Wikimapia is a multilingual open-content collaborative map, where anyone can create place tags and share their knowledge.

Former Site of The Who drummer Keith Moon's house, 'Tara'.

United Kingdom / England / Chertsey /
 historical layer / disappeared object  Add category

Named 'Tara' by its original owner after the mansion in 'Gone With The Wind', Moon purchased this property in 1971 for £65,000. It was a strange cuboidal/pyramidical construction, packed with all manner of futuristic labour-saving gadgetry.

In July of 1971 the lawn of the property was venue for the Who's Next' launch party, a firework display extravaganza. In 1972 Moon managed to park one of his cars in the garden pond. Accounts vary as to exactly how he managed this, but in an interview given to Rolling Stone he claimed "I've tried to bump-start the 1936 Chrysler several times, always with disastrous results. Once I tried to bump-start it with the Rolls, forgetting there was nobody sitting in the Chrysler. I pushed it right into the fish pond on the front lawn".

In 1975 Moon sold the property to 10CC's Kevin Godley. In 1990 Godley sold it to Vince Clarke of Erasure. Clarke had the original building completely demolished, and constructed a home and studio on the site - built in a style that Moon would no doubt have found to be a perfectly and eccentrically acceptable alternative.

'Tara' was located on St Annes Hill, Chertsey, Surrey. The nearest train station is Chertsey.

www.wholocations.co.uk/
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   51°23'39"N   -0°31'12"E
This article was last modified 13 years ago