12 Arnold Grove, George Harrison's Birthplace in Wavertree

12 Arnold Grove is the small Victorian terraced house in Wavertree, Liverpool, where George Harrison was born on 25 February 1943 and lived until early 1950. Since 24 May 2024 it has carried a Historic England national blue plaque, unveiled by his widow Olivia Harrison. It is a private home, seen from the street only.

A blue plaque outside London

For 150 years blue plaques were only put up in London. In 2024 Historic England started a national scheme. It announced on 23 February 2024 that Harrison would be one of the first people honoured outside the capital. The plaque went up on 24 May 2024, the third of the national scheme after those for NHS matron Daphne Steele and ceramicist Clarice Cliff. Olivia Harrison unveiled it together with arts minister Lord Parkinson.

The plaque reads "GEORGE HARRISON, 1943 – 2001, Musician and Songwriter was born here". Samira Ahmed hosted the ceremony. She later wrote that the organisers had thought about mentioning his film production and gardening, but settled on short wording that matches John Lennon's plaque.

Four children in two up, two down

Harold and Louise Harrison married and moved into Arnold Grove in 1931. The rent was ten shillings a week. All four of their children were born in the house, and George, born in 1943, was the youngest. Harold had been a ship's steward and was driving buses for Liverpool Corporation by the time George arrived.

Historic England's description of the house is short. Downstairs there was a front sitting room kept for best and a back kitchen where the family actually lived. Upstairs there were two bedrooms. The only heat came from one coal fire in the kitchen, and the paved back yard had room for chickens and a zinc bath. In his book I Me Mine, Harrison said the street looked like Coronation Street, with no front garden and a door that opened straight onto the pavement.

The family had been on the council housing list for nearly 20 years. They finally moved in early 1950, when George was nearly seven, to 25 Upton Green in Speke.

Wavertree connections

Both of Harrison's parents grew up in Wavertree. His grandmother lived round the corner at 9 Albert Grove, which George reached through the alley that joins the two streets on the east side. In 1948 he started at Dovedale Primary School in Mossley Hill. John Lennon had also been a pupil there, three years ahead of him, but the two did not meet at school.

Arnold Grove is a cul-de-sac near Wavertree High Street and the Picton Clock Tower, and it falls inside the Wavertree Village Conservation Area.

Seeing it from the street

The house is a home, not a museum, and no source lists any way to go inside. One condition of the national scheme is that the building can be seen from a public road, so the plaque is visible from the pavement.

Of the four Beatles' family homes in Liverpool, only Lennon's Mendips and McCartney's 20 Forthlin Road have interiors you can visit, on National Trust tours. Ringo Starr's 10 Admiral Grove in Toxteth, about 3 km west, is another private house you can only see from outside.