Edinburgh's George IV Bridge fire: Footage shows fire carnage inside 'Harry Potter café'

Footage has revealed the extent of fire damage inside an Edinburgh cafe where JK Rowling wrote sections of her Harry Potter books.

The video shows fire, smoke and water damage caused to the Elephant House cafe following a blaze on Tuesday.

George IV Bridge and Candlemaker Row will remain closed for the "foreseeable" future, police have said.

The blaze is thought to have started at Patisserie Valerie, which has a basement running under the café.

The alarm was raised on Tuesday by a cleaner at the Elephant House cafe which is on ground level, next door to Patisserie Valerie

One person was taken to hospital and another was treated at the scene.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is now inspecting the structure of the building.

Hot spots were still being dampened down in the early hours of Wednesday.

Police are asking people to avoid the area.

At the height of the fire more than 60 firefighters tackled the blaze, which affected a number of properties.

Bar Oz at the back of Patisserie Valerie on Candlemaker Row has suffered water damage.

The Central Library in George IV Bridge will also remain shut on Wednesday.

Elephant House owner David Taylor said the cleaner who alerted the emergency services had been incredible.

He told BBC Scotland: "When she arrived she saw smoke coming up through the floorboards and called 999."

Mr Taylor, who has owned the independent café for 25 years, said: "We thought yesterday that we would just have to deal with smoke and water damage but having been allowed a quick look inside today I can see that is not the case and in fact there is a lot of fire damage too. To say I'm devastated is an understatement.

"I think it will take months to rebuild but it's hard to say."

The Elephant House takes its name from hundreds of elephant paintings, chairs and object d'art.

He said: "I think we will be able to salvage a lot of the elephants as the main cabinet is still intact, which holds them.

"Everyone has suffered over the last two years and we had been having a half decent festival, even although we were running at 50% so to have suffered this fire is terrible."

A Scottish Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said: "We were alerted at 06:18 on Tuesday 24 August to reports of a building on fire at George IV Bridge, Edinburgh.

"A total of 12 appliances and two height vehicles were mobilised to the area, where more than 60 firefighters worked to tackle the fire which affected a number of properties.

"Four appliances and one height vehicle currently remain at the scene."