A PUB landlord is left devastated after a fire tore through his pub causing extensive damage inside.

The blaze broke out at Belvedere Hotel in Picardy Road around 1.30am on Monday (May 4).

About 25 per cent of the downstairs of the building was damaged by the fire.

Pub landlord Ron Hall said: “I am devastated, the bar area downstairs has been very badly damaged.

“We had only just finished redecorating the pub six weeks ago and now the bar area is completely stripped bare because of the fire.”

Mr Hall and his business partner 21-year-old Jamie Crawford took over the running of the pub in November last year.

They had been sleeping in a flat upstairs when the fire broke out.

Mr Hall, 33, said: “We woke up when we heard the fire alarms going off.

“I went to reset them but when I looked at a CCTV camera I have upstairs in my flat I realised that the downstairs of the pub was on fire.

“We escaped out the fire exit and then called the fire brigade straight away, it was quite scary.

“Luckily firefighters were able to put out the fire before it spread to the function room on the middle floor and our flat.

“The outside of the building was only slightly damanged by smoke."

It is unclear how the fire started but police are not treating it as suspicious.

A spokesman for the London Fire Brigade said the full cause of the blaze remains under investigation.