Kinfauns

George Harrison bought Kinfauns for £20,000 (equivalent to £410,000 in 2019) on 17 July 1964, on the advice of the Beatles' accountant Dr. Walter Strach. Harrison later said that when he went house-hunting, "It was the first one I saw, and I thought, that'll do." He was joined there months later by wife-to-be Pattie Boyd. Harrison and Boyd were married on 21 January 1966, and lived in the house until 1970, when Harrison purchased Friar Park, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.[1]

During 1967, Harrison and Boyd painted the outside of the house in psychedelic patterns; a mural around the fireplace was created by design collective The Fool, who also painted several Beatles musical instruments and Harrison's Mini. At the rear of the house was a guitar-shaped swimming pool. Gold discs and the multiple awards the band had achieved adorned the sitting room walls. In front, a tall 15 feet (4.6 m) sliding door kept unauthorised visitors out of the garden (and rapidly became covered in fans' signatures and autographs).

Kinfauns was probably the home where the Beatles most frequently gathered, for it was only a short drive from the homes of John Lennon (Kenwood) and Ringo Starr (Sunny Heights — both on St George's Hill). It was where Harrison, Lennon and their wives retreated during their first LSD experience in 1965, and in May 1968 it was where many of the demo recordings for The White Album were made, on Harrison's Ampex four-track reel-to-reel tape recorder. (These demos were released on various bootleg albums until officially released as part of The White Album 50th Anniversary Set in 2018; seven of them also appear on The Beatles Anthology: Vol. 3.)[2]

Harrison was the first Beatle to own or use a Moog synthesizer, and he recorded "Under the Mersey Wall" with his Moog at Kinfauns. The track filled one side of his album Electronic Sound, released in May 1969.[3]

Kinfauns was where police arrested Boyd and Harrison in March 1969, for hashish possession, as Lennon and Yoko Ono had been months earlier while staying at Ringo’s Montagu Square apartment. Both couples insisted the drugs found had been planted on the premises.[4]

After moving to Friar Park, Harrison sold Kinfauns to wife-and-husband songwriters Sylvan (née Whittingham) and Barry Mason.

The site of Kinfauns lies within the historic garden walls of the adjacent Claremont, a 19th-century royal residence. Following a series of planning applications in the early 21st century, the bungalow was substantially demolished and replaced with a new two-storey house.[1]

• Boyd, Pattie (2007). Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-307-40783-2.