Love Actually, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones writer Richard Curtis’ home devastated by fire
THE country home of scriptwriter Richard Curtis and broadcaster Emma Freud has been devastated in a fire.
Fourteen fire crews tackled the blaze last night after it took hold on the first and second floors, and the roof space of the 18th century property in the seaside village of Walberswick, Suffolk.
Firefighters ripped off tiles from a section of the roof to dampen down hotspots as the fire spread through the house.
It is not known if Curtis, 65, or Freud, 60, were at the house when the fire took hold just before 10pm on Sunday night.
But everyone who was there at the time escaped, and nobody was injured.
The couple who have been together more than 30 years, but have never married, have their main home in Notting Hill, west London.
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The semi-detached house in up-market Walberswick has been in Freud’s family since the 1930s, and is believed to be where Curtis wrote some of his best known films.
The writer is famed for his romantic comedies including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love Actually.
He is also known for co-creating the British charity Comic Relief with Sir Lenny Henry which has raised over £1billion, and for his TV credits on Not The Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder, Mr Bean and the Vicar of Dibley.
Fire crews stayed at the scene for more than seven hours damping down the blaze which is believed to have seriously damaged the interior of the wooden framed house.
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Layers of soot were visible through open windows today and the smell of charred remains from embers hung around the house in the centre of the village which is well known for its celebrity residents.
A villager said: “There were people at the house, but I don’t know whether Richard and Emma were there.
“We suddenly saw the fire engines arrive just before 10pm. There was tons of smoke. It was white smoke coming out of the roof and the sides, and crazy out of the chimney. The smoke was looking for a way out.
“The firefighters went inside with their breathing apparatus and opened all the windows. They had big hoses and were spraying the roof. I assume it was to cool it off.
“Later they put up hook ladders, and they went up those to take off tiles which made even more smoke come out.”
ROOF CUT AWAY
A Suffolk Fire Service spokesperson said the alarm was raised at 9.53pm on Sunday and crews stayed on the scene until just before 6am.
The spokesperson said: “On arrival crews found a fire on the first and second floor as well as the roof cavity, resulting in some of the property’s roof needing to be cut away to reach some of the hot spots.
“No persons were injured in the fire and crews have now left the scene”.
Crews at the fire were sent from Framlingham, Leiston, Saxmundham, Wrentham, Halesworth, Bungay, Beccles, Haverhill and Lowestoft, along with two appliances from Norfolk.
The house was originally bought in the 1930s by Emma's architect grandfather Ernst Freud, the youngest son of psycho-analyst Sigmund, after he fled the rise of the Nazis in Germany.
It was taken over by Ernst’s late son Sir Clement Freud, the former Liberal MP and TV and radio personality, and his wife Jill who ran a summer theatre in nearby Southwold.
They in turn passed it on to Emma and Richard Curtis around 20 years ago.
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Curtis is also believed to own a former fisherman’s shack overlooking the beach and windswept marshland on the outskirts of Walberswick.
Others who have had holiday homes in the village in recent years include Men Behaving Badly actress Caroline Quentin, BBC Radio Five presenter Simon Mayo and actress Sharon Duce who starred in London's Burning.
