Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Abbey Road

Thursday, 16th March 2006 by Alex

This is the Abbey Road zebra crossing, just outside Abbey Road studios, where the iconic Beatles cover for their album ‘Abbey Road’ was shot. Abbey Road was the final album recorded by the Beatles, and the cover photograph has since become one of the most famous and imitated album covers in recording history. To this day tourists can be seen posing on the crossing nearly every day (although unfortunately, there was nobody there when his shot was taken).

Here in the UK as well as Zebra crossings, we have all sorts of other animal-themed pedestrian crossings too - Pelican, Puffin, Toucan and Pegasus! I don’t think it would be that easy to spot the differences via satellite though…

Thanks to Liam, David Rowcliffe, Tom and moskito.

More about Abbey Road, Abbey Road Studios, Abbey Road (the album) and the ridiculous conspiracy theory surrounding the cover over at Wikipedia.

7 Responses to 'Abbey Road'

  1. 1. alabaster says:

    I’ve created a list with some Cover arts’ locations here:

    http://rateyourmusic.com/lists/list_view?list_id=38948

    bye :)

  2. 2. cookie monster says:

    Couple more Beatles things.
    Click on map or hybrid and this one will become obvious

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

    Paul McCartney’s childhood home at 20 Fortlin Road now owned by the National trust and open to the public.

    Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

  3. 3. Mark says:

    You forgot about Panda crossings!

  4. 4. Keith T. says:

    I asked this on VGT, but maybe this time I can get a Brit ear: Why is the centerline zig-zagged on that road?

  5. 5. alame says:

    means you are coming upto a zebra crossing, telling you to slow down and be cautious.

  6. 6. Matthew says:

    Unfortunately the zebra crossing on Abbey road has moved about 20 metres down the road since the Beatles photo so this crossing although on Abbey Road isn’t where the Beetles crossed. I’m suprised there’s no one on it as there’s nealry always hordes of Japanese and American tourists recreating the famous crossing.

  7. 7. Jeremy Smith says:

    In response to the query regarding the zig-zag lines either side of the Pelican Crossing: they are there to prevent cars parking near to the crosswalk.

Leave a Reply

This form will auto-link URLs or you can use simple HTML, <a href="http://googlesightseeing.com">Like this</a>.

Link to specific places either as a Google Maps page or a decimal latitude and longitude written like this: lat/lng:55.949400,-3.200000.

If you've found an unrelated sight that you think should be posted in its own entry then use the suggestion form!