Moorish paradise on the Wandsworth Road.
It started with rising damp, seeping through the walls from the laundrette next door.
Khadambi Asalache hadn’t noticed it at first. He’d bought his new home on the Wandsworth road impulsively, almost immediately after spotting it from the 77 bus during his commute to Whitehall. To alleviate the condition, he took seasoned pine from nearby skips and bordered up the affected wall. But Mr Asalache, having originally studied architecture and fine art in his native Kenya and in Europe respectively, couldn’t resist leaving his mark.
Inspired by Moorish design, he decorated the boards with painstaking, hand carved fret work. Quickly he became hooked, carving for 12 to 14 hour shifts at a time. It was 1981 and with South London’s clientele changing fast, there was no shortage of skips to raid. For more than 20 years until he proclaimed it finished in 2005, Mr Asalache systematically adorned each room of his two-up, two-down Georgian house not just in intricate carvings, but hand-painted floors, light-reflecting mechanisms and an eclectic collection of bronze trinkets and worldwide curiosities.
Mr Asalache went on to pursue an interest in the philosophy of mathematics at Birckbeck, as well as publishing a poetry collection and a novel which made it onto the Kenyan school syllabus. But he was always clear that it was his home which was the key output of his life. When he died in 2006, just one year after he finished that artwork, he left it to the National Trust.
PS: Photos aren’t allowed, but here’s a clip from the BBC:
PPS: This really reminded me of Watt’s Towers.
