Quezi

Abbey Road Studios. (photo by Misterweiss PD)

The news that EMI are selling the Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded the majority of their records, led me to do some research on the history of the building in which the studios are located.

Number 3, Abbey Road, St John’s Wood, London, was built in the 1830s. Number 3 was called Agnes Villa. The house was one of many middle class houses built by developers on what was then open fields on the edge of London. The area would soon become very select and the house would be occupied by middle class families with their servants. (See this map of London from 1827. The house would be built in Abbey Road where it continued on from the north of Grove End Road.)

We can see the layout of the house from an advertisement to let the property which appeared in The Times newspaper in 1843. Rent was £60 a year. The house consisted of four bedrooms, two drawing rooms, study, boudoir, two parlours, store closet, two water closets, two kitchens, three cellars, with a substantial garden.[1]

Residents during the 19th and early 20th centuries included an architect and a property owner.

It was purchased in 1929 by the Gramophone Company, which soon became part of EMI (Electric & Music Industries Limited). It took two years for it to be converted to a recording studio, and in 1931 by the studios were opened for EMI by Sir Edward Elgar, the famous English composer.

Hundreds of singers and musicians, both classical and popular, were recorded in the studios long before the Beatles ever stepped through its doors.

[1] The Times, Saturday, Sep 23, 1848;