Innholdsfortegnelse for 28-Mar-18 i Country Life

The sky’s the limit down under THE team of renowned architects and designers assembled to create Sydney Harbour’s new show-stopping glass towers, One Circular Quay, are calling the development a ‘legacy’ opportunity that will set a new benchmark for the city and provide family heirlooms of years to come. Rising to 59 storeys and commanding ‘one of the world’s most coveted views’, taking in the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and beyond (above), the residential building will contain 190 of ‘the most luxurious apartments ever offered in Sydney’. Adjacent will stand a 28-storey building, housing the new five-star Wanda Vista Hotel, and residents will be treated as VIP guests, with access to the pool, gym, spa, 24-hour concierge, private dining and everything else the hotel lifestyle provides. Boutique luxury retail…

Carla Passino EARLIER this year, six million children flocked to polling stations across Japan. After pondering the merits of edgy superheroes over traditional fairy-tale characters, they cast their vote for the country’s new Olympic mascots. Olympic fever isn’t just gripping Japan—where initiatives range from the mascot vote to an ambitious bid to fashion medals out of recycled mobile phones—it’s also spurring international buyers to invest in Japanese property. As Tetsuya Kaneco of Savills Japan succinctly puts it, ‘the market is hot, but not over-heated’. ‘Japan has once again become the focus for investors and visitors from all over the world, because of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and the 2019 Rugby World Cup,’ says Sonny Saito of Japan Capital Realty, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate. Some investors, adds…

THE rift cuts across Thingvellir National Park, Iceland; craggy walls of volcanic rock towering large and forbidding above a narrow walkway. Step on the heath-carpeted plains west of the rift and you’ll be on the North American continent; go east and you’ll be in Europe. Visiting Iceland is a ‘very moving, ethereal kind of experience,’ according to Anthony Lassman of Nota Bene Global, a company that advises ultrahigh-net-worth clients on travel and super-prime property acquisition (020–3598 9888)—and not only because you get to straddle two continents in the span of a few steps. ‘I went on a journey traversing the interior right to the very north, to the mountains and fjord of the Troll Peninsula and the sheer cliffs and puffins of Drangey Island, then to the glaciers of the…

NOT everyone would consider the Countryside Alliance (CA) and the Labour Party natural bedfellows, but the rural campaigning body has been working with the Socialist-supporting Fabian Society, Britain’s oldest think tank, on how the party might improve its rural policies, play a more constructive part in shaping post-Brexit policy and reconnect with voters outside cities. The party only holds 32 of the 199 rural constituencies in England and Wales and trails the Conservatives by 54% to 31% in those areas and by 49% to 35% among C2DE voters. The report, Labour Country, points out that the movement has not always had ‘such a fraught relationship’ with the rural community, citing the Tolpuddle Martyrs, William Cobbett’s Rural Rides and its roots in pit villages in South Wales, but says there…

DURING the past 70 years, England has lost almost 50% of its small farms, reports the CPRE. The charity has teamed up with other farming, conservation and environmental groups to make it widely known that further ‘dramatic loss’ is inevitable after Brexit, unless safeguards are put in place and the enhancement of farm diversity is at the core of the new Agriculture Bill. Loss of English farms in a range of sizes threatens the industry, landscape, employment and habitats. ‘With the future so uncertain, farms are an endangered species,’ comments Vicki Hird, Sustain campaign co-ordinator. ‘We owe a debt of gratitude to the small farmers who have done so much to shape our countryside.’ Defra Secretary Michael Gove has already announced that, after March 2024, farmers will no longer be…

Quiz of the week 1) Otoplasty is the surgical correction of which body parts? 2) Which famous novel begins ‘When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow'? 3) The courts of England and Wales divide the legal year into Hilary, Easter, Trinity and what? 4) Ergophobia is a fear of what? 5) Which British Prime Minister wrote A History of the English-Speaking Peoples? The nature of things Ammonite ONE of the favourite things in my small rock collection is a rounded, dull grey boulder. When you prise it apart, it reveals a perfect ammonite on one side, with its segmented, spiralled imprint embedded on the other. At some 170 million years old, this neat little ‘shellfish’ fossil is a direct link…

‘ Fifty photographs, taken by the main prosecution witness, were not produced in court’ THE latest attempts to harry hunts have failed. As self-proclaimed saboteurs continue their attempts to disrupt the legal activities of countrymen and women, others try to drag decent people through the courts. In both cases, the intention is intimidation: physical, in the case of the balaclava-wearing yobs who scream publicly at the local hunt, and psychological when, after causing months of private worry, campaigners try to get the courts to brand decent, law-abiding individuals as criminals. That’s why most hunting people would prefer the Hunting Act (2004) to be repealed. It was a class-motivated operation fuelled by memories of the miners’ strike. Tony Blair thought it was an easy hit, but then discovered, once people began…

