Legendary AIR Studios up for sale

London’s legendary AIR Studios, which was set up by The Beatles’ late producer Sir George Martin after he left EMI Records in 1969, is up for sale.

With the name derived from Associated Independent Recording, the business was originally based in central London and later moved to Lyndhurst Hall in Hampstead in 1992.

Lyndhurst Hall used to be a church, and has spectacular acoustics. It's the only facility in the UK other than Abbey Road Studios to have full orchestral recording facilities.

In the past two decades, it has been used by the music, film and gaming industries.

Coldplay, Sir Paul McCartney, Adele, George Michael, Katy Perry, Emile Sande, The Pretenders and Liam Gallagher are just some of the major names who recorded there.

Movie soundtracks included Atonement, Life of Pi, Justice League, Darkest Hour, Paddington 2 and Grand Budapest Hotel while among the TV scores were Dr Who, Sherlock, Howards End, Troy and Black Mirror.

Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer, who recorded the scores for Interstellar and The Hunger Games at AIR, said that his movies had grossed $22 billion worldwide “and in no small part have the musicians and AIR Studios been a contributing force in this".

“I have made it a point of bringing the work from mainly American film studios back to the musicians and the studio in London.”

AIR was bought in 2006 by Richard Boote and Paul Woolf of Air Entertainment Group.

They put it on the market six years later, explaining that they were also juggling other businesses, including radio, restaurants, app development and a digital distribution platform.

They said the studio needed someone who would focus on it full-time.

This time around, Booth said, “The sale of Air Studios is a significant moment in the history of the music industry.

“Some of the most legendary soundtracks and records of the 20th and 21st century have been recorded at Air Studios and we know that there is still scope to expand and grow the business further.

“Air Studios and those who work at the studios are hugely important to me and I am sure that this will lead to an exciting new future for the facility.”

Sir George Martin also set up AIR Studios in the 1960s on the island of Montserrat in the West Indies.

It was destroyed, first by a hurricane in 1989 and then by a volcano in 1995, and remains unused and decrepit.

At least 67 albums were recorded at the exotic location (which offered all of the technical facilities of its London predecessor), including those by The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, The Police, Sir Elton John, Lou Reed, Dire Straits, Duran Duran and Stevie Wonder.

In a scene in the music video for The Police’s ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’, Sting dances across the soundboard in the editing room.