Former Beatles gig venue is now an Airbnb

Beatles fans will be able to sleep, play and party like the band as the club where the Fab Four started their career is opened as an Airbnb.

The Casbah Coffee Club, in West Derby, Liverpool, was opened in 1959 by Mona Best - mother of the band's original drummer Pete - in the basement of her family home and saw 13 performances by John Lennon's first band the Quarrymen and more than 40 by The Beatles.

The rooms above the club, which closed in 1962 but has remained a tourist attraction, have now been transformed into suites named after Lennon, Sir Paul McCartney and George Harrison, as well as Stuart Sutcliffe, the band's original bass guitarist, and Best.

Best, 82, moved to the house when he was 16 and said he had "fond memories" of growing up there and performing with the band.

He told the PA news agency: "It's turned out to be our Shangri-La.

"With the advent of the Casbah opening, which was 1959, it was guaranteed that there'd be a party every Saturday night. And hence that's why the unique expression is, The Beatles played here, The Beatles partied here and The Beatles slept here."

He said the opening of the house as guest accommodation was a "lasting tribute" to the band and a "projection" of his mother's dream, offering fans the chance to follow in the steps of their idols.

He added: "They can sleep where The Beatles slept, play where The Beatles played, party where The Beatles partied. And everything else that they want to do."

He and younger brother Roag, 62, son of Beatles road manager Neil Aspinall, have been working on converting the house since 2020.

Roag said: "I was born here, in what is now the McCartney Suite, with John, Paul, George, Pete and my dad all downstairs so upon being born I was basically presented to The Beatles.

"This is where I grew up and it was my family home until I moved out at 24.

"Paul has said one of the things he loved about playing the Casbah was it was like playing a big house party and if the band was going to try anything new it would be at the Casbah because it felt like a safe place."

All of the band members had stayed over at the house, Roag said.

"My mum loved parties, so it started off as Saturday night parties, then Friday and Saturday and then became Friday, Saturday and Sunday," he added.

"When the club closed or the lads came back from playing somewhere else there'd be a party and it would reach a point in the evening where they'd be looking for somewhere to sleep. It might have been a couch or four people sleeping in the same room, they slept all over the house."

The rooms have been decorated with a "sprinkling" of a Beatles theme, including photos of the band members, posters and guitars on the wall.

The basement has been kept as it was when it was a club, with drum kits still on display and "John I'm back" scratched into the ceiling above the stage area.

Guests will not be able to stay in a suite named after drummer Sir Ringo Starr, who replaced Best in the band, but Roag said it was not because of any bad blood.

He said: "It's nothing to do with Pete and Ringo and what happened.

"Everything we do is about being authentic and The Beatles that performed and partied here were John, Paul, George, Pete and Stuart. Ringo was never a member when he was here."

The rooms were available to book from the start of August and guests from America, London and Scotland have already stayed - but an official launch was held on Wednesday. First for all the latest news from across the UK every hour on Hits Radio on DAB, at hitsradio.co.uk and on the Rayo app.