Places

The physical locations, and the facet that rescues the thin decades because buildings can be photographed when the band could not. Battersea Power Station and its preserved control room, Abbey Road, the Roundhouse, Alexandra Palace, the Cambridge streets Barrett came from and returned to, Ely, Saunton Sands, the Roman amphitheatre at Pompeii, and Earls Court.

Part of Pink Floyd

99 moments in this segment.

1. 1967 - 1967-04-xx -= Pink Floyd - Abbey Road Studios. EMI Studios at Abbey Road, where Pink Floyd recorded from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967 through to Wish You Were Here in 1975.
2. 1969 - Abbey Road, September 1969. The street outside EMI Studios photographed on 25 September 1969, two years after Pink Floyd made their first album inside. The building has been a working studio since 1931.
3. 1970 - Pink Floyd - Poitiers (Autour Du Passage Des Pink Floyd). French regional television covering the band's passage through Poitiers.
4. 1972 - Pink Floyd - The Making of "On The Run" (Abbey Road Studios, 1972). EMI Studios at Abbey Road, where Pink Floyd recorded from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967 through to Wish You Were Here in 1975.
5. 1972 - Pink Floyd - The Making of "Us And Them" (Abbey Road Studios, 1972). EMI Studios at Abbey Road, where Pink Floyd recorded from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967 through to Wish You Were Here in 1975.
6. 1972 - Time (Demo rec. at Abbey Road Studios, London, June 1972). Pink Floyd - Studio Archives And Other Dreams EDIT: according to some people this is not a real bootleg or demo, but a mash-up of different recordings. Just so you know... Side 1 4. Time (Demo rec. at Abbey Road Studios, London, June 1972) 1. Breath in the Air (Demo Version, Feb. 17th, 1970) 2.
7. 1980 - Pink Floyd - The Wall Live at Earls Court, London, 1980. Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where The Wall was staged in 1980 and 1981 and where Pulse was filmed on 20 October 1994.
8. 1980 - Pink Floyd - Live in Earls Court, UK (August 7th, 1980) - Recorder 2 MASTER. Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where The Wall was staged in 1980 and 1981 and where Pulse was filmed on 20 October 1994.
9. 1980 - Pink Floyd - Live in Earls Court, UK (August 4th, 1980) - Recorder 1 MASTER. Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where The Wall was staged in 1980 and 1981 and where Pulse was filmed on 20 October 1994.
10. 1980 - Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall (Live at Earls Court 1980). Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where The Wall was staged in 1980 and 1981 and where Pulse was filmed on 20 October 1994.
11. 1980 - Pink Floyd - Live in Earls Court, UK (August 6th, 1980) - Recorder 2 MASTER [NEW]. Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where The Wall was staged in 1980 and 1981 and where Pulse was filmed on 20 October 1994.
12. 1980 - Pink Floyd - Live in Earls Court, UK (August 5th, 1980) - Recorder 1 MASTER. Earls Court Exhibition Centre, where The Wall was staged in 1980 and 1981 and where Pulse was filmed on 20 October 1994.
13. 1987 - Abbey Road Studios, 1987. The studio exterior in May 1987, the year A Momentary Lapse of Reason appeared and Gilmour and Mason toured as Pink Floyd without Waters for the first time.
14. 1989 - The Battersea Experience TV Documentary – The London Programme (1989). A 1989 TV investigation into the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station as the Battersea Experience theme park. After starting Alton Towers, John Broome was invited to join the development for a leisure park at Battersea and he soon took over. The project resulted in Broome selling Alton Towers in 1990.
15. 1994 - Pink Floyd HD Run Like Hell 1994 Concert Earls Court London. Concierto de Pink Floyd el 20 de Octubre de 1994 en el Earls Court London – ( p.u.l.s.e ) YOU CAN ACCESS THE FULL CONCERT BY CLICKING ON PLAYLISTS CREATED on my Franofre Aljorobate channel: Pin Floyd HD 1994-Concert Earls Court London-(p.u.l.s.e) 01- Shine on You Crazy Diamond-(Prohibida MI reproducción)- 02- Learning...
