FEATURE:
Coral Rooms
The Homes of Kate Bush
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I may do this for another feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush standing outside of her family home at East Wickham Farm, Welling (in the London borough of Bexley)
where I trace everywhere Kate Bush lived and worked in London. The studios she recorded out of. Where she took dance classes and did rehearsals for 1979’s The Tour of Life. Today, I want to look at Kate Bush’s homes. Rather than this being tabloid clickbait or invading her privacy, it is interesting to highlight as Bush recorded from home. The setting very important in terms of her albums. How she moved from London and but has not strayed too far from the city. The fact she can get to London quickly enough if she needs to. Of course, we need to start out with Bush’s childhood home: the idyllic East Wickham Farm. I am not aware of any Kate Bush tours but, if you wanted to chart her life and see where she lived, you would start out with East Wickham Farm. Such a Signiant part of her young life and career, I wonder whether Bush has gone back in years since. It must have been this restful paradise for her. So settled and beautiful. This feature from 2015 highlights the magnificent East Wickham Farm:
“The large farmhouse where Kate Bush was raised is almost impossible to see through impenetrable undergrowth and is situated in a surprisingly built-up area on Wickham Street, Welling, on the fringes of South-East London.
East Wickham Farm was the family home where Kate lived with her doctor father, mother and two older brothers, John and Paddy. Her inbuilt wonder and love of music and outpouring of songs, written when a schoolgirl, all began here, surrounded by her family.
Famously ‘discovered’ and encouraged by Dave Gilmour and signed to EMI as a songwriting prodigy, the teenage Kate Bush also formed the KT Bush Band with brother Paddy and three friends, playing South London pubs. The family’s secluded 350-year-old farmhouse home offered a base for an idyllic childhood and subsequently a secure and private environment for her work. Kate, who shares a birthday with Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë, wrote her ‘version’ at East Wickham Farm.
The conversion of one of the barns into a 24-track studio in 1983 was significant. It gave Kate, who now had four Top 10 albums to her credit, a financial and creative independence to take as long as she wanted over future projects”.
London was important to Kate Bush. In terms of opportunities and recording facilities. She recorded out of AIR Studios, Oxford Street in 1977 and she would record at London studios for much of her career. She spent a lot of her young years there attending dance and mime classes. I did not know that Bush wrote Wuthering Heights away from East Wickham Farm. I always had it in my head that she was there until The Kick Inside was released in 1978 and she moved away. I know that she lived at 44 Wickham Road, Brockley. Situated in quite a quiet and nice part of South London, you can see the property on Google. I wonder how much the property has changed since Bush wrote there in 1977. To go to that property and look up and imagine Kate Bush looking out into the night on 5th March, 1977 and seeing a full moon. This song coming to her. This article from My London talks about that. How Bush did not move too from East Wickham Farm (about seven miles):
“It was a song inspired by the romantic novel of the same title by Emily Bronte and sung from the perspective of the character Catherine Earnshaw who is pleading to be let into Heathcliff's house and be with him.
Kate is believed to have penned the lyrics to the song in only a few hours and did so from her flat in South London.
Kate, who was born in Bexleyheath, never strayed too far from the south of the capital and when she was emerging as a groundbreaking talent she lived in a flat in Wickham Road in Brockley.
The flat Kate lived in was the middle flat of a three flat building and her two brothers were believed to have lived above and below her.
Kate credits her brothers for getting her into music in the first place and through them had her first live performance at the since closed Rose of Lee pub in Lewisham, as well as the Royal Albert in New Cross Road”.
It must have been quite convenient living in Brockley. It meant that Bush was situated not too far from family and she could get to the centre of the city easily. However, as she was dating Del Palmer in the 1970s and the two got serious, they did move out of London. Bush did come back to East Wickham Farm to record Hounds of Love. Bush and Palmer lived in a 17th-century farmhouse in Kent in the 1980s. The farmhouse was near Sevenoaks. Again, not too far from East Wickham Farm, I believe they moved out there in 1983. Bush had a quieter life and could garden and did not have the stress and smog of the city. 1983 was a year for recharge and rebuild. Setting down roots with Del Palmer and moving to a gorgeous property. I am not sure of the exact address, though it was a step up from the flat she had in Brockley. Bush requiring more space and a better environment to create work. I don’t think the London exile lasted too long. Again, not too far from East Wickham Farm (about four miles), Bush resided in Eltham from 1985. This article explains more:
“Bush lived in the Eltham, South East London property between 1985-2003 with the current owners placing it on the market for £3m, reports The Telegraph.
