To the thousands of Londoners who pass it daily, 3 Savile Row is just another townhouse.
Yet to Beatles fans, it’s a place of pilgrimage: the former headquarters of Apple Corps, the band’s record label; the place where the band recorded its “Let It Be” album; and the site where, one blustery Thursday in 1969, the Fab Four walked onto the roof and made their final public performance. It was a short set that ended when police officers pulled the plug.
Soon, members of the public will be able to visit that rooftop just like Paul McCartney and John Lennon did that day: Apple Corps announced on Monday that it is turning 3 Savile Row into a museum, scheduled to open next year.
The site will include “seven floors of never-before-seen material” from the company’s archive, Apple Corps said in a news release. It will also house a re-creation of the studio where the Beatles recorded “Let It Be,” and give fans access to the roof, where little has apparently changed since 1969.
“Even the railings remain the same,” Tom Greene, Apple Corps’ chief executive, said in the news release.
Holly Tessler, an expert in Beatles tourism at the University of Liverpool, said that fans already flock to the address, which is one of two major attractions associated with the Beatles in London, along with the Abbey Road crosswalk.
But fans can currently only stand outside and point up at the roof, Tessler said. “Very few people have been inside,” she said, adding: “I’d love to see it.”
Britain is home to other Beatles museums, including two in the musicians’ native Liverpool, but those are not officially licensed by the band or Apple Corps.
When the band played its rooftop concert at lunchtime on Jan. 30, 1969 — as shown in Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” documentary series and Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 “Let It Be” — it was mostly businesspeople who came out to watch from nearby buildings after hearing the noise.
“I hope we passed the audition,” Lennon joked afterward.
McCartney said in the news release that he had recently returned to the building to look around. “There are so many special memories within the walls, not to mention the rooftop,” he said, adding, “I’m excited for people to see it when it’s ready.”
Although the news release plays up the good times that the band enjoyed in the building and its role in the creation of “Let It Be,” many fans associate that album with the conflicts that led to the Beatles’ breakup.
“Maybe we should get a divorce,” George Harrison said in one moment captured in Jackson’s film.
Tessler said that “it really was the period the wheels were coming off,” but that the discord increased fan curiosity about that period of Beatles’ lore.
The band has once again been in the public spotlight in recent months, with hype building over the director Sam Mendes’ plans to release four movies telling the group’s story in April 2028. Those movies are set to star Paul Mescal as McCartney, Harris Dickinson as Lennon, Joseph Quinn as Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr.
