Innholdsfortegnelse for 23-May-18 i Country Life

Artists at Work is at The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2, until July 15 (020–7848 2526; www.courtauld.ac.uk) From David Kandel's allegorical Virtue protecting the artist (1587) to Georg Eduard Gehbe's picturesque encounter in a forest between a surprised artist and a leaping deer and Carlo Labruzzi's pair of tourists observing a painter sketching Rome's Colosseum, this delightful selection from the collection of Katrin Bellinger turns the spotlight on the artists themselves-in the studio, the academy or out of doors. Exterior scenes are not exclusively landscapes; in this pen-and ink-wash sketch of about 1660, Jan de Bisschop depicts two draughtsmen studying an antique bust in bright sunshine, the intense light deftly conveyed through his swiftly applied brown wash. Spanning the 16th to 20th centuries, the exhibition includes works by…

AVENUES, say most garden and landscape historians, reflect our desire to master Nature, yet Britain’s finest seldom give that impression. Consider three different cases. In the 1770s, James Stuart lined the approach to his house in Co Antrim with beech trees. These grew into the tunnel of writhing limbs now known as The Dark Hedges (preceding pages), a landmark so gothic in atmosphere that it has served as a location for Game of Thrones. In 1977, an avenue of hornbeams was planted at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire to mark The Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Their columnar trunks recede to a Classical urn and their crowns meet in a vault. Their leaves form mosaics—emerald and decorating the ceiling in spring, gold and carpeting the floor in autumn. A numinous and enchanted place,…

WILLIAM HESkETH LEVER (1851–1925), later the 1st Viscount Leverhulme, was the son of a wholesale grocer. He was born in Bolton and educated at the town’s church school. At the age of 16, he entered his father’s business and studied the habits of its customers: the working-class housewives of Lancashire. Lever realised that if he concentrated on a staple product and marketed it with sufficient skill on a sufficient scale, the family business could be transformed into something huge. The product that he chose was soap, hitherto usually made of animal tallow in long bars that were sliced up at need. In 1884, he founded Lever Brothers with his younger sibling James Darcy Lever (who became an invalid and died in 1910). Their product was of better quality, being made…

THERE are myriad fantastic hotels around the world, but only a rare few that really make a lasting impression. Birkenhead House, in the coastal town of Hermanus, 90 minutes outside Cape Town, is one of the latter—it exudes something special that you can’t quite put your finger on. It might be the hotel’s easy-going atmosphere or it might be the eccentric, beach-house-style interiors that you’ll be desperate to re-create at home. My money, however, is on the view, pristine beach and Walker Bay, which is famous for some of the best land-based whale-watching in the world. Sure enough, less than an hour after arriving, a southern right whale guided her calf into the calm waters. Eleven rooms, scattered across the three houses and connected by landscaped courtyards, make up Birkenhead…

WILDERNESS FESTIVAL, August 2017: the great and the good have descended on Oxfordshire for a weekend of high-end hedonism. Benedict Cumber-batch is reading bedtime stories, Thomasina Miers is throwing a Mexican banquet, David Cameron is being snapped in the smoking area and, in a tent near the main stage, VIPs are swigging… mocktails, made with what was being billed as ‘the world’s first non-alcoholic spirit’. What on earth is going on? For the answer, you have to go back 300 years to north Lincolnshire, where Ben Branson’s family built their farm. Three centuries on, they’re still there—and it’s where the drinks whizz learnt a profound respect for Nature. ‘I grew up knowing exactly how long it takes to grow the potato that gets turned into your chips,’ he says. With…

WHEN Luckington Court, Wiltshire, was launched onto the market last year ( COUNTRY LIFE , May 3, 2017) the media excitement—long before the rumours that a certain newly married Royal couple were interested—was as high as when Colin Firth, as Mr Darcy, scrambled out of a lake in that sopping-wet shirt. For this exquisite, creamy Cotswold-stone house, near Badminton, had played the part of Longbourn, the Bennet family home, in the acclaimed 1995 BBC series of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s more than 20 years since the show was compulsory Sunday-night viewing, but Luckington Court’s starring role has generated an extraordinary level of interest. ‘It’s through the effect of “telly tourism” that they are reaping the greatest benefits’ ‘We’ve had people from as far as Canada and America…

