A £1.2million mansion that was disguised by a drug dealer to look like a farm shed is being converted into a six-bedroom family home – after it was earmarked for demolition.
Convicted drug dealer Alan Yeomans, 67, hid his seven bedroom house, Shedley Manor in Derbyshire, using green cladding to make it look like a cowshed.
The cannabis grower told officials he was bankrupt and living in a shed in his mother’s garden, while claiming he had just £300-worth of furniture and a £30 watch to his name.
Police later raided the hidden property in Yeaveley, near Ashbourne, following a tip-off, to discover a mansion full of luxury goods, including a £10,000 Rolex watch and antiques and oil paintings worth £83,250.
Green cladding on the mansion is now being removed, and windows are being installed, to convert the house into a luxury family home.
The seven-bedroom Derbyshire mansion is now being converted into a family home
The house was disguised using green cladding to look like an agricultural barn
Alan Yeomans, 67, was jailed for six-and-a-half years after police found a cannabis farm in an outbuilding following a raid on his house
Yeomans was later in 2016 for six-and-a-half years after police found £40,000 worth of cannabis plants in a secret room behind an oil painting of Elizabethan statesman Robert Cecil.
The 67-year-old admitted a string of offences including fraud, money laundering and producing cannabis.
He previously declared himself bankrupt in 1993 and 2009 and had used the green cladding to disguise his house and defy local planning restrictions.
After he was jailed, the property was auctioned and initially earmarked for demolition but later re-sold.
The current owners have now been given planning permission by Derbyshire Dales District Council to renovate it.
They have been granted permission to remove the green cladding, put windows in rooms that had none and create a new entrance.
Architect Matthew Montague said: ‘This property has quite a history.
‘It was built to look, from the outside, like a non-descript corrugated green agricultural barn but it was far from that and in reality there was luxury hidden within.
‘Quite a considerable amount of work is now needed, both inside and out, to make it into a house but permission has been granted so the owners can get on with it.
‘It will look very, very different,’ the architect said.
Police discovered £83,250 worth of antiques an oil paintings hidden in the house
The £1.2 million home also contained various luxury goods
The mansion was disguised to look like a cowshed to hide it from drivers on a nearby road
Yeomans was jailed after pleading guilty to nine charges relating to the production and supply of cannabis, stealing electricity, concealing criminal property and failing to disclose bankruptcy.
Derby Crown Court heard he had built the manor in 2002 in his mother’s back garden, without planning permission, and with green cladding to disguise it as a large shed.
Sentencing Yeomans to jail, judge Nirmal Shant said branded the 67-year-old ‘a liar, a money launderer and someone involved in the production of drugs’.
Insolvency service investigator Glenn Wicks said: ‘What surprised me when I went into Shedley Manor was that someone built a six-bedroom manor house in the Peak District and filled it with fine art and antiques and the authorities didn’t know anything about it.
‘This was a very intricate, sophisticated set-up.’