Charles Quest-Ritson THE tradition of ‘woodland gardening’ was established by such writers as William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll in the 30 years before the First World War. Woodland gardens were popular in the 1920s and 1930s among landowners of a horticultural disposition, as it was a time when new species and cultivars of important genera such as Rhododendron were pouring out of Asia into the gardens and nurseries of Britain. The Savill Garden, in Windsor Great Park, is one of the finest examples, dating from 1932, shortly after Eric Savill’s arrival as deputy ranger of the park. Savill discovered that, within the royal park’s 15,000 acres, there were no gardens, other than some ornamental plantings at Frogmore, also part of the Crown Estate, half a mile south of Windsor Castle.…

ONE of the books that I treasure most is an Edwardian edition of The Encyclopedia of Gardening by T. W. Sanders. It’s not a rare book, and my copy is badly battered, but I value it as a document of a time when British gardeners regularly performed miracles of cultivation under glass. It’s made even more precious to me by the odour of its foxed and brittle pages—cedarwood, absorbed over the decades that this volume spent on a potting bench in a greenhouse framed of that timber. Proust had his madeleine; I have my Sanders. One whiff of it conjures the enchantment I felt as a child when I first wandered into that glazed Eden and the momentous day, many visits later, when the book’s original owner, by then as…

SET on a small estate, this house hadn’t been touched for more than 30 years. ‘We wanted to create a room that was welcoming, comfortable and inviting,’ explains Louise. ‘We used casein paint that was washed over the walls for a softer, more aged finish and introduced pattern and texture to provide interest.’ The blinds of the double-aspect room are in Strypes by Claremont Furnishing (www.claremontfurnishing.com;020–7581 9575). The floor was laid with honed and tumbled Crema Marfil marble. As part of the reorganisation of the first floor, which included introducing a secondary staircase, this master bathroom was repositioned to provide space for a dressing room. The bath is the Paris design from Bathrooms International (020–7838 7788; www.bathroomsint.com) and is positioned to afford views of the orchard. The lighting scheme is…

FOR more than a millennium, visitors have been drawn to Bath for health and leisure. The Royal Crescent Hotel is the quintessence of everything that makes this former Roman spa and Georgian resort so special. From my suite, handsomely furnished with a fourposter bed, I looked out through long sash windows to the twinkling panorama of the Southdown hill and contemplated all the luminaries who have loved this place, after whom the rooms are named. Behind the hotel (which occupies two houses at the centre of the crescent), a delightful tea garden leads to the mews buildings, now an elegant restaurant, bath house (right) and spa. Top marks to the—all with genuine French accents —waiters, the sommelier and for the imaginative culinary presentation. The spa, disguised as an orangery,…

Eleanor Doughty, who explores the growing empire THERE are, according to Strutt & Parker, a few modern elements that, quite simply, make an area, reflecting (and sometimes impacting on) house prices and demand. Not so long ago, the one to watch was Waitrose, but, today, the signifiers of a smart area range from independent cinemas to gluten-free bakeries. The latest, and perhaps more unusual, game-changer is something that agents are calling ‘the Ivy effect’. Following the rapid expansion of the Ivy chain, which originated with the Covent Garden haunt popular with big names of the Arts firmament from Noël Coward to Angelina Jolie, ‘the restaurant’s offshoots are now becoming a benchmark for a fashionable area’. The original Ivy opened in 1917 on West Street, Covent Garden; today, with 18…

Where the elephant roamed Beachfront Residences, Viceroy Sugar Beach Resort, St Lucia T will not come as a surprise to I anyone who has spent even the briefest of spells in the tropical Arcadia that is Sugar Beach, on the Caribbean island of St Lucia, that this secluded, verdant, UNESCO World Heritage-listed spot, between two iconic (thankfully inactive) volcanoes, has been revered for millennia. The Val des Pitons was sacred to the ancient Amerindians, who saw the two mighty peaks as embodiments of a god and a goddess that represented all humanity—the fertility of the flora and fauna, the glittering Caribbean and valleys and the power of the skies and the elements. Although these beliefs are far removed from the lives of the islanders 2,000 years later, the spirit of…

