No4 Plaistow Grove in Bromley is, in most respects, an unremarkable suburban terraced house, similar to tens of thousands of 20th Century homes, but for the fact that it was where, between the ages of eight to 20, David Jones grew up with his family.
Remarkably unremarkable: 4 Plaistow Grove in Bromley, childhood home of David Bowie
That Jones later became known as David Bowie has persuaded the Heritage of London Trust to buy 4, Plaistow Grove, with the intention of restoring it to the style that Jones/Bowie might have recognised when he lived there in the 1960s, and so create an “immersive” visitor experience, to open next year.
The announcement was made yesterday, on the anniversary of Bowie’s birth (1947, in Brixton). Tomorrow marks the 10-year anniversary of his death, aged 69.
The Trust is to use an archive to recreate the interior layout as it was when Bowie lived there, including his bedroom, where he wrote one of his most memorable songs – “Space Oddity”.
Bowie recalled his time growing up in his bedroom in Plaistow Grove: “I spent so much time in my bedroom. It really was my entire world. I had books up there, my music up there, my record player. Going from my world upstairs out onto the street, I had to pass through this no-man’s-land of the living room.”
Bowie would go on to have five UK No1 singles and 11 No1 albums during his career.
The house is near the Edwardian “Bowie bandstand”, where the late musician performed in 1969, and which was restored by Bromley Council and Heritage of London Trust in 2024.
Similar heritage projects at former homes of pop stars such as John Lennon, in Liverpool, and Jimi Hendrix, in Mayfair, have been carried out before with some success, but the Bowie house is thought to be the first of its kind in south London.
It was Bromley boy Bowie, of course, who during his time as a student at Croydon College of Art coined the phrase, “So fucking Croydon”.
Understatement: the blue plaque on the Bowie house in Bromley
Geoffrey Marsh, the curator of the V&A’s “David Bowie Is” exhibition, said: “It was in this small house, particularly in his tiny bedroom, that Bowie evolved from an ordinary suburban schoolboy to the beginnings of an extraordinary international stardom.,” explains Marsh.”
There are plans to stage workshops at the Bowie house/museum/shrine.
The house is estimated to have sold for somewhere in the mid-£400,000s, as part of a project which, overall, will cost close to £1million.
The project has received a £500,000 grant from the Jones Day Foundation, which will help to fund the restoration. The Trust is also launching a public fundraising campaign.
“David Bowie was a proud Londoner. Even though his career took him all over the world, he always remembered where he came from and the community that supported him as he grew up,” Dr Nicola Stacey, the director of the Heritage of London Trust, said.
“It’s wonderful to have this opportunity to tell his story and inspire a new generation of young people and it’s really important for the heritage of London to preserve this site.”
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Nice idea!
He did not write Space Oddity when he was living at his family home near Sundridge Park Station. It was mainly written in South Kensington living with Hermione Farthingale after he had moved out a year or so earlier. The more pertinent place with regard to Bowie and his explosion of creative output would be when he lived in the demolished Haddon Hall in Beckenham. That was a genuinely interesting building.
This restoration of a dull Victorian terraced House into a Bowie Shrine maybe good for tourism, but does reek of the stagnation of our culture into a nostalgic heritage business. Don’t know if the neighbours will be happy that it may increase the local property prices or sad that it will lead to far more congestion and inconvenience in the local vicinity.
And regular contributor Peter Gillman is saying that Bowie never attended Croydon College of Art, not even briefly enough to utter the immortal words as he left “so fucking Croydon”.
But in Bowie’s own words: “It was my nemesis, I hated Croydon with a real vengeance. It represented everything I didn’t want in my life, everything I wanted to get away from. I think it’s the most derogatory thing I can say about somebody or something: ‘God, it’s so fucking Croydon!'”
I, and several of my friends, were at that Bowie organised free concert in the Beckenham Bandstand. My family lived a couple of miles away in Park Langley, and I’d just left Bromley Grammar after A levels. One of my, and John Peel’s, favourite musicians also played, Bridget St John, along with other folkies Keith Christmas and the Strawbs. Idyllic afternoon it was…