{"id":402160,"date":"2026-01-09T14:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402160\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T14:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:36:18","slug":"small-suburban-home-where-david-bowie-grew-up-and-wrote-his-first-chart-hit-space-oddity-is-set-to-be-opened-to-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/402160\/","title":{"rendered":"Small suburban home where David Bowie grew up and wrote his first chart hit Space Oddity is set to be opened to the public"},"content":{"rendered":"

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER <\/p>\n

Published: 19:32 EST, 8 January 2026 | Updated: 03:48 EST, 9 January 2026 <\/p>\n

It is the small suburban home where he wrote his first chart hit, Space Oddity.<\/p>\n

And now the unassuming property where David Bowie<\/a> lived from the age of eight until he was 20 is to be opened to the public.<\/p>\n

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

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.<\/p>\n

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

Geoffrey Marsh, who curated the Victoria and Albert Museum\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"David <\/p>\n

David Bowie had five UK number one singles and 11 UK number one albums in a hugely successful career<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A blue plaque on the building has commemorated the place where the music icon grew up<\/p>\n

Join the debate<\/p>\n

Should childhood homes of famous musicians become public spaces or remain private family memories?<\/p>\n

He said: \u2018It 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.<\/p>\n

\u2018As he said, \u201cI 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\u2019s-land of the living room\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The acquisition of the Bromley house comes a decade after his death, on January 10, 2016.<\/p>\n

Share or comment on this article:
\n Small suburban home where David Bowie grew up and wrote his first chart hit Space Oddity is set to be opened to the public<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By DAILY MAIL REPORTER Published: 19:32 EST, 8 January 2026 | Updated: 03:48 EST, 9 January 2026 It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,100,24740,134,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-402160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-dailymail","12":"tag-david-bowie","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}