Innholdsfortegnelse for 9-Aug-2017 i Country Life

‘People think of slavery in the Far East or South America, but it’s clear that we need to look at ourselves’ A SPECIAL rose has been planted this year in universities all over the north of England. In Hull, York, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, students have found an original way to highlight the continuing scandal of forced labour in Britain. They’re right to do so. Only last month, a civil order was placed on a car-wash operation in the West Country, which is accused of keeping its Romanian workers in disgraceful conditions. Last year, a Kent-based couple had to stump up £1 million in compensation and legal costs for the six Lithuanian workers they exploited and there were revelations of beds supplied to John Lewis and Dunelm Mill being made…

THE pretty village of Ashby St Ledgers in Northamptonshire takes its curious name from the dedication of the parish church to a 7th-century martyr and Bishop of Autun, St Leodegar. The manor stands in the shadow of this building at one end of the settlement, its cobbled forecourt opening directly onto the street through the stone piers of an imposing gateway. Passing through them, the modern visitor must prepare for an almost completely unheralded encounter with a spectacular Edwardian country house conjured from the architectural bones of an ancient manor. The story of this building properly begins in the 14th century, when the manor came, by marriage, into the hands of the Catesby family from Warwickshire. Probably from the 1390s, it became established as their principal seat and burial place.…

‘I cook for Barney a lot, but I cook for everyone who comes into my orbit’ ONE of my favourite family stories is about my Great Uncle Jos. He kept fancy hens and rabbits of which he was inordinately proud. When he began to court my Great Aunt Dolly, he took her to see these precious creatures and encouraged her to pick her favourite rabbit. Weeks later, he presented her with a beautiful box tied with satin ribbon and inside was a pair of gloves trimmed with Favourite Rabbit. He was one of the great northern romantics. I sometimes wonder what he would make of my London neighbour taking her hen to the vet because it seemed ‘not quite herself’. This hen lives in a fuchsia-and-chartreuse £500 Eglu chicken coop.…

ALONG the woodland ride and into the trees. After the beating heat, the wood shade is pleasant. The relief is short-lived. The tree leaves are aged and coarse. Long gone is the springtime translucence, when every oak leaf was a pane of green glass. The August woodland is dark. Low, overhanging branches of sycamore form black grottoes. Some extraordinary force has sucked all the oxygen out of Cockshutt Wood. The barrel chest of Willow, our Shetland pony, expands perceptibly. The air doesn’t work; it provides no energy. We gape, just as beached fish do. I gee up Willow, with a shake of the long reins. We plod on, 4/4 beat, me walking behind him, a lonely wight in an English wood, going deeper into the gloom. Willow, a palomino,…

IN A Book of Houses (1890), the eminent Victorian architect Ernest Newton defines the essence of what COUNTRY LIFE might modestly refer to as a ‘smaller country house’, but which most people today would call ‘a good-sized, manageable country home’. ‘A small house,’ Newton maintains, ‘is in many ways more difficult to design than a large one, for while every part must be minutely schemed, nothing should be cramped or mean looking, the whole house should be conceived broadly and simply, and with an air of repose, the stamp of home.’ Two outstanding historic houses, both listed Grade II*, that exude that harmony of design, relaxed ambience and enviable ‘stamp of home’, are Ecclesden Manor, near Angmering, West Sussex—for sale through Savills (020–7409 8869) at a guide price of…

‘It’s about looking after the place so that as many people as possible can enjoy it FEW houses can have been built with such tantalising views. Grade II*-listed Tapeley Park, built in 1702 and remodelled in the 19th and early 20th centuries, sits in a commanding position looking down onto Devon’s Torridge Estuary, the pretty town of Bide-ford and out to Lundy Island in the distance. ‘I thought you were coming tomorrow,’ says Hector Christie with a schoolboy grin as I track him down, guided by the cheery sign: ‘Hippies use back door. No exceptions.’ He glances seawards for just a fraction too long as he describes how the estuary’s perfect surfing conditions are the result of the River Taw merging with the Torridge at just this point. I have…

SANDYCOMBE LODGE, the Thames-side villa designed by J. M. W. Turner, has now been reopened to the public, following a £2.4 million conservation programme with monies from the Heritage Lottery Fund and other donors. Built in Twickenham in 1813 to the artist’s specifications, it was a peaceful retreat for him and he lived there with his father until 1826. More recently, Grade II*-listed Sandycombe Lodge was under the ownership of Prof Harold Livermore. When he died in 2010, he gifted the house to the nation. By 2013, its fabric was badly deteriorated and it was listed on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk register; in 2016, conservation work began. Using Turner’s sketches, a William Havell drawing of 1814, architectural evidence and paint analysis, the Turner’s House Trust has returned the…

