Home where David Bowie grew up set to be opened to the public

It is the small suburban home where he wrote his first chart hit, Space Oddity.

And now the unassuming property where David Bowie lived from the age of eight until he was 20 is to be opened to the public.

The interior of the house in Plaistow Grove in Bromley, south-east London, will be restored to how it was when the teenage songwriter was living there in the 1960s.

The release of Space Oddity, the song about doomed astronaut Major Tom, coincided with the Moon landings in 1969. It reached number five, kick-starting a career that turned singer and songwriter Bowie into an international superstar.

The Plaistow Grove house has been acquired by the Heritage Of London Trust. It plans to host creative and skills workshops at the venue.

Geoffrey Marsh, who curated the Victoria and Albert Museum’s David Bowie exhibition from 2015, said a never-before-seen archive will help to recreate the interior layout as it was when Bowie lived there.

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He 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 to the street, I had to pass through this no-man’s-land of the living room”.’

Bowie had five UK number one singles and 11 UK number one albums, with an influential career that embraced glam rock, soul, electronic music and disco.

The acquisition of the Bromley house comes a decade after his death, on January 10, 2016.