A 1970s rock god's former home for sale, and it still has the decor from his Top of the Pops heyday
The former home of legendary Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour is on the market — and it's a mad nostalgia trip in all sorts of ways.
It's all too easy to romanticise the 1970s. The funky clothes, the wacky haircuts and the counter-cultural vibe won't fail to put a smile on your face, whether you were alive at the time or not. And the music was sensational: rock moved in a new direction, blending modern instruments and riffs with the long-form sequences more familiar in classical music. Right at the forefront of that change were Pink Floyd, who hit their peak in the 70s with a string of seminal albums including The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall.
Pink Floyd on tour in the early 1970s. Lead guitarist David Gilmour is on the far left, in the spotlight.
But the 70s weren't all good, in music or elsewhere. Boney M and Little Donny Osmond rode just as high (and often higher) in the charts than the likes of Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, and houses across the land were decorated with woodchip paper, deep red floral carpets and avocado bathrooms. Thus, it's fascinating to see a property for sale where all these things come together: Woodley, near Roydon in Essex, which is for sale via Savills at £1.1 million. It's a mock Tudor home that was once home to Pink Floyd's trailblazing lead guitarist, David Gilmour, and its decor appears to have been largely untouched in the half century since the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musician lived here with his first wife, Ginger Gilmour.
Gilmour actually bought the house in 1970, before he'd met Ginger, and the pair lived here until selling up in 1980 — and it sounds as if the superstar guitarist was a deeply practical homeowner. Quoting the band's biographer Mark Blake, the Evening Standard reports that Gilmour did a lot of the refurbishment work himself, adding a music room and a recording studio, and digging out a swimming pool which has, sadly, fallen into disrepair, with the old diving board still visible beneath its coating of algae. It's the very picture of sadness and nostalgia, in a way which seems eerily fitting.
'The wind howled through the windows and it was like living in the elements indoors,' Ginger Gilmour wrote in 2016. 'The wind howled through the windows and it was like living in the elements indoors. But I lived through it, because I was so in love and so enchanted by being in England with my knight in shining armour. David was a wonderful father. He held the babies, changed the nappies. He would do the 11pm feed so I could get some sleep.'
Woodley, Essex, When I first came to the UK in 1972. Grateful for my Life.. 'Memoirs of the Bright Side of the Moon' pic.twitter.com/8zYMLhkpTrAugust 7, 2016
The Gilmours left Woodley in 1980, moving down to Sussex (where they both still live, albeit now divorced). Following the death of their original marital home's latest owners, Woodley is on the market and is a time capsule.
The decor, dark, exposed timbers, brick-and-tile fireplaces, dilapidated outbuildings, leaded windows and floral curtains are all absolutely of the 70s and 80s.
All that said, there's every reason to think that this could easily become a wonderful family home once more. Five bedrooms, almost five acres and plenty of living space make this an incredibly tempting project — particularly given it has a semi-rural location not farm from Roydon, Harlow and Epping, which make it an eminently commutable home. Just what every aspiring rock god needs.
Woodley is for sale via Savills at £1.1 million — see more details.
