Lot 413. The Beatles. The front door from Paul McCartney's childhood home at 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool, late 1950s/early 1960s, with numeral 20 at top, green painted with eight panes of glass (one broken), letterbox and lock fitting removed, inside painted white with lower bolt still present, some paint flaking and soiling, overall 80 x 32 ins (204 x 81cm).
20 Forthlin Road was constructed in 1949 and from 1955 until 1964 it was the family home of the young Paul McCartney (born 1952 [sic]). The house was owned by the Local Authority and was rented to Paul's parents Mary and Jim McCartney with whom Paul and his younger brother Michael lived. Sadly only a year after moving in to the house Paul's mother died. Both parents actively encouraged Paul musically and he first played the trumpet, but following his mother's death his father gave him a guitar. It was in this house that McCartney learned to play trumpet, piano, guitar and drums.
By 1957 McCartney had joined The Quarrymen and begun composing with his new found collaborator John Lennon. Forthlin Road was one of the main places the group would practice and where McCartney and Lennon tried out their new songs. In 1958, McCartney invited George Harrison to join them for a while the drummer Pete Best became part of the group until Ringo Starr ousted him and The Beatles as the world knows them realised its final line up.
Over 100 songs including Love Me Do, I Saw Her Standing There, When I'm Sixty-Four, etc., are believed to have been written in the house.
When the McCartneys moved out of 20 Forthlin Road in 1964, Ashley and Sheila Jones moved in with their family. Mrs Jones served as an unofficial ambassador for the home tolerating frequent Beatles visitors over the years. In around 1978 Sheila Jones modernised the house and doors and window fittings and tiles, etc., were scrapped.
Glen South, the current owner, was alerted to this by Keith Dowsing, a C&A work colleague of Sheila Jones. Through Mr Dowsing Glen South arranged to buy the door in order to auction it for an asthmatic charity for which he did concerts (Glen South, a singer/entertainer even appeared on the same bill as The Beatles at Northwich Memorial Hall on 1st December 1962 with his first group Gee South and the Bluekats). Subsequently it was Glen South himself who purchased the door at the charity auction and has retained ownership of it ever since.
When the Jones family left the house it was bought by the National Trust in 1995, both because of its connection to Paul McCartney, but also as an example of post-war social housing. Ironically, the house was redecorated and furnished in the late 1950s style to represent the period in which Paul lived at the house, and the innumerable photographs taken by Beatles fans and tourists standing in front of this "doorway to the Merseybeat" is a replica of the original door now offered here!
Photographs of the house exterior and interior, from the early Beatles period, are on display at the house and used in several publications including 'Remember: The Recollections and Photographs of Michael McCartney' (1992). A copy of this book, Sheila Jones' original letter authenticating the door for auction, the letter validating the auction purchase by Glen South in 1995, plus a personal statement of this story by Glen South, are included with the lot.
Paul McCartney's bedroom door with the same provenance was sold by Sotheby's London, 14 September 1995 (£2,875). (1).
Story Type: News
