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Abbey Road Studios – A Brief History

Abbey Road Studios is a global music legend. The building was originally a nine-bedroom house built in 1829. It was purchased by the Gramophone Company in 1928. St John’s Wood was considered an ideal location, close to the performance spaces of the time but away from the noise and vibrations of traffic and trains.

Sir Edward Elgar opened and recorded in these studios on 12th November 1931.

The Gramophone Company merged with Columbia Graphophone Company to form Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) in 1931, and the studios later became known as EMI Recording Studios.

While initially a venue for classical recordings, the studio soon hosted jazz and big bands, too, as well as the first British rock and roll records of the 1950s.

Abbey Road is synonymous with the legendary work of The Beatles. But Abbey Road’s unparalleled history spans the wild experiments of Pink Floyd to iconic recordings from Shirley Bassey, Aretha Franklin, The Hollies, and many more.

Soon a new role for the studios was found – film scores, with the first major film score being Raiders of The Lost Ark in 1980. Since then, Abbey Road has developed into one of the world’s premier destinations for movie scoring. Blockbuster film scores such as The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, Skyfall, the Harry Potter series, and Gravity were recorded there. Recent projects include Black Panther, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and The Shape of Water.

Abbey Road was declared an English Heritage Grade II listed site in 2010.

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