BOSTON, the city long associated with traditional brownstones, is on the up. Last year, Deutsche Bank ranked it the top city in the USA for quality of life and, in the summer, tech services firm General Electric relocated its headquarters to the city. There’s also an attention-grabbing new tower on the block: 61-storey One Dalton Street (www.onedalton.com). Currently being built on a small parcel of land in the Back Bay area—the Mayfair of Boston—it will be finished later this year and comprise 160 ultra-luxury residences, each of which will be managed by the neighbouring five-star Four Seasons hotel. ‘Boston is a conservative city and people don’t demonstrate their wealth,’ says Richard L. Friedman, president of One Dalton’s developer Carpenter & Company. ‘Unlike Miami or New York, it’s not flashy. It’s…

HUMPHRY REPTON, the man credited with inventing the term ‘landscape gardener’ ( COUNTRY LIFE , January 10), is being remembered across the country in celebrations to mark the bicentenary of his death last weekend (March 24, 1888). ‘Humphry Repton: Art & Nature for the Duke of Bedford’, an exhibition at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire (until October 28), explores the relationship with the 6th Duke of Bedford, one of Repton’s major clients (Exhibition, May 9, 2018) for whom he also worked at Endsleigh, Devon, and Russell Square in London WC1 At Tatton Park, in Cheshire, head gardener Simon Tetlow will lead a cycle ride around Repton’s design of 1792 and Wicksteed Park, Northamptonshire, will host a family picnic on June 30. St John’s, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, has a heritage…

ANDY PETERS is probably the only person in Britain who could describe himself as a full-time ship’s carver. In his expert hands, pine is sculpted into a glorious array of decorative items, from show-stopping figureheads that stand up to 15ft high to simple name boards. Although a lot of his original work is done for collectors, he also assists with restoration projects and has carved panels out of Brazilian mahogany for modern superyachts. ‘I looked into it and realised that ship’s carver used to be a profession and every port would have had one, but now it’s a dying art,’ muses the craftsman, who honed his skill as a furniture restorer and practised on his own boats before setting up his business, Maritima Woodcarving, in 1990. His largest contract to…

‘Albion held its breath. It was as if the Spice Girls had been abducted’ HAD it not been for the fact that she was carrying a ukulele, we’d not even have looked up from our drinks. She was unassuming, maybe 50 years old. This was a quiet pub, in Surrey, midweek, mid-evening. She took off her sensible coat and sat down. I rose to fetch another two Bishops Fingers. Crossing to the bar, I paused, watching three more arrivals, all students, all three carrying ukuleles, foolish little instruments, plastic, toy-coloured, trite. By the time that the beers were poured, 140—140!—ukulele-players had set up their stands. ‘Something weird is going on in this place,’ observed my drinking partner, who is usually more intelligent. At that moment, the pub landlord arrived…

DEFRA, the RHS and the Forestry Commission have been issuing alerts about a disease that has not yet been discovered in the UK, but which, if it spread here, could pose a severe threat to our wild and cultivated flora. A bacterium, Xylella fastidiosa colonises vessels in the tissue xylem, through which plants transport water and nutrients. This can result in stunting, wilting, withering, leaf scorch (dehydrated brown areas on foliage that ought to be fresh), premature leaf-fall, desiccation of buds and fruit and die-back of stems and branches. Affected plants may perish. Xylella inflicts this damage on a wide range of trees and shrubs, among them many valued for ornament and fruit. It can also infect herbaceous species, which it leaves largely free of symptoms, but not of…

‘ Lilac alliums and red tulips enhance the laburnums and wisteria LUxURIOUS tunnels of flowers take you into a different world, for this form of gardening is always a talking point and brings French chic to the most unremarkable space. If the tunnel is placed at the start of the garden, like the foyer in a cinema or theatre, it encourages you to focus on what is ahead and forget about life outside. Tunnels are frequently less challenging to create than you might imagine and it is hard to beat laburnum (though beware of its toxicity), wisteria, apple or pear, all of which are especially inviting in the changeable weather and light of a British spring. Ideally, the way through a tunnel needs to be at least 6ft wide, so…

Roast beef A nice rolled rib of beef with the bones left in; ask the butcher to run a knife around the edges of the bones (to help with carving). A good layering of fat is essential and put plenty of salt and pepper on it before cooking. Put about 200g of cheap stewing meat around the joint, to help with the gravy, bung it in a high oven—220˚C/425˚F/gas mark 7—for about 20 minutes, then turn it down to 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4 for about one hour (for a 2kg joint) for medium rare. If it’s medium rare, it’s better when it’s hot; if it’s rare, it’s much better cold. Resting is of the utmost importance; for beef to be perfectly carved and served, it has to be almost room…

