Fire mark

Fire Mark on Forge Sound: ‘Farmers Fire and Life Insurance Company’. In the 18th and 19th centuries, houses with insurance against fire mounted these fire marks on their outside wall, to indicate to the fire fighters employed by the insurance company that they should attempt to put the fire out.

For most of the 18th century, each insurance company maintained its own fire brigade, which extinguished fires in only those buildings insured by the company. On Forge Sound, there are two Insurance Marks, small plaques high on outside walls; each cottage may have been insured separately.

 

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