The Devon home Kate Bush bought to watch crumble
Growing up, Kate Bush didn’t live in a bustling metropolis. Her artistic education came from a small town at the furthest corner of London, where her family home was always loud and busy.
Coming to be her backup back in the future and her collaborators for her whole career, Bush’s small local circle of siblings and family friends brought her artistic world to life, so she always believed in the power of a reclusive life; that seems to be the key to it all.
As a young girl first starting to make music, the world seemed to come to Bexley for her, which wasn’t even counted as London until the 1960s, and forevermore has been considered mostly a town, in its own right, not part of the busy capital.
There, she worked on songs with her brother, and then even met David Gilmour as he came over to the family home. With a family of artists or people artistically inclined, the nights would always end with chats in the living room and instruments being played, so to gather up inspiration, she didn’t seem to feel that restless pull towards central London that so many land at. Obviously, later down the line, when her career was keeping her busy, she moved.
When she started spending most of her time recording, she moved further into the city to Brockley, still avoiding the busiest areas but creeping closer; however, famously, when Bush made her money and had had enough, she was gone.
After the release of The Red Shoes in 1993, Bush disappeared from public life. It was supposed to just be a year-long hiatus, but then suddenly 12 years had passed as she had her son, Bertie. Even when she did return in 2005, with Aerial, she stayed a recluse, moving even further away from the busy city by buying a house in Devon, right on the coast, and I mean, right on the coast.
Bush’s property near Salcombe is the type of thing you’d see from the sea and think was a ghostly apparition, nestled into the cliffside of the landscape. For a woman often compared to Mrs Haversham, it’s the perfect place to imagine her working on her music, still as eccentric as ever, only refusing to share it with the public. Hiding away from press intrusion to demand a quiet life, her Devon home seemed like the perfect spot, as no one could or would dare try to reach her.
However, the house came with a major issue, but maybe also a major draw to Bush. In 2014, NME wrote, “Kate Bush‘s Devon cliff top home is in danger of falling into the sea, according to reports”. Having done some digging in council documents, they reported, “Council officials have warned the singer that she needs to invest in reinforcements to prevent the five-bed property, which Bush bought in 2005 for £2million, from toppling into the ocean.”
In short, Bush’s home was crumbling into the sea, she needed to save it, but didn’t seem to be doing anything, so Devon County Council’s Steve Gardner warned Bush, “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.” But Bush didn’t live there, and definitely doesn’t now. Even during 2005, after buying the house, it didn’t seem like she was ever really there, as she owned other, less collapsing properties. Now, she reportedly lives somewhere in Oxfordshire, and so the home in Devon is seemingly just left to crumble.
Perhaps by now she’s done the fixes the council suggested, but there is something so poetic and so distinctly Kate Bush about the idea that she hasn’t, and is instead viewing the home as a kind of gothic performance art piece, watching it slowly give way to the sea. It’s the sort of story the singer would write into her music, so it’s easy to see the morbid attraction there as Bush once sang, “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.”
