Tittenhurst: summer, 1971.

More from the Jarlett archive. She continued clipping long after John had moved on - and a good thang too; here, for example, from the Woman's Own, dated January 15th 1972 (but clearly taken the previous summer), a tour of Tittenhurst, accompanied by comments thusly:

"Their bedroom cum living room (1)(above) has areas for relaxing, areas for working. This very private room has a cluttered lived-in atmosphere. A large, low bed covered by a continental quilt stands at one end. An enormous colour television faces it (in the foreground of the picture), lamps, cigarettes are within easy reach, and it is surrounded by their favourite objects - paintings, a stereo record player - all stacked against the wall. Yoko says that she longs for the end of the day when she and John are finally alone up here. Beautiful Persian rugs partially cover the white carpet and at the far end of the room, out of the picture, stands Yoko's desk where she does most of her work."

"The Gallery (2 and 3)(above/below) is John and Yoko's favourite room. Starkly simple, all in white, it has been designed to show off Yoko's exhibition pieces and does so to perfection. John loves to come up here and tinkle away on the piano. "I worked very hard for what I've got. I earned every penny of it. I'm not awed or amazed anymore by what I've got," John says.But still he worries about the white carpet getting marked and visitors are asked to change into slippers on entering the house in typical Japanese fashion."

"The outside of the Lennon's new dream home (4)(below). They spent some time looking for their ideal house set in beautiful grounds with a lake - it had to have a lake. Nowhere they looked at came up to their ideal, either the house was right but the gardens weren't, or vice versa. Then they came across this one. The only problem - it didn't have a lake. So they made one. "It looks like it has been there for ever," says John, "but it has got a rubber bottom." It's got an island, too, topped with an enchanting little white summer house."

"The beautiful and enormous kitchen (5 and 8)(below) is John's pride and joy. Cool looking, modern stainless steel units have been successfully married with the warm tones of old pine furniture, a terracotta tiled floor. Yoko designed it herself and it gives a fascinating insight into the new John and Yoko, who were publicised a few years ago for chopping in half every piece of their furniture. This kitchen had to be big, because the house is always full of people. It had to be streamlined and easy to run. Every modern appliance is here, even an infra red oven so that meals can be heated in seconds. The curving iron staircase (5) rises to John and Yoko's apartments. This part of the house , consisting of their bedroom, bathroom, another tiny kitchen and the terrace, is private - apart from John and Yoko, only the cleaners enter this very personal area."

"A private bathroom (6)(below)leads off their bedroom. Focal point of this room is an enormous curving bath designed for use by two people. "We do everything together," says John. "We want always to be together. We even bath together." Behind the bath, in an alcove, are bottles of beautiful smelling goodies and a telephone sits on the bath edge, a constant reminder of the world outside. Two heavy marble basins, a his and a hers, stand against one wall, and a small Gothic patterned chest, standing against another, hold reading matter and music scores."

"The terrace (7)(below) has traditional white wrought iron garden furniture standing among a mass of pot plants and trees. A dove-coat perches on the end of the terrace, the home of cooing white doves."

Tittenhurst: ca. 1969.

More from Bravo: Tittenhurst shortly after John & Yoko moved in. Above, the front door (later famously featured in the Imagine promo), below a detritus laden ground floor room:

Regulah readahs will no doubt spot a few familiar items. I can only be arsed to point one out, in case the former receptionist at Apple to this day wonders who nicked that painting:

Many thanks yet again to Sara from MTBFR.

Tittenhurst: more caravan.

Further evidence, not that any is needed, of the caravan in the grounds at Tittenhurst. Compare with the Kenwood fan pic below.
Of slightly more interest, the above is, as far as I can recall, the only pic to have surfaced thus far actually showing John (and Yoko) with the feckin' thing.


And Ringo, must I really ask ye again, whither the caravan?

Tittenhurst: then & now.