16. 1994 - Pink Floyd HD Money 1994 Concert Earls Court London. Concierto de Pink Floyd el 20 de Octubre de 1994 en el Earls Court London – ( p.u.l.s.e ) YOU CAN ACCESS THE FULL CONCERT BY CLICKING ON PLAYLISTS CREATED on my Franofre Aljorobate channel: Pin Floyd HD 1994-Concert Earls Court London-(p.u.l.s.e) 01- Shine on You Crazy Diamond-(Prohibida MI reproducción)- 02- Learning...
17. 1994 - Pink Floyd HD The Great Gig in the Sky 1994 Concert Earls Court London. Concierto de Pink Floyd el 20 de Octubre de 1994 en el Earls Court London – ( p.u.l.s.e ) YOU CAN ACCESS THE FULL CONCERT BY CLICKING ON PLAYLISTS CREATED on my Franofre Aljorobate channel: Pin Floyd HD 1994-Concert Earls Court London-(p.u.l.s.e) 01- Shine on You Crazy Diamond-(Prohibida MI reproducción)- 02- Learning...
18. 1998 - The Abbey Road wall. Graffiti on the wall outside Abbey Road Studios, 1998. The wall is repainted regularly and covered again within days.
19. 2005 - The studio front, 2005. Number 3 Abbey Road in St John's Wood, north London. EMI Studios took the Abbey Road name formally in 1970.
20. 2006 - Braunton Burrows above the beach. The dune system behind Saunton Sands. The band themselves were not present for the 1987 photograph; the image was made and delivered to them.
21. 2006 - Saunton Sands at low water. The wet sand mirrors the sky at low tide. A Momentary Lapse of Reason was the first album made without Roger Waters, released in September 1987.
22. 2006 - The beach at Saunton. Saunton Sands, a three-mile flat beach backed by the Braunton Burrows dunes. Its scale is what made the hospital-bed photograph possible.
23. 2007 - Battersea Power Station Documentary 2007. Battersea Power Station, photographed with an inflatable pig for the Animals sleeve in December 1976. The pig did break loose and the marksman was not rebooked for the second day, but the sleeve is a composite: the pig was superimposed onto an earlier day's photograph.
24. 2007 - Tufa towers at Mono Lake. The tufa formations at Mono Lake in eastern California. Hipgnosis photographed a diver at Mono Lake for Wish You Were Here, holding a handstand underwater long enough that the surface shows no ripple at all.
25. 2008 - Abbey Road Studios. The entrance to EMI Studios in St John's Wood, renamed Abbey Road in 1970. Pink Floyd made The Piper at the Gates of Dawn here in 1967 in Studio Three while the Beatles worked on Sgt. Pepper in Studio Two, and returned for The Dark Side of the Moon in 1972 and 1973.
26. 2008 - The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm. The Roundhouse in Camden, a former railway engine shed. Pink Floyd played the launch party for International Times here on 15 October 1966, one of the founding events of the London underground scene.
27. 2008 - Inside the Roundhouse. The interior of the Roundhouse, built as a turning shed for locomotives and later one of the venues that carried the London underground scene of 1966 and 1967.
28. 2008 - The Pompeii amphitheatre. The amphitheatre at Pompeii, built around 70 BC and the oldest surviving Roman stone amphitheatre. Adrian Maben filmed Pink Floyd playing here in October 1971 with no audience at all.
29. 2008 - Earls Court Exhibition Centre. Earls Court in west London. Pink Floyd played The Dark Side of the Moon here in May 1973, staged The Wall here in 1980 and 1981, and closed the Division Bell tour here on 29 October 1994.
30. 2009 - Battersea Power Station derelict. Battersea Power Station in May 2009, roofless and empty. The station stopped generating in 1983. It is the building on the sleeve of Animals, photographed over three days in December 1976 with a forty-foot inflatable pig moored between the southern chimneys.
31. 2009 - Abbey Road Studios from the street. The studio building on Abbey Road, April 2009. Norman Smith, who had engineered for the Beatles, produced the band's first album here.
