When a fire broke out in a building adjacent to an old mill used to house props from Yorkshire based TV series, Heartbeat, it was feared that thousands of pieces of irreplaceable memorabilia dating from the 1950’s would be lost forever. 
Vintage jigsaw puzzles, sewing machines, bikes and even the famous ‘Aidensfield’ sign were amongst the many items that had to be rescued. The damage was caused by smoke and water from the sprinkler system leaving a sticky soot residue on countless valuables.
To the untrained eye, these items were beyond repair. However a team of twelve local damage restoration experts from ServiceMaster Clean and Furniture Medic was drafted in to work their magic on the damaged antiques.
Not only did they have the huge task of restoring the memorabilia, the structure of the warehouse was contaminated and the fabric of the building also had to undergo a full wet clean, a project carried out by ServiceMaster Clean. With 32 tables, 35 chairs, 17 upholstered items plus many more items of furniture to restore Furniture Medic also had quite a job on their hands.
Cliff Howden of Furniture Medic, was on site heading up the operation. “The Furniture was in a terrible state
when we first arrived but thanks to teamwork we got the job done on time and on budget. With credit to the production team from Yorkshire Television who were a great help on site and not afraid to get their hands dirty to ensure everything was done as quickly as possible. It was a really interesting project working with such old props and an eye-opener to see the efforts that are made to achieve authenticity in the programme.”Filming commenced on schedule and Ray Bradshaw, Propmaster for Heartbeat was delighted with the efforts of ServiceMaster and Furniture Medic. “A big thanks to the ServiceMaster team who have done a great job with all the props and to Furniture Medic, for the very prompt return of items all in excellent condition and all carried out so professionally, another big thanks.”
The fire started in the early hours of the morning of 25th April in an old mill next to the Heartbeat studio in Farsley, Leeds.
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