77 Barton Street — Ian Curtis's home, Macclesfield

Ian Curtis and his wife Deborah moved to 77 Barton Street, Macclesfield, in 1975, shortly after their marriage. It was the house Curtis returned to between Joy Division tours, between epileptic seizures, between the increasingly desperate journal entries that documented his deteriorating mental state. He was twenty-three years old when he died here on 18 May 1980, on the eve of Joy Division's first North American tour.

The house is a modest semi-detached terrace in a quiet Macclesfield street — ordinary to the point of heartbreak. Curtis's creative life was lived at the extremes; his domestic life was played out against this very normal backdrop. His marriage to Deborah was collapsing, he was in love with Belgian woman Annik Honoré, his epilepsy was worsening with every performance, and the medication he was on caused severe depression. The band had a flight booked for the following morning.

The house is privately owned and is not open to the public, but it attracts a steady stream of Joy Division fans. A blue plaque has been installed. It is a place of quiet, almost unbearable melancholy — a terraced house on a Macclesfield back street that became a landmark in the history of post-punk.