The Beatles' London

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This article looks at the history behind some of the London landmarks famously associated with The Beatles.
The famous Abbey Road Zebra crossing
The famous Abbey Road Zebra crossing

Abbey Road Studios, St John's Wood

  • The Beatles first came to the Abbey Road studios on June 6 1962 for a recording session/audition. The band were to be signed to EMI providing their audition was good.
  • "A Day in the Life" was recorded in Studio One at Abbey Road on February 10 1967. The studio was filled with people dressed in psychedelic clothing alongside the orchestra which were in Evening dress.
  • On March 21 1967, during the Sgt. Pepper's sessions, John Lennon accidentally took acid and got scared of his microphone. He was taken up onto the roof of the studios by The Beatles' producer George Martin. Paul McCartney later took him back to Cavendish Avenue where he too took acid. It was also during this session when Pink Floyd, currently recording their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, were introduced to The Beatles.
  • In July 1969, Yoko Ono had a bed installed in the studio during the Abbey Road sessions, with a microphone so that she could pass comments while she recovered from a car accident she incurred in Scotland.

The Abbey Road zebra crossing

Abbey Road NW8
Abbey Road NW8
  • Site of the famous Abbey Road album cover photo. NOTE: The crossing is no longer in the same location as it was in 1969, having been moved further East in the 1970s. Looking across the street in the direction the Beatles crossed it, the crossing was moved from the left side of the light pole on the destination side of the street (the side John is closest to) to the right side of the pole.
  • The photo was taken on August 8, 1969 by Ian McMillan and was based on a sketch drawn by Paul McCartney.
  • McCartney parodied the picture for his 1993 album Paul is Live.
  • McCartney, when attending the court hearings dissolving The Beatles, wore the same Tommy Nutter suit he wears on the album cover.

EMI House, 20 Manchester Square, Marylebone

  • The location of the staircase seen on the cover of the 1963 album Please Please Me, as well as the 1973 compilations the Red Album and the Blue Album.
  • All three album covers were shot by Angus McBean, the Please Please Me and Red Album images were from the same 1963 session, while the Blue Album was taken in 1969.

Trident Studios, 17 St Anne's Court, Soho

  • "Hey Jude" was recorded here on 31 July 1968. This studio was chosen because it had superior recording equipment (8 track) to Abbey Road studios.
  • Six tracks that appeared on The White Album and Abbey Road were also recorded here.
  • George Harrison recorded portions of his first solo album, All Things Must Pass, here in 1970.

57 Wimpole Street, Marylebone

57 Wimpole Street
57 Wimpole Street
  • Home of Paul McCartney’s then girlfriend, Jane Asher and her family. He lived here in a room in the attic when he first moved down to London.
  • Jane Asher’s mother, Margaret, was a music teacher and taught in a small basement music room. It was here that Lennon and McCartney wrote The Beatle’s first US number 1 "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and also "Eleanor Rigby".
  • The ground floor was Dr. Asher’s reception room, the first floor a parlour with an out of tune piano and the third was the family floor with living room and Jane Asher’s bedroom. Peter Asher and McCartney had rooms in the attic with Asher’s room being the one that overlooked the street at the front of the house and McCartneys’s at the back overlooking Browning Mews.
  • McCartney wrote "Yesterday" on the piano in his attic bedroom.
  • Beatles fans once stole one of the cast iron knobs from the front railings of the house. Dr. Asher took a casting of a remaining knob and then melted down any bits of available iron around the house to make a replacement. Mrs Asher was quite angry as she had been fond of some of the things he had selected as scrap.
  • Gathered fans became such a problem during the filming of Help! in Spring 1965 that Dr. Asher devised an escape route out of McCartney’s bedroom window. McCartney would climb across into a flat owned by an old army Colonel at No. 56 and would be let down into the lift and would exit into the back street through the basement flat (10 Browning Mews). McCartney bought the couple living in the flat a fridge by way of thanks.

