West Malling: then & then.

West Malling airfield exists, as regulah readahs will know, only in the memories of those who have either seen (and can recall) MMT, or those who actually managed a visit to the place before it was swallowed by Kings Hill. Piet Schreuders, a master of the old "then & nows", falls into both categories, and he has very kindly allowed me to reproduce his photos (ca. 1988) for your perusal.
Thus - above the very spot where the Walrus sequence was shot. The slight difference in perspective vis-a-vis blast walls can be explained by contrasting lenses on pre-digital cameras. Note the pavings, and compare with the following:


The circular hole, effected in MMT, still there at that time:


And, o' course, the iconic blast walls, soon to be blasted:


Piet, who was visiting in the inestimable company of Mark Lewisohn, also managed to find the "I WAS" room, situated in a small building attached to the side of one of the hangers. Astonishingly enough, the very Union Jack, if a little on the mouse-masticated side, still in place:


Note the roof beams above, and the window below:


I would have needed a hand getting it into my etc:


Finally, the hanger itself, scene of YMSK:


And this:


The presence of one of the automotive stars o' MMT means that the rather interesting BJW sequence was almost certainly filmed in here too:


...of which more anon.
Many thanks go to Piet for generously allowing his pics to be used. There's more on Malling in The Beatles' London, which you really should buy immediately if you haven't already done so.
UPDATE: Looks like MMT will finally get an official DVD release on October 9, with a side-helping of tasty extras (unseen footage etc.). It's available now for pre-order on the US Amazon site, presumably with UK and others soon to follow.
FURTHER UPDATE: Official trailer now HERE... fairly exciting stuff it is, too!

West Malling: Kings Hill - Durello Avenue.

What, pray tell, compels all this? It's an odd business, no question, but one of many itches that, I feel, needed scratching revolves around the former West Malling (pronounced "Mawling", apparently) Airfield, scene of much of Magical Mystery Tour, and visited by "your" (why is everything "your" these days?) tired/emotional writer of drivel during the glorious summer of 1985, before the dread redevelopment.
It's been a source of regret, somewhere amongst the middle of the by now enormous pile of regrets, that I didn't take more photos that day (particularly given that the ones I did take were of the wrong thing).
So I felt compelled, m'lud, to return, digital camera in hand, in order to test the assertion in the Beatles' London that the "new roads and buildings have obliterated any sense of MMT orientation".
Using (or mis-using) the wonders of satellite mapping, together with the glorious diagrams in the aforementioned tome, it's still possible to locate the Walrus locales, mainly due to the fact that the developers haven't managed to destroy the surrounding woods yet (Hoath Wood, Coalpit Wood, Not Sure If I Wood, Jesus I Should Be Beaten To A Pulp Immediately For That Which Isn't Even A Wood, and so on, and so forth, etc.).
Thus, Durello Avenue: this is the very spot where the sequence for I Am The Walrus was filmed:


It's now a cul-de-sac, and they were smack in the middle of it (if that makes sense):


The famous blast walls (32 pairs, fact fans), long, long gone, o' course. These were mainly situated on the edges of the airfield, but the one behind the Beatles was directly beyond what is now Durello Avenue, and luck has dictated that the patch of ground thus far remains:


So, to labour the point unnecessarily, here is what's left of the Walrus locations:


Funnily enough, in what seems to be about the right position (re. blast wall), there is the concrete footprint of...something:


Walking on past the houses that can be seen in the above pic, I came upon a patch of undespoiled ground; the perimeter road would have run along to the right. Traces of the old airfield remain here, yet this too is about to be swallowed up by a no doubt horrible business park:


Wandering further I arrived at the edge of the former airfield, a spot now marked by large chunks of something or other:


Clearly these were once part of something else; one would hope an airfield related building, but shurely not the blast walls?
So there we have it. There is still a small patch of MMT in Kings Hill, if one knows where to look. But I wouldn't count on it for very much longer. So it goes.