Faversham; Lees Court

Early tinted newsreel showing the destruction wrought by fire on a Kent stately home.

Work begins on clearing the burnt-out ruins of Lees Court at Faversham, Kent in this very early Pathe newsreel item. Although the fire - on 20 November 1910 - had been quenched by the time the cameramen arrived, the film's vibrant orange tinting gives a sense of the blaze which completely destroyed the grand house, built in 1652, reportedly from a design by Inigo Jones.

The house was comprehensively rebuilt and remains the ancestral home of the Sondes family. Pathe's Animated Gazette was the first newsreel to be produced in Britain, starting in June 1910.