Kenwood: summer, 1968.

Too busy to post recently, but I'll gladly make time for these rather wonderful pics. This must be pretty close to the Two Virgins night - there are other photos circa then showing John in almost identical garb, post-India, happy/sad, who knows? These girls got a glimpse of Kennie, went inside, and particularly remember the smell of the place - John burnt incense non-stop, and would have returned from the sub-continent laden with the stuff.
But here they are outside the front door, a fantastic little moment in time:

Huge thanks to Christine (whose pictures these are) for her generosity in allowing me to post, and to Trish, and Julian Carr for sorting it out.
(These haven't been seen before, and are used with permission - please don't re-post without it. I just know I can trust you people!)

Kenwood: autumn 1967.

A storm is battering my window as I type, possibly akin to that affecting our boy's hair. John, outside the front door at Kenwood, in typical fashion; he really was most patient with ver fannage, was he not?
And once again, gratitude to Mark Lewisohn, not least for similar forbearance.

Kenwood: hall action.

More errr... "action". Cynthia, plus ever present "snout", outside the hall. 1967. Or 1968.

Let's hope something more interesting happens sometime soon.

Kenwood: the front door endures!

Above, the kitchen in '06. This, as "readahs" will know, is a new bit of the house, constructed in the mid-90s. In John's time, there was an odd internal yard in this position, next to the garage overlooking the pool. An almost identical shot has been on here before - but, crucially, that one didn't show the external door. This one does, to the left of the pic...and if that's not the old Lennon-era front door, then it's Dylan caps for dinner tonight:


The current front door is substantially bigger than this one. After (or before) installing it, they must have decided to keep the old front door as well, but transplant it to the new kitchen block. And there it is!
So much of this blog charts the destruction of locale, that it's pleasing to report an unexpected incidence of endurance.
Knockers or no knockers.

Kenwood: autumn, 1967.

Further fannage, outside the front door, circa MMT.
Thanks to Mr L.

Kenwood: more front door.

Another "interesting" shot emerges - John answering the door to a fan sometime in 1968. This must be Two Virgins era, possibly from the period just before Yoko and he moved to Montagu Square.
The above shamelessly filched from Miss Tammy, the below shamelessly filched from Meet The Beatles For Real:

Kenwood: bloody pests.

A fan photo of Cynthia at the front door, sometime in 1967 (shamelessly filched from Meet The Beatles For Real - link under Friends & Neighbours). Probably the best illustration yet of John & Terry Doran's handiwork with the spray paint - and fairly repulsive it is too.
This pic reminds me of Chris Tanner's recollections in a MOJO feature from a while back, on a theme of "Have Ye Met The Fabs?":
"Richard & I were in the 5th form at St James' Secondary School in Weybridge. This was Beatle territory in 1966. John, Paul, George & Ringo all had properties in this comfortable stockbroker belt. Richard had collected autographs from all but the "gifted" one - John Lennon. Together, on our bikes we peddled through St Georges Hills estate to the Lennon's property Kenwood. No guards on the gate (two huge oak doors carved with the names of a thousand fans). We tread the gravel driveway that sweeps through the gardens past Beatle sculptures (remember "Beatle Boots"), to the front door. Amazingly our nervous knock on the door is answered by Cynthia Lennon complete with tinted glasses. We ask if John is home and Cynthia sweetly tells us to try on Tuesday. Is this lady dumb? Allowing two non-descript schoolboys to sally forth again! Tuesday arrived and once again we knocked on the door. This time there was a protracted, nervous wait on the step. The door opened and blue jeans, t-shirt and shock of Beatle's locks greeted us. "Hi John. Err wondered if you could autograph this album" "Give it 'ere, bloody pests". John signed the album and two school chums went home very happy.
Great story but here's the crack. Me, not really into the Beatles...more a Stones man, didn't bother with John's autograph. So now I can only look back and reflect on our meeting and the fact that Richard (wherever he is) is considerably richer than me!"

Kenwood: June 12, 1965.

John and George, pictured outside the front door at Kenwood, apparently (see comments) on June 12, 1965. This was the day news broke (widely) (again, see comments, if you like) about their being awarded the MBE. Note the naked-lady knocker. Note too George's get-up: the same (sans hat) as the back of Rubber Soul and the UK Help! album (I don't know about the US version - I don't have a copy of it). The photos of John on the rear of both of these were certainly taken at Kenwood, and I wonder (though not very often) if any of the others were too.
Another artefact associated with this date is the warrant sent to Ringo to inform him that he was also being so "honoured", marked the twelfth day of June, 1965:


Obviously, the other three would have received a warrant too, but, as far as I know, Ringo's is the only one to surface so far. John's MBE was recently discovered lurking in the bowels of Buckingham Palace during a spring-clean; there's talk of putting it on display somewhere or other.

Thanks to Simon, and to M.

Kenwood: summer, 1968 - part 1.