VINCENT VAN GOGH is certainly having a moment. His museum in Amsterdam, which I have yet to revisit after its revamp, has been highly praised, and its current show ‘Van Gogh and Japan’ (until June 24) is equally well reviewed. He never actually visited the East, but, like many of his generation, he was fascinated by Japanese art as the country emerged from centuries of cultural isolation and the evidence is very clear in his work. Then, last week, one of his final landscapes sold at Christie’s in New York for a low-estimate but still remarkable price, $39,687,500 (£29,332,946). It was the 17¾in by 23¾in Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle St Paul de Mausole (Saint-Rémy) (Fig 1), showing the asylum where the artist was a self-admitted patient…

Biography Modernists & Mavericks Martin Gayford (Thames & Hudson, £24.95) THE territory covered in this book is art in London from 1945 to 1970, and the narrative revolves around a handful of familiar figures: Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, David Hockney and Frank Auerbach. Martin Gayford has been interviewing artists since 1990 and his text is enlivened with quotations from some 26 of them, ranging from Anthony Caro to John Wonnacott. The result is described by the author as ‘a collective interview, or multiple biography’, and it has the potential to be a full and exciting account of a key period in Modern British art. It just misses this brief, because Mr Gayford is more interested in anecdote than in analysis (a much more difficult task) and he has decided that…

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SINCE ash dieback was first detected in the British Isles, in the spring of 2012, the deadly Chalara infection has spread swiftly, like an autumn mist, across much of the country. Scientists have estimated that Britain may lose more than 85% of its 138 million ash trees over the next 10 to 20 years. This puts the loss of 25 million mainly English elm trees 40 years ago to Dutch elm disease into grim perspective. Recent research from the Earlham Institute in Norfolk underlines just how vulnerable our surviving ash, the European ash, may be if only one more pathogen makes its way from east Asia to exacerbate the existing problem in our woods. This combination, say scientists, could likely wipe out what remains. There is no cure for…

BULLFINCHES are visiting Britain’s gardens in ever larger numbers, according to the Garden BirdWatch Survey run by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). This April, the birds were seen by 19% of participants, double the average for the month over the past quarter century. Notwithstanding its strikingly bright plumage, the bullfinch is more usually heard rather than seen. Its quiet song, resembling a rusty swing or gate, emanating from the depths of a thicket, reflects a secretive nature. As a seed-eater, the decline of arable weeds and the removal of hedgerows from the countryside, and consequent loss of food supply and nesting habitat, had precipitated a postwar slump in numbers of bullfinches, once kept for the ability to mimic human whistling. Now, BTO reports suggest it’s bouncing back by learning…

A DISUSED Victorian railway line linking two Welsh valleys could become Europe’s longest underground cycle route. Between 1890 and 1968, coal trains rumbled through the mountains, 1,000ft below the surface, from the mines of Rhondda to Swansea Bay. The Beeching cuts saw an end to the two-mile-long Rhondda Tunnel—it was shut up, but, after 50 years, it has finally seen daylight for the first time, as its new age dawns. ‘We are progressing steadily in the right direction and hope that very soon, after the report from the detailed examiners [Balfour Beatty], the tunnel will receive a clean bill of health,’ explains Tony Moon, project secretary of the Rhondda Tunnel Society. The tests have been funded by a £90,000 community grant. ‘This will then give the all-clear for either the…

YOU may have noticed that our tallest trees are inland, not by the coast, and the reason for this yields a clue that few spot. Trees respond to the buffeting of the wind through a simple yet effective botanical process: thigmomorphogenesis. The more a tree is battered by the wind, the less tall it grows, creating an intriguing pattern at the edge of woodlands. Next time you have a good view over a landscape, try to spot some woodland on a hill. Look to the south-western edge of that wood and you should be able to spot shorter trees—our prevailing winds come from the southwest and woodlands taper on that side as a result. The tapering effect is created because the first tree bears the brunt of the gales, giving…

‘Getting the same advice on so contentious a subject is little short of a miracle’ HERE’S some rare good news on planning in the countryside. This month saw a groundbreaking event when the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) actually joined forces to issue practical and definitive guidance to local authorities on the continuing threat from flooding and rising sea levels, as well as the other issues forced on us by a changing climate. It really was a first, as these are two bodies that don’t often see eye to eye and have a history of conflict rather than co-operation. Getting the same advice from both is a welcome departure; getting it on so contentious a subject is little short of a miracle.…

