Investigations are continuing today into what caused a fire at the Town House Hotel in Thorpe St Andrew on Monday evening.

About 15 members of the public were in the Town House on Yarmouth Road when a fire broke out in the kitchen of the pub and hotel shortly before 6.20pm.

Fire crews from Sprowston and Earlham attended the incident with firefighters using main and hose reel jets, thermal image cameras and a dry powder extinguisher in the operation.

Station manager Alan Nicholls described it as a 'small electrical fire believed to have been caused by an electrical fault'.

He said: 'The fire alarm sounded and they evacuated the premises prior to the fire service's arrival.'

Mr Nicholls said everyone has been accounted for and it is not believed anyone was hurt.

He said once the property has been isolated and 'made safe' it would be handed back over to the management of the establishment.

It is understood 'alternative arrangements' have been made for those staying at the hotel although it is not yet known when people will be able to get back in.

Staff were stood outside the restaurant during the incident but have since left the scene.

No-one wanted to speak about what happened.

The Town House, formerly the Beefeater Town House Hotel, hit the headlines in October 2000 when notorious East End gangster Reggie Kray stayed there.

Kray, an inmate at HMP Blundeston in the 1990s later transferred to Wayland Prison.

He died in October 2000 in the honeymoon suite at the Beefeater.

The former gangster had been officially freed from prison by then Home Secretary Jack Straw because of his deteriorating health.