'Sense of shock' 10 years on from hotel city fire

It is 10 years since a devastating fire ripped through an historic hotel in Devon.

The Royal Clarence Hotel fire in Exeter in 2016 remains one of the biggest incidents of its kind in the South West, lasting 10 days overall and involving 95 fire crews over the course of the incident.

The building, mainly put up in 1769, but with older materials in it, is now being rebuilt and is set to be turned into apartments.

It new owners said archaeological Roman remains found, including a skeleton underneath a well, were due to be preserved.

In total, 1,186 firefighters attended, taking more than 12,094 operational hours to fight the fire and deal with the impact after.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, a spokesperson for Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service said: "It was an extremely challenging and dangerous incident involving fire that started in a renovated property and spread through hidden voids within the Royal Clarence Hotel.

"Thankfully, there were no injuries, and the fire was contained to the area of Cathedral Yard and did not spread to the surrounding high street."

The original building was believed to be the first venue in England to call itself a hotel, according to Dr Todd Gray.

Reflecting on the day of the blaze, the historian said: "I got the the strange phone call to say the hotel had caught on fire. I hadn't realised it was being destroyed by fire.

"Then arriving in seeing a building engulfed in flames and shortly after was realising it was gone - it was just a shell.

"That sense of shock and a little bit of outrage, because we had no idea how it started, has kind of stayed with me.

"Before the fire, we went from appreciating it was a Roman site underground, but the building itself we knew was Georgian, with suspicions that there's fabric inside earlier.

"Of course, now we know it's medieval inside, and that there's some really interesting pieces of fabric, some of which is going to be covered over because of building regulations, but we've learned an awful lot about that site and everything around it as well."

He added: "I think the building is important and it symbolises survival.

"It's not going to be the building it was, but more of it is going to be saved for the future than we could have expected in those first few days and I hope some lessons have been learned.

"You do have to fight for things and push back against vested interests in favour of what is best for the public."

Follow BBC Devon on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.