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.
Asalache bought the “two-up two-down” Georgian terraced house in Wandsworth Road in 1981 paying less than the asking price of ?31,000. The property was in a poor state of repair when he bought it, having previously been occupied by squatters. For 20 years, 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.