In brief, Ringo sold it to Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan in 1988, who proceeded to spend a, frankly, atrocious amount of wherewithal on gutting the interior, adding a whole new wing, constructing a bomb-proof swimming pool (I shit ye not), and generally doing all the things that one is not really supposed to do to a Grade II listed building. (The High Court had to step in to stop him going further, apparently.)
Anyway, above - the house in 1969, a few months before John bought it, and the same view now: the area under the terrace has been turned into a room. Speaking of which, here's how the Imagine errr..."turf" (as featured in the video) looks these days:


...and how it looked in the titular film:


The balcony, where the final pictures of the four of them together were taken, is long gone; that portion of the house has been turned into a new wing, because 50 rooms (or whatever it was) isn't really enough, is it? Clearly not:


An internal (fairly obviously, though nothing would surprise me) staircase (the camel photo possibly not there in the Lennon/Starr era)(nor anything else):


Finally, that bomb-proof swimming pool, together with the one that used to be there. An outdoor pool is generally regarded as a sign of wealth in the UK, but the old one looks positively spartan compared to the cash-fest that's there now. One reaches it, naturally, via an underground tunnel:


The Sheik died a few years back, and Tittenhurst now stands empty for much of the year, though there is a small army guarding the perimeter to ensure scum like me don't get a shufti.
Many thanks to JammyEye for the pics.

Tittenhurst: various views from sometime or other.

I have no idea when these photos are from, though it's possible they pre-date any Beatle connection; apparently, the grounds to Tittenhurst were open to the public before John and Yoko moved in, and there are no tell-tale signs evident of the usual accoutrements (Kenwood statues/caravan/donkeys/massive (and outrageous) "beard-age" etc):


The Victorian assembly hall behind the main house. Again, note the absence of statues (and Beatles), but the identical nature of everything else:


The rarely seen swimming pool, demolished after Ringo sold the property, sat adjacent to the main house:


Finally, the "front" door (actually round the side), familiar from the Imagine video. The whole place looks a bit uninhabited (assuming it's even possible for a place to be "a bit uninhabited", which I doubt) in these pics:


Innaresting. Thanks to Guus Limberger for sending them, and, as ever, to the Beatles' London guide for...guidance.
UPDATE: Guus informs me they are from 1969, but a few months before John and Yoko moved in.

Tittenhurst: late 1969.

By the late summer of 1969, John's facial hair had gone completely berserk. Yoko strongly advised him to shear it, and this he did, though the hair on his head wasn't to go till Denmark. Here are some photos from Tittenhurst, beard freshly defunct; the above a good view looking down from the house, the below need none more jibber jabber:


None whatsoever.

Tittenhurst: the Wibbly Wobbly Way.

The final round of Thomas Rhyner's summer 1977 Tittenhurst pics, captured whilst legging it round the grounds in an attempt to avoid a potentially irate Richie. The above shows the arch over the "front" door (actually round the side), behind the bush. In '77, the This Is Not Here window remained in situ; I very much doubt it still is:


The gazebo, which will be familiar to viewers of the splendid Gimme Some Truth documentary:


In said doc, John & Yoko were seen choosing, placing, and ultimately, as you do, consuming chess pieces in the diminutive "dwelling" (or whatever a gazebo is):


Errrr....:


Finally, to end at the start, the Lodge House which sat, and may even still sit, at the entrance to the grounds. Note the "amusing" signs. Tragically, no pictures exist of the Wibbly Wobbly Way:


Many thanks again go to Thomas for letting us see his shots (and apologies that it has taken so long to post these final ones).

Tittenhurst: 1969 & 1977.

More from Thomas Rhyner's 1977 Tittenhurst expedition. I've tried to match this batch to photos from the final Beatles photo session, dated 22 August, 1969. (Incidentally, was that the last time all four were actually together? There is rumour of a further business meeting in 1970, but I haven't seen confirmation. It would somehow be fitting, and also somehow sad, if the final meeting of les Fabs was indeed...thus.)
Anyway. The path from the house down to the Diana statue - Thomas seems to have been playing it canny, off in the foliage to the right; a wise move, given a threatened impending (and potentially irate) Richie:


Said path leads to said Diana, and to starboard one of the tallest Incense cedars in Blighty:


It would seem that the path and surround to the Diana statue had been allowed to grow back in by 1977: I think the following matches:


Errrrr...


