Before the stages, the studios and the sold-out arenas, the music icons we worship once had humble beginnings – with bedrooms, backyards and streets that shaped their early years and made them the artists we know and love. Here, we take a tour round the UK visiting the childhood homes of the great and the good from the world of music.
Rockstar childhood homes
Paul McCartney: Allerton, Liverpool
John Lennon and Paul McCartney grew up just a mile from one another, but their childhood homes were very different. McCartney and his family lived at 20 Forthlin Road – now cared for by the National Trust.
Lennon invited McCartney to join his band The Quarrymen, and soon the pair started rehearsing at Forthlin Road in the Allerton district of Liverpool. At the height of the Beatles fame, McCartney’s brother and father still lived at Forthlin Road, where Beatles fans would gather outside.
McCartney then bought them a house in Heswall, and a new family moved into Forthlin Road, buying it from the council. Despite the change in ownership, fans continued to visit – and after 30 years, Mrs Jones gave the McCartneys the chance to buy back the house in 1995, perhaps tired of inviting fans in for tea. The family declined, so Jones offered it to the National Trust instead, which have looked after it ever since.
George Harrison: Wavertree, Liverpool
The Beatles’ childhood homes have become legendary, with fans gathering outside them and knowing the addresses by heart. Harrison was born and spent his early years at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, but then moved with his family out to 25 Upton Green in Liverpool’s Speke district. Arnold Grove received a blue plaque in 2024, one of the first to be located outside of London.
Tourists now get the chance to stay at Harrison’s Wavertree home, as it is available to rent on Airbnb.
David Bowie: Bromley, Kent
4 Plaistow Grove was David Bowie’s home from the age of eight to 20, when he left home to pursue music. In January 2026, it was announced that his two-up, two-down Bromley house had been acquired by Heritage of London Trust, which will return it to its early 1960s appearance and open it as a museum.
In 1990, Bowie recalled his childhood bedroom: “I spent so much time in my bedroom. It really was my entire world. I had books up there, my music up there, my record player. Going from my world upstairs out on to the street, I had to pass through this no-man’s-land of the living room.”
PJ Harvey: Corscombe, Dorset
Polly Harvey grew up on her family farm in Corscombe, a small village in Dorset, not far from Bridport. Her parents owned a quarrying business on Ham Hill, the site of an Iron Age hillfort near Yeovil in Somerset. She spent her early years playing pub back rooms in west Dorset, and still lives in the county.
Nick Drake: Tanworth-in-Arden, Warwickshire
Having been born in Burma a few months after it gained independence from the British Empire, Nick Drake moved to Warwickshire when he was just a few years old with his family. They lived at Far Leys, a detached house overlooking the Warwickshire countryside.
Drake died tragically young at just 26, in his bedroom at Far Leys – believed to have taken an overdose. He is buried at the Church of St Mary Magdalene in a plot beneath an oak tree, along with his mother and father.
Kate Bush: East Wickham Farm, Kent
Kate Bush grew up in a 350-year-old farmhouse in Welling, Kent. The house later served as a recording studio location, where she recorded the final version of “Running Up That Hill”.
Elgar: The Firs, Worcestershire
While he might not be a classic rockstar, English composer Edward Elgar was pioneering in the field of orchestral writing. He was born at The Firs, a country cottage in Worcestershire, which is now cared for by the National Trust. The surrounding Malvern Hills were much loved by the great composer, and he often returned to the area throughout his life.
Did you know? Much of Elgar's classical music was inspired by the British countryside.
John Lennon: Woolton, Liverpool
Now a Grade II listed building cared for by the National Trust, 251 Menlove Avenue was named ‘Mendips’ after the Mendip Hills. John Lennon’s aunt and uncle had stepped in to offer him a more stable, middle-class upbringing, so he lived at the semi-detached home from the age of five and remained there until he was 22. His Aunt Mimi would always welcome in fans for tea and sandwiches, when they travelled many miles to visit. She left Mendips to retire in 1965, and the house was sold.
Over two decades after Lennon’s death, his widow Yoko Ono bought the house in 2002 and donated it to the National Trust to save it from demolition. The Trust has returned it to its 1950s appearance, to show the public what it might have looked like when Lennon lived there.
