A handful of very hard-to-come-by Abbey Road Studios tours (abbeyroad.com; from £189) each year allow music fans to walk the very rooms where legendary albums were recorded before becoming the soundtracks to many of our lives. Beatles fans can peruse fan graffiti on the walls outside the studio and snap a walking shot on the same zebra crossing that featured on the band’s 1969 masterpiece record. In 2010, the crossing was protected with Grade II heritage status, so it can't be easily removed.
Other legendary tracks to have been recorded at the studios include Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn (immortalized in Studio 3), the Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter film scores, The Bends by Radiohead, Be Here Now by Oasis and Amy Winehouse’s Frank. A shop on site sells all sorts of music merchandise, from Abbey Road fridge magnets to vinyl, music-inspired cookbooks, pin badges, plectrums, guitar straps and more. Search out the cabinets for the original session sheet used during the recording of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and vintage microphones used at the studios throughout the decades.
