Order · Chalk Farm, 1982Annie Lennox & Dave Stewart · bevel cut, white core
Sweet Dreams was made upstairs from a picture framer’s in Chalk Farm. This page is the framer’s bench: cut the windows and the places come through.
Aberdeen · 1959–1972
Annie Lennox was a pupil here from 1959 to 1972, when it was called the Aberdeen High School for Girls.
She had music lessons at school, which she has said she is grateful for. In 2006, when pupils asked for memorabilia, she gave the school some of her old report cards and photographs.
Harlaw Academy, once the Aberdeen High School for Girls
A working school: see the granite front from Albyn Place and don’t go in.
Aberdeen
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Hutcheon Street · named, not pinned
Annie Lennox grew up in a two-room tenement on Hutcheon Street, Aberdeen.
A street of homes and old mill buildings. The family home is private: the street is named here, never the house.
The Tourists · Australia, 1980 · named, not mapped
Before Eurythmics, Lennox and Stewart were in the Tourists, who had two UK hits: I Only Want To Be With You in 1979 and So Good To Be Back Home Again in 1980.
The band split in 1980 after their main songwriter, Peet Coombes, collapsed on tour in Australia.
On that tour Stewart began trying out a small EDP Wasp synthesiser in a hotel room in Wagga Wagga.
No source used here names the hotel, so the town is named and not mapped.
London · 1970s–1984
A mount with four openings, one for each room where they started: the Academy, the restaurant where they met, the attic over the framer’s and the cloakroom in Crouch End.
1970sMarylebone Road
mid-1970sHampstead High Street
1982Upstairs, Chalk Farm
1982–1984The cloakroom, Crouch Hill
Four windows pencilled on one board. Cut one.
Each window opens on a place and what happened there.
Upstairs from the framer’s · 1982
They filled milk bottles with water to tune them and tried tapping them with wood and with metal. The bottles are on Sweet Dreams.
The gear: a Tascam eight-track, a second-hand Soundcraft desk, a Roland Space Echo and a single Beyer microphone, which recorded the hi-hats and Annie Lennox’s vocal. Stewart paid £2,000 for a Movement Systems drum computer. About 30 were ever built. The record’s opening downbeat began as a mistake on the drum computer.
The Church, Crouch Hill · Here Comes the Rain Again
For Here Comes the Rain Again, Michael Kamen conducted the strings with about four microphones: the cellos in a toilet, the violins in a corridor, and Kamen on a spiral staircase.
Hoy, Orkney · 1984
The stack appears in the music video for Here Comes the Rain Again.
It is about 137 metres tall, one of the tallest sea stacks in Britain. Chris Bonington, Rusty Baillie and Tom Patey made the first climb in 1966, over three days.
See it from the deck of the NorthLink ferry Hamnavoe, or walk up from Rackwick on Hoy to the cliff opposite: about three hours there and back.
Orkney · See fares
The ferry Hamnavoe sails past the stack seen in the Here Comes the Rain Again video. On foot, it is about three hours there and back from Rackwick on Hoy.
See sailingsOutside Paris and West Hollywood · 1983–1985
Be Yourself Tonight, made on the eight-track again.
A youth club near Paris · named, not mapped
They rented a small room in a youth club in a Russian quarter on the city’s outskirts for about £10 a week. Dean Garcia played bass.
Building work was disrupting the Church, so for Be Yourself Tonight the duo went to Paris and back to their eight-track.
No source used here names the club or its street, so it is named and not mapped.
Sunset Marquis · 1200 Alta Loma Road, West Hollywood, California
Annie Lennox learned that Sweet Dreams had reached No. 1 while she was having breakfast by the pool at the Sunset Marquis.
Sweet Dreams came out in Britain on 21 January 1983. It reached No. 2 there and No. 1 in America, after five singles that had flopped.
The hotel has villas on nearly three acres of gardens, and its own working recording studio, Nightbird.
A hotel: book a room or a villa. Its Villa Pool is being renovated until late 2026.
1200 Alta Loma Road, West Hollywood · Book direct
Where Annie Lennox heard at breakfast by the pool that Sweet Dreams was No. 1 in America. Villas on nearly three acres of gardens, and a working studio, Nightbird.
Check rooms
1999 and after
A lifetime achievement award at the Brits in February 1999 brings the duo back together. Nearly all of the reunion album is made at the Church, with a small core team.
1999
The Church Studios · 145H Crouch Hill, Crouch End, London N8
It was built in 1850 as a church. David Gray bought it in 2004. Paul Epworth took over in October 2013 and rebuilt it as three studios.
A working studio, booked by artists and not open for tours. See the chapel from Crouch Hill.
1999
AIR Studios, Lyndhurst Hall · Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead, London NW3 5NG
The orchestra on Peace was recorded in AIR’s large room, to an arrangement by David Whitaker.
Alfred Waterhouse designed the hall, completed in 1884 as a church and missionary school; it is hexagonal, built for congregational singing. George Martin opened AIR Studios Lyndhurst here in December 1992.
A working studio and not open to visitors. See Waterhouse’s hall from Lyndhurst Road, a few minutes from Hampstead High Street.
2022
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame · Cleveland
Eurythmics were inducted in 2022, by The Edge. The signature on their plaque was signed by both of them.
At the ceremony they played Would I Lie to You, Missionary Man and Sweet Dreams.
Open daily 10am to 5pm from September to June, Thursdays until 9pm. Adult tickets are $45.
