The Sanctuary - Hardcore in Milton Keynes, 1991-2004

Milton Keynes Gallery has been hosting an exhibition on the famous MK club The Sanctuary (it closes on 23 January 2022). 

'How did an unsuspecting Milton Keynes warehouse become one of the UK’s largest and most beloved rave venues? Sanctuary: The Unlikely Home of British Rave will tell the story of the infamous all-night club that operated in the city from 1991-2004, drawing close to an estimated million ravers from across the country. 

The exhibition, an archive project that will display original ephemera, flyers, merchandise, artefacts, footage and more, is curated by Emma Hope Allwood, a writer and former Dazed editor who grew up around Milton Keynes. “It wasn’t until I became a journalist and came across the flyer for Dreamscape 1 that I learned of The Sanctuary,” she says. “For me, this project is about doing justice to the youth culture history of MK – a place which is too often unfairly maligned as a cultural void.”

'1991. A man walks into Milton Keynes Council's offices. His name is Murray Beetson, and he wants to put on a rave. The proposed venue? An empty warehouse in Denbigh North, little more than a colossal silver shell. A licence is granted, and one night in December, thousands show up for an event that goes down in history: Dreamscape 1.

Officially opening as The Sanctuary in 1992, the club marks a new chapter in the story of British rave. The hedonistic freedom of the late 1980s acid house movement - where fields and abandoned buildings were transformed into all-night venues - has become the target of Conservative politicians and scaremongering media. 

The party isn't over, it just has to adapt: emerging from the underground into licensed, legal venues.The Sanctuary is one of them. Over the following decade, hundreds of thousands make the pilgrimage there, cars of excited ravers snaking down motorways to dance until dawn to jungle, hardcore, and drum & bass in one of Britain's biggest clubs' (from exhibition).

The exhibition includes flyers for various events held there including Dreamscape and Helter Skelter, as well as some for earlier house/techno nights not far away at Rayzels in Bletchley.

Press headlines tell of the usual troubles of drug casualties, dealers and some more comic moments like the one about the 'Missing Raver' found asleep in a field.

There are also memories left by visitors

'people lying on the floor in white t-shirts having conversations and standing up filthy!'

... and an original blow horn! 

The club closed in 2004 and was demolished to make way for an Ikea store. In 2008 Sanctuary veterans staged a flashmob reunion in the aisles of Ikea.