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Abbey Road

"The Rubicon was a very insignificant stream to look at; it's significance lay entirely in certain invisible conditions." (George Eliot)

In the summer of 2005 I walked over the famous crossing outside the Abbey Road studios in London. I was one of a number of people doing the same thing. It seemed remarkable that we should have all come here to walk over a zebra crossing. Judging by the graffiti on the walls of the studio some people had come a very long way to do this. I took my turn to cross over. There was something in the ordinariness of the scene that made my short journey from one pavement to another all the more remarkable. It was like my own personal Rubicon, that little river in northern Italy which Caesar made such a big deal of crossing. No Roman general with an army was supposed to cross the Rubicon, a measure designed to protect Rome from internal revolution. Caesar crossed it, crossing a little stream with big consequences. As George Eliot wrote: "The Rubicon was a very insignificant stream to look at; it's significance lay entirely in certain invisible conditions." (Middlemarch P861) The same could be said of the crossing in Abbey Road.

Go to the interactive map, switch to satellite view and zoom in, to see the Abbey Road crossing emerge from the tangle of London's streets.

In the Abbey Road album's famous picture the Beatles were crossing to the other side. There are of course some famous references in the picture to crossing over, such as Ringo's undertaker's outfit, and Paul's bare feet. These are all references to the kind of unfathomable, final, irrevocable journey to the other side that occurs at the end of life; but in this case the journey is happening on a zebra crossing in St Johns Wood, London. Perhaps all crossings over, no matter how major they might seem to be, are in fact like walking over a zebra crossing. You could see this as worrying, since it suggests that all the transformations we dream for our lives won't really happen. The Beatles were always trying to cross over, to a better life of fame and fortune, or to more spiritual level of life with the help of their gurus. In spite of all this they found themselves back in Abbey Road walking over a zebra crossing.

You could of course take the reassuring point of view that none of life's crossings are as major and final as they seem. No matter what happens you will find yourself on the other side of a road, and it is nothing at all to walk back again. The other side, so distant and inaccessible is actually a place we can reach so easily.

You couldn't say that walking over the Abbey Road crossing was a spiritual experience, and yet you really could say that. It was the best kind of ordinary everyday trip to the other side. It's not often a tourist information web site can offer such a journey.

See our page on the Bronze Age Flag Fen monument in Cambridgeshire for another and much older version of the Abbey Road crossing.

 

Directions: Abbey Road is in St John's Wood, London, which is quite a walk from Central London. From Oxford Street go north along Regent Street, turn left into Marylebone Road, and then make your way down to Lissom Grove which is a left turning. Continue up Lissom Grove, which becomes Grove End Road, which leads into Abbey Road. The famous crossing is the first one you come to, just outside the Abbey Road studios on the left. Alternatively go to the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street, turn right into the Edgeware Road and continue north to the junction with St John's Wood Road. Turn right into St John's Wood Road,and then left into Grove End Road, which becomes Abbey Road. The nearest Underground Station is St John's Wood. Click here for an interactive road and satllite map centred on the Abbey Road crossing.

Graffiti on the Wall of the Abbey Road Studios.