Roof caves in after blaze rips through historic Capital pub

Published on Monday 5 March 2007 12:26

A BLAZE gutted a grade B-listed church-turned-pub in Leith, causing the roof to cave in.

Today, Gary Reid, owner of the Mariners, in Commercial Street, said he was "devastated" and did not know how long it would take to repair.

The blaze is believed to have been started by an electrical fault at 3.30am on Sunday morning.

Just over an hour earlier the late night venue had been filled with about 300 revellers.

But when firefighters arrived the bar was empty but for the flames shooting from the roof.

It took eight crews almost two hours to put out the fire. But they were unable to stop a large part of the roof and first-floor balcony caving in.

Police called Mr Reid at about 4am and he was invited to survey the damage from the top of a turntable ladder.

Inside the four-seater restaurant booths, each with their own plasma TV screen, and central bar had been reduced to burned-out rubble.

A couple of the stained glass windows were smashed by the force of the heat.

However, CCTV tapes were salvaged and the pictures have shown that no-one was involved in starting the fire.

Mr Reid, who bought the pub two years ago, said: "I've no idea how long this will take to fix or what the cost will be - I'm that shocked and devastated by what's happened.

"We closed on Sunday at about 2am and I left at about half past. Soon after I got a call from the police. I was shocked.

"I got down here straight away and there were about eight fire engines and you could see the flames were quite high.

"Initially it started in the roof area.

"We've looked at the CCTV and it's possibly an electrical fault.

"The whole roof area has caved in and it's taken out part of the first-floor level as well.

"I went up in the turntable ladder so I could see the devastation for myself - it was just unbelievable. It's completely gutted inside, but the building is saveable.

"We had building control down on Sunday morning and the walls are all still intact and the structure is sound."

The Mariners is open an hour later than other bars in the area at the weekend.

Last March it was granted a licence to keep trading until 2am on Fridays and Saturdays, and until 1am Sunday to Thursday.

The building was originally St Ninian's Church before becoming the Mariners Church.

The bar adjoins Cromwell's Citadel, which was built in the 1650s on Dock Street, as the Scottish military headquarters of the puritanical leader, and is one of Leith's most historical sites.

The citadel, which is currently being used as a storage yard by Mariners and has leather chairs, a fridge and other items piled up inside, escaped relatively unscathed.

A Lothian and Borders fire service spokesman said: "We were called to the Mariners pub at about 3.30am on Sunday.

"There was a fire in the roof which was clearly visible when we arrived. It was brought under control by about 5.20am."