Where did The Beatles Grow Up?
There have been numerous musicians over the years that have either done something to represent the voice of their generation or else have become well known thanks to their musical talent.
Very few, though, have had the sort of impact on the world that The Beatles managed, coming together in order to completely change the face of music forever. It is little wonder, therefore, that the people of Liverpool remain fiercely proud of the four of them.
If you ever come to the city, you can do numerous tours that take you around the places where they lived, but where was that, exactly?
Paul McCartney
If you want to get a sense of the start of the journey that The Beatles went on musically, it is probably right to start with Paul McCartney. The National Trust marks 20 Forthlin Road in the Allerton area of Liverpool as ‘the birthplace of The Beatles’, on account of the fact that it was where they wrote their earliest songs and where they rehearsed before performing them publicly.
The house was built in 1949, with the McCartney family moving to it in 1955, which was a point at which Paul was at secondary school. Just over a decade later, Paul bought his father, Jim, a house on the Wirral.
@city_views_liverp ✨ Step inside 20 Forthlin Road, Liverpool – the childhood home of Paul McCartney. 🏠🎸 This humble house is where The Beatles’ magic began, with timeless songs written in the living room. 🕰️ A true piece of music history, still standing proudly in the heart of Liverpool. ❤️🎶 #liverpool #thebeatles #tour #history #fyp ♬ Let It Be – Single Version / 2021 Mix – The Beatles
Although Forthlin Road was owned by the local authority at the time that the McCartneys moved into it, it was bought by the National Trust in 1995. Whereas the homes of John Lennon and George Harrison have blue plates on them from English Heritage, the same cannot be said of Forthlin Road.
This is because the rules of English Heritage say that someone must either have been alive for 100 years or dead for more than 20 in order to get one, with neither being true of McCartney. The house was, however, given Grade II listed status by Historic England in the February of 2012.
John Lennon
When John Lennon was growing up, he was living on Newcastle Road in Wavertree. However, when he was just a five-year-old, his mother, who lived with her boyfriend, was persuaded that it would be better for the young boy if he moved to Woolton in order to live with his aunt Mimi and her husband, George Smith.
As a result, Lennon moved to the house which was known as Mendips in honour of the Mendip Hills. Built in 1933, the semi-detached house was Lennon’s home until 1963, when he eventually left as a 22-year-old. In 1958, around 30 metres away, Lennon’s mother was killed after being hit by a car.
Tonight the light is on in the front bedroom of 251 Menlove Avenue in south Liverpool, where John Lennon lived from the age of five, on what is the 44th anniversary of his death.
📸: @snapperlane.bsky.social
— Liam Thorp (@liamthorp.bsky.social) Dec 8, 2024 at 19:26
In 1965, Mimi decided to sell the house, giving away some of the furnishings whilst keeping some others. Initially, the National Trust didn’t want to buy the house on the basis that no songs by The Beatles had been written there. This changed, however, when McCartney remembered that I’ll Get You had been written there, as had Please Please Me.
251 Menlove Avenue was given a blue plaque by English Heritage before the 20th anniversary of Lennon’s assassination in New York. Yoko Ono bought the house in 2002 and donated it to the National Trust, who leave Lennon’s bedroom light on on the anniversary of his death.
George Harrison
Located in Wavertree, close to the Picton Clock Tower, is 12 Arnold Grove, an unassuming terraced house within a cul-de-sac. It had been occupied by Harold and Louise Harrison since their marriage in 1931, paying ten shillings per week in rent.
All four of the Harrison children were born there, including George’s birth on the 25th of February 1943. He lived there for seven years before moving to 25 Upton Green, which is located in Speke. The Arnold Grove property was the definition of a two up, two down venue, boasting just a single coal fire to provide any sort of heating.
The rooms of the house were small, measuring roughly ten feet by ten feet, whilst the backroom was used as a kitchen and boasted a small iron cooking stone. A blue plaque, one of the first outside of London, was added to the property in 2024. In the July go 1964, George Harrison paid £20,000, equivalent to around £510,000 in today’s money, in order to buy Kinfauns in Surrey.
That is where many of the demos of the White Album were recorded towards the end of the 1960s, also becoming one of the locations where The Beatles gathered the most during that period.
Ringo Starr
If you travel to the Liverpool borough of Toxteth, you can find Admiral Grove. It was in number 10 on the street that Ringo Starr spent the first 20 years of his life, during the majority of which he was known as Richard Starkey.
He was actually born at number 9 Madryn Street on the seventh of July 1940, staying there for the first three years before his parents separated and his mum, Elsie, needed to find a home for the pair to live in. The less expensive Admiral Grove ticked the box, being nothing more than a two-up, two-down property, even though his grandparents lived on Madryn Street.
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Many years later, after making his name with The Beatles and buying his mum a house in Gateacre, Starr wrote a song called Liverpool 8, which was an homage to the two homes of his youth. In 2016, the 10 Admiral Grove property was bought for £70,000 by a fan of the band who also owned the former houses of George Harrison and John Lennon’s mum Julia.
The Madryn Street house of his birth had been due for demolition, only for the government to step in and stop that from happening after a petition against it garnered close to 4,000 signatures.
