David Bowie

📍Haddon Hall, Foxgrove Road, Beckenham, London BR3 5AT, England

“Haddon Hall was a Victorian gothic mansion in Beckenham, south London, and it was there that I became David Bowie. I moved in with Angie in 1969 and the house became a salon, a rehearsal space, a creative laboratory where Ziggy Stardust was conceived and the whole theatrical reinvention of rock and roll began. The place was enormous and we could barely afford to heat it — we had no furniture in half the rooms and threw parties where the guests brought their own chairs. But the freedom of all that space, and the community of musicians and artists and freaks who drifted through, was intoxicating. Mick Ronson worked out his guitar arrangements in the ballroom. I wrote whole albums at the kitchen table. Beckenham was suburban and ordinary and that contrast with what we were creating inside felt electric.”

Sources: Buckley, D. Strange Fascination: David Bowie, The Definitive Story (1999), Virgin Books; Trynka, P. Starman: David Bowie: The Definitive Biography (2011), Little, Brown; Bowie, A. Backstage Passes (1993)