There are few sounds that make Zam’s heart sink more than me with a hammer I’VE recently been to my first ever football match, after which I wondered what on earth I’ve been doing with my Saturday afternoons until now. I’m not a fan of the sport, but, if asked, declare myself a supporter of Southampton, which is why I came to be sitting at St Mary’s stadium chanting ‘Oh When The Saints’ in a collective roar that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. When we (for I am now in that number) went 2-nil up against rich-as-Croesus Chelsea, the man on Zam’s right turned, fractionally hesitated and then gave in to his emotions, enveloping Zam in a hug. And I mean hug: he…

ALTHOUGH ordinary fellows tended to square up on the spot to settle a disagreement, the most influential of sporting gentlemen —who owned huge tracts of land, as well as the folk who lived there, and who hunted, raced, shot and gambled together—were inclined to act out, at an agreed time and place, a ritual that could well prove fatal. In some cases, the reason was trivial. The poet Lord Byron’s great-uncle killed his neighbour and cousin William Chaworth in a rapier duel in 1765, over a dispute about the quantity of game birds each had on his land and the best way to hang them. Byron was fined. The pistol replaced the blade as the weapon of choice and the finest makers produced identical pairs, greatly valued then and now.…

POP the name Rupert Brown into Google and up comes a professor of social psychology at the University of Sussex, an investment banker who has been ‘instrumental in the evolution of derivatives’ and an American insurance broker. There’s no sign of a bespectacled man in his seventies, whose workshop is in a former threshing barn next to his thatched farm house on the Wiltshire/Dorset border. This is both extraordinary and completely understandable. It’s extraordinary because this Rupert Brown is arguably the greatest living craftsman in the country, whose clients read like the combined pages of Who’s Who and Burke’s Peerage. It’s understandable because he doesn’t seem to have a commercial bone in his body and comes across as entirely lacking in any sense of his own importance—despite being described as…

IS there anything lovelier than an English country lane in May? I’m walking the 100 yards from the house to the pony paddock and my daughter’s Jack Russell is with me. This is his afternoon constitutional. He has age, 12 years of it, and SARDS (Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome). Wholly blind, he operates by nose and by ears. He is lost in smell and sound. I, sighted, am lost in the colours of the verge flowers. I’m as absorbed as any Romantic poet. Snoopy and I wander along together, cloud slow, behind our senses, me on the tarmac, him pushing through the sward with the determination of a tug in high seas. Overhead, swallows chatter in air already easy with the promise of summer; the hedge is heaped…

HERE’S an admission: I have never made pasta from scratch at home and served it to guests. Moreover, as a chef working in restaurants, I chose not to offer fresh pasta, leaving it to those cooks who knew more about it than I did—Italians, that is, in their familiar element. Home-made or even dried pasta simply didn’t seem quite correct at my stove, although a ‘Continental’ approach to the food I liked to cook could often encompass anything from risotto to gnocchi, piperade to pot au feu and callos (tripe) a la Madrilena to crème caramel. Then, quite suddenly, many other cooks of my generation seemed to be making pasta endlessly, rolling it out and embracing its silky allure. A craze, if you like. It would, however, only ever…

MAE WEST’S voluptuous lips are coming to the capital. The V&A Museum has acquired a 1938 Dalí sofa, one in a series of five modelled on the actress’s pout. In vivid red, the joyously brash object was created as part of the artist’s mid-1930s attempt to turn Monkton House in West Sussex—designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1902 and the home of Dalí’s most important British patron, Edward James—into ‘a complete Surrealist house’. James amassed a collection of Surrealist objects that became the largest and most important in the world. The Edward James Foundation sold the sofa last year and a temporary export ban was placed on it; the V&A, with help from the Art Fund, has now saved it for the nation. ‘This is one of the most beautiful…

AN English gun is an elegant-looking thing,’ notes Daryl Greatrex, managing director of world-renowned British gunmaker Holland & Holland. ‘What we’ve done over the years is to be innovative in terms of design to make the modern shotgun as efficient as it can be, at the same time as making sure that the aesthetic side is pleasing.’ That quality runs deep. ‘It’s not only to do with the engraving and the lovely wood,’ Mr Greatrex adds. ‘If you open up a Holland & Holland gun, it’s just as beautiful and well-executed inside as it is on the outside.’ The London-based firm, which was established in 1835, has initiated an apprenticeship scheme to encourage young people into the industry and currently employs about 40 craftsmen in its Kensal Green factory. ‘We…

