How devastating fire ripped through landmark Yates's Wine Lodge 17 years ago and changed Blackpool' skyline
It is 17 years - almost to the day - since Blackpool lost one of its iconic buildings when a huge blaze destroyed the famous Yates’s Wine Lodge.
But the fire took out more than the historic 115-year-old building; a neighbouring pet shop was among five other businesses devastated by the fire, with more than 100 animals tragically dying.
Yates’s Wine Lodge in Blackpool was an iconic, immensely popular landmark for decades before.
It served as a major, bustling meeting place for both residents and tourists, famous for its lively atmosphere, champagne on draught, and, at times, celebrity visitors.
It was at around 3.15am on the morning of 15 February 2009 that the fire broke out in an alleyway between Clifton Street and Talbot Square.
The alarm went up as the historic Yates’s wine bar at Clifton Street became engulfed in flames.
More than 100 firefighters were needed to control the fire, one of the largest in the town’s history at that time.
The Yates’s building, known for its iconic rotunda and “Champagne on Draught” sign, was completely gutted. The damage was estimated at £20m, including neighbouring buildings.
Blackpool Council acted quickly to ensure public safety by ordering the immediate demolition of the structurally unsafe, iconic Yate’s rotunda.
The council worked with owners to secure the site, managed road closures, and aimed to salvage surrounding businesses.
In the wake of the blaze, attention turned to a possible cause of the destruction.
As police and firefighters began an investigation, a 21-year-old local man confessed to starting the blaze.
But the case against him collapsed after scientific evidence proved he could not have been responsible, and the cause of the blaze remained unsolved.
Following the fire, the site sat empty for years. Plans in 2013-2014 to turn the site into a “retail and leisure complex” (with TGI Fridays and Tesco) did not come to fruition.
It would be some years before a replacement building would be built on the site, transforming this part of Blackpool forever.
A new six-storey Premier Inn hotel opened in 2021, boasting 150-bedrooms and designed to fit into the area.
As for Yates’s Wine Lodge itself, the building lives on on the merories of those who remember the old times.