Devil’s Den, Destroyed

The old abandoned farm was still smouldering when I got there, and the fire crews were still in attendance.

Devil’s Den Farm – or, to give it the official name from its Grade II listing, Shenley Dens Farm, has been on my mind a lot this week after reading my story about it for the MK Lit Fest event on Thursday, but it was a post on Facebook last night that stopped me in my idle scrolling – the farmhouse was on fire.

For all of five minutes, I thought about going straight over to take a look, but decided that would be a bit much, and waited till this morning. Even from across the fields, the smell of burning was still heavy in the air, and there was still smoke drifting from the top floors of the farmhouse. The fire has ripped through the derelict building, and the roof has completely burned away. From the videos of the interior that I saw earlier in the year, there were heavy supports keeping the upper floors in place, so I can only imagine what it looks like inside now.

I stayed well clear of the area where the crew was still working, and kept safely behind the fire line tape, but even just walking along the footpath behind the house, the scale of the devastation is clear. It’s pretty hard to photograph the side of the farmhouse without including the four-letter slogan that’s been graffiti’d across the side wall, so excuse the odd cropping, but you can see right through to the windows at the other side, and from the rear of the house, it looks even worse. I must admit I was genuinely saddened to see it in this state. There had been a kind of ruined beauty to the old place when I last visited, and to see it all destroyed – painful.

After I’d been there for about half an hour, the incident commander spotted me taking pictures, and came over for a chat. I explained that I wasn’t up to anything dodgy and was just taking photos for my blog – note to self – I really need some business cards or something! To be honest, I think he’d come to that conclusion anyway, I’m a five-foot-two 40-something in a sunhat, I look utterly non-threatening, and definitely not like a crazed arsonist returning to the scene of the crime! I asked if anyone had been inside at the time as I know there had been squatters there in the past, and thankfully he confirmed it had been empty. However, the damage is extensive, and it’s definitely unsafe at the moment so they were expecting to be on site for most of the day. The cause of the fire is unknown and whether it’ll need to be demolished seems unclear at this stage

The fire crews had been trying to get hold of the site owners overnight, but couldn’t find any contact details. I’d done some background research back when I first discovered it in March so I was able to share the details of the latest developers I could track down: Persimmon Homes, based on the Historic Buildings Assessment that listed it in 2007. It may well have changed hands since then, and there’s some recent developments which seem a bit… suspiciously timed, shall we say. I’ll go into the local context after these photos, as I appreciate not every reader’s going to want to stick around for my musings on local planning developments!

Update, January 2025: For a look at how the site looks now, read about my latest visit to the Den.

Suspicious timing?

Milton Keynes is undergoing a significant amount of development at the moment, and the ambitious “MK City Plan 2050” was announced just over a fortnight ago on July 18th. It’s open for consultation at the moment, and details plans for 30,000 new homes to be built, on top of existing development work that is already in progress. On July 24th, the Parish Clerk for Whaddon posted to raise awareness that these plans included details of 1,000 new homes due to be built on the Shenley Dens Farm site, saying:

Milton Keynes City Council has just published their latest version of the MK City Plan, in which they propose building some 1000 new homes at Shenley Dens Farm, beyond Oakhill Wood, just to the north of Whaddon village, up to and before 2050.Many residents will recall that this same site was also proposed back in 2003, but was deleted by the then MK Council, following many objections (mainly on landscape grounds), and a strong rebuttal by the Planning Inspectorate. Clearly the developers – supported by MKCC – are trying again to bring this site forward as a major development proposal.

On p46 of MK City Plan 2050, the detail of the plans for Shenley Den does say:

2. Development of the site must adopt a sensitive landscape-led approach to the layout and design of development that satisfactorily protects or mitigates impacts upon the valued characteristics of the Calverton Special Landscape Area in accordance with Policy CEA12.
3. Layout and design of the site should seek to sustain, and where possible enhance, the setting and heritage value of the grade II listed Shenley Dens Farmhouse.

…but… it wouldn’t be the first time that a fire has conveniently taken out a listed building that’s sitting on a site due for development. It will be interesting to see how this one develops!

Update – December 2024: For reference, I found the Fire Service’s report of the incident – you can read it here.