Fire turned village into an 'architectural mixtape'

A devastating fire that destroyed much of a village 300 years ago led to a rebuild that turned it into an "architectural mixtape".

On 19 June 1724, The Great Fire of Woburn, in Bedfordshire, started at the Red Lion Inn and then "shot up and down" the High Street.

Dan Jones, from Woburn Events, said a free Woburn Fire Walk has been created to commemorate the tragedy.

A 45-minute audio tour explains how most of the replaced buildings were in the Georgian style, using brick, "making it a little more fire proof", he said.

Mr Jones said the blaze "changed the village completely", as it was a "really important coaching station".

"It just shot up and down the old wooden and thatched buildings. It lost its medieval market, all its stock, all the food... so it was a dramatic event.

"It had 30 inns, so if you wanted a night out in Bedfordshire in the 18th Century, Woburn was the place to be."

The Bedfordshire county archives has documents that say 39 dwelling houses were destroyed.

Woburn had also been hit by fires in 1595 and following a English Civil War skirmish in 1645.

At the time on the 1724 fire, the Duke of Bedford was in his abbey.

"He had some architects in and he must have noticed on the horizon the village burning down," said Mr Jones.

"He sent his architects down afterwards and they designed and rebuilt the village and that's why it has such an unique style.

"If you look around the buildings they're often described as an architectural mixtape, so every building looks a little different, a little bit odd."

He said the Georgian style, recently showcased in the Netflix series Bridgerton, was one "that you don't see outside of places like Bath".

The audio tour will be available to downloaded via an app and a pamphlet is being created for anyone "not tech savvy", he added.

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