John & Mimi: June, 1964.

A small bit of John and a slightly bigger bit of Mimi, on the plane to Oz, June 1964.

Kenwood: July, 1964.

I recently acquired Dot Jarlett's clippings archive, for the princely sum of 50 quid. Lots of innaresting bits and, moreover, bobs. The earlier ones were apparently cut out by John himself... and here is the very earliest, providing shurely the first press mention of Kenwood, from the Daily Herald, Wednesday July 15th 1964.
This picture, then, taken before the Lennons took up residence - and one wonders what they were doing giving interviews about the place when it was supposed to be a big secret.
Download and zoom in to read.

Kenwood (& Kinfauns): November, 1964.

This is the earliest picture of Kenwood to surface thus far - from around 4 months after John bought it. At this point there was no sunroom, and John, Cyn and Julian were all living in the attic, then still unconverted from its original layout (see Partidge plan). It's probably safe to assume that if any earlier pics come along in the future, they will be from before John's time there; and such may not even exist.
Here's the article from where the above pic came: 16 Magazine, and a straight syndication of the Chris Hutchins NME piece already featured on these pages a while back...except there's more of this, as he then goes to visit George at Kinfauns:


...which is where these pics originally came from. So they too can now be dated as November, 1964:


...or not. See comments.

Ken Partridge plans: 1964, part 4 - entrance area.

The final section of these 1964 Ken Partridge plans - and the reason they were filed; to get planning permission for the entrance canopy, familiar from many fan photos taken just outside the front door.
Ron de Bruijn has sent the following shot, which gives the best view of this area thus far; note the Sgt Pepper cutout of Stuart Sutcliffe has found its way to Kenwood:


I've previously questioned whether the familiar shots of John and Julian sitting in the bath-chair were taken in the entrance hall, mainly because the following fan shots, taken a good 6 months or so apart, show identical details which the bath-chair photos don't share. However, the Partridge plan makes it clear why - the entrance hall was quite spacious, and so the area covered in the bath-chair photos cannot be seen in these pics:


Instead, the bath-chair shots were taken in the far corner:


Thanks again to Ron for sharing his great archive.

Kenwood: Ken Partridge plans, 1964 - part 3.

The attic area - ca. October 1964; marked on the plan "Left As Existing". This, of course, was where John, Cynthia and Julian lived for 9 months whilst the rest of the house was being renovated (and, in the case of the sunroom and possibly the whole north-west extension, constructed). (Cynthia remembers a friend coming to stay with them during this time, and her being highly amused that they were living in such a huge house - but only occupying a tiny part of it.) The kitchen and bath no. 3 areas were, ultimately, the site of John's studio.
In any case, for those that are interested in this type of thing, the plan is a fascinating document, though it doesn't solve the great mystery of how the attic looked by 1967. According to every account of the matter, as soon as the rest of the house was complete John then ordered a thorough makeover of the attic suite too; how that was is anybody's guess...or so I thought.
But then, Ron de Bruijn sent me a photo that suddenly made the layout clear. The following post will witter on about that.

Kenwood: Ken Partridge plans, 1964 - part 2.

Much of what this blog concerns itself with is conjecture, guesswork and, frankly, jibber-jabber; I've been very wrong indeed at least as much as I've been right. So it is pleasing to find a piece of evidence which, for once, answers more questions than it raises. This is a definitive look at the layout of the first floor during the Lennon-era. It confirms the position of the master bedroom, dressing room and en-suite bathroom, and, I'd guess (I never learn) pins down the position of a couple of photos. (I'll get on to this in the following posts.)
Naturally it doesn't answer every question. Which of the other bedrooms was Julian's? Which one was the Blue Room (designated for Pete Shotton's exclusive use)? And which was the one Marijke referred to as being full of John's school mementos? Dunno.
But this is more than enough to be going on with. To wit...

Kenwood: Ken Partridge plans, 1964 - part 1.

Regulars will be familiar with my generally tortuous and laboured attempts to make sense of the layout at Kenwood during the Lennon-era, based, as they have been, upon various plans from long before/after the good ol' Schwingin' Shikshtiesh. Well, one of the "holy grails" (if that's not too ridiculous a way of putting it) has just fallen into my lap (not literally); namely the original "Lennon" plans (click on the above for a better look), dated 23rd October 1964, with Ken Partridge's notes indicating specific renovations...and though it does answer several questions, inevitably it throws up several more.

To start with what is there - we can now see that what was referred to as the den was indeed that room to the left of the living room. The split level nature of the kitchen is now clear as well; I found it hard to visualise what that would have looked like - but there it is. So that window to the right of the entrance was actually the kitchen window during John's time. What's also interesting is how close the ground floor was to the original 1913 layout.

However, and glaringly obviously, where is the sunroom?!? In October '64, it is clear from this plan that it had yet to be built. There don't appear to be records of any further planning applications (I've looked), so the exact date of the construction of the sunroom remains unclear - but it has to be late '64 or early '65. And what about the north-west extension? Well, it's just possible that it was there, but it's not on this plan for a reason - which I'll come onto in a future post. Still, fantastic to have a major piece of the puzzle finally in place.