10. Sheltermore Words and Music by Kevin Adams
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This title song of Kevin Adams’ eponymous album Sheltermore[1] was based on wistful memories of the area where Central Milton Keynes was built: David Bodley remembered the fields he grew up with - on a farm which was ‘swallowed up by the new city of Milton Keynes… Field names,’ said Kevin, ‘can be very poetic.’
‘There was Sheltermore, Common Field, Ten Acres, Top Hills, Furzton Field, Hovel Field and Rushy Slad and Little Slad – very boggy. Texas (Homecare) was built right in the middle of a field we called Rooksley. We’d find big flints but in those days, they weren’t so collectable as they are now… I was 18 months old when I came to Loughton in 1928. My dad rented Church Farm – it incorporated more or less up to the city centre what we used to farm. We done mixed farming - sheep, cows, pigs, poultry, corn – on 265 acres. We had a horseman, a cowman, a cowman’s assistant, and chaps that looked after the sheep. One field was called Bloody Bork - years ago, two fellers had a fight with poles in that field and one was killed. The man that looked after the horses would cart mangels[2] and swedes in the winter, from Bradwell – food for the dairy cows. We’d use the horses for harrowing the corn in after we’d drilled it with a tractor. The farmhouse was by the church. We used to bring the cows down by the lane and milk them in some of the old buildings still there.’ David Bodley Members of the surveying team from MK Development Corporation also shared their early memories of the area. They included the Land Agent, the Finance Appraiser and the Civil Engineer, respectively: ‘It was very exposed. In fact, a number of Buckinghamshire farmers said, ‘Why do you want to build Central Milton Keynes up here? The last time anybody lived here was in the Iron Age!’… You were absolutely miles from anywhere - there was just nothing around. Grass went down onto the west side towards Loughton but most of CMK was wheat, barley or rape.’ Henry Diamond ‘We’d left our car at the bottom of the hill by Eaglestone and walked up the hill through what’s now Fishermead, across the fields… A little lane came from Bradwell where the church is now. If you go to the back of the church there still is a bit of the original lane. We looked across and tried to work out where the Shopping Building would be. There were a couple of old barns there which were virtually the site before anything was built.’ Douglas Burcham ‘We came through the village of Loughton - up Common Lane which ran across the centre of CMK. We stopped at the copse of ash trees at the west end of the Shopping Building, now displaced by Marks and Spencer. We just observed the fields which had been left fallow and handed over for the development… Later I was walking westwards along the line of Midsummer Boulevard, and a skylark flew up in front of me - and there were its eggs! Had it not flown up, I would have trodden on it. It is the first and only time in my life I found a skylark’s nest.’ Jan Blackhall [3] No shops on Little Hills, no traffic on Long Line The rooks are building in the elms - I turn back time. Kevin Adams died in November 2020, but his music lives on. [1] See Sheltermore | Kevin Adams (bandcamp.com) [2] mangles: ‘mangel-wurzel - a variety of beet… cultivated as food for cattle.’ (OED) [3] Reminiscences from both former farmers and MKDC staff are collected in The Story of the Original CMK which can be accessed at: The Story of the Original CMK | Books | Living Archive |
Common Lane, Central Milton Keynes
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