32. 2009 - The Roundhouse exterior. The Roundhouse, May 2009. In 1966 it was an unheated shell with no proper stage; the IT launch ran all night and the band played through a jelly and a stack of borrowed amplifiers.
33. 2009 - Inside the Pompeii amphitheatre. The arena floor at Pompeii, September 2009. The band set up in the centre of the empty bowl and played "Echoes", "A Saucerful of Secrets" and "One of These Days" to the stone.
34. 2009 - Outside the amphitheatre at Pompeii. The exterior arcades of the Pompeii amphitheatre, September 2009.
35. 2009 - Grantchester Meadows
36. 2010 - Battersea lit at night, 2010. The derelict station floodlit for an event in October 2010. For nearly thirty years the shell stood empty behind hoardings while redevelopment schemes came and went.
37. 2010 - Battersea from the railway. Battersea Power Station seen from the approach lines into Victoria, November 2010. It was built in two halves, the first in the 1930s and the second after the war, which is why the four chimneys are not quite a matched set.
38. 2010 - Sand tufa, Mono Lake. Sand tufa formations at Mono Lake, October 2010.
39. 2010 - Earls Court from the street. Earls Court in west London, where Pink Floyd played The Dark Side of the Moon in May 1973, mounted The Wall in 1980 and 1981, and closed the Division Bell tour on 29 October 1994. The building was demolished from 2014.
40. 2011 - Abbey Road under refurbishment, 2011. The building was refurbished in 2011 after a period when EMI was reported to be considering a sale. It was given Grade II listed status in 2010.
41. 2011 - Battersea and the pig, 2011. Battersea Power Station with the inflatable pig, 26 September 2011, a few years before the redevelopment took the chimneys down for rebuilding.
42. 2011 - The Queen Elizabeth Hall. 's South Bank. Pink Floyd played Games for May here on 12 May 1967, promoted by Christopher Hunt, with speakers in the four corners of the room driven by a joystick on stage. It is among the first and most influential surround-sound rock concerts. The hall is said to have banned the band afterwards over the mess left by bubbles and flowers.
43. 2011-09-26 - Pink Floyd - Battersea Power Station (26th September 2011). Battersea Power Station in September 2011, before redevelopment. It was photographed with an inflatable pig for the Animals sleeve in December 1976.
44. 2012 - Wembley Arena in 2012. The hall Pink Floyd played as the Empire Pool during the Dark Side tour of 1974. It was renamed Wembley Arena in 1978.
45. 2012 - Battersea from the air. Battersea Power Station and the Thames from the air, October 2012. In 1976 a marksman was hired to shoot the pig down if it broke free. It did break free, and he had not been rebooked for the second day. The story that all Heathrow flights were grounded is legend, with no contemporaneous aviation record; the checkable fact is that the Animals sleeve is a composite, the pig dropped into a photograph taken on an earlier day.
46. 2012 - The rose window, Alexandra Palace. The rose window at Alexandra Palace. At the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream on 29 April 1967 the band closed the all-night event as daylight came through this glass.
47. 2012 - Saunton Sands, Devon. Saunton Sands in north Devon, the beach where Storm Thorgerson had roughly seven hundred hospital beds laid out and photographed for A Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987. It was staged for real on the sand rather than composited, which was the point of it.
48. 2013 - Palm Court, Alexandra Palace. The Palm Court at Alexandra Palace, March 2013.
49. 2013-07-05 - Boris Johnson marks the official start of work on Battersea Power Station. Battersea Power Station, photographed with an inflatable pig for the Animals sleeve in December 1976. The pig did break loose and the marksman was not rebooked for the second day, but the sleeve is a composite: the pig was superimposed onto an earlier day's photograph.
50. 2014 - The Corn Exchange, Cambridge. The Corn Exchange on Wheeler Street was designed by Richard Reynolds Rowe and built between 1873 and 1875. It has been the city's main music hall since the 1980s.
