POLICE are appealing for information after a farm building and its contents were destroyed in a suspected arson attack at the weekend.
Firefighters spent all day Sunday battling the fire in a large barn at Fitches Grange Farm, between Toft Hill and Witton-le-Wear, on the A68, County Durham.
The new £200,000 building was gutted by the fire which started in the early hours and police are treating it as suspicious.
About 300 tons of baled hay, worth £50,000, was also destroyed in the fire.
At the height of the blaze, six appliances and more than 30 officers from Bishop Auckland and Crook were called to the scene.
The blaze was a cruel blow for the owners as it was almost two years ago to the week that fire crews were called to the same site by the Thompson family, a well known local farming family.
In September 2000 the blaze destroyed 500 bales of newly harvested hay.
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