(May as well start at the front door.)
Cathy Kelleher Sarver visited Kenwood shortly after John & Yoko had moved out in the summer of 1968, and...well, she can tell you herself:
"It was summer 1968 and John had stopped living at Kenwood but the house was so very special to me, I just had to go there anyway. My friend and I went to the house and rang the doorbell. A lady answered the door. I asked if I could take a picture of inside the door and she let us into the long foyer. Then she opened the door to the living room and I got that picture and then she opened the door to what I call the "music room". Both rooms were about three steps down from the foyer (the house was built on a hill). In Alf Bicknell's book he talks about helping John paint a room red. This must be the room! Then we went back to the door and I asked if I could take a picture of her and she said, “Yes". After I took the picture of her with the foyer's built-in bookcases in the background she said, "Who are you going to tell your friends I am?”. Neither of us spoke but I was thinking, "The maid?", but didn't want to say that. Then she said, "I'm Cynthia's mother." WOW! It was Mrs. Powell. We thanked her and left the door, which she shut. THEN we went all over the property!!! And no one knew!!! And then we left. We were such good fans we didn't even take a leaf off a tree!!!! At some point in the conversation Mrs. Powell told us Cynthia was at the pool watching Julian and a neighborhood friend. I took a picture through the fence from the back driveway and you can just barely see two little heads in the water!!!!!"


All in all, Cathy took 20 (count 'em) pics that day, and guess wot? They are all going to be on here, over the next few days. First off, the "naked lady" door knocker, together with the Lennon coat of arms. Clearly a hastily snatched pic, I've paired it with the one from the end of the year showing the same thing. Above, the entrance hall (with John's nemesis much in evidence) - and final proof that it was the location for those John-in-the-bathchair shots. Note that the books have all gone, later to appear at Tittenhurst. Funny, that. John didn't care about much of the detritus he'd accumulated at Kenwood, judging by the fact that Cynthia took most of it, uncontested. But he clearly wanted the books. (Musta been a "reader".)


Many thanks go to Cathy for so generously agreeing to let us see her photos and hear her story, and to her good friend, the wonderful Lizzie Bravo, who sorted it all out. Aguardientes all round.

Kenwood: more from early 1968.

More pictures of John, outside the front door at Kenwood, have come to light (it's been a bit of an outside-the-front-door-at-Kenwood-drooling-frenzy today); three of these are from the same time as the pic posted earlier this morning, taken by Sue Baker.
And despite the blemishes of age, amazingly vivid they are too.
A hitherto unseen statue has appeared. Something is resting on the head of one of the others. John looks...about par for the course. He's carrying a drawing of some kind. The hall curtains are closed to the world.
Yes, very evocative, they effortlessly capture something of the intriguing, haunted quality that the house possesses:



Many thanks once again to an old friend of this blog and others, Bruno Dupont, for giving me the nod about these. Merci.

Kenwood: Lizzie Bravo.

I, and indeed you, may be a fulsome fan of the Fabs, but we've got nothing on uber-fan Lizzie Bravo. Lizzie came to live in London, on her own, at the age of 15, from Brazil, with the express intention of meeting the Beatles. This she achieved in "reasonable" fashion, eventually being invited in to Abbey Road to sing on the original Across The Universe. Nae bad. Anyway, the good news is she is currently writing a book about her experiences based on her diaries of the time, and has kindly offered to share one or two of her Kenwood photos here.
So, a great shot of Lizzie near the front door holding one of John's cats. Which one, I'm not sure. Here is her diary entry for the day this photo was taken - March 25, 1967. "Me & friends went to Esher and Weybridge. George was in a great mood, he said "Hello, happy Easter!". Pattie is an angel. I fell in love with John's black and white cat. We didn't see John, though we heard his voice."
That's Cynthia's Porsche behind her too - which was, apparently, the cause of the only row Pete Shotton ever saw between John & Cyn. More, tangentially, on Mr Shotton soon, and many thanks to Lizzie for this.

Kenwood: front door.

The renovations have extended the hall outwards since John's day - but is that the original door there? It certainly looks like it, though without John's "naked lady" door knocker, one presumes. (As it turns out - it isn't. See later post, if you are arsed.) Thanks to Randy Zimmerman for passing on the new scan - and to Joe Baiardi for the new pic.

Kenwood: various rare photos.

The first one has a good view of the other side of the sunroom - and that is two of the Fool sitting there. The second photo is fairly amusing, due to the gamut of facial expressions on display. Laugh? I almost tittered. Another thing - from reading about it, I always thought there was a piano in the sunroom - but where was it? I think I can see it in one of the other photos on this page, though it is indistinct. The first photo here gives some perspective, so the piano (if piano it be) was on the opposite wall to the "Safe As Milk" wall. Plus, they are probably watching some rubbish on the tele above the fireplace. The third photo is "interesting" too - Pete Shotton mentioned spray-painting Kenwood in his book, but I'd never seen any evidence of it (not that I doubted it), unlike Kinfauns. But look at the front door.... Muchas gracias to Mr Baiardi for providing these pics.