Landmark furniture business burned down by rioters

For more than 140 years, the House of Reeves furniture store was a landmark in Croydon, a family-run business that supplied generations of families as the area changed from a small town to a London suburb.

Yesterday, it was a smouldering ruin, reduced to a shell in minutes by rioters who surged through the neighbourhood.

“I’m the fifth generation to run this place,” said owner Graham Reeves, looking puffy-eyed and shocked. “I have two daughters. They would have been the sixth.”