Roast leg of lamb I’d pierce the leg of lamb all over, maybe 30 to 40 times, and put in twirly bits of rosemary, squashed together with garlic and anchovy. Rub it with vegetable oil, season and put it in a really hot oven for 15 minutes, then turn down to 170˚C/325˚F/gas mark 3 for 40 minutes for your average leg of lamb. Rest it for half an hour. Gravy Gravy’s the most important thing for me. I make it in the pan the lamb was roasted in, with really good fresh stock made with lots of roasted bones. Use a tiny bit of flour to emulsify and thicken it, plus a glass of white wine, maybe half a glass of red. Cook it until it’s stick-your-lips-together gelatinous—almost tacky—and…

‘‘Formerly, monarchs did indeed wash their subjects’ feet’ APPROPRIATELY, on the eve of the Church’s great festival of Easter, the Royal Maundy celebrates the Christian service of elderly men and women within their diocese and local community. At Leicester Cathedral last year, Tobago-born octogenarian Mary Benn received The Queen’s Maundy money in acknowledgement of two decades as a Lay Canon and cathedral guide. Mary Hall’s award at Christ Church Cathedral in 2013 commemorated her long-term supervision of the flower rota in her parish church and her role as a Sunday-school teacher. Inspired by the Bible’s account of the Last Supper, the name Maundy derives from the Latin mandatum—a command. Having washed his disciples’ feet, Christ instructed the 12 men ‘I have given you an example, that ye should do as…

Jigsaw Sun Pattern tiles by Neisha Crosland, 20cm by 23cm (8in by 9in), £6.84 each, Artisans of Devizes (01380 735888; www.artisansofdevizes.com) Black Basco tile, 20cm by 20cm (8in by 8in), £7.06 each, Bert & May (020–3744 0776; www.bertandmay.com) Floris hand painted tiles designed by Neisha Crosland, various sizes from 10cm by 10cm (4in by 4in), from £9 each, De Ferranti (020–7384 4424; www.deferranti.com) All white can a clinical bathroom make, so why not inject some warmth and individuality with pattern? These Made Modern Field Ribbed Triangle tiles in New Bronze Luster, 20cm by 20cm (8in by 8in), £952 per sq m, have a burnished beauty sure to pep up the plainest of spaces, from Ann Sacks by West One Bathrooms (020–3055 0802; www.annsacks.com) Kennet Carrara Marble Herringbone tiles, £79 per…

‘Major sales were recorded in all fields from the outset’ BY the end of the first weekend, the fears of exhibitors at TEFAF in Maastricht had largely dissipated: the division of the former preview party into an early- access day well supplied with food and drink, but with dealers limited to 10 invitations each, followed by a preview with a larger ticket allocation, but no free refreshment, seems to have worked. There were reports of clients staying away because they no longer had first access and there were noticeably fewer American accents to be heard, but numbers were more manageable, with serious collectors unimpeded by partying browsers. It is certainly the case that under the previous arrangement, networking and socialising got in the way of the most important aim…

Annunciata Elwes plunges in Balearic bliss Sunsets over the glittering Mediterranean from this newly renovated finca between Cala Conta and Cala Bassa, on Ibiza, are sublime, but, frankly, it'll be tricky to tear yourself away from the hammam bathroom, which has a spa bath, a treatment area and an underwater viewing gallery into the swimming pool ( above ). In calming, neutral shades of blue, beige and whitewash, the villa's interiors embody just the right kind of chic-but-rustic minimalism to keep you cool in summer and cosy by the open fire in winter. There are five bedrooms, all with en-suite bathrooms, and a separate one-bedroom guesthouse. With a wraparound plot, there's plenty of space for alfresco living, including a covered ‘apero' seating area, large pool and panoramic terrace. € 2.69m…

READERS of COUNTRY LIFE must be largely responsible for last week’s announcement from the National Garden Scheme (NGS) that its 3,600 open gardens raised a record £3.1 million for charity in 2017, almost doubling the figure from a decade ago. The amount of money donated by the NGS since it was founded in 1927 is now more than £55 million. Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie and Hospice UK will receive £500,000 each from the 2017 pot and other beneficiaries include Parkinson’s UK, Leonard Cheshire, Maggie’s Centres, ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and MS Society. ‘The National Garden Scheme is hugely grateful for everything our garden owners and volunteers have done in 2017,’ says chief executive George Plumptre. ‘They have worked tirelessly to open their exceptional gardens to the public and provide…

