For information about the Burwell Barn fire of 1727 see:
http://www.burwell.co.uk/content/fire1727.asp
https://www.newmarketlhs.org.uk/newmarketlhs%20burwell%20fire.htm
A contemporary account of the incident exists:
A Narrative of the Sudden and Surprizing Fire which happen’d at the Puppet-Show at Burwell in Cambridgeshire on the 8th of September 1828 with Moral Reflexions.
Enid Porter wrote about the fire in Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore p205f.
See also Cambridgeshire Murders by Alison Bruce, chapter 1.
The Burwell Chronicle 19/2/1774: A report prevails that an old man died a few days ago at a village near Newmarket who just before his death seemed very unhappy, said he had a burthen on hi smind which he must disclose, and then confessed that he set fire to the barn at Burwell on 8th September 1727 when no less than 80 persons unhappily lost their lives; that he was an ostler at the time, at or near Cambridge, and that having an antipathy to the puppet show-man attended with such dreadful consequences.
The Burwell Chronicle 17th August 1844: the account of a much older manuscript was published concerning the barn fire of 1727.
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