PENNY LANE
Fifty years after they launched the British Invasion, the Beatles are still one of their hometown’s leading tourist attractions. William Hageman indulges his private Beatlemania.
future wife, and Stuart Sutcliffe, who became a close friend and was the Beatles’ first bassist. The building, in Hope St, is now owned by the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts.
Stuart Sutcliffe’s flat
The apartment at 9 Percy St where Lennon and Sutcliffe spent a lot of their time.
Ringo Starr’s first home
Now abandoned and recently saved from demolition along with similar homes, the tiny house at 9 Madryn St was where Starr lived from birth in 1940 to 1943.
Ringo’s second home
He considers this his childhood home, at 10 Admiral Grove, where he lived from 1943 until Beatlemania intervened. How bad was it? ‘‘Sometimes Ringo would be in the house, and he couldn’t use the [outside] toilet,’’ Bentley says.
‘‘Girls would be out there, standing on the wall [at the back of the property], looking for Ringo. So [his mother] would go out and chase the girls off the wall so he could . . . use the toilet.’’
The Palm House
This spot at Sefton Park was a favourite of Harrison, who would visit the Victorian glass conservatory with his family as a child. But it fell into disrepair and was closed in the 1980s. On a visit to Liverpool, Harrison saw the state of the building and joined efforts to restore it. With his help – reportedly $US1.6 million given anonymously – the building was saved and reopened in 2001.
Dovetail Towers
The former St Barnabas Church Hall at 60 Penny Lane is where the Quarrymen, precursor to the Beatles, occasionally played.
Julia’s death
Lennon’s mother was struck and killed on July 15, 1958, near a bus stop on Menlove Ave (the street has been reconfigured). The car was driven by Eric Clague, an off-duty policeman. He became a mail carrier, with the McCartneys on his route.
Mendips
Lennon was raised in this home at 251 Menlove Ave from age 5 by his mother’s sister, Mimi. The bedroom above the front door was Lennon’s and was where he wrote Please Please Me. In 2002, Yoko Ono bought it and donated it to the National Trust. It was reopened in 2003.
McCartney’s home
One of several of McCartney’s childhood homes, the one at 20 Forthlin Rd was where he and Lennon wrote more than 100 songs within its walls. The National Trust bought it in 1995.
Harrison’s home
The simple and well-kept twobedroom home at 12 Arnold Grove was Harrison’s first house. According to Bentley, he used the street name, Arnold Grove, as an alias when checking in at hotels.
Strawberry Field
The gate and wall stand outside what used to be a Salvation Army orphanage in Beaconsfield Rd, near Lennon’s home. In 1979, Lennon helped fund an annex at the building, and in 1984 Ono brought their son, Sean, to visit the site.
St Peter’s church
The last stop on our tour, in Church Rd, is where the Beatles story really began. On July 6, 1957, Lennon met McCartney at a church picnic where the Quarrymen played. And in the churchyard is the grave of Eleanor Rigby. McCartney for years said the title character in his song was fictional but in recent years has backtracked on that.