Apartment building in Chiswick, West-London where Kim lived the first few years of her life together with her parents Marty and Joyce. The building still exists and has apartments changing hands these days for prices up to £650,000.
Website tag: Buildings
Watchfield Court
Spa Samui
A health spa on the island Koh Samui in Thailand. Location of the TV programme Celebrity Detox, where Kim and three other celebrities had a week of detoxing. Recently renamed to Spa Resorts, the location still offers cleanses and detox programmes based on both ancient and contemporary nutritional science.
Select Sound Studios
Located in Knebworth, the Select Sound Studios were opened in 1983. Since then, it’s been the headquarters of Big M Group, the family company of the Wilde’s, from which the fan club was run and where Kim recorded most of her albums. It was of course also used by other artists.
The building comprised almost 200 square metres of space, divided in a reception area (42 square metres), 5 rooms (44 square metres), a lavatory, a kitchen (7 square metres), a recording studio (90 square metres) and a rear store/office (15 square metres). There was a parking space for approximately 9 cars outside at the front.
In 1990, the studio underwent a major change when the control-room was rebuilt. It was updated to a 56 channel mixing desk.
Kim herself got involved in the design of the studio back garden in March 1995.
In the summer of 2000, Select Sound Studios was abandoned by the Wilde family, the garden now belongs to the house opposite the back of the studio. The building was put up for sale with an approximate asking price of £325,000. It was bought by a company named Art Van Go, which still resides in the building today.
Ricki is meanwhile continuing his music work in a studio he built in his own home.
The last set-up of the studio was published on the Select Sound Studio website. It consisted of:
Studio One
Console: DDA DCM 232 (56 channels) fully automated
Tape Machines (multitrack): 2 x Studer A827 (24 track)
Tape Machines (2-Track): Studer A80 1/2″, Studer A810 1/4″, Tascam DA30 DAT recorder, Sony DTC55 DAT recorder
Tapeless: Session 8 (DigiDesign 8 track hard disk system)
Monitors: Urei 813B’s, Klark Technik Jade II’s, Yamaha NS10’s, Acoustic Energy AE1’s, Aurotones
Keyboards: Atari Mega 2, Macintosh 7100/66 (20 megabytes), Creator, Notator Logic Audio (8 track), Samplecell (16 megabytes), D550, MIDI MOOG, U110, TX802, MKS50 X 2, MKS80, Yamaha Promix01 Digital desks x 2, plus many more.
Outboard Gear: Lexicon 224X, PCM70, REV1, REV5, AMS Delays & Reverb, BSS Compression and DE-ESS, 24 Channels of assorted gates, Urei compression, Focusrite EQ and DYN units, plus many more.
Studio Two
Keyboards: Macintosh 7100/80 (40 meg), Studio 4 MIDI Interface, Samplecall (24 meg), Audiomedia Board, Novation Bass Station, Proteus FX, Roland U110, Roland D110, Roland D50, Roland JD990, Alesis D4, Oberhiem Matrix 1000, Roland Mks50
Software: Logic Audio (enabling 16 tracks hard disk recording)
Mixing: 2 x Yamaha Promix01
Tape Machines: Casio DAT machine, Technics CD player
Kim about Select Sound Studios
Apart from myself using the studio other artists have used it in the past, some of the few that have popped into the studios are, Brian May from Queen, Bucks Fizz, Worlds Apart, Adam Ant, Bonnie Tyler, Perfect Day and many many more.
Presdales School
Presdales School is a five-form entry all-ability school for girls aged from 11 to 18. Founded as Ware Grammar School for Girls in 1906 on the Amwell House site, it was moved to its present site at Presdales in 1964. It has Language College status, which was granted by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 1995. It has recently been awarded a second specialism in Music and English. It does however, allow boys into its school, but only for sixth form.
Notable alumni from this school are Eastenders actress Kacey Ainsworth, politician Baroness Blackstone and of course Kim.
Oakfield School
Oakfield School is an independent coeducational preparatory school, situated in the outskirts of Dulwich Village, London (England). With over 500 boys and girls aged between 2 and 11, it is housed in historic Georgian buildings either side of the South Circular, and uses large play areas behind the main buildings, playing fields close by in Belair Park and the swimming facilities at Crystal Palace.
It takes advantage of its independent status to determine the nature, ethos and curriculum of the school, outside the control of central or local government. Its curriculum is broad and balanced, stressing the importance of sport, music, art and drama alongside academic subjects. Languages are taught from the youngest age.
Oakfield School has an inclusive admissions policy. Demand for places is very high, so a selection process is applied.
