Fire at the LMS (formerly CR) Lothian Road, Edinburgh Goods Station on Saturday, 18 November, 1939 Tons of Christmas Chocolate Destroyed In Spectacular Blaze during Blackout

A great conflagration on Saturday night dispelled the darkness of the black-out in Edinburgh.

In Lothian Road, near the city centre, a large store in the LMS Goods Station went up in flames. The greater part of the building was leased to the Cadbury-Fry firms and was part of their distribution centre for Edinburgh and the East of Scotland.

The building was totally destroyed, including roughly 300 tons of chocolate meant for Edinburgh’s Christmas trade.

The offices, including customer records, were also destroyed in the fire.

The fire, which burned for more than two hours, presented an impressive and alarming spectacle in the surrounding darkness.

From Lothian Road, the flames could be seen from the double row of twenty-two windows of the main two-story building and the large span roof.

It was not until Monday, 20 November, that the last fire engine returned home from the scene of the fire.

Officials connected with the Cadbury-Fry distributing combine stood by helplessly and watched the great stocks, collected for the Christmas market being consumed.

One official said ‘It was a sad sight to see our goods go up like this. We were to have commenced distribution on Monday, 20 November and now I will have the job of informing retailers that we cannot supply them immediately but can say that from the moment of the outbreak the company commenced to organize replacement stock.

However, it will be difficult contacting the retailers as the orders and records were destroyed in the fire but we will do our best. The bulk of the stock was formed of Christmas boxes. We employed 30 men and 15 girls in the building and, thankfully, all are safe’.

The official cause of the fire was not known but it was thought to have started in premises occupied by Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company which were at the east end of the long oblong block of buildings which had been mainly tenanted for some six or seven years by the Cadbury-Fry distributing combine.

The alarm was raised by a watchman on duty, Thomas Harris, who had just commenced his four-hour watch at 8pm.

The fumes from the burning rubber were so strong that the large crowd which had gathered in Lothian Road were choking from the smoke and had to be held back by the police.

All traffic on Lothian Road was stopped from Castle Terrace to Bread Street, while those on foot had, for a considerable time, to use byways.

The flames involved the two sidings to the north of the burning building which were used for local and English goods traffic and where loaded trucks caught fire, their contents were destroyed.

Wagons inside the Cadbury-Fry building were soon engulfed and some of these which contained coke burned furiously adding to the difficulties of the firemen.

The blaze was eventually brought under control by both the Edinburgh Fire Brigade and the Auxillary Fire Service (A.F.S.), who between them prevented the fire spreading to other parts of the Goods Station. The A.F.S. were officially thanked for their efforts in helping the local fire brigade bring the blaze under control.

In total 14 wagons loaded with miscellaneous goods were destroyed along with a 5-ton motor vehicle and a few horse lorries.

About 2,000 crates of chocolate goods-boxes, biscuits, cocoa, etc were lost. Six railway wagons were found following the fire, their contents only slightly damaged by water.

A group of men employed as motor lorry drivers by the railway were having a drink in one of the local pubs when they saw that the yard was on fire. They rushed over and managed to drive five lorries to safety. Unfortunately, due to the ferocity of the fire a sixth lorry could not be saved.

Incendiarism was not suspected.