Life Up on the Hill

Cynthia and her mother Lillian with an unindentifed gentleman checking out the grounds of Kenwood, Weybridge, in Surrey 1964

"One minute we were living in a bedsit, and the next thing we had the mansion in Weybridge and a chauffeur."

Cynthia, 1999

"In two years I went from a bedsit in Liverpool to a mansion in Surrey with gardeners and chauffeurs and a housekeeping allowance of £50 a week. It was enough to blow anybody's mind."

Cynthia, 2000

This particular blog entry will be a long read. So much stuff had happened in the short four years the Lennon family living there. I already posted about household help and there will be a pet/animal entry at some point in the future as well as the general relationship between John and Cynthia. Also, there is a great blog about Kenwood with amazing details on history and additional information. It hasn't been updated much recently but no matter - what you want or need to know is provided.

Let's start from the beginning: During the first half of 1964 (January-June), John and Cynthia were unhappy with the London apartment they were living. Sure, it was in a nice part of London, probably well adjacent to everything you need to go to, except the cons were outweighing the pros. The 6 flight of stairs with no elevator, fans constant beseige their front entry door, no privacy. It was a nightmare. 

"We have a flat but you should see the outside of the house. It's scrawled on by people with messages that can't be removed. They're engraved, I know, you expect people to find out where you are living, but it's A strange thing to want to do, unless they are really young kids. It's rather hard."

Cynthia, 1964

When John returned home from The Beatles tour in New Zealand and Australia, it was time to move. Cynthia and her mother already started house hunting, going by the advice of John's accountants to look into Weybridge, Surrey. I don't know how many houses Cynthia looked at. Anyway, when John came home, I think Cynthia took John to check out the top choices: they settled on Kenwood.

Question: Out of all the places in England you could have chosen, why did you pick Weybridge? (press conference)

"Because it was the nearest at the time when I suddenly decided I'm gonna have a house for me and me wife. Somebody said, 'There's one up there,' and I said, 'Right, I'm having it.' That's all there is to it." John

"The house stood on a hill at the end of a long, wooded drive. It was huge - a mansion really, in Tudor style, surrounded by acres of mature gardens. Rhododendrons bloomed along the path, daisies speckled the grass, about 140 steps led up to the back door, and inside the sun poured through big mullioned windows. John and I grinned at each other. We couldn't quite believe that we might really buy this place. Until now we'd only ever lived in our family semis or rented flats. We'd never even had our own garden before. But the accountants were telling us we could afford it and it was a bargain at £19,000 - cheap because it needed renovation. 'Do you like it, Cyn?' John asked as we wandered through the empty rooms. Happily I sank onto a window seat and rubbed dust off the lattice pane. Through the diamond glass I could see a stone terrace baking in the sun. 'I love it,' I said. And that was it. Suddenly we'd bought our first house. The Beatles were now so successful it was obvious that we all needed to be based in the South, within easy reach of the studios and record offices of the capital. But our first attempt at a London home hadn't worked out."

Cynthia, 1994

"As it happened, at this point George had built a house in Esher, Surrey. It was a lovely leafy, peaceful area. 'Why don't you look for something round here?' George suggested. And that's how we came to be looking round the run-down property in St George's Hill, Weybridge, that bright afternoon. We both fell in love with the place and there was no need to carry on looking. This was definitely where we wanted to live.Another one of my cartoons of our life together.  It was a great relief when we could finally stop pretending that we weren't married. In fact the condition of the house wasn't that bad. You could have moved in straightaway but everyone was saying, 'Oh, my God, you've got to do this and you'll have to change that.' Until in the end we installed ourselves in the little staff quarters at the top of the house while the builders took over the rest for the following 12 months. The next thing we knew, an interior designer was coming along with swatches and colour schemes and we were having to make decisions about the whole house in one go. I was confused. Why is this happening, I wondered suddenly. I'm an artist, John's an artist, we can create our own colour schemes and choosing furniture's no problem if you've got the money. But the whole thing had spiralled out of control. We were both very young and ignorant and we thought this was the way it's done."