Notable alumni from the school are scientist and engineer Derek Abbott, actor/singer Michael Crawford and of course Kim. She didn’t enjoy this school at all.
Kim about Oakfield School
When I was seven and Ricky six, my parents had to put us both in a boarding school in Dulwich, London. They found themselves having to be away from home a lot at the time, and they thought it would be the best thing for us. It was awful. We hated it. We were so unhappy and miserable. The homesickness wasn’t just a mental thing, it was physical too. It made us ill.
Luckily, dad’s career really began to take off not long afterwards and he bought a lovely house in a little village in Hertfordshire and he and mum took us out of school after we’d been there two years. (1)
Ricky and I were sent to boarding school for a year when we were four and five because they needed time together. It didn’t do a lot for our confidence and caused a lot of unhappiness in our little minds. It was only after we moved to Hertfordshire, when I was eight, that our lives took off as a family. (2)
Interview sources
(1) Kim Wilde bares her childhood soul to Pop Shop, Pop Shop (UK), 1990
(2) Relative values: Kim and Joyce Wilde, Sunday Times Magazine (UK), 1 October 2000
Lodge
The recording studio The Lodge was first established in 1979 by Robert John Godfrey and Stephen Stewart. Situated in a large farmhouse in the Suffolk countryside, it was primarily used as a private studio for The Enid. Later it became one of the best known mid priced residential recording studios in the business with such artists as New Model Army, Mari Wilson, Paradise Lost using it on a regular basis. In 1981, Kim’s debut album Kim Wilde was recorded here.
In 1988, Steve Stewart retired and the studio relocated to the Northamptonshire countryside initially as a private studio. In 1993 it moved again into the centre of Northampton town.
Knebworth House
Knebworth House is a country house, located in Knebworth. It has been the home of the Lytton family since 1490, when Thomas Bourchier sold the reversion of the manor to Sir Robert Lytton. Knebworth House was originally a red-brick Late Gothic manor house, built round a central court as an open square. In 1813-16 the house was reduced to its west wing, which was remodelled in a Tudor Gothic style by John Biagio Rebecca for Mrs Bulwer-Lytton, and then was transformed in 1843-45 by Henry Edward Kendall Jr. into the present Tudor Gothic structure. Much of the interior was redesigned by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who simplified the main parterre. A herb garden was drawn by Gertrude Jekyll in 1907 but not planted until 1982. In short: every generation of the Lytton family added something of their own style and taste, making the building a walk through over 500 years of British history.
Its most famous resident was Edward Bulwer-Lytton, the Victorian author, dramatist and statesman, who embellished the gardens in a formal Italianate fashion. He used to host parties in Knebworth House with famous guests such as Oscar Wilde. Other characters who have visited the building since then were people like Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill and Noel Gallagher.
The grounds include tourist attractions such as an adventure playground, mini railway (closed in 2012) and dinosaur park and host various events including classic car rallies, the annual Salvo Fair of architectural salvage and, since 1974, major open air rock and pop concerts from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, Paul McCartney, Genesis, Mike Oldfield, The Beach Boys, Deep Purple, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Dire Straits, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Iron Maiden and Oasis.
Kim’s family has celebrated various events at Knebworth House, including Kim’s 21st birthday. In 2014 and 2015, Kim Wilde, Ricky Wilde, Scarlett Wilde, Neil Jones and Mark Rapson performed a handful of Christmas concerts at Knebworth House in front of just 100 people each.
House
In 1990, Kim Wilde moved from an apartment in London to her current home. She found it in 1987, when she was browsing a few local newspapers. Kim decided on checking out some of the advertised barns. Soon after, she decided on buying one of the barns in the Hertfordshire area, and redesigning it with an architect.
The house is a 16th century Grade II listed barn, which used to be a chicken farm. After almost three years the barn got into shape and Kim herself got involved in designing the garden and building the pond in it. After having her children, the garden changed shape again, with the pond disappearing and making way for another section of the garden. A treehouse was built for the children as well.
The barn has already been visited a few times by the press, including Hello! Magazine (UK) and a Dutch TV show. It was also the background in a rockumentary to promote Kim Wilde’s 2010 album Come Out and Play.
Occasionally, fans do turn up at the house, but Kim makes it clear that they’re ‘most unwelcome’.
