A retired mathematician has put his £3.95 million (NZ$8 million) UK home on the market and said his 14m fighter jet “garden gnome” comes as part of the package.
Peter Robinson bought the rare Harrier II GR7 jump jet in 2015 for more than £100,000 owing to his lifelong obsession with the warplane.
The 14m-by-5.7m aircraft, which is powered by a Rolls-Royce Pegasus 105 turbofan engine and an inert sidewinder missile, now sits on a grass verge outside his six-bed countryside house. He refers to it as his “garden gnome”.
Robinson, who claims he made his name professionally by “solving problems for the Ministry of Defence”, has decided to sell the decommissioned jet along with his Arts & Crafts property in Hampshire, Southeast England after 11 years living on the Durford Wood Estate.
The 56-year-old told The Times: “I thought, well, your average Joe, he likes a Harrier jump jet, he’s got a windowsill – he buys a Harrier model that is eight inches long and he puts it on his windowsill.