The current owner, Jackie O’Reilly, has paid homage to Bush with a wrought-iron gate at the entrance to the house which has the words ‘Wuthering Heights’ on it in reference to Bush’s 1978 single. “The house was already called that in the title deeds, so we decided to put that in as a homage to Kate,” said O’Reilly.
“I grew up in Eltham, and we always knew it as Kate Bush’s house, and caught odd glimpses of her,” O’Reilly said. “But she clearly valued her privacy. The house is surrounded by large trees, to keep out prying eyes.”
“Kate has long since moved out of the area, but we catch sight of her from time to time,” she added. “Her brother still lives next door, and there is a gate between the two gardens”.
IN THGIS PHOTO: Kate Bush’s former home in Eltham, London
I do love how there was this family connection. Bush living so close to her brothers and near her parents. She did not want to stray too far. That connection with London lasting until 2003. It was clear by then, when she already had a young son (Bertie would have been five or so in 2003), that she needed to relocate and perhaps get away from London. I hear that Bush still has a flat in London, somewhere around South Kensington or Chelsea. Maybe as a base or somewhere to stay if she needs to. However, since 2003, she has lived in larger properties not too far from Greater London. There might be a slight gap in my timeline. I know that Bush moved down to Devon in 2005. Whether she was living somewhere else from 2003-2005, there is this two-gap I am curious about that period. I wonder whether writers like Graeme Thomson or Tom Doyle would have more information about the years 2003-2005. It is crucial as 2005 was the year when Bush released her seventh studio album, Aerial. She would have wanted to move somewhere where there was less press intrusion. As her son was at school and he would have wanted to have a more settled life, it seemed like a good move. Located close to the sea, I think it was a tactical move. The inspiration she could have got from that setting. Though she was privy to ramblers and people walking past the property, I think there was more space and privacy for her there. However, as NME reported in 2014, the property was in danger of falling into the sea:
“Kate Bush‘s Devon cliff top home is in danger of falling into the sea, according to reports.
Council officials have warned the singer that she needs to invest in re-enforcements to prevent the five-bed property, which Bush bought in 2005 for £2.5 million, from toppling into the ocean.
In 2013, a landslip caused a section of the coast near Kingsbridge to fall into the sea. According to the Exeter Express And Echo, the home belonging to Bush’s neighbour is now inches away from the 88-foot drop and the singer’s own property is next in line.
“If you live there you can either accept it and let your house fall into the sea, or you can take action to prevent further damage, although that can cost hundreds of thousands,” said Devon County Council’s Steve Gardner.
“You can attach netting to the cliff face, or another option is spraying it with concrete, although these are very expensive and not something the council would pay for”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush’s Devon mansion/PHOTO CREDIT: SWNS
After Aerial came out, it may have seemed like a sensible idea to move closer to London again. I hear interviews from 2005 where Bush was interviewed at home. I wonder whether that was in Devon or a property down in London perhaps. I can’t imagine journalists schlepping down to Devon. Doing a bit more digging, it seemed that Bush was based near Theale, Berkshire for a long period. She lived there with her husband Danny (or Dan) McIntosh until 2011. It might have been the case that she did promotion for Aerial there. Significant that she moved out in 2011. That was a year when Bush (remarkably) released two new albums – Director’s Cut (May) and 50 Words for Snow (November). I am fascinated by the properties Kate Bush has lived in. I can see why Bush wanted to move into a gorgeous Georgian mansion with Danny McIntosh. This feature from last year from The Standard spotlighted the property and how it has changed since Bush and McIntosh lived there:
“This house is full of my mess/ This house is full of mistakes/ This house is full of madness / This house is full of fight,” sang Kate Bush in “Get Out of My House”. Now, this house is for sale: the singer’s former Berkshire home has been listed with Strutt & Parker for £11.5 million.
Bush bought the Grade II-listed Georgian mansion in the mid-1990s when she was pregnant with her son, Bertie, and lived there with her husband, the guitarist Danny McIntosh, until 2011.
