Rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous traffic crossing is about to become even more ‘bonkers’

It’s Tuesday lunchtime at the most famous zebra crossing in the world. As I arrive at Abbey Road Studios in London’s affluent St John’s Wood, I count 64 people milling around the lollipop beacons that flank the street, waiting for the opportunity to recreate The Photo.

Over the next 30 minutes, I watch a whopping 49 crossings by individuals or groups mimicking John, Ringo, Paul and George’s march across the Grade II-listed black-and-white stripes. One group does it five times, getting the angles of their legs exactly right. To be fair, it might have been more than 49 crossings, but a 20-person Beatles walking tour turns up and obscures my view. “God help the neighbours,” an Irish passer-by smirks.

The Beatles’ original photograph, of course, found fame as the sleeve of their Abbey Road album in 1969. And in the 57 years since, the crossing has become a magnet for Fab Four nuts, curious tourists and Instagram poseurs.

Last month, it was graced by the closest things we’ll get to all four Beatles when the cast of Sam Mendes’s upcoming four-film band biopic recreated the walk for the silver screen. Actor Harris Dickinson led the quartet as a bearded Lennon in his white suit, followed by Barry Keoghan as Starr, Paul Mescal as a bare-footed McCartney and Joseph Quinn as Harrison. Interest in this stretch of tarmac in NW8 will only grow when the films come out in 2028.

Under mid-August skies, chaos reigns. Cars beep, buses halt and cyclists pull up. “There are too many people. Sometimes you wait for five or 10 minutes,” says Dan, a regular driver in the area. One resident, who asks not to be named, tells me that “it’s not uncommon to see people literally in the middle of the road with a tripod to get the shot as you approach the zebra crossing.” Resident Lisa Carey, out walking her dog, Gerty, says the street was “completely blocked off for two days” during the recent filming.

Meanwhile, a strolling local in a Rolling Stones T-shirt pulls a face when I gesture towards the Abbey Road crossing. “That’s a very posh area,” she scoffs, displaying a gritty partisanship that Keith Richards would be proud of.

Bus drivers – talking when their vehicles are safely static at nearby bus stops – are both vigilant and resigned. “Most of the time, we wait,” says a driver taking me north up Abbey Road.

As we approach the studio, a man in a yellow polo shirt blocks the road between the bus and the crossing, directing four companions across, snapping away with his iPhone. Job done, he waves the bus through, a quasi-traffic warden. A second bus driver, taking me back south, says: “It’s hard because you don’t know who’s going over the crossing. You have to stop and check it out.”

Lisa Markwell uses the road daily. “It’s completely bonkers. And it’s all day, every day. I go down it every morning and I come back every afternoon and sometimes at the weekend, and they’re always there,” she says.

If Markwell is on her Vespa scooter, she’ll sometimes alert visitors if they’re at the wrong zebra crossing (there are two) or taking the picture from the wrong direction (the album photo looks south to north).