Three teens held after Ferry Cottage in Ferry Lane, Bishopthorpe is torched (From York Press)

Three teens held after Ferry Cottage in Ferry Lane, Bishopthorpe is torched

8:51am Tuesday 5th January 2010

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A GIRL of 13 has been arrested along with two 16-year-old boys in connection with a fire which destroyed a 400-year-old house in Bishopthorpe village.

Firefighters from Acomb and York were called to Ferry Cottage in Ferry Lane, Bishopthorpe, at 9.45pm on Sunday where they discovered four separate blazes had been started within the unoccupied building.

The incident was the second fire at the listed property in less than a week.

On December 30, a fire destroyed a large section of the roof of the building, but no arrests have been made in connection with that incident.

A spokeswoman for North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service said Ferry Cottage had sustained 40 square metres of fire damage in the latest incident.

Andrew Dunn, a village resident, said: “I had been down to the village shop and was coming back up Acaster Lane.

“I heard the sirens and I though something had happened on the A64, but they came down Ferry Lane and it was Ferry Cottage again.

“It seems there were many seats of fire.”

Mr Dunn said the village had seen a number of fires in recent months including an incident at Bishopthorpe Bowling Club in August and a car fire in October.

Ferry Cottage is believed to have been empty since the death of its elderly owner some five years ago.

Though it was not thought to have been in a derelict state, villagers said windows and doors at the property had recently been boarded up after it had been broken into a number of times.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police confirmed three youths, all from York, had been arrested yesterday in connection with Sunday night’s blaze, though no charges had been made.

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