Jimmy Savile’s rotting lair in Scottish Highlands engulfed in flames

The former home of disgraced television presenter Jimmy Savile has caught fire.

Police and the fire service were first called to the paedophile’s former home in Glencoe, Scotland, at around 5.30pm on Saturday.

A spokesman for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: ‘We were called at 17:36 and have three pumps in attendance.’

Police Scotland said a nearby road had been closed while firefighters tackle the blaze. 

A spokesman said last night: ‘The A82 is closed in both directions between Tyndrum and Ballachulish Bridge following a report of a fire at a property around 5.40pm on Saturday, 8 February, 2025.

‘Emergency services are in attendance and drivers are asked to avoid the area.’

The home, where Savile once welcomed King Charles, then-Prince of Wales, for dinner in 1999, has stood empty since the presenter’s death in 2011.

He saw the property for the first time during a cycling trip in 1944, and he lived there from 1998 until he died.

The home also featured in the Louis Theroux documentary ‘When Louis Met Jimmy’, when Louis spent a week with the BBC presenter in 2000.

Police raided the property a year after his death to look for evidence of Savile’s horrific crimes, as several victims came forward after he died. It’s now thought he abused up to 20 victims in the property.

The building has been left to rot since Savile’s offending came to light, having been broken in to and vandalised several times.

He had left orders for the two-bedroom cottage to be handed over to the community after his death, but this was put on hold after Scotland Yard launched its investigation into his crimes.

Words like ‘beast’ and ‘paedo’ have been scrawled on the exterior of the property a number of times since then, despite the building being whitewashed to try and deter vandals.

After Savile’s death aged 84 the small two-bedroom bungalow was put up for auction and purchased for £212,000 by someone who intended to move in. 

The home was later bought for a reported £335,000 by Harris Aslam in 2021, the director of Green’s grocery chain. 

Aslam hoped to replace the cottage with a new-build family home.

Those plans failed after a flood of complaints were received, including from the National Trust for Scotland which said the contemporary design would ‘distract and detract from the immersive experience of travelling through a landscape that is renowned and valued across the world’, Leeds Live reports.

Councillors have since approved plans to demolish the building last July, calling the building ‘a stain on Scotland’s most outstanding landscape’, MailOnline reports.

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