#30jan1967

The Beatles filming Strawberry Fields Forever in Knole Park, Sevenoaks on either 30th or 31st January 1967. 

“The Beatles [were] gathered around a piano in the middle of the park. They were filming Magical Mystery Tour [sic] and nobody knew they were there. John was running around with his new toy, a cine camera, filming everything, including me. I had only two roles of [colour] film with me, but took what I could. The sole audience was a row of five little girls, Vita Sackville West’s granddaughters, peeping over the wall of her old home in the park. By this time the band had started dressing pretty oddly, especially John, decked out in flapping, colourful pyjama trouser things with a black coat and those glasses. He was bursting with energy, he was so inquiring, that’s what I remember most.”

[Jane Bown, photographer]

Jane Bown, photographer for the Observer newspaper, happened upon the Beatles filming the Strawberry Fields Forever promo film in Knole Park, Sevenoaks on either 30th or 31st January 1967, by chance when she was out walking her dog (not MMT as she says in the quote). She also said John filmed her on his cine camera but the film has never surfaced - John’s film of the making of Strawberry Fields Forever must be out there somewhere! 

Jane Bown also took this amazing photos of the Beatles in 1963: George Paul & George Ringo John Paul Paul again

The Beatles filming Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane at Knole Park, Kent on the 30th - 31st January, 1967 and 7th February 1967. 

“I was one of the boys who cut lessons from Sevenoaks School to chase the Beatles around Knole Park, and stole a hammer from their brightly painted piano. It was a fantastic adventure for a 13-year-old, and the most worthwhile six solaces I ever got (and there were a few) duly came from Mr Sampson, waiting with the blue paper on our return. 

“Word shot round that they were coming. I remember sitting in our form room in the Cottage Block at the end of break and we decided to run past Claridge House to the Knole drive. We were just in time to see a fleet of four black Minis with blacked-out windows racing into the park. There was very little security, a bobby or two, so we scampered after them on foot to the filming area behind the east wall of Knole House garden. I remember feeling as excited as I had ever felt, worrying a little about cutting school, but then thinking this may never happen again, so had to be done – I think they smashed up the piano after the filming, so the school kids who were there swarmed over the bits to find a souvenir.”

[Trevor Nicholson, chairman of Sevenoaks Rugby Club, Sevenoaks Chronicle via Kent Live, 21st January 2017]