Bon Scott's last home

In early January 1980, Bon Scott rented a flat at Ashley Court on Morpeth Terrace in the Victoria area of Westminster, London — an Edwardian mansion block close to Victoria Street and Victoria Station, the kind of building that attracted touring musicians and artists passing through the capital. He had moved to London in preparation for recording AC/DC's follow-up to Highway to Hell, which had broken the band internationally just months earlier. On the night of February 18–19, Scott attended a concert at the Music Machine in Camden, then went drinking with a friend named Alistair Kinnear. In the early hours, Kinnear drove Scott toward his Morpeth Terrace flat but found him impossible to wake. He drove instead to his own home in East Dulwich and left Scott asleep in the car outside. The following afternoon Scott was found unresponsive. He was taken to King's College Hospital and pronounced dead, aged 33. The cause of death was acute alcohol poisoning; the verdict was misadventure.

Scott had been one of rock music's most vivid and genuinely dangerous frontmen — a man whose stage persona was not a construction but an extension of who he actually was. His lyrics were funny, lewd, and completely committed; his voice could rattle windows. AC/DC under his leadership had built one of the most ferocious live reputations in rock. Highway to Hell, released six months before his death, was the commercial breakthrough that should have opened the next chapter. Instead it became the closing line of the chapter they had.

Ashley Court on Morpeth Terrace remains a residential apartment block. There is no plaque or official memorial at the building. The address is documented on AC/DC heritage sites and well known among fans who make the pilgrimage. The actual location where Scott died — in a car parked outside 67 Overhill Road in East Dulwich — is a separate address. AC/DC released Back in Black later in 1980 with Brian Johnson as vocalist, dedicating it to Scott. It became one of the best-selling albums in history.