“There’s gonna have to be a different man”: the Bowie coiffure in transition at Haddon Hall, Beckenham, 1971
Photo by LOUANNE RICHARDS/CAMERA PRESS
WALK 10 minutes uphill from Beckenham Junction station, past the squat new developments and elegant townhouses, and you’ll eventually arrive at the corner of Southend Road and Shannon Way. Today, it’s a block of square brick apartments, similar to many buildings in this corner of southeast London. But before it was demolished in the early ’80s, this was the site of Haddon Hall, where David Bowie lived with his wife Angie and an assortment of musicians from 1969 until 1972. A sprawling Victorian villa, Haddon Hall was effectively the cradle for Bowie’s fast-moving transition from folkie to futuristic superstar.