2-888-200 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ruins of the Great Fire at Gravesend - High-Street - looking North, 1850. 'Many of [the buildings], notwithstanding that they were three or four stories high, and contained goods of some thousand pounds value, were constructed principally of timber, so that the officers of police became aware that, unless strenuous exertions were made, some of the inhabitants must lose their lives. They therefore aroused the whole of the occupants...In a very short space of time the town engines, together with those of the Custom House...were on the spot; and a supply of water from the mains of the water-works having been promptly got, every effort was made to subdue the fire...The engines, though well worked and abundantly supplied with water, gained no influence over the fire, which had at about three o'clock extended to seven houses on that (the western) side of the street'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.