Kenwood: living room & den - variations on a theme.

Here's the living room in 2006, shot from the dining room door. Compare with 1965:


The door on the opposite wall leads to the den (as was):


This room, at least, recognisable from its previous incarnation. Compare with 1968:


The famous (round these parts) photos of the Fool taken, o' course, in this location. But that radiator wall has been knocked through to make a door:


I suppose there is a limited number of ways to sensibly arrange a room (and if there's one thing I am synonymous with, it's the sensible arrangement of rooms), but what I find mildly diverting is blah blah blah...

Kenwood: drawing room, 1965.

Another shot from the 1965 session that also produced these (amongst many others), showing the drawing room at Kenwood just before Ken Partridge's decor was scrapped:


Many thanks to Jeannette for the new pic; her Beatle progeny site can be found here.

Kenwood: summer, 1968 - part 4.

According to Cathy's account, this is a picture of the living room... and so it is, though I was thrown a little at first, because the pic doesn't really resemble any of the previously seen shots. The lithographs have gone, to be replaced by that odd looking wooden wall cupboard, similar to the one in the dining room (in fact, it may even be the one from the dining room, transplanted to the living room); the hard couches, too, offski. Obviously, therefore, a lot of renovation has gone on... which God knows, should be no surprise by this point.
The clue lies in the doorway - although everything else has changed, it hasn't. Compare with the shot from 1965:


So Cathy would have been standing beside the fireplace, looking through to the dining room. The same spot from 2006:


There are one or two other familiar things, though. John has left the Ramirez guitar lying about. Most remiss of him:


And the round table, which later ended up in the sunroom:


Also note the "famous" black carpet, a magnet for cat shit, apparently; again Cyn and her mum must have rolled this up (the carpet, not the cat shit)(actually, the carpet and the cat shit) and taken it (and just about everything else in the room) away with them, because by December, the floorboards are bare.
It's another fascinating, and intimate shot, affording a glimpse of the interior house, long gone, John.
Many thanks again to Cathy and Lizzie.

Kenwood: living/drawing room, 1965.

Not very revealing, but another verifiable Kenwood pic all the same, from the large living/drawing room, in 1965. You can just about see one of the lithographs in the background:


Connisseurs of trivia may note that the couches in the drawing room, chosen by Ken Partridge, were, apparently, fantastically uncomfortable. They were eventually given to Ringo for use at Montagu Square, though presumably not as a punitive measure.

Kenwood: living/drawing room, part 1 - world o' shelving.

Whilst it is true that John spent much of his time at Kenwood in either the sunroom, the attic studio, or the bedroom, the impression given by many Beatles books is that the other rooms were never used; which is not true. Cynthia was often to be found in the den, the dining room would be used when the Lennons were entertaining guests - and so would the main living/drawing room. This room is well documented, but the corner to the left of the large fireplace has been a bit of a mystery up to now. What was to be found there? The answer, and I am sure you are going to be astonished by this, was...shelving.
The Beatles Book reports that in June 1967, "on one side of the fireplace were three turntables. On the shelves near the record player were arranged several of John's gold discs". Sure enough, blog reader Eric Nernie has sent in a small picture of the shelves, taken at the end of 1968.
By that point, the living room looked (superficially, at any rate) very different from the John & Cynthia era. When finally vacating the house, Cynthia and her mother emptied the room of all furnishings and decoration. John & Yoko then moved back in, and used the space to house various items previously exhibited by one, other or both of them. The large white disc from the "you are here" exhibition obscured the grand fireplace, which might suggest that Cynthia had also appropriated the colour television previously housed there. The shelving and the "you are here" disc can be glimpsed in the December '68 footage from the living room, on either side of Yoko's white chess set.
The living room dates, of course, from the original construction ca. 1913, and retains a lot of original features - the wooden floor, the roof beams and side panelling were all there in the beginning, and are still there now. The one major bit of renovation occurred, inevitably, in the mid-90s, when the shelving area was demolished and knocked through to construct a parallel entrance, with steps leading up to the front hall:


With the shelving gone, and the fireplace exposed, it is almost impossible to relate the December '68 images of this area to the '06 shots, but nevertheless this is where it was:

Kenwood: drawing room, 1965 part 2 - road crew.

