Fire breaks out at Claudia Schiffer’s mansion
A fire broke out at Claudia Schiffer’s Suffolk mansion over the weekend.
A team of 50 firefighters spent two hours battling the blaze at the German-born supermodel’s Coldham Hall residence near Bury St Edmunds when it caught fire on Monday afternoon (26.05.14).
Several outbuildings and disused stables in the grounds of the 16th century property were damaged in the flames, the Daily Mail is reporting.
A spokesperson told the newspaper: “A fire investigation concluded that it was started accidentally.”
Luckily, the Grade One listed main house in which the 43-year-old star resides with her movie producer husband Matthew Vaughn and their three children escaped damage.
The inferno was so strong that eight different firefighting crews from the neighbouring towns of Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich, Sudbury, Ixworth, Newmarket and Long Melford were sent to assist.
It is not known whether the family, who snapped up the 12-bedroom house with its 40 acres of parkland in 2002 for $5 million, were at home at the time of the incident.
They usually spend their weeks in their Notting Hill flat in west London, travelling to Suffolk for weekends and holidays.
The couple had just celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary the day before the fire, which has apparently left part of the grounds where they held their 2002 wedding reception badly scorched.
Claudia previously revealed the country retreat was owned by the Rookwood family for over three centuries before they bought it.
She said: “Matthew used to come here as a child, because his friend’s family owned it, so he has so many memories of this house. But then the family sold it, though he always talked to me about it.
“He used to bring me to the area, and one day we decided to see if the owners might ever plan to sell. We literally knocked on the door, asked them, and found out that they were – it was that easy.”
