Workmen are believed to have caused a major fire scare after setting alight the roof of a luxury Category A listed hotel, the Nira Caledonia on Gloucester Place in Edinburgh’s New Town and World Heritage Site.
image Fiona Newton, IHBC
Edinburgh Evening News writes:
Worried residents were sent scurrying into the street after a roofer’s blowtorch is understood to have started the blaze and exploded a gas cylinder. Quick-thinking staff evacuated the 28-room Nira Caledonia in Gloucester Place yesterday afternoon with no injuries reported….
About 20 firefighters and five engines were called to the four-storey converted Georgian townhouse at 2.50pm….
Cobbled crescent Gloucester Place was designed in 1823 by renowned architect William Playfair. The boutique hotel Nira Caledonia – former home of writer and friend of William Wordsworth, John Wilson – had been busy over the Festival. But it was at less than capacity yesterday after a large party of German tourists checked out and returned home. The extent of the damage to the hotel was still unknown yesterday as police helped firefighters cordon off Gloucester Place….
