Hundreds of people gathered at the world's most famous zebra crossing on Thursday to mark the 50th anniversary of the day the Beatles were photographed on it.

The result was one of the best-known album covers in music history and an image imitated by countless fans ever since.

Spectators snapped photos on their mobile phones as Beatles lookalikes crossed the street outside Abbey Road Studios in tribute to the original image.

The picture of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr striding over the pedestrian crossing on Abbey Road was taken outside the EMI Recording Studios where they made the 1969 album of the same name.

"Abbey Road", which was voted the best Beatles album by readers of Rolling Stone in 2009, was the only one of the group's original British albums to show neither the band's name nor a title on the cover.

The album was the last to be recorded by all four members of the band together, and it had tracks written by each of them, including "Come Together" by Lennon, "Here Comes the Sun" by Harrison, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" by McCartney, and Starr's "Octopus's Garden".

The studios, which were later renamed Abbey Road, and the zebra crossing were granted protected status by the government in 2010.