Sir Paul McCartney has been asked to plant a Chinese tree in his garden after a dispute with a neighbour over his plans to cut down two sycamores.
The musician applied to fell the trees at his London townhouse, which is in a conservation area. It is part of a series of works on trees in his garden, which appears in the Beatles’s Mad Day Out, a photographic feature for Life magazine in July 1968.
McCartney’s representatives argued that the sycamores were “in decline” and felling would allow “more space for an adjacent hornbeam to grow into”.
The upper storeys of McCartney’s home
His neighbour, Reinhold Meinen, a conservative activist and investor, questioned whether the trees were diseased. Meinen, 71, wrote in an objection to Westminster city council: “I am suspicious if those trees are fatally ill.”
McCartney, 83, amended the plans so one sycamore would be felled while the other would be pruned by 1.5m.
The musician bought his three-storey home in St John’s Wood, north London, for £40,000 in 1965. It was used for meetings with his fellow Beatles after recording sessions at the nearby Abbey Road Studios. Meinen purchased the neighbouring property for £14.4 million in 2024.
McCartney on his 25th birthday in 1967 at the house in St John’s WoodKAYE/DAILY HERALD/MIRRORPIX/GETTY IMAGES
Tracy Darke, director of town planning at Westminster city council, approved the works to the sycamores but suggested planting a replacement for the felled tree. “It would be appreciated if you would consider planting a replacement tree. You may wish to consider Acer davidii,” she said. The Acer davidii, also known as Père David’s maple tree, originates from China and Japan.
McCartney has also been given permission to undertake work on a lime, a holm oak, a catalpa, a birch and a hornbeam. He applied last month to fell a diseased catalpa, also known as an Indian bean tree, after fungal decay was found in the base of its trunk.
The musician was in dispute with the council over a request in 2019 to cut back the crown of a birch tree, a hornbeam and two sycamores because they were providing too much shade for the garden.
On the steps of the house in 1967MIRRORPIX/GETTY IMAGES
McCartney said during an interview in 2010 that the garden featured in the “best conceptual moment of the Sixties” while he was “making a little film” of Mary Hopkin, the Welsh singer.
“It’s a very buzzy summer’s day — hot, lots of little insects in the air — and she was just sitting, playing with an acoustic,” he said. They were joined briefly by Robert Fraser, an art dealer, who brought with him a painting by René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist artist.
“When I went back in the house, there, propped on the table, was this Magritte of a giant apple, with the words ‘Au revoir’ written across it,” recalled McCartney. “And I thought: ‘That is super cool.’ I still get a great feeling when I remember that moment.”