An obliging London Bobby had held up the traffic for ten minutes, little knowing that for many years to come thousands of popular music fans would do the same thing while they emulated the scene.

The album was called Abbey Road and it was so successful that the studio would eventually be renamed Abbey Road Studios and the zebra crossing would become another London tourist attraction visited by millions of people from all over the world.

The album cover became the most copied of all time. Many other artists have used the same format and many even the same crossing. The most bizarre, perhaps, is the cover for the Red Hot Chilli Peppers 1988 “Abbey Road EP” which features them walking over the crossing wearing nothing but strategically-placed socks.

Tons of merchandise, T-shirts, coffee mugs, key rings and the like with the printed image have been sold over the years and maps were produced and distributed at a nearby tube station with directions to the crossing.

Still today people go and have their photographs taken crossing Abbey Road as the Beatles did so many years ago and you have to be early to be the only tourist there.