Identification and description | |||||||
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Name | FRIAR PARK | ||||||
Location |
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Localisation | Latitude: 51.540090 Longitude: -0.91418632 National Grid Reference: SU 75401 82913 Map: Download a full scale map (PDF) |
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Overview | Heritage Category: Park and Garden Grade: II List Entry Number: 1000504 Date first listed: 01-Jun-1984 |
A late C19 house surrounded by contemporary elaborate gardens and pleasure grounds
designed by the original owner Frank Crisp.
HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
In the 1870s the area presently covered by Friar Park was occupied by two small estates,
Friar Park to the west, and Friar's Field to the east, each with its own approach
drive, pleasure grounds and small area of parkland (OS 1883). In the late 1880s Frank
Crisp (1843(1919) began to draw the two estates together, building a large and ostentatious
new house close to the site of the old Friar Park house and demolishing the Friar's
Field house to the east. Crisp was a wealthy solicitor, a partner in the firm of Ashurst,
Morris, Crisp and Co, and was created a baronet in 1913. He was involved with the
Royal Horticultural Society, donating many plants to Wisley, and was treasurer of
the Linnean Society. He built extravagant gardens around the house, dividing them
into many themed sections, possibly advised by H E Milner (Inspector's Report 1990).
Many of these areas are still recognisable when compared with Crisp's extensive Guide
for the use of Visitors, which was published in several editions during the early
C20 in response to a protracted argument with E A Bowles regarding what a truly authentic
rock garden should be. The house was sold in the 1950s, becoming a convent school
run by the Salesian Sisters of St John Bosco, and the gardens suffering much neglect,
losing much of their detail. The house and gardens were returned to private ownership
in 1971, since when considerable restoration work has been carried out.
DESCRIPTION
LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING Friar Park stands on the west edge of
Henley-on-Thames, located 1km from the centre of the town and the River Thames, on
an east-facing hillside towards the southern end of the Chiltern Hills. The c 13ha
site is bounded to the east by the straight lane called Hop Gardens, to the south
by Gravel Hill, the lane from Henley to Greys Court (qv), to the west by an access
lane, and to the north by a mid C20 housing estate. The setting is partly urban, to
the east, and rural to the west, with long views north from the house and northern
pleasure grounds over Fair Mile towards Henley Park.
ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES The main entrance to Friar Park, standing 400m south-east
of the house, is approached from the east, up the hill from the Market Place at the
centre of Henley. The gateway, set back off Gravel Hill, is flanked by two sets of
gate piers supporting central iron carriage gates and flanking pedestrian gates (late
C19, listed grade II). The piers, of red brick and stone banding, formerly (stolen
1997) supported grave and gay friars' heads on the top of the outer two, with iron
lamps remaining on top of the inner two. The gateway is flanked by brick walls with
stone coping and banding. On the west side, behind one of the brick walls, stands
the two-storey, brick and stone-banded Lower Lodge (late C19, listed grade II), built
in Flamboyant Gothic style, with a polygonal watch tower supporting a pyramidal roof.
The curving drive climbs north-westwards through the pleasure grounds, overlooking
the lawns below and passing south of the lakes, arriving at the semicircular carriage
sweep by the south, entrance front.
A service drive (late C20) enters from the west boundary, passing the kitchen garden
and arriving at the west, service front of the house. Access was formerly gained from
the west via the upper drive (disused), past the two-storey Upper Lodge (late C19,
listed grade II) standing 200m west of the house, also built in Flamboyant Gothic
style. The drive divided to the north and south of the kitchen garden, arriving at
the rear (west side) of the house.
Middle Lodge (late C19, listed grade II) stands on the south boundary, half way between
the other two lodges, adjacent to Gravel Hill. Built of red brick with stone dressings
in similar style to the other lodges, it stands behind a railed wall with brick and
stone-banded piers supporting iron gates (late C19, listed grade II). From here a
short spur path joins the main drive 150m south-east of the house.
PRINCIPAL BUILDING Friar Park (M Clarke Edwards 1889, listed grade II) stands on a
plateau towards the west of the pleasure grounds, at the top of, and overlooking,
an east-facing slope. The large, two-storey house, built in Flamboyant Gothic style
of brick with stone dressings, is of irregular plan, with the entrance front to the
south and the long garden front to the east. The latter, which is dominated by a large,
square tower, overlooks a formal terrace and parterre below, and beyond, lawns leading
down to the lakes.
GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS The central garden feature is the formal terrace running
along the east front, and the parterre below it. The 50m long terrace is approached
via short paths from the south entrance front and through a door from the north front.
A central, broad gravel path running along its whole length is bounded to the east
by a grass bank, with a low stone wall at the top of the slope. At each end a bastion
with a curved outer end projects over the parterre below, with steps curving down
around the projection to the lower level. Here a central, apsidal parterre contains
two box-hedged knots set within a panel of lawn, with a circular stone pond at the
curved east end of the lawn. Stone steps at the north-east and south-east corners
lead down to the open, informal lawn below, beyond which lie the lakes, partly screened
by mature trees.
