An historic church is rallying around its “Blitz Spirit” to overcome a devastating fire which partially destroyed it.
St Andrew’s Church on Jarrom Street went up in flames last Tuesday, with dramatic images showing the moments the fire ripped through its 19th-century structure.
The church’s roof has been hollowed out by the fire, which was eventually brought to a close by firefighters on Wednesday morning, and is now fundraising to restore it.
And in the days since the blaze, two remarkable stories have emerged revealing what happened that night.
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“Miraculously, a member of the congregation woke in the middle of the night with a sense of something wrong and was impelled to go to the church,” theologian John Milbank said.
“If he hadn’t then found it ablaze and sounded the alarm, it might have been razed to the ground.”
It also came to light that St Andrew’s had been due to host its churchwarden Tony Simons’s funeral on Wednesday morning – and heroic firefighters rushed in to save his coffin from the burning building.
The nearby Saffron Hill Cemetery stepped up later that day to host Mr Simons’s funeral requiem.
St Andrews’s’ priest, Dr Johannes Arens, said: “The whole community is in shock, but we are discovering our own ‘Blitz Spirit’.
“We will rebuild our beautiful church. I don’t yet know what funds we will need, but I am incredibly thankful to all those who are already coming forward to offer their help, prayers and donations.”
In a statement, the church said worshippers were “still reeling from the events of Tuesday night” and are still yet to identify the cause of the fire.
It added that it was most likely an accident.
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There is thought to have been no sign of any forced entry to the church, so investigators are looking for a fault inside the building itself.
With the church out of action for the foreseeable future, its congregation has taken to its peace garden next door for Mass, managing three over the weekend alone.
The Reverend Richard Trethewey, the Archdeacon of Leicester, said the church was “hoping things can find new life after this terrible event”.
“One of the most humbling things about this has been the offers of help,” he said.
“Because there is so much activity that goes on here on a daily basis, the offers that have come in from such a diverse range of places is really encouraging.”
St Andrew’s was designed by prolific British architect Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s.
The Grade II* listed structure had only recently been cleaned inside to reveal “polychrome brickwork and delicate stencilled patterns on the walls which 150 years of pollution had obscured”, according to the Victorian Society.
Gilbert Scott was behind the iconic Midland Grand Hotel at London’s St Pancras Station, the Albert Memorial and the Foreign Office buildings – also in the capital.
He designed and restored some 800 buildings, primarily churches and chapels, in his lifetime.
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