History of Presteigne Fire Station

The origins of the Local firefighters are obscure, but a volunteer force is known to have been active in Presteigne in the Late 19th Century. The Picture above shows the Brigade around 1890 in front of the Tanhouse by the River Lugg. The Captain of the team (left) is thought to be local man Joe Price. The appliance is horse drawn and appears to be hand pumped.
In 1907 the Local volunteer fire brigade faced a challenge when the Lion public house in the High street caught fire in the small hours. As can be seen in the lower right photo, despite best efforts the hotel was gutted but the neighboring building were saved

From the early years of the Century until 1960’s when a purpose built station was built, the Presteigne Brigade was housed under the arches of the market hall (which is now the Library). In the photograph below taken around 1930, the local team can be seen sitting proudly on their motorized appliance in front of the Market hall.

The Great Fire of 1681

A time of disaster
Presteigne may be said to have experienced more than its fair share of misfortune in the course of its eventful history. As if the terrible privations of the recurring outbreaks of the plague, which ravaged the town on several occasions, were not enough for one small market town, it also suffered a disastrous fire.

The fire broke out on the night of September 12th, 1681, and it is believed that over sixty houses in the High Street and in St David's Street were completely destroyed. As far as is known only one of the inhabitants, a blind woman, died in the fire.

The fire of 1681 is believed to have affected the area shown on this 1830s map
of the town.

The ever present danger
Towns were always at some risk from fire in these times because most houses were built of wattle and daub around timber frames, often with thatched roofs. They were also grouped very tightly together, so fires could spread rapidly from house to house.

The end of the summer would have been a time of even greater risk from fire, when roofs and walls would be tinder dry and households would be lighting the first fires with the onset of the colder weather of the autumn.

As well as destroying so many houses, the 1681 fire also wiped out the "schoole and schoolehouse" which was the free grammar school founded by John Beddoes in 1565. The school, which lives on in the John Beddoes High School of today, was then situated in St David's Street, opposite the church.

An entry in the Burials Register for the parish of Topsham in Devon dated March 18th,1682, noted "Collected towards the Inhabitants of Presteigne in Wales who suffred by ffire. 11s. 5 1/2d".

Please Note; This site contains images taken at incidents, but we stress that their are no images on our site that will cause distress. We do not show any images of incidents that involves serious injury or involves a fatality and we always try to be sensitive to those persons involved. Any Photos  taken are when the incident is finished (following Stop message) and  never during the working incident.

This site is Unofficial and in no way linked to Mid and West Wales site. All official communication should go through Mid and West Wales, details on our contacts page

We hope that you enjoy this site and find it informative. We update this site regularly, so please come again soon.