurch, Bournemouth, Ringwood, Lyndhurst, Burley, Lymington, New Milton, Beaulieu, and Eastleigh spent four hours dousing the roof with water and foam, and removing the remaining thatch before the fire could spread any further.

Despite the severity of the fire, the pub downstairs was almost completely unaffected, the damage being mainly restricted to the roof and the flat upstairs.

The Woolpack was closed for three weeks while a scaffold was erected and a temporary roof fitted to keep out the rain. Shortly after the scaffold came down, we held an official reopening ceremony to thank the firefighters for their fantastic work in saving the building.


BBC News coverage