A fire gutted an entire wing of a converted 400-year-old farmhouse in Upperthong this morning.
The fire was at Wolfstone at Heights Farm.
Darren Baggley of Huddersfield Fire Station said the fire broke out just after 1am.
He said: "The two-storey wing had an oil-fired boiler and a flue which went through the 400-year-old oak floor and beams and out through the roof.
"The flue had been touching timbers and set fire to a piece of old oak which spread very rapidly.
"I reckon it had been charring away for some time, possibly even days. Thankfully, smoke detectors had been fitted which helped.
"Four pumps from Huddersfield, Meltham and Holmfirth tackled the blaze with the Holmfirth crew extinguishing the fire.
"It took some damping down though and we called in a special aerial combination from Halifax.
"Because of the state of the roof we couldn't get in, it had semi-collapsed. We had to strip the roof which had really heavy slates on it. It took two to three hours to bring the fire under control.
"Many thousands of pounds of damage has been caused. One room was full of antiques."