The Rt Revd Prof Bishop Irenei of Sacramento is the Administrator of the Diocese of Great Britain and Ireland of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Of Russia. His seat is the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and the Holy Royal Martyrs in Chiswick ‘I never cease to be evoked of deep emotion by the sea, whether in its calm stillness or its maddening ferocity. In this painting, Aivazovsky seems to capture both at once: the ninth wave, which sailors’ legend claimed was always the most terrible, looms over wreckage to which the helpless survivors cling for life; and yet the water, right where the cross-shaped wreckage floats, is almost placid, and in the distance there is a radiant sun that makes the vicious sea appear…

I SOMETIMES think of the pear as a sort of Cinderella fruit in this country. Lots of people grow apples in their gardens, but the pear remains a footnote—something we might get round to one day and therefore don’t, yet they’re easy enough to grow. Part of the reluctance derives from the fact that, whereas an apple can simply be picked up and eaten, the sight of a pear generates uncertainty in the human mind. Edward Bunyard, the Edwardian fruit expert and epicure, who gave these matters more subtle thought than I will ever manage, thought that there was half an hour in the life of a pear when it was in a state of perfection. Before this, it was a stone; after, it was hairwash. We’ve all eaten…

Roast chicken Get a lemon and chop the end off. Season the inside of the bird and shove the lemon up its bottom. Massage the chicken with soft butter and season well. I whack it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 200˚C/400˚F/gas mark 6, then turn it down to 170˚C/325˚F/gas mark 3 for about 40 minutes. Chickens never really take more than an hour, unless they’re huge. People get terribly worried about chicken overcooking, but it’s the old thing of piercing the body between the leg and the breast and checking the juices run clear. Rest the chicken for 10–15 minutes while you’re making the gravy. Chicken is easy to carve—chop off the legs first, take off the wings, then carve the rest. The best bit—the two…

THEY wrestled Spitfires through blue skies over Britain, dodging the Luftwaffe and stalling Hitler’s invasion. They helped shape the Second World War, perhaps even the world as we know it. The RAF suffered the largest casualty rate of all British armed forces during it—55,000 aircrew died on bombing missions against Germany. Since then, magnificent men and women in their flying machines have flown millions of miles, carrying everything from soldiers, helicopters and nuclear bombs to water bottles, blankets and baby food. On April 1, Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force celebrates its centenary. On the day of my visit to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, there’s a blizzard brewing and Storm Emma is gleefully flouncing her skirt across the Cotswolds; even the armed guard on sentry looks cold. However, the weather…

‘‘Bathurst reported that Pope, the founder, was a kleptomaniac’ WRITING in his diary on April 12, 1694, the Oxford antiquarian Anthony Wood noted that ‘Trinity college new chapel was consecrated for a pious use… The chapel door being opened, the bishop [of Oxford] entred, knelt downe, and said something; and then in the choir knelt again; and so to the altar… When service was done, Dr Thomas Sykes one of the senior fellows preached. Afterwards went to dinner in the hall, where the company was nobly entertained. The president built the outside, which cost him 17 hundred pounds; and the inside by benefactors.’ Wood, who knew Oxford and the university well, had watched the entire process of the chapel’s construction. Perhaps that explains why his entry merely states the extravagant…

BACK in the 18th century, it wasn’t unusual for a wealthy rector with good landowning connections to devote his energies to living the life of a country gentleman, leaving the work of the parish in the hands of humble curates. Certainly, in our more secular age, you don’t need to be a regular churchgoer to appreciate the fine proportions, practical layout and prime location of a classic Georgian rectory, which remains the ideal of many a city homebuyer who dreams of moving his family to the country. Norfolk probably boasts more old rectories to the well-tilled acre than any other county in England and, for provenance and prestige, few can match The Old Rectory at Blickling, near Aylsham, north Norfolk, currently on the market with Savills (01603 229229) at…

Nature Epitaph for the Ash Lisa Samson (4th Estate, £12.99) A TERRIbLE symmetry runs through Lisa Samson’s book. As the cover declares, Epitaph is a eulogy for a beloved british tree threatened with extinction due to disease, so-called ash dieback. The parallel? When researching Epitaph, the author noticed progressive hearing loss. Eventually, a life-threatening brain tumour was diagnosed. So she, herself, was faced with obliteration. I’m not a fan of the tendency in women’s nature writing to double-up the genre with misery memoir. Modern male nature writers seem to have heroic times outdoors, but the girls just don’t wanna have fun. Think Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk, Katharine Norbury’s The Fish Ladder and, most recently, Miriam Darlington’s Owl Sense. However, there’s no wallowing in Samson’s book, perhaps because she’s…

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