The Apple Boutique, 94 Baker Street, Marylebone

  • Home of the famous Apple Boutique, The Beatles's own shop.
  • 94 Baker Street had been bought by The Beatles’s accountants on The Beatles' behalf as a financial investment.
  • The premises became temporary headquarters for Apple while Savile Row was being renovated. The ground floor was turned into a boutique.
  • The concept of the boutique was that absolutely everything was for sale. It was "a beautiful place where beautiful people can buy beautiful things", according to The Beatles.
  • A Dutch art group known as "The Fool" designed many of the items available in the shop and were also responsible for the mural on the building’s exterior. The City of Westminster had refused planning permission but The Fool decided to go ahead regardless. The mural was only present for three weeks before the council threatened to repaint it and charge Apple for the privilege.
  • "Magic Alex" had been given a large sum of money to create an artificial sun to stand outside the shop for the grand opening. However this, like many of Magic Alex's projects, never became a reality.
  • The shop’s grand opening was on December 4 at 8.16 p.m. (the time chosen by John Lennon) with a fashion show following. The shop was so crowded that several people fainted.
  • In seven months the Apple Boutique lost £200,000 with a large proportion of the stock stolen by both customers and staff.
  • Tired of the enterprise The Beatles gave away all of the shop’s remaining stock and closed it down on July 31 1968.
Browing Mews, behind Wigmore Street
Browing Mews, behind Wigmore Street

Apple, 3 Savile Row, Mayfair

  • Headquarters of The Beatle's company Apple.
  • Bought by Apple in June 1968 for £500,000, occupancy from September 1968.
  • 3 Savile Row had once been bought by Lord Nelson as Lady Hamilton’s London residence. The terrace itself was built between 1733 and 1735.
  • Apple had been set up in April 1967 after The Beatle’s accountants had advised them that they would face a £3,000,000 tax bill if they did not put money into a business. Subsidiaries of Apple Corps including Apple Records, Apple Music, Apple Films, Apple Publishing and Apple Electronics. The Apple logo itself was inspired by Rene Magritte’s painting ‘Le Jeu de mourre’ (The Guessing Game’).
  • Huge costs were incurred by Apple, especially by the Press Office at Savile Row who entertained many of the guests who dropped by and built up huge expenses for alcohol, drugs and other luxury items.
  • The guest lounge was once home to a group of Hells Angels that George Harrison had invited to visit. It also hosted a family of American Hippies after the mother, Emily, arrived proclaiming she had to take John Lennon to Fiji. Emily and her husband Frank were often naked and lived at Savile Row for a while with their four children.
  • Apple grew increasingly chaotic with one office worker even being caught stealing lead off the premises’ roof.
  • "Magic Alex" had been asked to build a studio in the basement of 3 Savile Row. The studio was unusable as it had no way of connecting the instruments in the studio itself to the control panel and was next door to the building’s heating plant.
  • Site of the famous final Beatles concert, which took place on the building’s roof. The 45-minute set was brought to an end after complaints from the Barclays bank across the street.
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios

Paul McCartney's London home, 7 Cavendish Avenue, St John's Wood

  • Looking for a freehold property, McCartney had looked in Chester Terrace but was blocked by residents concerned about the attention he would attract.
  • Bought April 13 1965 for £40,000.
  • Hired John Dunbar’s elder sister Marina Adams and her husband John to renovate. Their first job had been the carpentry in Peter Asher’s room on Wimpole Street.
  • Renovations cost £20,000.
  • McCartney moved in late March 1966.
  • An experimental colour TV and video recorder stood in the corner of the living room, both donated by the BBC.
  • Basement room held a variety of artefacts brought back from 3-day stop in India.
  • McCartney’s housekeeper was a Mrs. Kelly who was fired along with her husband when they tried to sell their story to an Australian newspaper.
  • Music room/den was on the top floor and had a window overlooking the front courtyard. Songs including "Penny Lane", "Getting Better" and "Hey Jude" were written there.
  • A Knight piano stood in the music room. McCartney got design team Binder, Edwards and Vaughan to paint the piano in psychedelic colours. The job cost £300.
  • The many visitors to Cavendish Avenue included Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger. McCartney reportedly offered Jagger his first joint in the music room at Cavendish Avenue.
  • McCartney bought a dog, Martha, the Old English Sheepdog immortalized in the song Martha My Dear, upon moving into Cavendish Avenue and also had a litter of cats.
  • McCartney had a meditation chapel built in his garden around 1967 which contained a circular bed donated to him by Groucho Marx.
  • In 1968 fiance Jane Asher returned unexpectedly to Cavendish Avenue from Bristol to find McCartney in bed with another girl. They broke up shortly afterwards.
  • McCartney was the only Beatle to remain a London resident during the years that The Beatles were together.

Ringo Starr's London home, Round Hill, Compton Avenue, Highgate

  • Starr and his family lived in this North London mansion from 1969 until 1973. [1]

95 Wigmore Street, Marylebone

  • Hired out by Neil Aspinall to house the Apple Companies while the Savile Row property was being finished.
  • Moved out on the first week of September 1968 leaving only the accountants behind.

Apartment 'L', 57 Green Street, Mayfair

  • Flat hired by Brian Epstein for The Beatles after they became too famous to stay at hotels.
  • The apartment was only basically furnished and John Lennon and Paul McCartney soon moved out, with George Harrison and Ringo Starr staying until the expiration of the lease in Spring 1964.

24 Chapel Street, Belgravia

  • Brian Epstein's London home from December 1964.
  • The first public playing of the Sgt Pepper's album took place here on 19 May 1967, with journalists invited to meet The Beatles. It was at this event that Paul McCartney again met his future wife Linda Eastman (for the second time; the first was 4 days earlier at The Bag O'Nails).
  • Epstein died here of a drug overdose on 27 August 1967.

Indica Gallery, 6 Mason's Yard, St. James's

  • The gallery was established by John Dunbar, Peter Asher and Barry Miles as an outlet for experimental art and literature.
  • Jane Asher donated a Victorian till to the shop which caused havoc when it came to accounts, as its till roles were half filled with her fantasy purchases made when she was a child.
  • McCartney helped with the furnishing of the shop.
  • John Lennon met Yoko Ono here on 9 November 1966 during an exhibition of Ono's work, called Unfinished Paintings and Objects.

34 Montagu Square, Marylebone

  • Ringo Starr’s flat was on the ground floor and the basement, which was hired by McCartney who then had recording equipment installed so that artists/poets etc could drop in and make experimental recordings as and when required.
  • The project eventually fell through and the flat was empty until December 1966, when Starr let Jimi Hendrix and Chas Chandler move in for three months while house hunting. Hendrix threw black paint on the walls during an acid trip.
  • John Lennon and Yoko Ono were the next tenants and the flat was the scene of a police drugs bust in October 1968, which resulted in Lennon being convicted for cannabis possession.

Decca Studios, 165 Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead

Primrose Hill

  • The hill that featured in the 1967 song "The Fool on the Hill". The song was inspired by an event that happened to McCartney while walking his dog Martha on Primrose Hill.

Marylebone Registry Office

  • Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman here on March 12 1969.
  • Paul McCartney’s brother Michael was Best Man but was delayed on the train for over an hour. The wedding was delayed until he arrived.
  • None of the other Beatles were present at the wedding.

Buckingham Palace

The Royal Courts of Justice.
The Royal Courts of Justice.

Royal Courts of Justice

  • Paul McCartney issued a writ on February 18 1971 calling for the dissolution of The Beatles' partnership.

The Bag O'Nails

[edit] References

  1. ^ (Starr, Ringo (2004). Postcards from the Boys. Chronicle Books, 112. ISBN 081184613X. )

[edit] Google Earth link

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