Part three of a series marking 50 years since George Harrison purchased Friar Park.
Pictured: George in the rockery, Friar Park, 1970, photo © Barry Feinstein.
“Fascinating place. It had a miniature Matterhorn on the grounds, and underground tunnels where you could row your boat, with purple lights that showed your dandruff.” - Bob Purvis, Uncut, Aug 2008
“[Friar Park] came with vast acres of gardens and droll touches of Victorian eccentricity. The gardens featured a miniature Matterhorn and had statues and plaques that punniningly poked fun at the Church. Inside the house, the light switches were friars’ faces: the noses flicked up and down. George installed a cinema, where he held nightly screenings of Mel Brooks’ The Producers.” - Uncut, Oct 2010
“I vividly remember two frying pans with holes in them (a word play in English, of course: two holy friars). It was a certain Sir Francis who came up with these exclusive and bizarre things. At some point in the past, the house had been turned into a nunnery, and the nuns had nothing better to do than to cement over the penises of all the little cherub-faced angels smiling down at us from the walls. That amused George. Wherever you went, the presence of the old lord of the manor was felt. Some in the village even claimed that he still haunted the place and had his fun. So anyone who wanted to be happy there had to arrange themselves with the resident ghost, Sir Francis.” - Klaus Voormann, translated from Warum spielst du Imagine nicht auf dem weißen Klavier, John?
“I remember we were playing [‘Be Here Now,’ from the 1973 album Living In The Material World] and I said, ‘I’d love to play the upright bass on that.’ And it was difficult to record, so I went into the bathroom at Friar Park and the microphone was put in there. What happened was that Mal Evans came and flushed the toilet while I was playing the bass! I did a drawing of that, and it was still there at Friar Park in that bathroom the last time I was there.” - Klaus Voormann, While My Guitar Gently Weeps: The Music of George Harrison
“Adria [Petty, daughter of Tom and his first wife, Jane] liked to stay with George and his family at Friar Park. He told her something he had never mentioned to me, which is that he had a cousin from Florida who reminded him of me. Before George was really settled at Friar Park, he and this Florida cousin would sleep in every room in this, well, this castle, trying to figure out which one had the best vibe and ought to be the bedroom.” - Tom Petty, Runnin’ Down A Dream (x)
