Friar Park

Written By John Hutchinson
 
Poster for All Things Must Pass, by Barry Feinstein

Poster for All Things Must Pass, by Barry Feinstein

In late November, 1970, All Things Must Pass, George Harrison’s melancholy devotional masterpiece, was first released. An unexpectedly definitive statement by the ex-Beatle, the album was the fruit of hard work and good fortune: it comprised a series of very good songs played by a band of fine musicians, including Eric Clapton, with a production that was heavily influenced by Phil Spector, whose expansive musical style gave the music instant impact and density. The three LPs came in an impressive but low-keyed presentation box, on its cover a monochrome photo of Harrison, looking like an eccentric recluse, accompanied by garden gnomes in the grounds of his new home, Friar Park. Just over a half century later, in a gesture apparently unrelated to the spirit of the record’s title, eight new versions of All Things Must Pass have made their appearance. The most expensive, the ‘Uber Deluxe Box Set’, contains two books, replica figurines of Harrison and the gnomes, a limited edition illustration by Klaus Voorman (who played on the album and was a longstanding friend of The Beatles), a copy of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Light from the Great Ones, rudraksha prayer beads, a replica of the original poster, five CDs, a Blu-Ray disc, eight LPs - and, interestingly, a bookmark made from the wood of an oak tree that fell in Friar Park.

Harrison, widely known for his spiritual concerns and involvement with Indian culture, was a complex man of many contradictions, some of which became more pronounced as the years went by. Among his less obvious idiosyncrasies were an absurdist sense of humour and an affection for gardening, both of which flourished in the context of Friar Park, a place that he loved and which he once put up as collateral in order to fund the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, an irreverent comedy about a contemporary of Jesus. The huge mansion in Henley-on-Thames, surrounded by acres of landscaped grounds, evokes 19th century English architectural bombast, the prim austerity of a convent, and the fantasy of a rich oddball - and it turned out to be well suited to Harrison’s temperament and varied tastes.

Friar Park was built by Sir Frank Crisp, a rich London lawyer, an enthusiastic historian, collector of microscopes, and an ardent gardener who was awarded the Victoria Medal by the RHS. In 1899 Crisp bought two villas on the edge of Henley and joined their grounds into an estate; he then commissioned a little-known architect, Robert Clarke Edwards, to help him turn Friar Park into a weekend retreat. The immense new house, inspired by Gothic architecture and incorporating towers and pinnacles, also included a surprising number of fanciful images of friars, made in stone, terracotta and occasionally depicted in paint. Crisp asked Henry Ernest Milner, a landscape architect, to help him lay out the gardens and grounds, which eventually turned into something of an amusement park and were opened to the public. Among its oddest and most dramatic attractions was the alpine garden, in which were to be found valleys, mountain passes, bridges, a waterfall, and a model of the Matterhorn topped with a fragment of the real thing. There were also caves, grottoes, and an underground river, as well as a lake with stepping-stones next to a Japanese garden, which, when viewed from a particular vantage point, made it seem as though people were walking on water. Crisp was a jovial and generous man with a sense of fun, and he liked to make jokes on the grandest of scales. He was also very fond of garden gnomes.

When Crisp died in 1919, Friar Park was purchased by Sir Percival David, a financier whose father had founded the Bank of India. Percival studied Chinese culture, collected Chinese art and postage stamps, and devoted most of his time to those pursuits, creating a distinguished collection of ceramics, part of which is now in the British Museum. Percival continued to open the gardens to the public on Wednesday afternoons, but in 1953, following his divorce, the main house and grounds were sold to a teaching order of nuns, the Salesian Sisters of St. John Bosco. It soon transpired that the sisters couldn’t afford their proper upkeep, with the consequence that they were neglected; rather dramatically, in order to generate some income, the nuns allowed local builders to use the grounds and lakes as dumps. In due course they tried to sell off part of the land and planned to demolish all the buildings to make room for new housing developments. These ideas came to naught; brambles began to cover the garden, and grass started to grow through floors.

It was at this low point that George Harrison and his then wife, Pattie Boyd, bought the house, the lodges, and about thirty acres of land for a comparatively modest sum. The quixotic idea of putting the place to rights inspired him, and after colossal amounts of effort and money had been expended on the project, Crisp’s grandiose and whimsical legacy was rescued and enhanced. Harrison particularly enjoyed the gardening; it turned into a passion that lasted for the rest of his life. In a preface to a recent edition of his autobiography, which he dedicated to ‘gardeners everywhere’, his wife Olivia remarks that when she once complimented him on his garden, Harrison replied ‘it’s not my garden, Liv’, thereby reminding himself that we are pure Spirit, and that Spirit belongs to everyone and no one. ‘George’, writes Olivia, ‘was tired of all the ‘I, me, mines’ in the world, including his own’.

 
 
Friar Park

Friar Park

 
 
John Hutchinson
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