JUST PUBLISHED: Let It Be… your next getaway: inside George Harrison’s £40-a-night wellness retreat
By the early 1970s, the Beatles had played their final notes as a band. Paul McCartney announced his departure in April 1970, and though the legal paperwork dragged on until late 1974, the group’s final chapter had already closed.
While the world obsessed over the breakup, George Harrison quietly began building something far removed from the limelight. In 1973, three years after the split became public, he purchased a sprawling country manor near Watford.
While it all sounds very rock and roll, the truth is more surprising. Harrison, ever the quiet seeker, didn’t keep it for himself but gave it to the Hare Krishna movement, thereby creating a working spiritual sanctuary for anyone, regardless of belief and background, searching for peace.
I should know. I lived there.
For 22 years, I swapped the deadlines and distractions of modern life for the stillness of Bhaktivedanta Manor. I rose before dawn to tend the sacred cows, sang ancient mantras in the temple Harrison helped to sustain, and walked the gardens he designed before most office workers had stirred from sleep. And even now, returning as a visitor rather than a resident, I’m reminded why this place holds the key to understanding the man behind some of the most spiritual music of the 20th century.
There are plenty of Beatles-themed tourist attractions with curated exhibits and photo opportunities, but this place isn’t one of them. Harrison’s real legacy lives quietly in the rhythms of daily life here, through the soft chants of morning prayer, the scent of sandalwood drifting from the temple, and the simple vegetarian meals shared among visitors and residents.
Bhaktivedanta became Harrison’s way of quietly influencing a different kind of revolution, one rooted in compassion and simplicity rather than stadium anthems. He visited often and spent time walking the same gardens that now carry his name. The pathways remain unchanged. You can still follow the same gentle curve of the George Harrison Memorial Garden, pausing at the engraved verses that inspired him to write songs like My Sweet Lord and Awaiting on You All.
