Following this is a vivid description of the great fire which gutted most of the north wing of Hatfield House in 1835, in which the Venerable old Dowager Lady Salisbury was burned to death. The young Dickens was one of the newspaper reporters who, hearing of the catastrophe, hurried down from London. He stayed, as he probably did on other occasions, at the "Salisbury Arms", and it was there that he wrote the account of the fire which appeared in the "Morning Chronicle". He again made use of his impressions of Hatfield when writing "Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings", in which the widow relates how "My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world, and being buried at Hatfield Church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his native place, but that he had a liking for the "Salisbury Arms", where we went upon our wedding day and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was".