Inside John Lennon's MASSIVE English Estate — The Mansion Where He Wrote Imagine

John Lennon called it Tittenhurst Park. Hidden behind a high wall near Ascot in Berkshire, the 72-acre Georgian estate he bought in 1969 for around £145,000 had a lake dug without planning permission so he could see it from his bedroom, a recording studio behind the house, and a room painted entirely white, with a white piano. It was here, at a plain brown upright piano, that he wrote Imagine. In this video, we go inside Tittenhurst Park and follow the money behind it. From the Victorian pill millionaire Thomas Holloway, who died in the house in 1883, to Mendips in Liverpool, Kenwood in Surrey and the seaside bungalow John bought for his aunt Mimi. From the 1969 sale of his Northern Songs shares for around £1.39 million and the end of the Beatles, to Ascot Sound Studios, the Imagine album and the move to New York and the Dakota. Then the house moves on: Ringo Starr's Startling Studios, Judas Priest recording British Steel in the mansion, and a sale to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan for a reported £5 million. In New York, Yoko Ono turns the money into farms, Holstein cows and land, gives much of it away, builds Strawberry Fields, and saves Mendips for the National Trust, while the songs John sold in 1969 change hands for $47.5 million and then $750 million. Chapters: 0:00 Inside Tittenhurst Park 1:41 The Pill Millionaire's House 4:25 The Boy from Menlove Avenue 6:07 Seventy-Two Acres 7:37 Selling the Songs 9:02 Imagine 10:48 Leaving England 11:59 Ringo's Studio 13:00 Cows, Farms and Florida 14:39 December 1980 15:17 Yoko's Decisions 17:26 The Sheikh's House 18:21 The Map of Tittenhurst 19:12 Imagine No Possessions Figures come from public reporting, court records, company filings and published biographies. Some historical prices are reported figures and vary between sources. Sources: Historic England — Tittenhurst Park, list entry 1109930 (listed 3 March 1972) Daily Mirror — Beatle buys a £150,000 mansion (5 May 1969) Birmingham Post — Tittenhurst Park sold for £145,000 (16 June 1964) Berkshire Live — The Beatles' spectacular Ascot mansion (29 August 2021) Royal Holloway, University of London — Thomas Holloway and the Founder's Building The Frick Collection — Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis in the Desert National Trust — History of the Beatles' childhood homes (Mendips) Mr Justice Foxton — The Beatles and the Law, Judiciary of England and Wales (speech) United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit — Lennon v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 527 F.2d 187 (7 October 1975) Guinness World Records — Most expensive piano sold at auction (2000) United Press International — Yoko Ono, wife of slain rock star John Lennon (9 December 1980) United Press International — Singer Yoko Ono donated more than 700 acres (25 October 1983) The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Imagine: the mosaic from Naples Central Park Conservancy — Strawberry Fields NPR — Sony buys Michael Jackson's stake in lucrative music catalog (March 2016) CBS News — Yoko Ono to receive songwriting credit for Imagine (June 2017) Companies House — Sean Ono Lennon, appointments (Apple Corps Ltd and others) Forbes — The Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities (annual lists) Inman — John Lennon and Yoko Ono's former Florida estate sells (November 2020) #JohnLennon #TittenhurstPark #CelebrityHomes