Front Street, Castlethorpe, Milton Keynes
A row of cottages in Castlethorpe, shown after the fire of 1905. An extract from the Wolverton Express, August 11th 1905 reads '... 13 cottage homes were devastated, two of the families occupying two cottages each, and a total of 36 people were rendered homeless and, practically speaking, helpless and hopeless. So ferociously did the flames envelope the whole of the eleven homesteads that the unfortunate occupants were able to do little more than save themselves. In one or two instances a portion of the furniture was arrested from the flames, but there are several cases in which the homeless can carry in one hand the whole of their earthly possessions. Such was the terrible tragedy enacted in a few brief moments, and the whole of it is ascribed to a spark from a railway engine.'
