📍Archway Road, Highgate, London N6, UK
1945 – 1963“Rod Stewart was born at 507 Archway Road in Highgate, north London, in 1945, the youngest of five children, and much younger than his brothers and sisters. His father, Robert, was a Scottish builder from Leith, and his mother, Elsie, had grown up nearby in Upper Holloway. The family was neither rich nor poor, and as the much-loved baby of the house Rod has called his childhood fantastically happy. When his father retired from building, he bought a newsagent's shop on Archway Road, and the family lived above it. The Stewart household was Scottish to its core, and its passion was football. His father had played and managed local amateur teams, and Rod's brothers covered the walls with pictures of Scottish heroes such as George Young and Gordon Smith. His father took him to Highbury, and he dreamed of playing professionally, even going for trials at Brentford. At school he was undistinguished: he failed the eleven-plus and went to William Grimshaw Secondary Modern in Hornsey. His great indoor hobby was his model railway, which he still builds today. The Scottish songs and Al Jolson records played in the house, and the folk and skiffle scene of north London, drew him toward music. He busked across Europe, joined London blues bands, and found fame with the Faces and as a solo star. His love of Scotland, his football songs and his loyalty to Celtic all trace back to those rooms above the shop on Archway Road, where a London boy was raised by a family that never stopped thinking of itself as Scottish.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today