David Bowie’s childhood home in South London is set to be restored and made available to the public.
The Heritage of London Trust, a charity organisation based in the capital, have announced that they have acquired the terraced home – 4 Plaistow Grove in Bromley – and will recreate the exact interior layout as it was when the young Bowie lived there between the ages of 8 and 20 (1955 to 1967).
The project is set to be completed in late 2027, and it will be used for creative and skills workshops for young people, acting as a “solid foundation for the next generation” and teaching confidence and communication skills in the arts.
The news was announced today (January 8), on the occasion of what would have been Bowie’s 79th birthday, as well as the 10th anniversary of his landmark final album ‘Blackstar’. Bowie died two days after the record’s release, following an 18-month battle with cancer, with the 10th anniversary of that to be marked on Saturday (January 10).
Geoffrey Marsh, who co-curated the Victoria and Albert Museum’s David Bowie Is exhibition, has also worked on the restoration project, and has 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.’”
The Heritage of London Trust’s director Dr. Nicola Stacey said: “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. 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. We are thrilled to have already secured a major grant of £500,000 from the Jones Day Foundation towards the project, and hope that people everywhere will want to be involved.”
In 2019, NME caught up with Bowie’s childhood friend George Underwood, who was with him in the band The King Bees in mid-’60s. Underwood remembered Bowie as a “confident kid” who was “ahead of the game in terms of his tastes and talents”. “We were into anything American or alternative,” he told NME. “In those times, rock n’ roll was just around the corner and we wanted to be part of that.”
To mark Bowie’s birthday today, his widow Iman shared an image of them together and wrote: “A million feeling, a thousand thoughts. A hundred memories… YOU! Happy Heavenly Birthday.”
His daughter, Lexi, also shared her own tribute, posting an old photo of herself and her father on his birthday. “Da big 79 today. Happy birthday pops, miss ya!” she wrote.
In other news, Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ has enjoyed a huge spike in streams after soundtracking the closing moments of the Stranger Things finale.
The show’s co-creator Ross Duffer revealed that the song was chosen after it was suggested by Joe Keery, who plays Steve Harrington on the show and also releases music under the alias Djo.
Meanwhile, the British Library is hosting an event to honour Bowie later this month, with Jehnny Beth and Tony Visconti among the guests set to appear. It will take place on 17 January and is titled ‘David Bowie In Time’.
Elsewhere, Bowie’s last years were explored in a recent Channel 4 documentary titled The Final Act, while the BBC have also announced a Bowie doc for 2026 in the form of Bowie In Berlin.