Cynthia, 1994 

Julian enjoying the sunshine at his new home, Kenwood, in 1964.

On July 15, 1964, John bought his first ever house for £20,000. Kenwood was designed in 1912 by Henry Colt and built the following year by Love & Sons. By the time John bought it, the house was already over 50 years old and needed repairs. John hired Ken Partridge to decorate his home after being impressed by the work he did for Brian Epstein, and spend £40,000 on renovations (cost more than the house!). John, Cynthia, and Julian already moved in while work was being done; the family lived in the servant quarters in the attic for several months. After John and Cynthia were able to be in their bedroom, the servant rooms were renovated in a few rooms for music studio, art studio, and an extra bedroom. Ken went overboard with his designs. I don't think he conferred with John and Cynthia on how they wanted it to their tastes - he was on his own. John was busy with his work while Cynthia watched in silence and bewildered. Whenever Cynthia would pass by, it seemed that the construction workers were enjoying yet another tea break. Almost a year later, the work was finally finished. John, Cynthia, and Julian got to sleep in their bedrooms.

Question: John, tell me if you've yet moved into your home in Surrey. (press conference, 1964)

"No, I haven't had time. The place is empty, you know. There's no furniture... needs decorating, and walls knocking down and things. It's nowhere near ready. I'll be in next year, probably. Well, I hope before. It depends, but that's the longest it'll take to fix it up." John

Question: And John, they said that you had moved to Emperor's Gate. Are you moving out of there and into the Surrey home, is that it?

"I've moved from Emperor's Gate, but not into the house, you see." John

"John and Cynthia's new house was in a state of being done up. In fact the work had hardly been started when we arrived. There was no kitchen downstairs, just a gaping hole where it was planned to be. There were no electric gates either, no swimming pool, nor landscape gardens. But John was enormously proud of it, telling us all about the plans and showing off the elegant oak staircase, the large reception rooms and his den, which was red and lined with books. In the absence of a functioning kitchen downstairs, the food we ate was cooked in the housekeepers flat at the top of the house. John insisted that we sat down as a family to eat, in the oak-panelled dining room downstairs, around a mahogany table under a chandelier. We sometimes ate roast dinners, but most of the time we had  very simple food, like our favorite egg and chips, with two year old Julian perched in his high chair beside us. 

John and Cyn slept in a huge bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. We couldn't get over the sunken bath, we'd never seen anything like it."

Julia Baird, 2007 

"It was especially bad on tour when they had to lock themselves into their rooms as hordes of fans stormed the hotel outside. Finally John decided it would be safer for Cynthia and Julian to live outside London, in a remote part of the affluent suburbs, away from the constant hysteria. 'Kenwood', a mock-Tudor mansion, was their first big house. Bought in July 1964, it was on the exclusive St. George's Hill Estate in Weybridge, in the Surrey stockbroker belt. When they began to get the house straighter, John arranged for Jacqui and me to go down for a few days. We loved the idea of being with John again at long last. It was an added bonus when he sent us air tickets: we'd never been on a plane before. The main hall was dominated by an elegant oak staircase and opening off it were the reception rooms, all beautifully furnished. John's den off the sitting room was entirely decorated in red and lined with books. John was an avid reader, a habit encouraged in his childhood by Mimi, and Cynthia said he often sat in there for hours with his nose in a book. One important room was missing: Cynthia's ultra modern dream kitchen. Somehow the builders hadn't got around to it yet. A dug up floor on the other side of a great hole in the wall was the only indication of where it was to be one day. In the meantime, meals had to be cooked upstairs in the flat where the housekeeper and her husband, the chauffeur, lived and brought downstairs to the dining room. John and Cynthia's room was one of the six bedrooms upstairs. It was carpeted in white and had an ensuite bathroom with a sunken bath. We had never seen such luxury. ...That short holiday with John at Kenwood meant a lot of Jacqui and me. It was great being a family together again. Fantastic though the house was, we'd have just been happy if it had been the gardener's cottage. The important thing was  being with John. We had a family life at Harrie's of course. But it wasn't the same as having our own proper family, like John, with us. It was almost as if Mummy might come waltzing in through Cynthia's kitchen hole in the wall with a trayful of scones straight from the oven, humming a nonsense tune. On the sitting room floor were some bulging canvas sacks which really intrigued us. Cynthia explained that they contained John's fan mail and invited us to have a look. We spent several hours totally absorbed reading through some of the thousands of letters. They were a fascinating insight into how passionately the fans felt about the Beatles. Nearly all of them were from girls."

