John Lennon's House

For me this was the ultimate Beatle experience of the trip. A full hour inside the house where John Lennon lived. A place where he and Paul McCartney wrote and rehearsed so many songs.

The Magical Mystery Tour simply stops and lets one stand on the sidewalk and look at the house. The only way to get inside the house is to take the highly recommended National Trust Tour as it now has historical significance. The tour uses a van rather than a bus and there were only five people on the tour.

The house in Mendips, is occupied by a pair of live-in caretakers. The couple were retired school teachers who had once lived on Vashon Island, just a short ferry ride from Seattle (small world). They gave us a tour of the house and then we had forty minutes left to walk around and take it all in. The dining room had a large table with photos and memorabilia. There was a guest book to sign, plus another volume to write any thoughts one might have. I had a few.


The house belonged to John’s Aunt Mimi. John’s room is the one over the front porch. Photography was not allowed inside the house. The rather small room was done up similar to the original with a bed, dresser and 50’s radio, with Elvis Presley and Bridget Bardot posters on the walls. It was amazing to sit there alone; looking out the window and imagining the way things were so many years ago. It gave me chills up the spine. In fact, I could feel the chills the entire time we were there in the house. There is something about that place. I still get them when I think back about the visit.

As a young lad John would sit on his bed making up songs and singing. Often this would get on Aunt Mimi's nerves and she would banish him to the front porch with the immortal words, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it."

John and Paul would often go to the front porch and close the inner and outer doors. With the glass enclosure and tile floor, the porch made a very good echo chamber in which to practice singing and harmonizing.

This is us standing in the outer doorway of the porch. We did close both doors, and sang a couple bars of “She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah”. The reverb was very good, but the singing was not nearly as good as John and Paul would have done.


Annette insisted that I do an air-guitar pose on John’s porch. I’m not opposed to being goofy, but unfortunately, it turned out to be more like spastic bass guitar.


There are several trees in the back yard. I don’t recall which one it was, but John had a favorite tree that he liked to climb and hang around in. The song Strawberry Fields Forever contains the line “No one I think is in my tree.” As a young lad I always wondered, what in the world does that mean? It’s not a mysterious groovy psychedelic line after all. It simply means no one is in his tree.


Photography wasn’t allowed inside, but no one complained about a close shot of the front window. If you click and expand the picture to full size, you can peek inside and make out some details of the living room. Actually here is a link I just found that shows the inside of John's House.


I had always envisioned John growing up in a poor rough and tough neighborhood of a seaport city. As can be seen in the following picture, his was actually a very nice middle class existence there beneath the blue suburban skies.


The hour passed quickly and soon we were out the driveway. Next stop...