So the dinosaur wasn't a prop from Caveman after all. (That meisterwerk didn't spring forth until 1981, and I refuse to believe it had a gestation period of 4 years plus.) It looks like a t-rex. Ringo directed Born To Boogie, which I've never got round to actually watching (though I think part of it was filmed at Tittenhurst): So, something to do with Bolan, possibly. Or not.
Following a spot o' donkey business, and a memorable few minutes under Weeping Blue Atlas Cedars, the hirsute foursome (plus equally hairy entourage) made their way back towards the house. This area wasn't quite captured by Thomas...but near enough:


Grateful thanks are due not only once again to Thomas for so generously sharing his photos, but also to The Beatles' London, by the esteemed trio Schreuders, Lewisohn and Smith; their book documents the final photo session, and Tittenhurst topography, in exhaustive (and welcome) detail. (What about The Beatles' Britain?)

Tittenhurst: more relics o' Kenwood & Sunny Heights.

Combined statuary of Kenwood and Sunny Heights, captured together at Tittenhurst in the summer of 1977; the lions last seen on the back terrace round Ringo's gaff, and the figure famous from the Sgt Pepper sleeve, if not the front door at Kenwood:


Of course, it's no surprise that John's Kenwood statues were there; in 1969, they were sitting behind the main house, outside the Assembly Hall:


By 1977, Ringo had moved them round the front:


All, familiar from St George's Hill, present and correct:


The whos, whats, whys and (these days) wheres of John's "busts" remain unclear. Where did he get them? Where are they now? What am I talking about? Who are they? The impressively tached-up one may be Lord Kitchener. Phillip Norman's recent biography of John pontificates thusly: "In the book lined front hall (at Kenwood) hung a Great War recruiting poster, with Lord Kitchener pointing a stern forefinger above the famous slogan "Your Country Needs You". John positioned it so that anyone approaching the front door was greeted by Kitchener's baleful, mustachioed stare through an adjacent window."
Baleful, mustachioed stares to one side, it may be that, in fact, it was this statue that spent a period inside Kenwood, looking out the window by the front door. Or not.
In any case, that most certainly is a baleful, mustachioed stare, if ever I've seen one:


Thanks again to Thomas Rhyner for generously sharing his pics.

Tittenhurst: relics o' Kenwood, 1977.

As Stuart Sutcliffe might have said: Can you tell what it is yet?
The last mention of the Kenwood caravan on these pages placed it at the bottom of the sea, having sunk on its way back from John's island, Dorinish.
So much for rumour.
In fact, the caravan arrived safely at Tittenhurst, and was left standing near what was then the main gate. Exposure to the elements has taken its toll; the paintwork wrecked, the Sgt Pepper motif long since washed away.
This photo, and others to follow, were taken by Thomas Rhyner in the summer of 1977. Chutzpah is all; having spotted the open gates, he walked through, camera in hand. Upon being challenged, Thomas asked if he could take some photos, and, amazingly enough, was told he could, provided he was gone in half an hour, because "Ringo is due back then, and if he sees you wandering about, he'll get medieval on yo' ass with peace and love." (Or words to that effect.)
Luckily, Thomas had a keen eye, and captured a number of interesting photos in his allotted survival time. He also happened to be standing in roughly the same spot as the photographer in this shot from the Beatles' final photo session:


The freshly painted caravan, for comparative purposes:


Wandering farther into the grounds, he noticed this:


...the distinctive round seat from the acorn installation at Coventry Cathedral in 1968, last seen at Kenwood outside the den window:


What has since become of these "items"? Ringo moved out of Tittenhurst in 1988, and it's quite possible they went with him; if so, the caravan and seat may be sitting still somewhere in the grounds of his Surrey pile.

I sort of hope so.

Many thanks to Thomas for sending these in; more to follow.