Jimmy Savile's former bungalow in Glencoe to be demolished for new family home

Jimmy Savile's Highland house of horrors in Glencoe is set to be bulldozed.

The notorious paedophile's former home will be flattened to make way for a modern, four-bed family property. Plans to demolish Savile's cottage, named Allt-na-Reigh, were given the green light after councillors voted unanimously for demolition at a Highland Council planning applications committee on Tuesday, June 18.

A date for destruction will be confirmed in due course. The building fell into a state of decay following the paedophile's death in 2011.

Images from inside the lair, where Savile is believed to have abused 20 victims, show collapsed ceilings, smashed walls and piles of debris. At one point, the property was whitewashed in a bid to deter vandals, however, words such as 'beast' and 'paedo' remain scrawled onto the exterior walls.

The former home is situated in a scenic area of the Glencoe Valley close to the A82 and near the iconic pass. It looks towards the Three Sisters mountain and a popular walking route to the Lost Valley and is backdropped by the hills forming the Aonach Eagach ridge.

Following Savile's death, the two-bed bungalow was put up for auction and was purchased for £212,000, with the buyer intending to live there. However, it was bought over for a reported £335,000 by the family of Harris Aslam, boss of Kirkcaldy-based convenience stores business Eros Retail.

His plans were initially hit with a flood of objections, including from Heritage Scotland, who said they did not fit the scenic landscape. Architects said Allt-na-Reigh’s redevelopment will be in honour of another former owner of the cottage – Dr Hamish MacInnes, who died in 2020.

Dr MacInnes was a Scottish mountaineer, explorer, mountain search and rescuer described as the “father of modern mountain rescue in Scotland”.

An accompanying design statement by the architect says: "It is a location which contains some of the finest scenery Scotland has to offer, yet despite this, the vandalism demonstrates a feeling towards the property, born from a disgraced previous owner, in spite of the fact that another previous owner was the renowned Scottish mountaineer Hamish MacInnes.

"This conflict between the location and the connection to one of the previous owners was highlighted when VisitScotland used an image of the property with the 'Three Sisters of Glencoe' in the background to promote the area, only to have to remove the image admitting it had been posted in error due to the negative reaction it received from the public."

Speaking during the committee, councillor Duncan Macpherson said: "The history of this building, as I understand it, was a barn back in the day. It was only because Hamish MacInnes was so into mountaineering that it was sold to him in the very early 1960s.

"It was known, historically, as his cottage. The state that it's in now is despicable and detracting from the whole area.

"All credits should go to the planners for working so closely with the applicant on getting it to this point. I look forward to passing it in a few years with a mature garden.

"What is being presented in front of us today looks better than what it has been and what it was allowed to detract to."

Savile first spotted the cottage while on a cycling holiday in 1944. The disgraced DJ and broadcaster once entertained then-Prince Charles over dinner at the property. It was also featured in a Louis Theroux documentary, 'When Louis Met Jimmy'.

It is hoped that work on the new scheme will begin on the site next year, with a commemorative plaque to honour the achievements of Dr MacInnes.

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