Friar Park is a 120-room Victorian neo-Gothic mansion in Henley-on-Thames once owned by an eccentric lawyer named Sir Frank Crisp and purchased in January 1970 by musician George Harrison. Since the early 1970s, the property has become synonymous with the former Beatle's home studio, known as FPSHOT. Harrison biographer Alan Clayson has described the Friar Park estate as being "as synonymous with his name as the Queen's with Windsor Castle".
Harrison put the whole property up as collateral in order to fund the Monty Python comedy team's movie Life of Brian after their original backers, EMI, pulled out at the last minute. As a huge fan of the Pythons, Harrison simply wanted to get to see the film − something that his friend Eric Idle has often described as "the most expensive cinema ticket in movie history".
Read more about Friar Park: History, George Harrison and FPSHOT, The Gardens, Security Concerns
Famous quotes containing the word park:
“Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in [St. James’s] Park again next Sunday ... because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really, if you had seen how every body was dressed, you would not think that possible.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)