From the Seabrook Chronicle, 1956. This notice appeared on the front page of the first issue printed after the fire.
To our readers
The office of this newspaper was destroyed by fire in the early hours of Tuesday. Nobody was in the building and nobody was hurt. The fire brigades of Seabrook and Hartbury attended and kept the fire from the adjoining premises.
The cause is not yet known.
The press is lost, and with it the type, the ledgers and the bound file of the paper for the present year.
This issue has been set and printed at Hartbury by the courtesy of the Hartbury Advertiser, to whose proprietors we are obliged. It is of four pages. We ask the indulgence of our advertisers.
Readers who have kept copies of the Chronicle for any week of this year are asked to lend them to the Editor, so that the file may be made up again. They will be returned.
The Chronicle will appear next week as usual.
The fire was later found to have been accidental. The file for that year has not been made up.