Several further garden features surround the house, connected by informal lawns and
screened by mature trees, including many Scots pines. The 1.5ha rock garden, said
to be the largest artificial rock garden in Britain (Inspector's Report 1990), lies
north of the house, enclosed by mature trees. It is entered from a spur west off the
path north from the house. The spur curves between large rock formations, opening
out into the main body of the rock garden, built from 23,000 tons of rock by Backhouse
of York and including a scaled-down Matterhorn. Begun in 1896, it contained c 4000
varieties of alpine plants, and during Frank Crisp's time was populated with china
or tin chamois (Ottewill 1982). The view west, up what appears to be an alpine pass,
focuses on the Henley Matterhorn, originally visible on the skyline and seeming to
stand in the far distance but now with a background of mature trees obscuring the
view and lessening the false perspective. The Ice Grotto, reproduced from a photograph
of the cave in the Glacier du Geant, Chamonix, is said to lie beneath the Matterhorn,
formerly populated with stalactites and cavities of blue ice, and with water from
an artificial glacier entering in a fall which made real icicles (Jones 1974). Close
by, and possibly still extant, a further grotto consisted of a series of caves lined
with artificial tufa made with clinker from the glasshouse boilers, including the
Vine Cave (with large bunches of glass grapes), the Wishing Well Cave, the Skeleton
Cave, the Illusion Cave and the Gnome Cave. On the way out a distorting mirror gave
the visitor's body the figure of a gnome (ibid).
East of the rock garden lies the Topiary or Dial Garden, with many evergreen topiary
specimens set in a lawn crossed by gravel paths, laid out according to the plan of
the labyrinth at Versailles, formerly with thirty-nine sundials. From here a path
leads down to the remains of the adjacent Medieval Garden and Elizabethan Herb Garden,
with pergolas and brick retaining walls.
A path leads south to the two lakes, the upper one being divided north/south into
two levels by a dam. It is crossed by stone stepping stones which lead onto a small
peninsula from where a path rises up onto the raised Japanese Garden, placed largely
over the artificial cave system which separates the two lakes and containing a small
waterway and encircling paths. Two sets of steps lead down to doors into the cave
system, which is largely filled with water and encircled by perimeter paths linking
the separate caverns. At the west end, a canal within a covered passage leads boats
north out of the system, beneath the dam overhang, to the lower level of the north
lake, overlooking the lower water level to the east. Within the caves the walls are
formed into stalactites and stalagmites, with various reflective minerals incorporated
into the dripping plasterwork. Light is admitted from above via panes of coloured
glass set into the roof, incorporated into the Japanese Garden above. The water cave
seems to have been based on the Blue Grotto of Capri (Jones 1974; Crisp early C20),
lit by blue glass skylights and electricity. The main cave formerly contained stalactites,
fossil trees, petrified birds' nests and rainbow lighting as well as blue glass (Jones
1974), some elements of which still remain.
The Japanese Garden overlooks the lower lake which lies in a small valley to the south,
with a cascade on a rock face on the south side. Both lakes contain many small inlets,
forming very irregular edges. The remainder of the pleasure grounds are laid to open
lawns bounded by mature plantings, with many Scots pines. A maze formerly lay on the
west boundary.
Crisp himself outlined his philosophy towards the gardens, which 'were however, designed,
as it were, as specimens in a museum to illustrate the taste of a period or a Nation,
leaving the observer to come to whatever decision he pleases for or against the particular
idea, an opportunity having been given him of forming an opinion from an actual object
lesson' (Crisp early C20).
KITCHEN GARDEN The kitchen garden, still under cultivation, lies immediately west
of the house, bounded to the east and south by clipped evergreen hedges, and on the
north side by a brick wall which formerly held a range of glasshouses, parts of which
remain. The west side is bounded by further glasshouses, including a former 'Aquatic
House' (Crisp early C20), which contains the remains of a large central pond with
rockwork, surrounded by heating pipes beneath the perimeter path. North of this stand
the remains of a fine fernery.
REFERENCES
Country Life, 13 (13 June 1903), pp 773-5; 18 (5 August 1905), pp 162-7; 33 (3 May
1913), pp 641-4; 46 (9 August 1919), pp 174-6 Friar Park, Henley-on-Thames, Guide
for the use of visitors, guidebook (F Crisp early C20 (var edns)) 'Frank Crisp, Lawyer
and Gardener', The Times, 1 May 1919 (obituary) M Allen, E A Bowles and his Garden
at Myddleton House, 1865-1954 (1973), pp 117-26 B Jones, Follies and Grottoes (1974),
pp 377-8 N Pevsner and J Sherwood, The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire (1974), p
639 D Ottewill, Edwardian Gardens (1982), p 55 Henley-on-Thames in old picture postcards
(1983), ills 60-1 RCHME, Yesterday's Gardens (1983), ills 69, 70, 98, 101 Cottingham
and Fisher, Henley-on-Thames (1990), ills 102-6
Maps OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1883 2nd edition published 1900 3rd edition
published 1926 OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1881 2nd edition published
1899 3rd edition published 1925
Description written: March 1998 Amended: March 1999; April 1999 Register Inspector:
SR Edited: January 2000
This garden or other land is registered under the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953 within the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens by Historic England for its special historic interest.