Olympic Studios — Barnes, London

Olympic Studios at 117 Church Road in Barnes, south-west London, was one of the most important recording studios in the world during the late 1960s and 1970s. The Rolling Stones recorded there from 1965 onward, using it as their primary studio for albums including Aftermath, Between the Buttons, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Goats Head Soup. Jimi Hendrix recorded there. Led Zeppelin recorded portions of their work there. The Who, Traffic, the Small Faces, and many others used Olympic regularly. Producer Eddie Kramer and engineer Glyn Johns — who also engineered for the Stones and Led Zeppelin — did some of their most important work within these walls.

Olympic's particular quality was its large main studio, whose acoustic properties and equipment allowed engineers to achieve sounds of extraordinary warmth and three-dimensionality. The studio had been converted from a cinema — the large room retained cinema-height ceilings that gave the recordings their distinctive spaciousness. The combination of technically sophisticated engineers, willing and experimental artists, and excellent physical facilities made Olympic the defining recording environment of British rock's most creative period.

Olympic Studios closed as a recording facility in 2009 and was converted into a cinema complex with a restaurant, bar, and small performance space — a sympathetic reuse that preserved some of the building's character while ending its primary function. The cinema at Olympic Studios opened in 2016. Various heritage displays inside the building acknowledge its recording history. Barnes is accessible from central London by rail from Waterloo and is close to Marc Bolan's memorial site on Queen's Ride.