Yesterday (January 8) would have been David Bowie’s 79th birthday. Tomorrow (January 10) will mark 10 years since the day he died. Not many people can claim to have as much impact as David Robert Jones (AKA Bowie), and soon you’ll be able to view the space he lived in during a crucial period in becoming the Starman.
Heritage of London Trust has just announced a restoration of project of David Bowie’s former home, where he lived with his family between 1955 and 1967. Fans will be able to look around the space in South London, gaining insight into the early years of Bowie, and seeing where he wrote some of his early material. The trust has acquired the property, and now fundraising begins this month for the project, which has already received a £500,000 grant from the Jones Day Foundation.
David Bowie’s childhood home
4 Plaistow Grove in Bromley is where you’ll find David Bowie’s former home, where he spent much of his adolescence. He lived here with his family between the ages of eight and 20, is said to have written his formative songs here, and “regularly returned in the following years, as he wrote his breakthrough smash hit Space Oddity, which rocketed him to pop fame”.
Heritage of London Trust has said that the project is due for completion in late 2027, with the “two up, two down” railway workers’ cottage being restored to resemble its appearance in the 1960s.
Once complete, the space will also hold creative and skills workshops, teaching confidence and communication in the arts for future generations.
Speaking on the news, Geoffrey Marsh, who also co-curated the Victoria and Albert Museum’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 – as he said ‘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.’”
There is no confirmed date for when David Bowie’s former home will be restored and open to the public, but it is expected to be late 2027. You can read more about the project and fundraiser here.