I used to
work within a three-minute walk of Abbey Road, in NW6. The road itself winds for several miles through one of the nicer neighbourhoods in
London, and, apart from the recording studio (which is surprisingly small when viewed from the outside, as the building extends back from the road), it also goes past the
Saatchi Gallery and some crime-ridden futuro-60s
concrete housing estates that resemble sets from
Space: 1999.
As you might expect, most of the street signs are twelve feet off the ground, secured firmly to buildings.
The studio itself is an enormously competent, expensive operation, in which countless classic albums have been created and films have been scored. Bands aspire to record there, and some of the old 60's equipment - eight track mixing desks and valve-based speaker stacks - remains for musicians who want to capture the essence of the past, such as Oasis, who recorded 'Be Here Now' there.
Throughout the 1960s the studio (at 3 Abbey Road, St. John's Wood) was actually quite primitive, retaining four-track machines long after the competition had upgraded to eight-track; Let it Be was recorded elsewhere, and George Martin left to found his own studio, AIR, on the ill-fated island of Montserrat. Abbey Road was the only Beatles album recorded on Abbey Road's eight-track equipment.
Unfortunately, the white VW Beetle that features on the album cover has long since moved.