Built / Designed For: Sir Frank Crisp

House & Family History: Friar Park is a 120-room Victorian Gothic style house built in the late 19th century for lawyer Sir Frank Crisp. In the early 20th century the Friar Park Estate was donated to the Catholic Church, specifically the nuns of the Salesians of the Don Bosco order. The nuns ran Sacred Heart School in the House until the late 1960s, when the run-down House was considered too big and expensive to maintain and was slated to be demolished. Friar Park was saved by George Harrison of the Beatles, who purchase the estate in 1970. In early 1972 Harrison installed a 16-track tape-based recording studio in the House; by 1974 the facility had become the recording headquarters for his company, Dark Horse Records. The album covers for projects Harrison recorded there usually feature the word FPSHOT, which stood for Friar Park Studio, Henley-on-Thames. Harrison, a big fan of Monty Python, put up Friar Park as collateral to fund the Python’s 1979 “Life of Brian” movie after their original backers, EMI, pulled out at the last minute.

Garden & Outbuildings: The 62-acre gardens and grounds, which contain many follies, were said to have taken 20 years to layout in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

House Listed: Grade II

Park Listed: Grade II

Current Seat / Home of: Olivia Harrison

Past Seat / Home of: Sir Frank Crisp, 1889-1919. Sir Percival David, early 20th century. George Harrison, 1970-2001.

Current Ownership Type: Individual / Family Trust

Primary Current Ownership Use: Private Home

House Open to Public: No

Historic Houses Member: No