WEDDING ceremonies will once again take place at fire-damaged Allerton Castle - just six weeks after a blaze ripped through the stately home.

But the cause and the route of the blaze, which is believed to have started in a chimney, have not yet been identified, because the damaged parts of the building are still too unsafe for fire investigators to examine.

North Yorkshire County Council has announced the resumption of civil weddings at the castle, near Knaresborough, following the fire in January.

Since the blaze, no wedding ceremonies have been able to take place, but two wedding receptions have gone ahead inside a specially-erected marquee.

The first civil ceremony since the blaze will take place next Saturday.

Helen Garritt, company secretary of Garritt Caterers, which is based at the castle and provides in-house catering, said the last six weeks had been "traumatic".

She said: "It's also been very cold, because we lost a couple of roofs.

"Everybody has worked very, very hard to get the castle back to where it is now and they are continuing to do so."

Set in open countryside, the gothic revival stately home had five rooms available to hold a civil wedding. Of these, the Great Hall, the Ball Room and the Drawing Room are back in use and the marquee is no longer needed.

Ms Garritt said that although some rooms had been boarded up and that restoration would continue for the rest of the year, wedding ceremonies would still be stunning.

She said: "The only thing that will be different is that dancing will take place in the Great Hall instead of the dining room.

"It's not drastically different."

North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service spokesman Owen Hayward said the investigation would take several weeks.

He said: "We are still considering it to be a chimney fire, but we need to get some specialist equipment to look at the chimney from inside and outside. We still can't do that because it's unsafe in that particular area.

"If it was a modern or industrial building with that much damage it might be cheaper to knock it down and rebuild it. Of course, we can't do that in this case so we have to wait.

"Once they are in a position to get into that part of the building for renovations, we will be there too."

Further details of the progress on restoration will be published on the Allerton Castle website at www.allertoncastle.co.uk

Updated: 10:27 Saturday, March 05, 2005