A multi-millionaire banker is understood to have been arrested and released following a fire which gutted his 500-year-old Grade I listed mansion.

Investor Michael Treichl, 68, was questioned this week on suspicion of arson by detectives from Dorset Police and has since been released pending further investigations.

Around 100 firefighters attended the huge blaze at Parnham House in Dorset, which initially broke out at 4am on Saturday April 15 and took four days to extinguish completely.

Nobody was injured in the fire but the Elizabethan mansion in Beaminster, just south of Yeovil, is reported to be completely gutted.