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Magical Mystery Mews!

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

The first time I took the bus to work, I got a little bit excited. Not because I thrill at being squashed against a cigarette-reeking city commuter on a springless seat, but because my bus route takes me past Abbey Road studios and over the iconic crossing – rather happy-making, for a Beatle maniac. A few months into this commute, just as I was getting almost complacent about seeing the building where the magic happened twice a day, five days a week, I discovered that not only did my journey take me past an iconic Beatles location each day, but that my journey began at one too. For it turns out that the Beatles had their famously unsuccessful Decca audition of the 1st January in my neighbourhood of West Hampstead – just around the corner in fact from my building, and down a side street I walk past every day to catch my bus!

Surely, I thought after this discovery, there cannot be more Beatle landmarks I am daily tripping over unawares? Well, thanks to a most informative artist I met at a neighbouring gallery in a lunch hour last week, it turns out, I was wrong – for our little, unassuming Allison & Busby office stands on hallowed ground! Yes, the fab four once stood – or rather, ran – in our very mews, and filmed a scene here for their 1964 film A Hard Days Night! It’s a discovery that makes coming into work in the morning just that little bit more special.
And proof, if proof were needed, comes from this little clip of the film (our mews is visible from about 1.58):

And the entrance to Charlotte Mews as it looks today (our office is where that white van is)…

Georgins Phipps, Editorial Administrator

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