Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr was surprised to learn his Liverpool, England, boyhood home, is slated to be destroyed.

ADVERTISEMENT

Starr's birthplace is among 20,000 homes marked for demolition as eyesores, the Liverpool Daily Post reported Tuesday.

"Why are they knocking them down? If it is economically viable they should do them up," he said, standing with his wife, Barbara Bach, at the Chelsea Flower Show.

He added: "Are they going to knock out the center of Liverpool again? That's what they did before. They moved everybody to high-rise apartments outside the city and forgot to rebuild."

He house would become just the latest Beatles historical site to disappear, the newspaper said. The Cavern, where the band started its career, is long gone and the children's home Strawberry Fields in Woolton, immortalized in a Beatles song. is closing in 2007.

Paul McCartney's childhood home in Liverpool is a tourist attraction and John Lennon's boyhood house now belongs to the National Trust.