A 400-year-old farmhouse up for sale for nearly £400,000 was gutted by fire on Tuesday night.
Crews battling the blaze at Lower Meadow Road in Handforth at one stage believed a person was inside the building, but said later this was unlikely.
The owners, who had previously let the building as offices, arrived at the scene on Wednesday morning but said they were too upset to provide more details.
</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The property, built in 1714, was up for sale for £375,000 or let for £15,000 a year with Williams Commercial, who told the Express the building was actually already under offer.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">David Harwood, 24, an IT support network worker for Interlink Software at neighbouring offices said: "My boss was here last night and he said it was bad.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">"I arrived this morning and at first thought it was our building on fire. It's very sad."</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Firefighters and police cannot yet enter the detached commercial property on Lower Meadow Road because the fire has ripped through the building and left it unstable. Most of the roof has collapsed in.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Just before 1.30 am crews from Wilmslow were called.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">They found the property well alight and engines were sent from Poynton, Bollington, Macclesfield and Cheadle.Crews began fighting the blaze on the business estate from outside and the hyrdaulic platform from Macclesfield was sent.Two main jets were used to tackle the flames, with water sprayed from the platform.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Crews are continuing to remove roof tiles and damp down using hose reel jets.</p> <p xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">A building inspector was at the scene.</p>