51. 2014 - Work begins at Battersea, 2014. Redevelopment work under way at Battersea Power Station, April 2014. The four chimneys were taken down and rebuilt to the original design.
52. 2014 - Battersea under construction. The station mid-redevelopment, September 2014, with the brick shell standing among cranes.
53. 2014 - The amphitheatre walls. The outer wall of the Pompeii amphitheatre, September 2014. A restored version of the film, Live at Pompeii MCMLXXII, was released in 2025.
54. 2015 - London from Alexandra Palace. The view over London from Alexandra Palace, October 2015.
55. 2015 - Earls Court being demolished. Demolition of the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, September 2015. The hall that held the 1980 Wall shows and the last night of the Division Bell tour is gone.
56. 2015 - Waters' handprints in Munich. Roger Waters' handprints set into the Walk of Stars at the Olympiapark in Munich, June 2015.
57. 2016 - The Regent Street Polytechnic plaque. The plaque unveiled on 28 May 2015 at 35 Marylebone Road, marking where Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright met as architecture students at the Regent Street Polytechnic between 1962 and 1966. Three of the four founding members came together over drawing boards rather than in a music scene.
58. 2016 - 35 Marylebone Road. The former Regent Street Polytechnic building at 35 Marylebone Road, now part of the University of Westminster. Mason, Waters and Wright studied architecture here; Syd Barrett and Bob Klose came from Cambridge.
59. 2016 - Battersea without its chimneys. Battersea Power Station in September 2016 with the chimneys removed. Each was dismantled and recast, so the outline that appears on the Animals sleeve briefly did not exist.
60. 2016 - The diminished chimneys. The station in September 2016, its chimneys part-demolished. The rebuild used the original 1930s specification.
61. 2016 - The Battersea construction site. The construction site around Battersea Power Station, March 2016.
62. 2016 - Figures on Saunton Sands. Walkers on the flats at Saunton, May 2016.
63. 2016 - South Tufa, Mono Lake. South Tufa at Mono Lake, September 2016. The lake is nearly three times as salty as the ocean, which is part of why the water reads so still.
64. 2017 - Battersea redevelopment, 2017. The station surrounded by new building in September 2017, chimneys back in place.
65. 2018 - Battersea from the south-west. Battersea Power Station in February 2018, the brickwork cleaned and the new chimneys standing.
66. 2018 - Messages on the studio wall. The wall outside Abbey Road Studios, March 2018. On 5 June 1975 Syd Barrett walked into a session for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" here, unrecognised at first by the band; the song is about him.
67. 2018 - Alexandra Palace at night. Alexandra Palace in north London, where the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream was staged on 29 April 1967. Pink Floyd went on at dawn as the sun came through the great rose window behind them. It is the best-documented event of the whole underground period.
68. 2018 - The arena at Pompeii. The Pompeii amphitheatre, October 2018. David Gilmour returned to play here with an audience in 2016, the first rock concert in the arena since the Romans.
69. 2018 - The Cam at Grantchester. The River Cam at Grantchester Meadows, September 2018. Syd Barrett returned to Cambridge in the 1970s and lived there quietly until his death on 7 July 2006.
70. 2018 - The meadows in autumn. Grantchester Meadows, September 2018.
71. 2018 - The hall from the Thames. The Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room seen from the river, March 2018. The song "See Emily Play" was written for the Games for May concert and was at first titled after it.
72. 2019 - Construction at Battersea, 2019. Building work around the station in April 2019.
73. 2020-04-26 - Abbey Road Studios Documentary. EMI Studios at Abbey Road, where Pink Floyd recorded from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967 through to Wish You Were Here in 1975.
74. 2021 - Battersea Power Station tube station. The Northern line station that opened at Battersea Power Station in September 2021, part of the redevelopment that turned the site into housing and shops.
75. 2021 - Abbey Road, 2021. Abbey Road Studios in February 2021. Alan Parsons engineered The Dark Side of the Moon in these rooms; Chris Thomas was brought in to mix it.