Located on the river Kennet, near the village of Theale, the property was built around 1800 as a miller’s house for the nearby water mill. Standing in 22.54 acres of grounds, Shenfield Mill, as it is known, offered Bush the privacy she was looking for. “I’m really quite a quiet, private person,” she said in an interview for her biography, written by Rob Jovanovic. “It’s quite a surprise to me to think I’m a famous person.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush’s former recording studio has now been converted into a three-bedroom bungalow/PHOTO CREDIT: Strutt & Parker
After moving in, Bush converted two of the property’s outbuildings into a dance and recording studio. It was here that she wrote and recorded Aerial — her first album in 12 years when it was released in 2005 — and 50 Words for Snow. At the time, Bush said that she recorded birdsong from her garden at the house, which she reinterpreted in her voice and used in Aerial. The cover depicts the soundwave of a blackbird song.
“I’ve always been very lucky because I’ve got a lot of creative freedom when I’m working in the studio. The albums don’t cost a lot of money. It’s a very small process,” Bush told the BBC in 2011. “I’ve put a packet of bonemeal on my piano. It seems to be helping the blossoming of the songs.”
Bush sold the property to its current owners, Mike and Fran Taylor, in 2011. “Mike is a very keen fisherman,” says agent Tom Shuttleworth. “You’ve got the river Kennet and the Avon Canal, but when he saw the weir pool, he said: ‘I’ve got to have it.’”
The Taylors undertook a four-year renovation of the house and grounds, which included reroofing and repointing the Georgian property, refurbishing the windows – and almost doubling the house’s footprint by adding a glass extension. Measuring nearly 1,200 square feet, the glass-walled extension —or orangery— overlooks the garden and river, and is connected to the house via a glass link.
“The owners literally took the home back to brick internally,” says Shuttleworth. “It was a real labour of love.”
Now, the Georgian main house measures a total of 7,384 square feet with four bedrooms, the largest of which is almost 500 square feet alone. Bush’s former dance studio has been turned into a two-storey, self-contained cottage with two further bedrooms, while her recording studio is now a three-bedroom bungalow.
Outside, the couple reshaped the property’s gardens, reinstating the eroding riverbanks and creating a walled garden from the historic mill, which had been damaged by a fire in the late 1800s. “They enabled the water to flow through the mill once again, which helps the river Kennet to flow smoothly through the grounds,” says Shuttleworth. “What you’ve got now is a nice combination of order and nature”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
Having moved from Sulhamstead in Berkshire, Bush now resides in Oxfordshire. Clifton Hampden Manor is a splendid and grand property in a quiet part of the world. Again, convenient enough to get down to London, Bush resides in a staggering property. I know that she will have recording facilities somewhere. That was the case when she lived near Theale. I can imagine there is a recording studio down the garden or in a separate building. Before finishing off, this article talks about Bush’s new life:
“Singer-songwriter Kate Bush ordinarily enjoys a very quiet life in South Oxfordshire. With her 1985 song Running Up That Hill topping charts this week thanks to its inclusion in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things, she has been thrust into the spotlight once again as a whole new generation enjoys the song - 37 years after its original release.
So will her Victorian manor house near Abingdon be the location of intense celebrations? Probably not...
Kate enjoys a low-key lifestyle in Oxfordshire and recently spoken about how she has swapped her dancing shoes for gardening gloves and can't get enough of getting her hands dirty with her new therapeutic hobby.
Kate Bush previously lived in Theale in west Berkshire, but purchased a large manor house in the south of the county where she moved in 2017 with her son Bertie McIntosh, who attended a private school in Oxford”.
Even though it almost common knowledge that we know where Bush lives, fans like me would never violate her privacy by sending her a letter. I guess some people do though, as she wants her privacy and she would be inundated, everything has to go through her management. Bush has remained in England for her whole life. I don’t think that will change. From London to Devon to Berkshire to Oxfordshire, these are all parts of the country that offered Kate Bush something new. I feel she may stay in Oxfordshire. When a new album does arrive, I guess journalists will be invited to Clifton Hampden Manor. Quite an extraordinary and overwhelming setting to conduct an interview! I think back to Bush’s early life when she moved out of East Wickham Farm and was in Brockley. Would she know what course her life would take and where she would end up?! I said I would do a feature about Kate Bush’s London and the areas she visited, worked in and frequented whether it was for her music or dance classes. That feature should be with you…
VERY soon.