Note 52 — Chapter II

It is of at least local interest to remark that the latest of many burnings of York Minster, Alcuin’s old abode, was caused very much in the same way. Carpenters had been at work, in the bell-chamber of the south-west tower, and left a candle burning on the table where they had been planing wood. The candle burned low and fell over on to some shavings, to which it set fire, and thence the flame grew and grew till it burst out, and the great fire of May 20, 1840, was the result. This present writer was a boy of six at the time, and from his bedroom window saw it all, from the beginning, through the sounding boards of the chamber. He was eventually carried off in a blanket, as the tower would have fallen into his father’s house if it had come down. The house, it may be added, was the house in which Guy Fawkes was born. See also p. 82.