Recreated rock residences – a wish list

Rock the house: Boy George's childhood home recreated.

In The House That Made Me, Boy George shows us around a reconstruction of his childhood home, although the elaborate undertaking merely reveals that, with its florid wallpaper, crying boy portrait and Players No 6 smoking in the ashtray, it was much the same any other suburban council houseof the 1970s. Here are some other British rock residences that we'd have preferred to have seen recreated for the show.

KEITH RICHARDS
REDLANDS, WEST WITTERING, SUSSEX, CIRCA 1967

We've got a pretty good idea as to the contents of Keef's living room at the time, since the police helpfully published an inventory after they raided the place: pudding basins full of cigarette ash, a stash of amphetamine tablets, and an orange fur bedspread containing an otherwise naked Marianne Faithfull. But definitely no half-melted Mars bars, OK?

THE LIBERTINES
THE ALBION ROOMS, 112A TEESDALE STREET, BETHNAL GREEN, LONDON, CIRCA 2002

Essential to any reconstruction of Pete'n'Carl's shared abode, scene of many a legendary guerrilla gig, would be that authentic Libertines stench (the Albion Rooms famously had no running water, with Pete claiming that he had to flush his toilet with Evian). Alternatively, it would be simple enough to recreate one of Doherty's subsequent London crashpads, since his only concessions to interior design were blood-stained curtains, some doggerel scrawled on the walls, and a few smacked-out eastern European models strewn across the floor among the starving kittens and the unopened court summons.

JIMMY PAGE
BOLESKINE HOUSE, LOCH NESS, SCOTLAND, CIRCA 1973

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page bought Boleskine because it once belonged to Aleister Crowley, who used the former hunting lodge to perform a ceremony from The Book Of The Sacred Magick Of Abra-Melin The Mage. Legend has it that the demons he released are still at large in the house, so a reconstruction of Boleskine could be one for Derek Acorah's Most Haunted: 70s Rock Special instead?

JULIAN COPE
149A TULSE HILL, LONDON, CIRCA 1988

Noted pop eccentric Julian Cope may have dossed in dwellings with more significance to the story of rock, such as the bedsit in Prospect Vale, Liverpool, where he'd spend hours inventing imaginary bands with Ian McCulloch and Pete Wylie. But unlike 149a Tulse Hill, they didn't contain England's biggest collection of Dinky cars and a 40-foot Scalextric track in the loft.

APHEX TWIN
DISUSED BANK VAULT, ELEPHANT & CASTLE, LONDON, CIRCA 1999

One can imagine Richard D James lying on the cold hard floor of his bank vault, dreaming his lucid dreams beneath a thicket of cables connecting his battalion of self-built analogue synths. Then again, given his propensity for telling porkies in interviews, perhaps the bank vault never existed and he was holed up in a penthouse at the Sanderson all along?

X FACTOR CONTESTANTS
X FACTOR HOUSE, BOREHAMWOOD, HERTS

See the bedroom where Belle Amie squabbled over the hair straighteners! Gawp at Mary Byrne's "smalls" on the clothes line! Recoil at the sight of Wagner's hair blocking the plughole! If these scenes aren't preserved for posterity, we're doing future generations a disservice.

The House That Made Me: Boy George, Thu, 9pm, C4