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Fire at St Michael's Church 1938
All Saints' hosted congregations from
St. Michael's following a fire
In late 1938, the congregation from St Michael’s Church in Basingstoke were obliged to worship at All Saints’ or other churches in the town as St Michael’s had been damaged by fire.
This event was reported in more than a dozen regional newspapers (including the Aberdeen Press and Journal, Belfast Newsletter, Dundee Courier, Edinburgh Evening News, Gloucester Citizen, Halifax Evening Courier, Hampshire Advertiser, Hampshire Telegraph, Huddersfield and Holmfirth Examiner, Liverpool Daily Post, Portsmouth Evening News, Shepton Mallet Journal, Western Daily Press), as well as in the Daily Mirror.
Headlines included “Organist Sees Roof Blaze”, “Sermon Never Delivered”, “Church in Flames During Service”, “Organist Gives Warning”, and “Worshippers Run For Safety”.
The most comprehensive report appears to be that in the Dundee Evening Telegraph of the following day (15th September), which read:
Church in Flames During Service
Organist Gives Warning
Worshippers in the centuries-old church at St Michael, Basingstoke, fled to safety last night when fire broke out during even song.
The whole of the roof of the south aisle was destroyed when the flames, 30 feet high, spread along the wooden rafters.
The organist, Mr E. H. Anstey, had given the alarm when he saw a burst of flame in the corner of the roof, which was under repair because of death watch beetle damage.
The verger, Mr Brown, ran up a ladder on the scaffolding in the church and endeavoured to stamp out the flames, but they quickly became too much for him, and he had to climb back. He then rushed for the parish registers and removed them.
Basingstoke Fire Brigade were on the scene by that time. Clouds of smoke filled the church and forced the Basingstoke firemen to use gas masks.
More than 1000 people gathered in the church square to watch the spectacle.
The church interior and the organ were damaged by water and the floor of the church was awash.
As noted in the report, due to an infestation of death watch beetle, repairs were being carried out to the roofs above the north and south aisles. Work on the north aisle roof had been completed, and work had started in the south roof. The firemen worked through to the early hours of the morning to save the building. No glass was broken; but the organ was completely ruined by water. That organ, dating from 1866, had been relocated to the gallery at the end of the south aisle around 1906. A new organ was installed in St Michael’s by Easter 1939. [For reference, the organ at All Saints’ was installed in 1919.] Services resumed in St Michael’s after a fortnight.
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