HOMER,’ exclaimed my wife, ‘you’re jealous.’ We were on a prowl around the festival campervan area. My eyes had narrowed as we passed a herd of gleaming pantechnicons of pleasure, tethered in the vasty field of Glastonbury. Pavilioned in such splendour, the owners were as you would expect: designer-labelled, white-teethed, clean-limbed and golden-haired. They slouched under wide awnings, flipped ostrich burgers and drank cocktails erupting with ethically sourced boscage. We’d just driven for 14 hours and 600 miles in a cramped, ancient Volkswagen campervan on the hottest day of the year. Even St Simeon might covet an air-suspensioned, air-conditioned, eight-wheeled mansion after that. Other than successful eventers or racing drivers, I wonder who can afford to run one of these things and where they park it. It wouldn’t fit…

EVERY now and again, there’s a walk that’s so uncompromisingly difficult you can’t forget it. Mine is the Barmouth Ridge: a long, rough walk through the Rhinogau to the seaside town of Barmouth in Snowdonia in North Wales. I did it once before, in my early twenties, to celebrate my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary. The following day, we were stiff and aching: we’d seriously underestimated the walk and had ended up descending in the dark, cursing its length and difficulty. Perhaps because of that, I’ve always wanted to do it again, so I persuaded my niece and her boyfriend to join me. Actually, it felt as if I joined them, because they were mountain goats—younger, longer-legged and fitter than me. However, it was a treat for us all to…

OUNDLE is perhaps the most perfect of Northamptonshire’s market towns. This ancient settlement stands above the River Nene as it flows north-eastwards to King’s Lynn, making it the perfect place to stop and swim on a baking-hot drive through the landlocked counties of Middle England. Oundle is today best known as home to the public school of that name, established as Laxton’s Grammar School after 1556, although there had been a school there since 1485 (Eton was founded in 1440 and Winchester in 1394). Sir William Laxton was Lord Mayor of London. The school doesn’t dominate the town architecturally, but, rather, has, octopus-like, spread its tentacles into many of its best buildings. These have telltale labels signalling that they belong to Gown not Town. Oundle has developed around its…

The Gunpowder Plot was hatched at Ashby St Ledgers (page 38) The families of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin came from Sulgrave and Ecton respectively Northamptonshire has more historic houses than any other county 80% of the world’s Formula 1 cars are built in Northamptonshire The world's first garden gnomes were introduced at Lamport House in 1843 by Sir Charles Isham The world’s first radar station was built at Daventry Shakespeare's granddaughter (his last direct descendant) is buried in Northampton Francis Crick, who discovered DNA with James Watson, was born in Northampton Oak Apple Day has recently been revived as a reminder of the time when Charles II donated much of the oak to help restore Northampton after it was devastated by fire The English Civil War battle that…

IT was the remains of a long-lost glass house found in the walled gardens of Little Naish, near Clapton-in-Gordano, Somerset, that eventually led to planning permission for the addition of this strikingly modern glass box to the side of an early-Victorian tower. ‘ The garden views offer some diversion from the chore of washing-up The original Grade II-listed building had been constructed as a folly in the Gothic-Revival style. Built in the early 19th century by James Adam Gordon, a local politician who owned plantations in the West Indies, it lay in the grounds of Naish (pronounced ‘Nash’) House, a 17th-century manor that was destroyed by fire in 1902. Although the main house was eventually rebuilt, Little Naish had lain empty for 25 years before the Somerset-based architect and conservation…

THE European sea bass has the misfortune to be not only swashbucklingly handsome, but also a sought-after sporting quarry and one of the most highly prized fish for tables worldwide. Dicentrarchus labrax is a predominantly marine member of the Perciformes, the largest order of vertebrates in the oceans. Its kissing cousins include the mighty groupers and the elegant North American ‘striper’, but the designation ‘bass’ can be misleading: Chilean sea bass, for instance, is just the rebranding name for Patagonian tooth-fish. A phonetic corruption of the old word ‘barse’, denoting prickliness, sea bass are also unhelpfully known here as sea dace and king of the mullet. The 1990s animatronic wall plaque Big Mouth Billy Bass is but a distant scion of the clan. There is something sloping and vulpine about…

‘ It’s serious equestrian country and the hunting season is a big deal’ SITTING, as it does, right in the middle of England, Northamptonshire has always been big-estate country. From the Spencers at Althorp to the Macdonald-Buchanans at Cottesbrooke, much of the county has been formed under the guardianship of a few local families for centuries, a factor that still defines it today. Despite being equidistant between the north and the south, Northamptonshire isn’t on the property map in the same way that nearby Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire are, but, according to local agents, once people settle here, they rarely choose to move. ‘It’s a fantastic location,’ says local resident Crispin Holborow of Savills. ‘The transport links are second to none and you do find that, once people discover…

Quiz of the week 1) Who was the first Hanover King of England? 2) The Saintpaulia plant is more commonly known as what? 3) Keratitis is an inflammation of what? 4) If something is lacustrine, what does it relate to? 5) What is the name for a puppet controlled by strings or wires? The nature of things White waterlily FROM a stout, rooty stem, firmly anchored into the beds of canals, ponds and lakes across the country, the pure-white-petalled waterlily, Nymphaea alba, dots the water’s surface with its yolk-centred waxy stars. Opening as the morning progresses, they’re best admired in the middle of the day, as the flowers close up again with the receding sun. It takes quite a lot of leaf area to build up steam in the…

