1969-1971
Tittenhurst
London Road, Sunningdale, Ascot.
On behalf of John Lennon, his publishing company - Maclen, bought this fine Georgian house and 72 acre estate on 4th May 1969 for £145,000. After moving in on the 11th August John and Yoko lived here for just over two years. The gardens, named Tittenhurst Park, had been open to the public until the Lennon’s moved in, they date back to 1763 (at a place then known as 'Cracks Hole, in the Parish of Sunninghill') and are internationally renowned among dendrologists for their scores of interesting trees, many rare. Originally, the main house comprised many small (well, smallish) rooms, but walls were ripped out at John and Yoko's request to create more open space. Much of the ground floor at the front of the house was converted to a single large room, decorated in white.
Tittenhurst Park was the location for the final photo session showing the four Beatles together to promote the forthcoming Abbey Road album, an historic event which took place on Friday 22nd August 1969 (two days after their last recording session together). Having had his latest composition (an ode to heroin withdrawal) rejected by the Beatles, John finally finished the group at an Apple board meeting a month later on the 20th September 1969, John recorded "Cold Turkey" as the Plastic Ono Band, completing it on the 5th October. Four days later (on John’s 29th Birthday) Yoko was admitted to hospital where she suffered another miscarriage on October 12th.
Throughout 1970 an eight track recording studio was gradually installed at Tittenhurst, as well as film editing equipment. But the studio, named Ascot Sound, wouldn't be ready until the following year. During the building of the studio, in March 1970, the Lennon's invited Arthur Janov - the author of the 1969 publication “The Primal scream - Primal Therapy: The cure of neurosis” - to their home for a trial run of primal therapy sessions. John & Yoko's relationship had entered a very difficult phase during February, possibly brought on by the problems in gaining access to their children - Julian had only enjoyed sporadic contact with John since the divorce of his parents as communication between John and Cynthia had become increasingly strained. Yoko then thought it would be better if Cynthia could speak to her and not to John when discussing Julian's visits because John would now talk to Tony when discussing Kyoko, but Cynthia was not at all happy with this arrangement. John decided to visit Julian alone, but the visit was cut short when Yoko made a frantic call for him to return. This stressful period was enough to warrant Yoko being admitted to a London clinic at 20 Devonshire Place between the 5th & 9th March 1970 before Janov's arrival refocused them onto something more positive. On 29th March John revealed that Yoko was pregnant during a telephone message of support to a CND gathering. On April fools day, a hoax John & Yoko press release stated that they had entered a London Clinic for a dual sex-change operation, but in truth they were now deeply involved with the primal therapy sessions. Due to the work on the Tittenhurst studio disturbing them they then moved (at Janov's suggestion) into separate hotels, John moved into The inn on the Park, Yoko the Londonderry but this was still not ideal and Janov then recommended they fly out to Los Angeles to resume their treatment at his Primal institute at 900 Sunset Drive, this they did on 23rd April, flying to the USA to continue their therapy renting accommodation at 841 Nimes Road, Bel Air.
On May 22nd 1970, whilst John & Yoko were away in America, the Tittenhurst Park renovators called out the bomb squad when they discovered an unexploded incendiary shell. On 31st July 1970, Cynthia married Roberto Bassanini at Kensington Register office in London. Around the same time John and Yoko decided to leave Janov before their treatment was complete - There have been a number of very different reasons given as to why they came to this decision, one being that they didn't want to be filmed, but this was clearly not the case - they WERE filmed, all patients were, looking back at the videotapes of the sessions was an integral part of the therapy. Janov later suggested that immigration problems forced the issue, but as John & Yoko appear to have remained in the USA for a period after their treatment, the departure was probably down to the Lennon's deciding that they had gone as far as they felt they could go with it. From California the Lennon's headed for New York, eventually returning to England on September 24th by which time Yoko had suffered another miscarriage (in August) and John was now 28lbs heavier than when he left the UK back in April due to “eating 28 different colours of ice-cream”. The drug free period of lucid insight spawned their finest works, the soul-bearing cathartic twin Plastic Ono Band albums which would be recorded at Abbey Road in September and October 1970.
It was back at Tittenhurst that John saw his father for the final time when Alfred came to visit John on his 30th Birthday (Friday 9th October 1970), this was to be the only time John would meet his half brother, David Henry Lennon (born in Brighton, February 1969). John used this opportunity to finally unleash his pain and anger that he had oppressed for 24 years and he told his father to get out of his life. A reconciliation of sorts, over the telephone, occurred shortly before Alfred Lennon died in a Brighton hospital on the 1st April 1976 aged 63, by which time John had a 2nd half brother - Robin Francis Lennon (born in 1973) who he never met.
John's ex-wife Cynthia has suggested that Julian didn't see his father for 3 years (1971-74) because John failed to make any contact, however there is film of Julian at Tittenhurst in the summer of 1971 and this was only a short time before John and Yoko left the country for good, so perhaps the Atlantic ocean had as much to do with the breakdown in John and Julian's relationship as anything else. Years later, in a letter to his cousin Leila Harvey (dated 30th July 1977), John complained that Cynthia only allowed Julian to visit him twice a year and that she insisted on coming along herself, then he revealed that Cynthia had stopped Julian phoning him.
During 1971 the Lennon’s were spending a lot of their time trying to track down and gain custody of Yoko's daughter, this required many trips abroad especially to the United States. Although they didn’t know it at the time, Monday 30th August 1971 would be their final day together at Tittenhurst and indeed in England. The following day they left for New York in their long drawn out and ultimately unsuccessful Kyoko quest, never to return. John later said (in 1976) that his failure to gain custody of Kyoko was one of two regrets that he had in life, the other being the severing of the relationship with his father following Primal Therapy.
Back in England, the Lennon's team of assistants maintained Tittenhurst in the knowledge that John and Yoko, who would soon have a deportation order hanging over them, could return at any time. Finally, in September 1973 as John and Yoko were about to separate, Tittenhurst was sold, to Ringo Starr. Ringo lived here until early 1988, selling to the ruler of Abu Dhabi (Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan). In 1989/1990 the house and grounds underwent extensive rebuilding, including the erection of a three-metre-high security wall around the entire estate. During this £55 million renovation, almost all of the Lennon/Starkey fittings were scrapped.