Kim about her house
I found it five years ago. There were chickens running around then. (…) The first time I walked in, the sun was streaming in through some of the boards, which were mislodged. It was the most peaceful place I’d ever walked into in my life. I said ‘I’ve got to live here’. Then we took a year and a half renovating it. We moved in on my 30th birthday, had a big party… I slept on the floor and I continued to sleep on the floor until I bought myself a bed and that’s only because I got married! (TV Show op reis, 30 January 1997)
Hertfordshire College of Art & Design
In the late Seventies, Kim attended this college for one year to focus on making drawings and paintings. Here she began to realise her capabilities, although Kim adds that they were not that amazing. She did, however, make some friends there.
Electric Ballroom
The Electric Ballroom is one of London’s many clubs. Located on 184 Camden High Street near Camden Town Underground station, it’s used for live shows as well as record and fashion markets. Nowadays, the place looks pretty run down, but it used to be one of London’s premier clubs.
In 1985, Kim used the Electric Ballroom to shoot het video for Rage to Love.
Colston Hall
The Colston Hall is a concert hall situated on Colston Street, Bristol, England. A popular venue catering for a variety of different entertainers, it seats approximately 2,075 and provides licensed bars, a café and restaurant. The venue is owned by Bristol City Council, but since April 2011 it has been run by the independent Bristol Music Trust.
The site has been occupied by four buildings named Colston Hall since the 1860s. In the thirteenth century, the site was occupied by a Carmelite friary, known as Whitefriars. Subsequently, the location held a large Tudor-era mansion known as the Great House, used by Queen Elizabeth I in 1574 on a visit to the city. In 1707, Edward Colston established the Colston Boys’ School in this building, which was acquired by the Colston Hall Company in 1861.
Colston Hall opened as a concert venue on 20 September 1867. The architects were the prolific Bristol firm of Foster & Wood, working in the Bristol Byzantine style. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II listed building. Most of the building was damaged during a fire on 1 September 1898; the auditorium suffered immense structural damage, and the interior was more or less destroyed. The second hall opened in 1901, and in 1919, the Corporation of Bristol purchased it from the Colston Hall Company. The City Council continues to manage the hall. The second hall was closed for remodelling in 1935. In December 1936, the third hall was opened. This survived the Luftwaffe air raids of the Second World War, but was burned down in 1945 after a discarded cigarette started a fire.
The hall was rebuilt once more, and the fourth reopened in 1951 to mark the Festival of Britain. The first computerised booking system was installed in February 1983, and a £500,000 modernisation programme was conducted at the start of the 1990s, which included extensive rewiring, and various backstage improvements. The installation of removable seating in the front half of the stalls in 2005 improved the hall as a venue for pop concerts, providing space for fans to move around and dance in front of the stage; it also increased the overall capacity of the auditorium. From 2007 to 2009, the Colston Hall underwent extensive refurbishment with the construction of a new foyer alongside the present building, topped by a wind turbine.
In 1982, Kim Wilde performed her first ever UK concert at the Colston Hall as part of her Debut Tour. When she returned to Bristol for a concert in December 2013, she tweeted a photograph of the side of the hall (pictured on this page), remembering the “first venue I played in the UK”.
Campaigners, many from the city’s Afro-Caribbean community, have called for the hall’s name to be changed because of Edward Colston’s link to the slave trade, much of his wealth having come from that trade. The proposal sparked a heated controversy in the pages of the local press. In April 2017, the charity that runs Colston Hall announced that it would be dropping the name after refurbishment is completed in 2020. On 23 September 2020 it was announced that the venue will now be known as Bristol Beacon.
Chiswick Maternity Hospital
Originally a small hospital which backed on to the Chiswick Soap Works in Burlington Lane, in 1911 Mr. Dan Mason, owner of the Soap and Polish factory purchased Rothbury House on Chiswick Mall. In 1912 the building opened as a general hospital. By 1919 more than 40 beds remained in the hospital. The last patient was admitted in 1935. In 1936, the hospital was knocked down and rebuilt as Chiswick Maternity Hospital, which opened in 1939. Many celebrities were born in this small hospital, including Ian Gillan from Deep Purple and, in November 1960, Kim Wilde. Between 1943 and 1975 many more people were born in this hospital, which at its peak had over 50 beds.
Between 1975 and the early Eighties, the hospital was used as a hostel for medical students. Then, financial troubles seemed to put an end to the hospital. It had become run down and more than £1 million was needed to put it back into order. The local authorities didn’t want to spend this much on the building and instead decided to sell it for between £500,000 and £800,000.
After the sale, in 1987, the hospital became a haven for older people with mental illnesses. It was renamed Chiswick Lodge Hospital and stayed in business until the beginning of this century. In 2009, the building was finally knocked down as a result of a decision process that took several years.