West Hampstead homeowner has lucky escape - Dornfell Street property's roof collapses
Published: 20 May 2010
by CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
NEIGHBOURS heard a “rumbling” sound just before a roof collapsed at a Victorian home in West Hampstead, writes Charlotte Chambers.
The woman owner of the house in Dornfell Street, opposite Beckford School, was not at home at the time of the roof collapse on Monday.
Neighbour Doreen Johnson, 75, said the owner had been asked to work unexpectedly on Monday. “She could have been in there – she was lucky she was working,” she said.
The ceiling did not cave in and there was no internal damage. Structural engineers have been working on the house since Monday.
Children were leaving school when the roof suddenly slid off the building. Ms Johnson said: “I was sitting here and all of a sudden there was this rumbling sound. I’d heard this noise before about 25 years ago when a building collapsed and in my mind something clicked. I was just about to get up and this sort of fog wafted across the window bay, a brick-coloured fog.”
Steven Collins, blue watch manager at West Hampstead fire station, said he thought the timbers looked like original wood. He described the incident as rare.
“It’s the first one I’ve attended in 15 years,” he said.