Another splendidly candid shot, from the drawing room at Kenwood circa 1965. That's Alf Bicknell, the Beatles' chauffeur (as opposed to Les Anthony, John's personal driver) nearest the dining room door - and clearly having a whale of a time, too. Is that Neil Aspinall on the couch? Looks like it to me - which means this may have been taken by Mal Evans. Or not. As ever. Note (what is likely to be) Scotch and Coke on the table in front of John.
Speaking of intoxicants, Alf Bicknell, interestingly enough, in an interview not that long before his death, contradicted one of the great yarns of Beatles' lore - namely the "Dental Experience". Alf's version of events was a little more prosaic - to wit: He drove them to John Riley's place, waited for a couple of hours, whereupon they came out and informed him of the naughty dentist's actions...and then he drove them back to George's. Fin.
Thus no Pickwick Room (and Klaus Voormann does not remember them being there that night), no Ad-Lib, no George driving home at 18 mph, etc. etc., though this narrative does still leave room for submarine based antics. However, stacked up against the fact that Alf would have been the only one not tripping, and therefore possibly slightly better placed to recall veraciously, it must be said that John, Cynthia, George and Pattie all broadly agreed on the events of that evening in their various recollections - and their version is backed up by Ringo, who remembers them appearing at the Ad-Lib, and Riley's girlfriend Cyndy Bury, the only other person present at the dinner party itself. So it's yet another odd one. Which should be no big surprise by now. (And what does it matter?)
Great photo, though.

Kenwood: drawing room, 1965 part 1 - harp.

The actual harp lithograph, that used to actually hang in the actual drawing room at Kenwood, as sold at Christie's in August 1991, by the actual Cynthia Lennon.

Drawing Room: December, 1968.

A couple of years back, the BBC arts programme Arena screened a documentary about John relating to the song Imagine. I didn't see it, but I believe that some of the Austrian TV footage from the drawing room was included - mis-labelled as being from Tittenhurst, but in perfect quality. If anyone happens to have recorded it and could provide an MP4 (or something)...Anyway, as part of the promotion they released this image of John and Yoko with the white chess set, in the drawing room at Kenwood.

Drawing Room: fireplace wall, 1965.

The other side of the drawing room, and a great, if out of focus, view of the fireplace circa 1965. I've reposted some of the other shots here in slightly better quality for perspective. You can see that the room in 2006 HERE was structurally more or less the same, although the decor had, of course, changed (though not that much, oddly. Note the fireplace, and then count the other similarities...) Joe's video, however, appears to show this area ripped to pieces, so how it is now is anyone's guess. Here, again, is how the room was described by the Beatles Book monthly in 1967 - "The next room was very large with three beautiful, soft sofas in it. In one corner was an extraordinary Chinese screen cutting, and next to it the brass statue with the gorilla’s mask on it, and a pipe stuck in its mouth, upside-down. On one side of the fireplace were three turntables. John is very fond of putting on L.P.’s of noises these days, and one played constantly while I was there, broken only by bursts of All You Need Is Love. On the shelves near the record player were arranged several of John’s gold discs, statuettes and certificates. In the centre of the fireplace was a huge colour television." A shot of said gorilla's mask also here. The decor of the room was quite different by the time of the December '68 film and photos. Still, the drawing room is surely now in contention for best documented room...although such a competition doesn't exist...thank God.

Drawing Room: December, 1968.

Another colour shot from the drawing room...I wonder when exactly John and Yoko moved out of Kenwood. Most reckon sometime in December, 1968. I suppose Bill Martin would know, as he bought it from John.

Drawing Room: film footage, December 1968.

For Kenwood obsessives like me, this is pretty exciting - the first, and probably only, professional filmed footage from inside Kenwood itself in the Lennon era! I had seen this film several times (I'll embed the film at the end of this post), but most commentators had it pegged as being from inside Sunny Heights when John and Yoko were staying there following the bust at Montagu Square. Not having any evidence to the contrary I went along with that. However, a reference at the You Are The Plastic Ono Band site made me go back and examine it again more closely...and I suddenly realised that, in fact, this is film from the drawing room (ie the room used as the main formal living room) at Kenwood, NOT Sunny Heights! (Bear with me on this). Examine the pics and screengrabs above. Note first the long white radiator(?) grille beneath John and Yoko's seat, and the general look of the window. Compare with the pic of John and George taken 3 years previously - the grille is there and it is clearly the same room. Now take note of the wooden flooring in the John and Yoko pic. Finally the pic of John and Cyn - the same room, and the fireplace faces the window. (See two old posts HERE and HERE for more exposition/evidence on this). Now compare the screengrabs from the film with the first three pics above...you can find all the features present and correct. Lastly, in the John and Yoko pic you can see some of her artwork from the Half A Wind show. Again, there it all is in the film!Finally a comp from Joe Baiardi's Kenwood footage showing that the wood panelling in that room is still there today. So there we have it! Here is the film, and I'm off to bed. (I just also realised I have the original Austrian TV show which this footage comes from, which will have more footage in it! I will try and get it on here soon).

Kenwood: sunroom & drawing room, December 1968.

Two more pics from December, 1968. A slightly melancholy shot of the sunroom - the picture wall is almost empty - either Cyn has taken them, or else they have been packed away in preparation for leaving Kenwood.
The other one is the main living room.
Thanks to Bruno Dupont for sending these photos.

Drawing room: circa 1965; wall hangings.