John Lennon Blue Plaque at 34 Montagu Square, London

The John Lennon blue plaque is on 34 Montagu Square in Marylebone, London. English Heritage put it up to mark the ground-floor and basement flat where Lennon lived with Yoko Ono in 1968. Ono unveiled it on 23 October 2010. The flat had earlier been Ringo Starr's, and Jimi Hendrix also lived there.

A flat that passed between Beatles

The plaque names only Lennon, but the flat behind it went through several famous hands in three years. English Heritage says Ringo Starr bought it in 1965 and lived there that October. Wikipedia describes a lease on Flat 1 instead, so it isn't clear whether he owned it or rented it.

Paul McCartney used the place next. He recorded demos there in 1965, and in 1966 the basement became a small studio with Ian Sommerville running the tape machines. The idea was to record avant-garde writers and artists, and it didn't last.

In December 1966 Chas Chandler, formerly bassist with the Animals, took the flat. Jimi Hendrix and his girlfriend Kathy Etchingham moved in with him, and Hendrix wrote "The Wind Cries Mary" there. Complaints from neighbours ended that stay.

Lennon and Ono in 1968

Lennon moved in with Ono in the summer of 1968, while the Beatles were recording the White Album. English Heritage gives July and a stay of five months. Wikipedia gives 21 June and about three months. Neither date is certain.

The nude cover photographs for their first album together, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, were taken in the flat, and EMI refused to distribute the record. Then, on 18 October 1968, a Scotland Yard drugs squad led by Sergeant Norman Pilcher raided the flat. Wikipedia records 219 grams of hashish. Lennon was convicted on 28 November 1968 and fined £150. Ono miscarried that same November.

The 2010 unveiling

The plaque reads "John Lennon 1940-1980 Musician and Songwriter lived here in 1968". Wikipedia credits the proposal to Peter Davies, who campaigned for ten years. About 100 people watched Yoko Ono unveil it on 23 October 2010, after Beatles biographer Hunter Davies opened the ceremony. That was five days after the 42nd anniversary of the raid.

One Beatles in London post dates the event 13 October. Photographs taken at the ceremony and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons are dated 23 October 2010, which agrees with Wikipedia and The Beatles Bible.

This is Lennon's second English Heritage plaque. The first went up in December 2001 at Mendips, his childhood home on Menlove Avenue in Liverpool (see Mendips).

Seeing it

The flat is a private home, so the plaque is something to look at from the pavement. Numbers 33 and 34 have been Grade II listed since 1987. Two other Beatles sites in this part of central London are within walking distance: the HMV plaque at 363 Oxford Street is about 920 m away in a straight line, and the Imagine statue on Carnaby Street about 1.5 km.