Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios opens doors to public
Charlotte Higgins
Friday January 14, 2005
The Guardian

It opened to the sound of Sir Edward Elgar conducting Land of Hope and Glory, the Beatles named an album after it, but the public has never had access to it - until now.

For the first time the doors to Abbey Road Studios in St John's Wood, London, will open to the public. In March, studio one, the world's largest purpose-built recording studio, will become a temporary cinema, screening some of the most famous films whose scores were recorded there.

Films to be shown in the two-week festival, sponsored by the Guardian, include The Lord of the Rings trilogy (with scores by Howard Shore); Raiders of the Lost Ark (with its Oscar-nominated score by John Williams, the first to be recorded at Abbey Road); and The Talented Mr Ripley (with music by Gabriel Yared). The festival will also screen Beatles movies, including Yellow Submarine and Hard Day's Night, and Backbeat.