The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-04 00:00:00

FALL of a BONI I,ED AREHOUSE.

FURTHER PARTICULARS.
The particulars of the t n atter, as far as we have been
with certainty able to g: ifs her them, and, as far as they
go, they may be relied ui !oil, are, shortly, as follows :
The warehouse is the property of Mr. John Tipping,
in the rental of Mr. Des a, who again sublets it. It is
situated in Moor-street.. To most of our readers, no
doubt, the locality of the j street is known ; to such as
may not be acquainted wi it, we may say, it is a narrow
street, not more than s wen yards wide, and runs west
from Fenwick-street tot be Goree-chambers,parallel with
James'-street. To the no stb of it is another narrow street,
called the Old Ropery, and the warehouse which has
fallen stood about midw sy of Moor-street, and run back-
wards into the Old Ro fiery, and is said to have been
built more than sixty y ears ago. Moor-street, it may
be remarked, en passal It, is one of the oldest streets in
the town, and took ; name from the once celebrated
family of Mores, of Mai one of the ancestors of
which, according to ;the annals of Liverpool, was
knighted and banne Tete( 1 by Edwarl the Black Prince,
at the battle of Poic tiers , in the year 1346, and it will be
found froth the same as thority, that so early as 1235,
Sir John de la Mori o ccupied the Old Hall, in Old-
hall-street ; and in 1 CM the Mores sold all their pro-
perty in Liverpool, and thirteen adjoining townships.
This street is frequel itly mentioned in the family records.
These particulars, 0 tough not absolutely relevant to the
matter we have in h taxi, go to show the antiquity of the
street in which the c want we have to record took place,
and may not prove altogether uninteresting to the ge-
neral reader.
But to the subject !natter. The south-side of the ware-
house, situated as w e have described, fell on Saturday
forenoon. About tv reinty-five minutes to twelve o'clock
police officer 540 s its on duty at the south end of
George's Dock, wh in he heard, as he describes it, " a
long rumbling-noise, ," andlimmediately ran in the direc-
tion from which the ;noise proceeded, but was prevented
going far by an imr sense cloud of dust, and when it had
somewhat cleared a nay found himself near to the ware-
house, and a man s *aiding close beside him. He found
the street blocked. up with ruins, and the place
in which the NN %rehouse had stood an open
space, nothing n 3 ore than a part of one wall
being left atoll( ling. He immediately ran and
gave notice to Mr. :Dowling, at the office in High-
street, and that ge tleman proceeded at once to the
place, accompai by Cbief-Superintendent Quick and
Superintendent , Clul T ; and, shortly afterwards, the
mayor, Mr. JamE 'a L awrence, Mr. James Aspinall, Mr.
Maxwell, and otb ets, and also Mr. Hewett, of the fire
station and a nut don- of his men were in attendance.
Mr. S. Holme was also there, we believe on the part of
the corporation, to ;assist by his valuable directions as to
what could best b 44 done. Every exertion was made to
clear away the ry nn ts, which work was carried on with
the greatest anxie Qy - for several hours, as it was up to
that time generall;r s apposed that the man Tracy, if not
others, were bene' sth the rubbish.
" The warehol L.e -was seven stories high, exclusive of
a cellar, stored vith. rum, belonging to Mr William
Preston, but the cellar being arched, it is probable no
injury has been d one to it.
It is not positively known whether, at the time of the
building falling, there were or not persons within the
cellar, but it is : satisfactory to know that the customs'
locker states that he left there but ten minutes before the
event took place, a: ad at that time there was not any one
within. The upper • . stories of the building were filled with
barrel flour, a qm tt dity of wheat, oats, and a large quan-
tity of peas. Ser )r al men, (their number is not exactly
known), were emp It eyed turning wheat in one of the rooms,
but on hearing the. irst noise intimating the giving way
of the building, a ey ran backwards, and made their
escape from the reaa into the Old Ropery. One of the
men states that hes was working on the second story
when he heard wlsais he calls a " crash," and, upon look-
up,sawtherabneabmlckes yards, seized a jigger-rope, and
gt..ving way over his head. He im-
mediatelythrew himself out ;, and in less than half a minute after-
wards a trementh its crash took place, the beams in the
front portion of the building having snapped like
matches, and the whole of the front part of the immense
pile toppled into Itoor-street, a mass of ruins, inter-
mixed with the 4w, beat, flour, and other contents of the
warehouse.
One incident con at ected with the subject is worth re-
lating. There war ,L a man delivering corn from a lorry
into the warehouse t, ;in Moor-street, directly opposite the
building which felt, and, as is usual, the chain-horse had
been unhooked, a pd the chains thrown over his back.
Upon hearing the crash, the horse erected his ears, and
evinced alarm ; is istantly another noise was heard, when
the animal gallop ped off with all the speed his awkward
harness would pet Tait, and instantly the shaft horse fol-
lowed his example, but the lorry had scarcely cleared
the distance of t ie building (for indeed some of the
bricks caught the hind part of it) when the warehouse
fell into the street Had it not been for this impulse of
the horses, both n- van, horses, and lorry would have been
covered by the fal hong pile.
We understand Oat Mr. Slattery is the owner of the
corn, and that the-. flour belongs to Messrs. Steele and
Co. The amount e‘f the contents of the warehouse, or
the value of the sae mage done, we have not been able
yet to ascertain, but it will of course be immense:
There is but con opinion, that the casualty took
place in consequences of some of the floors being over-
laden, but which thief, r first gave way we have not as-
certained.
No doubt inquiry will be instituted into the whole
circumstances of tise; .ease ; therefore it would be pre-