The burnt-out shell of a historic mansion that has stood among the trees along the banks of the Thames River in west London since the 1880s continued to smoulder Sunday.
The abandoned home, affectionately known as the Cedars, at 1266 Riverside Dr. was destroyed by fire Saturday night. Firefighters called to the area around 9:30pm found the mansion engulfed in flames.
"It's a vacant building that's been unoccupied for roughly a decade. The fire was completely involved when crews arrived on scene, so we had a defensive action which means no one was going inside the building," said Assistant Fire Chief Dave Walmsley, who noted the fire was tricky to fight as crews had to run hose lines through the woods down to the house.
It took crews roughly two and a half hours to extinguish the blaze. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
The Victorian-era house is visible from the other side of the river in Springbank park, it was there that crowds of people gathered to watch as it went up in flames.
Fire officials and London police, investigating the cause of the fire, remained on scene Sunday afternoon.
"Anytime you have a vacant building like that, those types of fires are always quite suspicious. Fires just don't start by themselves," said Walmsley.
A representative from Drewlo Holdings, the current owner of the property, visited the site to survey the damage, said Walmsley.
The two-storey home had fallen into disrepair over the years, with its white paint peeling and doors and windows boarded up. An effort to have the Cedars designated as a heritage site four years ago fell short. However, the property was added to the city’s heritage inventory list.
Joe O'Neil
"When you follow different groups on social media the Cedars has always been of high attention for people. People wanted to know what was going to happen to it, it is well known in the area. So unlike other heritage buildings that are off the radar this was always on everybody's mind," said Joe O'Neil, past chair of the London Advisory Committee on Heritage.
The 19th-century house was originally build as a resort and athletic club and became a private residence in 1906. No one has lived on the property since 2013.
"I think a big problem was that the road leading down to it is very steep, so in order to make it viable for living you wouldn't have had to just work on the house but also the steep road that went into it," said O'Neil.
