A million years ago, before she became a 15-time Grammy winner, Adele was chasing pavements in her hometown.

Most of our favorite artists had humble beginnings before they were famous. Dolly Parton lived in a small cabin with her 11 siblings after all. Adele was no different. She lived in a modest home above a shop in West Norwood, South London, and her childhood bedroom walls were covered in Spice Girls posters.

But Adele isn't the type to buy back her childhood home, like J.K. Rowling. She'd probably prefer to send her love to the new owner and look forward rather than back. But then again she does live right across the street from her ex-husband, Simon Konecki. So who knows with her really?

All we do know is that we need to board a plane right now to see Adele's childhood home and walk the streets she once walked.

She Grew Up In South London

Adele was born in Tottenham, London in 1988. She briefly lived in the southern coastal town of Brighton with her mother (her father was mostly absent throughout her childhood) at the age of nine but eventually, they moved back to London when she was 11.

They moved into a flat in West Norwood, South London, right above a discount store, with a flatmate. Adele herself has commented on living there.

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"Me and my mum and our flatmate live above a shop next to a garage – it caught fire a couple of months ago."

It was in the apartment that the young Adele started writing her most famous hits like "Hometown Glory." She had her bedroom walls covered in Spice Girls posters. They were her idols as a young girl.

While living there Adele started her music career by attending the Brit School in Croydon. Kate Nash and Katie Melua were among her contemporaries. After enrolling in the school her idols changed to Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James after she first heard their music in a local record store.

After graduating in 2006 Adele was immediately offered a record deal and knew it was time to move out. She ended up renting her own flat in Notting Hill. Two years later her first album was released.

Related: Adele: 15 Milestones Of Her Career From 2006 To 2020

The flat where she and her mom lived did have a fire, but after renovations, it became a pub called Knowles of Norwood. When it opened in 2015, the owners of the new pub knew that Adele had lived in the upstairs flat and decided to let her know about its opening.

They tweeted at her saying, "@Adele we're opening a new pub on Thursday above your old flat in West Norwood. See you at the bar for a pint?"

She Now Owns A Couple Mansions

Not long into her career, Adele was able to move into an impressive mansion in West Sussex; the Lock House. The same year her album 21 came out, she started renting the 13-bedroom mansion, which was built in 1900, for about $19 thousand a month with her then-boyfriend Konecki.

Related: 20 Little-Known Facts About Adele's Rise To Fame

The mansion offered just what Adele needed at the start of her success; privacy. It sits in the middle of 25 acres of uninterrupted woodland and fields and offers a great view of the South Downs National Park. She told Anderson Cooper in a televised tour that she went to the house "for safety."

This is probably where Adele would have come to peacefully recover from surgery after her vocal hemorrhage in November 2011.

In 2018 the house went on the market for $8.9 million, but Adele had already left the property in 2012 and confessed that she'd barely used most of the rooms.

She went on to purchase an Art Deco mansion in Hove, near Brighton, in 2012 but sold it in 2016. Then she owned a house in Kensington, two mansions in Beverly Hills, a Malibu home, a New York City penthouse, and an East Grinstead manor house. She also bought her mother, Penny, a home close by to her Kensington home.

So Adele has seriously owned a lot of property in her short career, and it all started in that one little flat in West Norwood. Seeing the little flat reminds us that great things can come out of modest circumstances. Any time we see a famous person's childhood home, it's weird to think that someone so incredible grew up there, had memories, and moved on to become great things.

We wonder if she ever does a driveby to see her old pad and imagines it in its former hometown glory.

Next: 20 Little Revealing Facts About Adele's Private Life