76. 2022 - Pink Floyd - Animals 2018 Remix Documentary (Battersea Power Station History). Battersea Power Station, then a working coal station, now a redeveloped public site. It is the most recognisable building in the band's visual history.
77. 2022 - Pink Floyd - Animals 2018 Remix (2022 Battersea Projection). Projected onto Battersea Power Station in 2022, by then a redeveloped public site rather than the working station photographed in 1976.
78. 2022 - Saunton Sands from the dunes. Saunton Sands in May 2022. Thorgerson died on 18 April 2013; his work with Aubrey Powell as Hipgnosis defined the band's visual identity from 1968.
79. 2022 - Inside the Balboa Theatre. The Balboa Theatre in San Diego before a Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets concert in 2022. The band deliberately plays rooms of this size, closer to the clubs the early material was written for than to the stadiums Pink Floyd ended up in.
80. 2022-11-17 - IF THESE WALLS COULD SING Official Trailer (2022) Abbey Road Studios Documentary. Watch the official trailer for If These Walls Could Sing! Streaming on Disney+ December 16, 2022. The untold story of the Abbey Road studio, all-star interviews and intimate access to the premises. © Walt Disney Company.
81. 2023-04-05 - They Finally Let Me Into Abbey Road Studios!. EMI Studios at Abbey Road, where Pink Floyd recorded from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in 1967 through to Wish You Were Here in 1975.
82. 2023 - Pompeii amphitheatre, 2023. The Roman amphitheatre at Pompeii, where Adrian Maben filmed Pink Floyd playing to no audience in October 1971. The exhibition mounted here in 2023 marks the film. A restored version, Live at Pompeii MCMLXXII, was released in 2025.
83. 2023 - The Pompeii exhibition. The permanent Pink Floyd display at the Pompeii amphitheatre, 2023. Maben's idea was the opposite of a concert film: a rock band in a two-thousand-year-old arena with the seats empty.
84. 2023 - Inside Battersea Power Station. The interior of the restored building, February 2023. The turbine halls are now a shopping centre; the control rooms have been kept.
85. 2023 - Battersea looking up. The rebuilt chimneys from the ground, June 2023.
86. 2023 - Battersea reopened. Battersea Power Station in January 2023, three months after reopening to the public for the first time in its history.
87. 2023 - Control Room A, Battersea. Control Room A inside Battersea Power Station, kept and restored in the redevelopment. The art deco fittings date from the 1930s half of the building, the half that faces the camera on the Animals sleeve.
88. 2023 - The control room panels. The dials and switchgear of Control Room A at Battersea, July 2023.
89. 2023 - Inside the control room. Control Room A at Battersea Power Station, preserved during the conversion of the building.
90. 2023 - The turbine hall, restored. The turbine hall of Battersea Power Station after conversion, July 2023. The station stopped generating in 1983 and stood open to the sky for decades before this work.
91. 2023 - Battersea turbine hall from the walkway. The interior of the converted Battersea Power Station, July 2023.
92. 2023 - The hall under its glazed roof. The glazed roof over the restored turbine hall at Battersea, July 2023.
93. 2024 - Battersea at night, 2024. The restored station floodlit, February 2024.
94. 2024 - The shopping floors inside Battersea. The converted interior of the turbine hall, February 2024.
95. 2024 - Sunrise at Battersea. Sunrise behind the chimneys, March 2024.
96. 2024 - Battersea from the east. The east face of Battersea Power Station, December 2024.
97. 2025 - Abbey Road Studios, 2025. The studio still works daily. Barrett walked in unannounced on 5 June 1975 during the mixing of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and was not initially recognised by his former bandmates. It was the last time any of them saw him.
98. 2025-08-11 - Battersea Power Station: Changing London and its rapid redevelopments. London is currently undergoing a building boom as more and more high rise offices and apartments start to dominate the skyline. Rajan Datar discovers how the construction craze is revealing fascinating insights into the city’s history that have, up until now, remained hidden.
99. 2026 - Ely Cathedral. 1994, sculpted by John Robertson, with the gap between them forming a third face. The cathedral tower is the landmark on that horizon.