THE fire started in the dead of night. Within minutes flames were licking up the wood-panelled staircase, finding their way into the rooms and taking hold.
Before dawn broke – despite the efforts of firefighters from Kentish Town – the Highgate home of romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge had been reduced to a smouldering wreck. Hoses played on the smoking remains for two days.
Now, 20 years later, grade-II listed Moreton House in Highgate – that has been completely restored – is up for sale, for the first time in 42 years.
Anyone with close to £3 million to spare could own a house whose colourful history encompasses a painstaking restoration project and Coleridge’s attempts to kick a drug habit.
The double-fronted home in South Grove overlooks Pond Square, and neighbours include Monty Python star Terry Gilliam and the design guru John Sorrell. To the back of the house, a rambling garden – where Coleridge wandered while composing much of his later prose – leads down to the perimeter of Highgate Cemetery. Coleridge moved to the house in a desperate effort to save his life. It was the home of an apothecary, Dr James Gillman, and Coleridge believed Gillman could cure him of his addiction to opium. He remained in Highgate until his death in 1834, seemingly still addicted.
Almost 150 years later, the seven-bedroom pile was reduced to a burned-out shell. It was the summer of 1983. Owners Ivor and Jan Burt, who lived in the house with their three children Charles, Alexandra and James, had chosen to spend a weekend sailing in Hampshire. I
Mr Burt said: “Seeing the wreck was devastating. No one knows how it started. A police forensics team spent six weeks investigating, but never closed the file.”
It was the quick-thinking actions of two neighbours who helped save the house. A surveyor was brought to Highgate as the fire raged and recommended the place be demolished – but neighbours were so appalled at the thought of losing Moreton House, they talked him out of it.
Mr Burt continued: “There was a discussion straight after the fire that the building was so unsafe it would have to be pulled down. but two QC’s who live locally challenged this and they were influential in preserving the front of the house.”
Historic buildings architect Julian Harrap was brought in to put in place a rescue operation that was to take 15 months.
The district surveyor put up scaffolding to stop the walls falling in, and then a team of workmen began sifting through the remains. The roof had collapsed and taken floors with it, pushing the entire home into the basement.
Mr Harrap added: “Jan Burt and the workmen waded through the debris looking for valuable materials. It was basically an archaeological dig.”
Alongside a university dissertation and some furniture, pieces of unique plaster cornicing, timber-panelled walling and iron work were dug out and placed in containers in the garden.
Sash windows made in 1715 had been burnt in one corner and a decision was made to repair them. The front door was also salvaged, thanks to previous bad workmanship. Mr Harrap explained: “There were 30 layers of paint put on the door over the years, and it saved the wood beneath.”
The façade of the house was dangerously bowed, so a concrete bridge was placed across the top. Workmen salvaged as many bricks as they could and the new parapet held the rest of the building in place.
With help from students working under the guidance of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, Mr Harrap made good the exterior, and then turned to the inside.
Moreton House’s wooden panelling – another reason the fire spread so quickly – offered a unique challenge – and opportunity. In 1983, much of the run-down Docklands was being rebuilt, and Mr Harrap knew there were warehouses with old timber he could use. Much was salvaged from the Hayes wharf warehouse. The wood, from pine trees grown in the Arctic circle, is dense because of the short growing period - meaning it lasted and was perfect for the home.