Julia Baird, 1985 

"At long last the alterations were finished and we were able to move downstairs into our grand house but I'm sorry to say that while half of it worked, the rest we hated. Ultra-modern furnishings and colours jarred as far as we were concerned with the old-fashioned style of the building, and the sitting room was particularly unwelcoming. There was an amazingly uncomfortable Italian-style leather suite with metal bars. Two lamps were set just so, there was a glass table in the middle and two more tables arranged at careful distances. It was probably the height of good taste but to us it looked sterile and impersonal. More like a hotel lounge than a family home. The kitchen was now the most enormous I'd even seen; split level with everything chosen for me right down to the pots and pans, and everywhere with this stark, masculine colour scheme, with deep shades in plain designs. It was smart but it felt as if the house belonged to someone else. Over the years, at enormous cost, we gradually changed the house to our own style. I bought lots of flowery sheets and towels and lampshades and pillows to try and introduce a more feminine element and John decided he wanted black carpet in the sitting room and comfortable seats. Eventually we chose two semi-circular settees in pale, silvery grey with lime green covers and two easy chairs also in lime green. It sounds yucky but in fact it looked lovely and it was so nice to sink down onto something soft and comfortable."

Cynthia, 1994 

As Cynthia mentioned, she and John were both artists. They swapped furniture, repainted the walls (John painted the art room), and making the house into their own. The house originally had 22 rooms and after the renovation it was 17 rooms with 6 bathrooms. Kenwood contained 3 floors, a garage, and, later with John as an owner, a pool.

"Then John decided that we had to have a swimming pool. On our steeply sloping site the construction was difficult and the builders were back for another six months but, eventually, there it was. Sadly, John was hardly ever home to swim in it."

Cynthia, 1994 

John originally wanted the floor of the pool to be a mirror but settled on a psychedelic eye on the side. 

John and Julian at the pool with the psychedelic eye, June of 1967

Photographed by Leslie Bryce 

1. John and Cynthia's bedroom (with two dressing rooms, a bathroom with a Jacuzzi)

2. Julian's bedroom (designed in red)

3. guest room (designed in blue, reserved for an additional member of the family in case John and Cynthia had another child; the bedroom was frequently used by Pete Shotton.)

4. music room (attic)

5. art room (attic)

6. game room (attic; contained a race car track)

7. sun lounge 

8. library

9. dining room (designed in purple)

10. kitchen with state of the art appliances that Cynthia was scared to use and need tutorial.

11. entry hall where Sidney the knight armour suit and a gorilla suit occupied as well as the wall drawn by John. Also, a pair of crutches- a gift from George Harrison. There was also a reception hall adjoining.

12. living room with the green sofas and black carpet

13. another lounge/living room for entertaining

14. guest bedroom, probably mostly used by Cynthia's mother

15. study/office

16. another bedroom

17. wine cellar in basement

How I do?

A sauna and an indoor swimming pool were added later with different owners.

John's favorite room was the sun lounge room overlooking the pool outside. Cynthia's favorite room was the library. John hated seeing empty shelves and would often send Lillian out to get knick knacks- mainly for 2 reasons: (1) to get her out of his house, and (2) she loved to shop and would gladly obliged. To entertain, the main reception and dining room were used but were mainly unused. They mostly used the sun room to be in, watching television and relaxing. 

"John did a lot of surprising things around the house. He had an old French suit of armor and it stood on the stairs. He used to fool around and do things like putting a gorilla’s mask on it. He also had all these Russian revolution posters on the walls that you could see as you went up the stairs."

Dorothy Jarlett 

"The first time I met John was after his return from America. I was told that he didn’t like people hanging around, and I would have to cope with him, but I found no problem with him being around the house. When I got to work at Kenwood, he was on the settee, looking very tired. He introduced himself to me, and I found him very nice. I always got along very well with John. He liked me looking after Julian, and I used to take his son down to my house to play with my daughter Anne and sometimes little Julian would spend the night with our family. John also visited our home and was always very considerate to me and my family. As the days went on, I found I was having other things to do besides looking after Julian, but he was almost always with me. I got to taking him out in my car for shopping, and took him home to my house to visit with my family. I had a folding pram which I took around with me and everything seemed to work out very nicely, but it seemed at times to be a very long day. I was left to cope with just about everything at Kenwood. After the renovations and changes, the family moved out of the upstairs flat and occupied the rest of the house."

Dorothy Jarlett 

"I'm not forgetful around the house. I can remember things I am interested in very clearly but other things are jumble in my mind. For instance, Cyn and I moved into this new house in Surrey. Well, the other night, the chauffeur was taking me home and he said, 'Where to?' and do you know, I hadn't a clue! Even though we have been living there a month. I couldn't remember where I lived! We drove around for 3 hours before we got from London to my home."

John, 1964

"At Kenwood, Cyn kept herself busy looking after the cooking and the baby, and gave the Lennon household a sensibly, orderly, and almost bourgeois character that John, the non-comformist, the rebel, secretly found comforting. She seemed content to occupy her spare time with reading, needlepoint, and the company of the other Beatles' wives. Most of these activities took place at the other end of the house,in the spacious library that was Cyn's equivalent to John's beloved morning room.

Pete Shotton, 1983

Cynthia, Julian, John, George, and Pattie in Kenwood, Spring of 1965

Photographed by Henry Grossman 

There was also a fruit machine that Cynthia was fond of.

"Cyn won't let me get rid of that."

John, 1966 

"Later on, John asked my husband to paint the upstairs flat and that became his music room and studio. He wanted it painted all in red, even the toilet seat. John bought a Scalectrix racing car set that he got from a man in Weybridge and he had it up in the top flat. He had problems getting it all sorted out so he called for my husband Bernard to help him set it up with the racing tracks. They used to go up there and race the cars. John was a lot of fun, you know?"

Dorothy Jarlett 

"Then there's the funny room upstairs. I painted that pink and green, changing from one can to another as I emptied each can of paint."

John, 1965 

"During 1964 and 1965, as the months of our new life 'down south' progressed, John and Cynthia grew more reclusive. Cynthia's mother came down from Liverpool and attempted to live with them, but John thwarted that by buying her a bungalow down the road. She still spent every day at their home, and John was forced to give her huge sums so she would go away and shop for antiques. 'It gets her out of me hair, Tone,' he'd say. 'Hey up! It's money well spent. I can't stand her.' But he came to hate the huge house, which was decorated in a stark modern style-at odds with its fake-Tudor exterior- by the same trendy interior decorator Brian had used for his apartment. The man charged a king's ransom to make it look chilly and cold. Cynthia was frankly threatened by its haughty glamour and craved John to herself in a cozy domestic environment. Mostly, he spent his time in the attic, in music rooms painted entirely in black or red, where he had a vast array of musical instruments, jukeboxes and pinball machines. He also had a train set that ran from room to room. When he came down from his dark eyrie like a bat blinded by the light, he and Cynthia ignored the rest of the palatial, echoing rooms and holed up in a cramped sun lounge off the kitchen. The kitchen was filled with so many gadgets that Cynthia was in terror of them. She didn't know how any of them worked and treated them as if they were bad genies hiding behind doors ready to jump out and attack her.   Kenwood became a prison. John was bored and lonely, rarely speaking a word to Cynthia, sneering at her mother and looking for ways to escape. I was a regular choice of playmate and co-conspirator...If it was still early, we'd go to our regular pubs, or we'd go to the movies in Leicester Square until midnight. 'C'mon, let's go to a club, Tone,' John would say at this point. That would be when my heart sank into my suede chukka boots because John was a notoriously lousy drinker. Two of anything was his limit, but he always demanded large Scotches and Coke. When the first drink hit the back of his throat and his eyes rolled back in his head, I knew we were in for a great deal of silliness. If I was lucky, John might fall asleep in the back of a car,either to sleep it off in the yard behind or to be quickly driven back to Weybridge, hauled out and handed over to Cynthia to be put to bed."

Tony Bramwell 

"I think Cynthia enjoyed our company. She often spent long weeks of her own when John was away touring or spending endless hours recording at the EMI Studios. It must have been lonely for her in that house, surrounded by all the luxury and having no one to share it with."

Julia Baird, 1985 

Question: "Is the house at Weybridge a permanent home?" (Interview, 1966)

"No, it's not. I'm dying to move into town but I'm waiting to see how Paul gets on when he goes into his town house. If he gets by alright then I'll sell the place at Weybridge. Probably to some American who'll pay a fortune for it! I was thinking the other night though that it might not be easy to find a buyer. How do you sell somebody a pink, green and purple house? We've had purple velvet put up on the dining room walls. It sets off the old scrubbed table we eat on. Then there's the 'funny' room upstairs. I painted that all colors changing from one to another as I emptied each can of paint. How do you show somebody that when they come to look the place over? And there's the plants in the bath. I suppose I could have a flat in town but I don't want to spend another £20,000 just to have somewhere to stay overnight when I've had too much bevy to drive home." John 

"Weybridge won't do at all. I'm just stopping at it, like a bus stop. Bankers and stockbrokers live there; they can add figures and Weybridge is what they live in and they think it's the end, they really do. I think of it every day -- me in my Hansel and Gretel house. I'll take my time; I'll get my real house when I know what I want. You see, there's something else I'm going to do, something I must do -- only I don't know what it is. That's why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn't it for me."

John, 1966 

I think John was more into apartment living; both Kenwood and Tittenhurst Park mansions did not work for John, both lasted less than 5 years of occupancy. For the last 7 or so years of John's life, he settled in The Dakota apartments that was very spacious. He certainly liked big rooms with space but I guess he saved money from garden upkeep, and whatnot. Meanwhile Julian enjoyed living there: he had a huge yard to run around in, A pool, a 300 feet slide, a giant Beatle boot (a prop from Help! movie) to climb on... paradise for a young child! I think Cynthia also enjoyed living there but not as much as Julian. I think she would have much preferred to be in a bedsit in Liverpool. That being said, I do believe Cynthia can manage to make a home from a mansion to a box under the freeway while making the best out of it. 

"I wasn’t very involved with the occasional parties at Kenwood because I didn’t wait on them like that, and they would do their thing. We had a little bed at my home so that Julian could stay there during the parties."

Dorothy Jarlett 

Cynthia, Julian, and John at home in Kenwood, Spring of 1965

Photographed by Robert Whitaker

"I think the earliest was actually when I was about 3 and 5, I guess, when we used to live in Surrey. He used to take me for bike rides, sitting in front of him down to see Ringo. That I vaguely remember. Many other times with fans around. There was a time when I remember standing on the roof of the house with him, with those little rubber bands, play into it, just sending them off into the sunset - that is a memory that still pretty clear. I remember being locked in the attic for quite a number of hours because I wouldn't stop widging about something. And I just remember being locked in for hours on end. Well,it was a party that Dad was throwing and I was sort of causing trouble,I guess, bit I just remember being stuck up there and I think Neil Aspinall from Apple was around and he had to let me out or turn the key on me, one or the other. Quite a few [hours]. There were times I remember swimming with him, and walking around the fields, the land around the house. He bought me a Mickey Mouse tricycle, which I.remember clearly. "

