Headley Grange - Use As A Recording and Rehearsal Studio

Use As A Recording and Rehearsal Studio

Parts of Led Zeppelin's albums Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti were composed and/or recorded at Headley Grange. Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant wrote most of the lyrics to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" there in a single day. The Led Zeppelin song "Black Dog", which appeared on Led Zeppelin IV, was named after a black Labrador Retriever which was found hanging around Headley Grange during recording.

According to Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page:

Headley Grange was somewhat rundown, the heating didn't work. But it had one major advantage. Other bands had rehearsed there and hadn't had any complaints. That's a major issue, because you don't want to go somewhere and start locking into the work process and then have to pull out.

In an interview he gave to Mojo magazine in 2010, Page elaborated:

The reason we went there in the first place was to have a live-in situation where you're writing and really living the music. We'd never really had that experience before as a group, apart from when Robert and I had gone to Bron-Yr-Aur. But that was just me and Robert going down there and hanging out in the bosom of Wales and enjoying it. This was different. It was all of us really concentrating in a concentrated environment and the essence of what happened there manifested itself across three albums (IV, Houses of the Holy, Physical Graffiti).

Peter Gabriel and other Genesis members have acknowledged writing much of the material for their 1974 concept album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway at the retreat.

Yazoo recorded the video for their track "Don't Go" at Headley Grange.