London: Beatle Offices


363 Oxford Street


20 Manchester Square
EMI House
13 Monmouth Street

The HMV (His Master's Voice) store on Oxford Street is where Brian Epstein, in February 1963, had discs pressed from tapes of the Beatles' failed Decca audition. The visit led, through a short chain of events, to his fateful meeting with George Martin. The store has now moved to a new location but the original site is marked by a plaque commemorating the store's significance. EMI House in Manchester Square was the headquarters of EMI Records, the Beatles' label. (The building has now been demolished, and EMI headquarters has moved to Hammersmith.) The cover shot for the first album, Please Please Me, was taken in the EMI House stairwell. A photograph of the Beatles in the same spot was taken in 1969 for the Get Back album, which was never released; the old and young Beatles/EMI shots were featured instead on the "Red" and "Blue" Greatest Hits album covers. Monmouth Street, near Covent Garden, was the site of the first London office of NEMS, Brian Epstein's company, and the Beatles Fan Club.


Argyll Street


94 Baker Street, 1967
Baker Street, 1997

The move of NEMS from Monmouth Street to a prime spot next door to the London Palladium in 1964 reflected the Beatles' rapid success. NEMS was located in Sutherland House, the newer building in the right of the picture. The Palladium was the site of the "Birth of Beatlemania" at the Beatles' October 1963 appearance on the "Sunday Night at the London Palladium" show, the British equivalent to the "Ed Sullivan Show." The Apple Shop at 94 Baker Street was decorated in appropriately psychedelic style for a short time, before the more staid neighbors complained and the building was painted white, just in time for the business to collapse. The Boutique store was the first Beatle-led "Apple" venture, and a disastrous foreboding of things to come.


3 Savile Row
1 Soho Square

Apple Headquarters were located in the dignified setting of Savile Row, renowned for its tailoring shops. The Beatles all had offices here, and the group filmed the second half of Let It Be here, including the famous rooftop sequence that ends the film and marked their final live appearance. Soho Square is the current site of Paul McCartney's MPL corporation.

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