The stunning gardens of Friar Park will feature in the new Monty Don’s British Gardens in episode 4 that airs on Friday 31 January on BBC2 at 7pm.
In five episodes, Monty visits gardens from across Britain from the humble backyard to the grandest of grounds. He asks, “What do Britain’s gardens tell us about our culture, climate and history?”
Friar Park was built by Frank Crisp in between 1889 and 1895 and before it was home to the late George Harrison it was donated to Salesians of Don Bosco order for the nuns to run Sacred Heart School. When George bought it in 1970 the house was in disrepair and the gardens were overgrown.
The Friar Park section opens with an aerial view of the 30 acres of garden and an old map showing the garden layout which includes lakes, mazes, underground tunnels, grottos, a large rockery and a topiary garden which were tended by 44 gardeners.
Monty visits the “heroic” rockery with Olivia Harrison (George’s widow) who lives at Friar Park. The rockery includes its very own Matterhorn and features 23,000 tons of Yorkshire stone which was originally transported to the railway station and then by road by horse and cart. Dom asked Olivia what George’s reaction was to the overgrown rockery, she replied “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. 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.”
Monty then goes to look at the topiary garden which has 160 trees which had to be cut right back and when regrown, reshaped. Monty described that the topiary garden looked like a “fancy dress party.”
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 think the parks in Liverpool inspired him. He loved nature and had such a sense of fun.” Since George’s death in 2001 Olivia has overseen further restoration work and planting in the garden.
Monty asked what makes Friar Park special? He commented, “Clearly Frank Crisp loved creating this through the looking-glass surreal world and certainly George and Olivia have had fun in restoring it and making it their own.”
If you can’t wait until Friday 31 January you can watch the episode on BBC iplayer at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026rm1/monty-dons-british-gardens-series-1-episode-4
