TV presenter praises ‘extraordinary’ rock garden at home of late Beatle

THE late Beatle George Harrison enlisted the help of two goats to help clear up his overgrown garden.

The Liverpool-born musician’s widow Olivia revealed his unorthodox gardening technique while speaking to gardener and TV presenter Monty Don.

He was touring the grounds of the guitarist’s former home, Friar Park in Gravel Hill, during an episode of his BBC show Monty Don’s British Gardens.

Harrison first bought the Grade II listed Friar Park in January 1970, aged just 27, and it remains home to Olivia today. The Victorian neo-gothic mansion was built between 1889 and 1895 by eccentric lawyer Sir Frank Crisp, assisted by architect M Clarke Edwards.

The site covers about 30 acres and features caves, grottoes, underground passages a variety of themed gardens, and a multitude of garden gnomes.

Previously, the property had been donated for use by nuns from the Salesians of Don Bosco order, which ran Sacred Heart School in Greys Hill, and the gardens were overgrown. Interviewed by Don, Olivia described how Harrison brought in two goats to help clear up the steep alpine rock garden which features a scale model of the Matterhorn. Describing his reaction to the overgrown gardens she said: “I think he was pretty horrified, but not intimidated. He just decided, “How are we going to clear it?’”

“They just got a couple of goats, Phil and Ronnie and put them up on the top. He said they kept falling off, that was a problem, so they had to get rid of them.

“The brambles were impenetrable. He had a machete and a flame thrower.” Olivia described the garden as an escape for her husband. She said: “It was a world outside of the world, outside of the madness.

“I am so happy he had the passion to clear this and get it started. He did the graft and we have him to thank for the resurrection of this rockery.”

The grounds also feature one of the largest topiary gardens in Britain with more than 160 trees.

Don said: “This had also been almost completely abandoned when George first came here in 1970, every single piece had to be cut right back to a stump, regrown and then shaped from scratch. To me, it looks like a kind of fancy dress party because of the scale of it and the confidence. It really works.”

Since Harrison’s death in 2001 Olivia has overseen further restoration work and planting in the garden.

Don explained that the home’s original owner Sir Frank Crisp was a keen gardener and spent a large fortune designing and maintaining the grounds. He said the alpine rock garden was the most “unusual and extraordinary” part of the garden.

He said: “Crisp, like many Victorians, had a passion for alpine plants, so he built himself a rockery, except he did it on an heroic scale. He had no less than 23,000 tons of Yorkshire stone brought into the site. First to Henley railway station and from there by horse and cart. Each stone was carefully placed one by one to make, what was then, Britain’s largest rock garden.”

Don described Friar Park as akin to a Lewis Carroll world. He added: “Clearly Frank Crisp loved creating this though the looking-glass surreal world and certainly George and Olivia have had fun in restoring it and making it their own.”