I’M standing at the crease of Norton St Philip’s village cricket ground in Somerset, padded up and ready to bat, wondering how it’s possible to play in such achingly picturesque surroundings. On one side is a 14th-century stone church, nestled among mature trees in glorious summer health. On the other, up a slight hill, is the George Inn—one of Britain’s oldest and finest, with a beer garden overlooking the pitch. Limestone buildings blend into the rolling hills, with swifts darting above. A wood pigeon coos and a sense of expectancy drifts past on the warm breeze; all that’s missing now is the rich thwock of a leather ball being struck well. ‘The setting can be distracting,’ accepts Mark Finch, the chairman and backbone of the village cricket club. He’s involved…

THIS year, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP, www.ysp.co.uk) celebrates its 40th anniversary with a major Tony Cragg retrospective. Since it was founded, the number of sculpture parks has grown enormously—by the mid 1980s, there were perhaps 100, but, today, there are at least four times that number worldwide. Many are privately owned, including important recent additions to the pantheon, such as Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh and the massive Inhotim estate in Brazil, which spreads over some 5,000 acres, with 22 separate pavilions dedicated to individual artists. Sometimes, it feels as if sculpture parks and open-air exhibitions are popping up on an almost weekly basis in Britain. The latest is the Borders Sculpture Park at Mellerstain House, Kelso, Berwickshire, which is holding an inaugural exhibition of inflatable fabric works by Steve…

WHAT do The Fuzzy Duck, The Kingham Plough and The Wild Rabbit Inn have in common? They’re all restaurants and pubs in the Cotswolds that allow you to dine with your dog. This is the sort of invaluable information that delights the canine-loving visitors to www.petspyjamas.com and probably drives the dog-less mad. As will the personalised puppy towels and the choice of more than 100 doggy bandanas. Canine indulgence is nothing new (in the 1920s, the Nawab of Junagadh is rumoured to have laid on lavish nuptials for his two favourite hounds), but, increasingly, it’s having an impact on the way we live—not just in the obvious ways, such as fully plumbed-in baths for dogs, but also in those features that are arriving by stealth. One of these is…

THE late Lord Lucan is believed to have enjoyed —or endured—a somewhat restricted appreciation of gastronomy for most of his adult life with luncheon. During the winter months, a trio of grilled lamb cutlets. Come the summer, the same en gelée. One knows not whether there were some creamed potatoes and mint sauce to accompany the former or, for the latter, possibly a garniture comprising a simple lettuce salad, dubiously dressed with malt vinegar and vegetable oil. Any olive oil in use at the time may possibly have been preferred as a slick to that shined bonce, but who will ever know? When having been asked occasionally as part of a questionnaire what my ‘last dish’ would be, the grilled lamb cutlet has enthusiastically been voiced by yours truly…

WE are living longer and it impacts upon our gardening. Graham Thomas once said—he must have been about 85 at the time—that it was difficult to get down and start weeding, because the ground seemed so far away. And there comes a point when your children mutter that you really ought to move into ‘something more sensible’ for your waning years. That’s a big mistake. Most of us are much happier not being bossed around, but struggling on with the garden we know and love. The answer is to get a little more help in the garden and to buy a golf buggy to chug around it. Maurice Mason, one of the greatest all-round plantsmen of the 20th century, designed his arboretum in Norfolk with broad rides along which,…

I LIKE Alex Mackay’s unexpected take on recipes, probably because I’m an ingredient-based cook. His method in The Magic Fridge (Bloomsbury, £26) is to take one basic food—cheese sauce, ratatouille, baked beans or soy-and-honey glaze, for example—and suggest ways of using it, either with brief suggestions or full-length recipes. Croque Madame for cheese, cassoulet for baked beans and so on. I’ll certainly put this on my shelf. With her background as chef-owner at Wahaca, a Mexican chain in London, Thomasina Miers is hardly a meat-and-two-veg cook. Readers of her new Home Cook (Guardian Faber, £25) need to be near a multicultural street market to find ingredients, as she’s inspired by Vietnam, the Middle East, Japan and, of course, Mexico. Once sourced, however, her mixed ingredients are used fairly simply and…

THE owners of Boughton House in Northamptonshire have long had an interest in garden design. As this small exhibition curated by Paul Boucher demonstrates, generations of Montagu descendants have been closely involved in cultivating the estate. Richard, 10th Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, explaining the inspiration for ‘Vistas of vast extension’, writes that ‘part of the fascination rests in the nuts and bolts of how my forebears set about garden creation and how over the years tastes evolved… It is our ambition that visitors will step from the study of stories and plans from centuries past directly into Boughton’s vast landscape, better able to understand why a contemporary like Daniel Defoe could write that “even in Italy, I have never seen the like”’. Defoe was one of several enthusiastic visitors…