12 Arnold Grove

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12 Arnold Grove, the birthplace of former Beatle George Harrison, is a house in Liverpool, situated in the Wavertree area. It is a small terraced house in a cul-de-sac, with a small alley to the rear. George's parents, Harold and Louise, moved to the house in 1930 following their marriage. The rent was ten shillings a week. Here their four children were born—Louise (16 August 1931), Harry, Peter (20 July 1940) and George (24 February 1943).

George recalled the only heating was a single coal fire, and the house was so cold in winter that he and his brothers dreaded getting up in the morning because, it was literally freezing cold and they had to use the outside toilet. The house had tiny rooms—only ten feet squared—and a small iron cooking stove in the back room, which was used as a kitchen. Describing the back garden, George wrote it had "a one-foot wide flower bed, a toilet, a dustbin fitted to the back wall (and) a little hen house where we kept cockerels."

During the six years George lived in the property, the rent rose. The family had, by this point, been living there for 18 years and finally moved out to a new council estate in Speke on 2 January 1950. Harry recalled: "Our little house was just two rooms up and two rooms down, but, except for a short period when our father was away at sea, we always knew the comfort and security of a very close-knit family home."

George once said of the house, "Try and imagine the soul entering the womb of a woman living at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool 15. There were all the barrage balloons, and the Germans bombing Liverpool. All that was going on. I sat outside the house a couple of years ago, imagining 1943, nipping through the spiritual world, the astral level, getting back into a body in that house. That really is strange when you consider the whole planet, all the planets there may be on a spiritual level. How do I come into that family, in that house at that time, and who am I anyway?"

In 2004 the house was featured in the British tabloids when its current owner resisted several attempts by Liverpool City Council to place an English Heritage sign on it.

[edit] See also

• 251 Menlove Avenue Childhood home of Beatle John Lennon, a National Trust property.
• 20 Forthlin Road The birthplace and family home of Beatle Paul McCartney, another National Trust property, called by the National Trust, The Birthplace of The Beatles.