Over the gate...

Designed in 1913 by Victorian/Edwardian/other architect Theophilus A Allen; John Lennon's house between 1964 and 1968; sunroom, attic and prisco stripe hibernice; Mellotron and caravan; Babidji and Mimi; mortar and pestle; Wubbleyoo Dubbleyoo; curios and curiosity; remnants and residue; testimonials and traces; (Cavendish Avenue, Sunny Heights and Kinfauns); Montagu Square; mock Tudor: Brown House: *KENWOOD*.

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Showing posts with label HDN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HDN. Show all posts

Monday, 1 July 2013

Winterbourne House: HDN locale.


It goes without saying, so I won't, and this is certainly one of them. Iconic photos of the manic-era Fabs, as per above left, are all about running, jumping, waving, posing with soft-toys, and crawling on hand and knee from Dutch bordello at 6 in the morning (errr..has anyone actually seen that photo? Maybe I have but didn't peg it as such). I digress.
HDN parodied much of this in fine post-modern style, o' course, and never more so than in the famous scene where Ver Fabs are chased up a dead end, only to etc.. The intrepid trio ('oo else?) of Lewisohn, Schreuders and Smith tracked down the locale, a tricky job as the cul-de-sac in question is long gone.
However, on-location photos reveal a bit more detail, including Winterbourne House in Notting Hill Gate, still very much there:


Buy The Beatles' London, sez I, and not for the first time.

Sunday, 2 October 2011

Crowcombe Heathfield Rail Station: spherical restitution.


"Please Mister, can we have our ball back?".
Crowcombe Heathfield station, part of the West Somerset line, is another place of interest (no, really). It dates from the mid-1800s, and the original signal box, past which the Beatles trotted/cycled for one of the more amusing bits of HDN, was constructed in 1879.
Here it is as pictured in the 1950s:


And a good then & then from 1966:


Soon after les Fabs made ludicrous use of it, at around the time of the above pic, the station was "rationalised" by British Rail, and began to fall into disrepair. It eventually closed altogether in the early '70s. The signal box was demolished, and this shot shows that side of the platform after it had been removed:


Happily, the station re-opened in 1979, and a team of volunteers has restored it to a pristine state. They even tracked down a similar signal box at Ebbw Vale Sidings, and moved it to the former position of the old one on the station platform. So there it now sits, marking the spot of a famous bit of Beatle burlesque: