12_Arnold_Grove
12 Arnold Grove
Childhood home of George Harrison in Liverpool, England
12 Arnold Grove is the birthplace and early childhood home of former Beatle George Harrison. Located in Wavertree, Liverpool, near Picton Clock Tower, it is a small terraced house in a cul-de-sac, with a small alley to the rear.[1] Harrison's parents, Harold and Louise, moved to the house in 1931 following their marriage.[2] The rent was ten shillings a week.[3] Here their four children were born: Louise (16 August 1931 – 29 January 2023), Harry (24 June 1934 - February 1999), Peter (20 July 1940 – 1 June 2007) and George (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001).
Harrison lived in the property for seven years, by the end of which his family had been living there for nearly 20 years. They finally moved out to 25 Upton Green in 1950. His eldest brother Harry recalled: "Our little house was just two rooms up and two rooms down, but, except for a short period when our father was away at sea, we always knew the comfort and security of a very close-knit home life."[4]
Harrison recalled that the only heating was a single coal fire, and the house was so cold in winter that he and his brothers dreaded getting up in the morning because it was freezing cold and they had to use the outside toilet.[1] The house had tiny rooms – only ten feet by ten (100 ft2, about 9 m2) – and a small iron cooking stove in the back room, which was used as a kitchen.[1] Describing the back garden, Harrison wrote it had "a one-foot wide flowerbed, a toilet, a dustbin fitted to the back wall (and) a little hen house where we kept cockerels."[1]
Harrison once said of the house, "Try and imagine the soul entering the womb of a woman living at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool 15. There were all the barrage balloons, and the Germans bombing Liverpool. All that was going on. I sat outside the house a couple of years ago, imagining 1943, nipping through the spiritual world, the astral level, getting back into a body in that house. That really is strange when you consider the whole planet, all the planets there may be on a spiritual level. How do I come into that family, in that house at that time, and who am I anyway?"[4]