An unremarkable looking house on a busy Wandsworth road conceals a quite remarkable interior, and following some restoration works, limited tours will resume
Exterior of 575 Wandsworth Road (c) ianVisits
This is the simply named 575 Wandsworth Road, an ordinary terraced house which was bought in 1981 by a Kenyan born civil servant, and it’s what he did inside that makes it a marvel to visit.
When Khadambi Asalache moved in, to deal with damp problems in the basement, he decided to clad the wall with some well-seasoned floorboards he picked up from a local house being renovated.
Plain wood is plain, so he decorated it.
And then more, and more, and more – until the entire house was filled with his wood panels and carving. So much was created here, and what’s even more remarkable is that all the carving work was done by hand, using just a hand drill and a hand saw.
When Asalache died in 2006, the house was gifted to the National Trust, and it is now open for small tours.
As a small terraced house, it’s not the easiest place to visit, so they have two tours a week, with some unusual restrictions – such as taking your shoes off when you visit, as even the floor was decorated — so it helps to wear decent socks.
575 Wandsworth Road is currently closed for conservation, but will reopen for pre-booked tours on Thursdays and Fridays from 2nd May. Tickets for the first tours will be released on Thursday 25th April from here.
Photography inside the house isn’t permitted – mainly because the interior is so fragile that distracted photographers stumble and break things. You can see some photos on the National Trust website though.
The house is a short walk from Wandsworth Road station on the London Overground, or you can follow in Khadambi Asalache’s footsteps from his job in Whitehall, by catching the 77 bus from Waterloo.
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