Only Teapot Remains After Redmays Cottage Destroyed in West Midlands Wildfire

For decades, Redmays stood as a quiet landmark in Stourbridge, recognized locally as one of the few thatched-roof cottages left in the area. That rustic charm ended abruptly earlier this month when a massive fire tore through this leafy part of the West Midlands. Now, only a single teapot remains from what was once a historic family home. It is a bitter irony that the very roof that earned Redmays its local nickname became the catalyst for its rapid destruction against a raging wildfire.

The homeowner, an 89-year-old grandmother who asked not to be named, was the oldest person pulled from safety on Quarry Park Road on August 13. She barely escaped with seconds to spare as flames consumed the thatch directly above her head. In total, 19 houses burned down during the blaze on what officials called the hottest day of the year. Police believe a farmer nearby may have started the fire deliberately before it spread across roughly 500 acres of land.

Dramatic footage captured by witnesses shows the terrifying moment flames engulfed the thatched roof entirely. Inside, the twisted remains of an Austin 7 car are still visible in the garage. That vehicle was a gift bought for the grandmother by her late husband back in the 1960s. The daughter broke down when she looked at the wreckage and saw what little remained of their home.

Sentimentally, the loss is incalculable. The family had nearly everything destroyed, including the father's ashes which were among the cherished items lost in the heat. 'Daddy died five years ago,' the daughter said. 'I'm glad he's gone because he would have been absolutely devastated by this.' The destruction of Redmays took an immediate toll on the mother's health as well. She suffered a heart attack and is now living in a nursing home.

Heartbreaking pictures shared with the Mail show how Redmays has been reduced to ruin. Even their swimming pool was destroyed. The family had recently been staying with her mother because of her failing health. 'Thank goodness my husband and I were there,' she said. She explained that because the house is made of thatch, an ember must have jumped over the trees and caught the roof. Her husband went out to look at the fire in the field, walked back up, saw what was happening, and ran inside. Two neighbors who she did not know ran down the road and got her mother out.

Her mother owns the house and has lost everything. She saved almost everything, even the top of her wedding cake. 'She has nothing left,' the daughter said. It took three days for authorities to let the family return to Redmays to survey the damage. They have lived in the cottage for nearly half a century but now face having to rebuild the entire structure from scratch. Redmays was built in 1934 and has been well known locally for many years as the 'thatched house on the corner'.

Work on rethatching the roof even made headlines back in 2016 before everything changed after the fire. Three whole days passed before families whose homes were destroyed could break through the police cordon and see what remained of their former lives. When the daughter returned, she said she simply could not believe her eyes. In her heart, she honestly thought there would be a couple of rooms left to paint up so mum and dad could go home again, though she never knew why she felt that way. So when she went there with the police, she suffered a complete breakdown and started shouting and screaming at officers and her husband to leave her alone immediately. She described the scene as terrible. A police officer then showed the daughter a baby teapot that officers had recovered from the house, which remained the only item not totally destroyed by the flames. The family lived in Redmays since 1983 when they moved there from Birkenhead in Merseyside. The daughter joked about how her father bought the property and called it everything he did not want at all. He specifically stated he did not want leaded windows, he did not want thatch, and he certainly did not want a rendered house. Yet she just thinks of the joy felt when they came here from the back streets of Birkenhead where she grew up. They came from nothing so the joy in 1983 was moving somewhere so beautiful after where I grew up. She would do anything to sit in her snug with her ma and pa again, she added. The family is now going through a knotty process of sorting out an insurance claim on behalf of the elderly homeowner before embarking on the slow and arduous operation to rebuild the house. The daughter stated this is never how she dreamt her mother's life would end. She knows that this will be the end for her mother and that fact is the worst thing for her. There was joy in that house and they had a wonderful, very happy time there. But for her, this is not how she envisaged it ending. Police are understood to be investigating whether the fire this month was started deliberately. The Mail previously revealed that a relative of the landowner where the fire originated believes it was started on purpose in three different places. Brian Pardoe, 69 years old, said it was the second fire in a matter of weeks on his cousin's land. That previous incident was actually a spark off the combine according to him. This one seems a bit more deliberate doesn't it he asked? It was started in three places and burning in three different places at one stage so an accident looks unlikely to me.