Scottish Castle Saved by “Quick Actions” of Staff

A positive example of how useful is keeping a good level of training and safety management in historical buildings has been given on Wednesday, 26 August 2009  by the staff working in the 18th Century Scottish Floors Castle near Kelso. Four person of the staff have been praised for saving it from widespread damage in a fire. The alarm was raised at 07:30 after the ignition occurred near a freezer and spread behind lath and plaster walls. The “quick actions” of the staff  made the castle – the family home of the Duke of Roxburghe –  able to open to the public as usual the same day (some 35.000 persons each year visit the building, which is the most visited Scottish inhabited castle).

In particular, four persons of the staff were sent to tackle the fire and their actions brought the fire  under control avoiding its spreading so much that the house could have been opened to the public as normal.

Floors Castle was designed in 1721 by William Adam and extensively remodelled in the 19th Century.