1100 Rock & Roll Boulevard, Cleveland · Adults $45; youth (6–12) $30; under-6s free
The museum of the Hall that Eurythmics joined in 2022. Open daily 10am to 5pm from September to June, Thursdays until 9pm.
Buy ticketsWhere it is now
In London, Pippins and AIR Lyndhurst are a short walk apart in Hampstead; Chalk Farm lies south of them and Crouch End to the east. Hoy is a ferry ride from Stromness.
8 places you can visit, from Albyn Place in Aberdeen to Cleveland. Hutcheon Street is a private home’s street and is not pinned; the Chalk Farm shop, the Paris youth club and the Wagga Wagga hotel are named but not mapped, because no source used here gives their addresses.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working school: see the granite front from Albyn Place and don’t go in.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. See it from the deck of the NorthLink ferry Hamnavoe, or walk up from Rackwick on Hoy to the cliff opposite: about three hours there and back.
18–20 Albyn Place, Aberdeen
Annie Lennox was a pupil here from 1959 to 1972, when it was called the Aberdeen High School for Girls.
A working school: see the granite front from Albyn Place and don’t go in.
West coast of Hoy, Orkney
The stack appears in the music video for Here Comes the Rain Again.
See it from the deck of the NorthLink ferry Hamnavoe, or walk up from Rackwick on Hoy to the cliff opposite: about three hours there and back.
Stay
The West Hollywood hotel where the news of No. 1 arrived at breakfast.
1200 Alta Loma Road, West Hollywood · Book direct
Where Annie Lennox heard at breakfast by the pool that Sweet Dreams was No. 1 in America. Villas on nearly three acres of gardens, and a working studio, Nightbird.
Check roomsGo there
The Academy’s museum, the Hall of Fame, a ferry past the Old Man of Hoy, and walks in London, Orkney and Aberdeen.
Marylebone Road, London NW1 5HT · Free
Free entry to the Academy’s museum on Marylebone Road, where Annie Lennox studied. Open Fridays, 11am to 6pm; groups book ahead.
Plan a visit1100 Rock & Roll Boulevard, Cleveland · Adults $45; youth (6–12) $30; under-6s free
The museum of the Hall that Eurythmics joined in 2022. Open daily 10am to 5pm from September to June, Thursdays until 9pm.
Buy ticketsOrkney · See fares
The ferry Hamnavoe sails past the stack seen in the Here Comes the Rain Again video. On foot, it is about three hours there and back from Rackwick on Hoy.
See sailingsLondon
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Compare toursWhat’s on
No Eurythmics date after October 2026 was on an official page when we checked.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Take it home
Dave Stewart’s own account, and the records made in the rooms on this page.
Dave Stewart
Dave Stewart’s memoir.
Find the bookEurythmics · LP, RCA Victor, 1983
Made upstairs from the framer’s in Chalk Farm and finished in the church cloakroom.
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Find a copyEurythmics · LP, RCA, 1985
Made in a youth-club room outside Paris, at about ten pounds a week.
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Find a copyEurythmics · LP, RCA (2018 vinyl), 2018
The 1999 reunion album, made almost entirely at the Church; this is the 2018 vinyl edition.
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Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
12 of 12 places · 21 of 21 Moments
Hutcheon Street, Aberdeen (the street only)
Annie Lennox grows up in a two-room tenement in Aberdeen.
18–20 Albyn Place, Aberdeen
A pupil at the Aberdeen High School for Girls, she has music lessons at school.
She gives her old school report cards and photographs when pupils ask for memorabilia.
West coast of Hoy, Orkney
The Old Man of Hoy appears in the video for Here Comes the Rain Again.
Marylebone Road, London NW1 5HT
In London she studies flute, piano and harpsichord.
83–84 Hampstead High Street, London NW3 1RE
Dave Stewart walks into a Hampstead health-food restaurant where she is waiting tables.
Chalk Farm, London NW1; the shop’s street is not named in our sources
A £5,000 bank loan buys an eight-track, a second-hand desk and one microphone.
Upstairs from a picture framer’s, they tune milk bottles with water and tap them with wood and metal. The bottles go on Sweet Dreams.
A drum-computer mistake becomes the record’s first beat.
145H Crouch Hill, Crouch End, London N8
Out of Chalk Farm, they set up in the cloakroom of a church owned by two animators, rent free at first.
Michael Kamen conducts Here Comes the Rain Again from a spiral staircase, with cellos in a toilet and violins in a corridor, in mono.
The animators sell; Eurythmics buy the whole building.
A lifetime achievement award at the Brits in February 1999 brings the duo back together.
Nearly all of the reunion album is made at the Church, with a small core team.
David Gray buys the building, then Paul Epworth takes it over and makes three studios.
Lyndhurst Road, Hampstead, London NW3 5NG
The orchestra for Peace is recorded in AIR’s big room in Hampstead.
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales; the hotel is not named
Two hits, then the band splits on tour in Australia.
Stewart tries out an EDP Wasp in a hotel room in Wagga Wagga.
A Russian quarter on the outskirts of Paris; the club is not named
With builders in the Church, they take the eight-track to a youth-club room outside Paris for Be Yourself Tonight.
1200 Alta Loma Road, West Hollywood, California
Sweet Dreams reaches No. 1 in America; Annie Lennox hears at breakfast by a West Hollywood pool.
1100 Rock & Roll Boulevard, Cleveland, Ohio
Eurythmics are inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, by The Edge.
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