575 Wandsworth Road, London, was the home of Kenyan poet and civil servant Khadambi Asalache until his death in 2006. Following his death he left it to the National Trust, which opened the house as a museum for pre-booked guided tours.
History Asalache bought the two-up two-down Georgian terraced house in Wandsworth Road in 1981, paying less than the asking price of £31,000.National Trust look for £4m to preserve Khadambi Asalache's house, The Guardian, 20 January 2009 The property was in a poor state of repair when he bought it, having previously been occupied by squatters.Obituary, The Times, 24 June 2006 For 20 years,National Trust needs £4m to save intricately decorated terrace, The Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2009 he decorated it internally with Moorish-influenced fretwork, which he cut by hand from discarded pine doors and wooden boxes. The intricate woodwork was augmented by illustrations of African wilderness, and his collection of 19th-century English lustreware.Call to save Kenyan poet's home, BBC News, 19 January 2009.
The property was shown in World of Interiors in 1990, and in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine in 2000. Tim Knox, director of Sir John Soane's Museum, in Nest in 2003, described it as: The work takes inspiration from the Great Mosque of Cordoba, the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, doors in Zanzibar, panelled interiors in Damascus, and the waterside houses or yalı in Istanbul.
Asalache left the property to the National Trust in his will. They accepted the property, subject to raising an endowment of £3–5 million for its maintenance, as they considered it a building:
The house was grade II listed in 1974, along with its neighbour, number 573, but the NHLE record, last amended in 1981, makes no mention of the interior.
Visiting Following major conservation work, in 2013 the National Trust began pre-booked guided tours of the house. These have proved "very popular". See also David Parr House Ron's Place
External links Official website - National Trust
References