A blaze has broken out at London\u2019s historic Somerset House with more than 100 firefighters at the scene working to contain it. <\/p>\n
Smoke could be seen rising over central London from the building\u2019s roof. Firefighters are working from a crane to fight the fire. <\/p>\n
Around 125 firefighters and 20 fire engines have been deployed, according to the London Fire Brigade. <\/p>\n
The crews are fighting flames located in part of the building\u2019s roof, the fire brigade said in a statement, with two of the brigade\u2019s 32-meter (nearly 105 foot) ladders being used. <\/p>\n
The cause of the fire is not yet known, the statement said, and Somerset House has been closed to the public whilst the fire is being tackled. <\/p>\n
The complex was first built in the 1500s, though it was demolished and rebuilt in the 1700s. <\/p>\n
The house gets its name from Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who built it as a palace for himself in 1547. The Duke was executed at the Tower in London a few years later, and ownership of his palace passed to the Crown. <\/p>\n
In 1604, the Treaty of London was signed within the building, ending the 19-year Anglo-Spanish War. It later served as the headquarters for the parliamentary army during the English Civil War, and narrowly escaped burning in the Great Fire of London in 1666. <\/p>\n
Somerset House is now the host of creative events and exhibitions. It is home to the Cortauld Gallery, which counts works by Manet, Van Gogh, and Monet among those in its collection. Kings College London has its school of law in the complex\u2019s east wing. <\/p>\n
It has served as a versatile filming location and can be spotted in the backdrops of films and TV shows like \u2018Downton Abbey,\u2019 \u2018Love Actually,\u2019 and \u2018X Men: First Class.\u2019 <\/p>\n
On Saturday, it said a dance battle was supposed to be held in the building\u2019s open air courtyard, with \u201ca day of dance and breaking showcases, workshops, live DJs and a big outdoor party, all culminating in a head-to-head dance battle between the four corners of London.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAll staff and public are safe and the site is closed,\u201d Somerset House said in a statement on its website. \u201cThe London Fire Brigade arrived swiftly and we\u2019re working very closely with them to control the spread of the fire,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n
This story has been updated with additional information. <\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A blaze has broken out at London\u2019s historic Somerset House with more than 100 firefighters at the scene working to contain it. Smoke could be seen rising over central London from the building\u2019s roof. Firefighters are working from a crane to fight the fire. Around 125 firefighters and 20 fire engines have been deployed, according <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}