Julian

Ah yes, the fans at the gate. It is no surprise that the fans would find them. One time, right after they moved in and construction work was being done, late one night Cynthia heard a suspicious noise and went to check. She found some fans making their way in the house! The fans freaked out and Cynthia sent them on their way. John installed a gate to keep them out. Of course, it didn't always worked. There were times the gate would be left open... or fans would be quick enough to pass through as it's closing. I'm sure John and Cynthia realized that they would have to live with it. Despite that problem, there were many times Cynthia herself felt trapped in Kenwood as John did... it wasn't the fans. It was isolation, feeling alone, and her neighbors lived far enough that you couldn't see another house thanks to the acres of land. Cynthia sought company with her mother, Maureen, Pattie, housekeeper Dot, among others. She also went up to Liverpool as often as she could just to taste old life again. 

"I spent many hours at Kenwood at night with Julian. Often Cynthia would be out and John was in London recording, and my husband, Bernard would come to the house and stay with me."

Dorothy Jarlett 

"Cynthia was also out a good deal, especially in the evenings, and I soon noticed with surprise how very little time she and John spent in each other's company. In fact such was the irregularity of their respective comings and goings that they had agreed that whoever came home last would sleep in the guest room so as not to disturb the other. The master bedroom, which they normally shared, was actually a vast room on the first floor housing a massive eight-foot double bed and a sunken bath at the far end, and it was here that John loved to lie in till late in the morning."

Pauline Lennon Stone 

Cynthia and John in the garden of their home Kenwood in Spring of 1965

Photographed by Robert Whitaker

We (well, I) will get into more of John and Cynthia's relationship another day. For now, let's stick to living in Kenwood. Cynthia wrote in great detail in her second book John about life in Kenwood; I'm not going to copy word for word (a thing called plagiarism) but all in all, it sounded almost a typical family atmosphere from two Northern Englanders. Almost. John was away a lot being a Beatle, after all. 

"John was very friendly with me and he used to ring me up from the office and I would make arrangements for his day. Cynthia and her mother used to go away for shopping trips and she told me that John would pay me while they were away. When they went out I had to wait until they got home. John asked me one afternoon, 'How much do you get?' I said, 'Ten pounds.' He said, 'Ten pounds? That’s not enough. You’ll get 15 pounds and petrol money.' He made arrangements for me to be paid by the Beatles' company. John was a generous man and he wasn’t a snob."

Dorothy Jarlett 

"I was with the Lennons for about four years and experienced a lot of happenings, which included my family, and John looked on us for a lot of help at times. But he was often in London with the other Beatles. I used to have a lot of dealings with Peter Brown, their manager, and others in the London offices."

Dorothy Jarlett

Weybridge had plenty of well known and well to do neighbors. There was a golf club that John irritated by driving his golf cart wrecklessly on their green. Next door was Eric Sykes, a comedian who would shoot at intruders. Ringo Starr and George Harrison were also neighbors; Ringo's home was a 10 minute drive. He used to walk home from being at John's house and John would take Julian on his motorbike to Ringo's. George was also a daily visitor. We'll get more into visitors another day as I have so much ground to cover. 

In May of 1968, John and Cynthia were officially over. John took in a new girlfriend, Yoko Ono, who made herself at home and got pregnant in the process. At some point, John and Cynthia switched homes (Cynthia was staying with her mother in Ringo's London apartment) and it was agreed that Kenwood will have to be sold. Cynthia wouldn't be able to financially upkeep it and John did not want to live there anymore. Cynthia was able to take whatever she wanted before moving out for good around the time the divorce became final in November of 1968. John and Yoko returned to Kenwood until it was officially sold and they promptly moved out. 

As of this time of writing in 2021, Kenwood still stands despite being renovated with extra amenities (John's pool was destroyed and moved to a different area of the house), and it's having trouble finding a forever owner. I wish I can make a go for it but my bank account will laugh at me along with a no.