SYNONYMOUS with bygone opulence, romance and intrigue, the world’s most iconic train is firmly back in vogue. A hallmark of luxury travel in the roaring 1920s, the Orient Express was a muse for writers and the place to be seen for Europe’s grandest aristocrats. Carving its own niche in history, it was aboard the Orient Express that First World War armistice papers and France’s surrender to Nazi Germany, in the Second World War, were both signed. Popularity waned during the austerity of the post-war years, although a pared-down service operated until 1977. Then came a fresh approach: using classically restored original carriages, the reimagined Venice Simplon-Orient-Express (VSOE) launched in the 1980s, deliberately designed to transport passengers back to the golden age of train travel. Kenneth Branagh’s recent film adaptation of…

KIM WARBURTON is a relative newcomer to interior designers. After graduating from KLC Interior Design School, she established her own practice in 2013 and has since combined her experience in fashion with her love of timeless, classic style to transform period interiors. The designer’s vision for this project was a feminine en-suite bathroom and dressing room for the master bedroom. Adopting a theme of Hollywood-style glamour as a guide, Kim set about creating a luxurious space that remained sympathetic to the period of the building. Working alongside Mason Gillibrand architects, she adhered to the requirement that the scheme should be totally reversible with minimal impact on the existing fabric of the building. In the bathroom, book-matched Arabescato Corchia marble was chosen for the vast shower enclosure due to its natural…

THE England squad for the first Test of the two-match series against Pakistan, which starts tomorrow at Lord’s, is the first to be chosen by new national selector Ed Smith. He was appointed to bring more statistical analysis to selection, but this team seems a satire on such a notion. Smith has three England caps and a double first from Cambridge, but, like many other journalists who cover the national team —he’s been a member of Test Match Special for the past few years—he also has a reputation for having rarely attended county cricket in recent years. His two spells as a county captain, of Kent and Middlesex, were marked by dressing-room unrest and criticism of his man-management. He’ll soon be at the hub of a still-being-created three-man selection committee…

AFTER 22 happy years at their elegant west-Berkshire country retreat, Grade II-listed The Old Rectory at West Woodhay, in the North Wessex Downs AONB, the approach of a significant birthday has prompted investment-fund manager Rupert Bradstock and his wife, Anna, to move to Jersey ‘sooner rather than later’. As Mr Bradstock explains: ‘For my wife, who was brought up in Jersey, it means going home; for my part, I wanted to make the move when I was still young enough to get involved with the Jersey business scene.’ (See the Jersey property special on June 6 for more on moving to the island.) The upshot is the launch onto the market of their beautifully restored, Georgian former rectory, set in 14 acres of wonderful gardens and grounds on the…

THE north front of Glin Castle, Co Limerick, was built on the shores of the broad Shannon estuary in the 1780s. It looks out over a stretch of green fields, dotted with grazing black-and-white cows and flocks of visiting long-beaked curlews and crested peewits, to the sweep of water beyond. On stormy days, gales sweep in and batter the sea wall and the stark, bow-fronted façade, but, in clear, calm weather, the water is as smooth as glass and the patchwork of fields in neighbouring Co Clare is lit up in every tiny detail. Glin Castle was built as a grand, neo-Classical house during a golden moment for architecture and culture in Ireland, by my ancestor the 25th Knight of Glin, John Bateman Fitzgerald. He appears in a dashing Volunteer…

ORCHIDS head the bill at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show in June. An exhibit inspired by Chatsworth’s Great Conservatory will contain an extravaganza of Phalaenopsis, designed by Jonathan Moseley and grown by Double H Nurseries of New Milton in Hampshire. In the Floral Marquee, the highlight will be a display of some 800 orchids from the Duke of Devonshire’s current collection at Chatsworth House—the first time in years that many of these treasures have been shown to the public. There couldn’t be a clearer or more welcome sign that this great house is once more taking an openly active role in orchid cultivation, conservation and connoisseurship. The association between the two families, Cavendish and Orchidaceae, is one of the most remarkable and influential in our garden history. It began in…

EDWARD BAWDEN is breaking out all over the country this summer. Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Fry Art Gallery in Saffron Walden, Essex, have major surveys of his work, each with an accompanying book; the V&A Museum is displaying his mural The English Pub from the SS Oronsay; his late self-portrait is included in ‘About Face’ at Rugby Art Gallery; ‘Bawden’s Beasts’ is at The Higgins Bedford; and Mainstone Press’s Are You Sitting Comfortably?, detailing his 100 plus book- jackets, has just hit the bookshops. Illustration, illumination and calligraphy were important ingredients in Bawden gaining his scholarship to the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 1922, and formed a continuous strand throughout his work as a designer and an illustrator for the next 65 years. A modest man, Bawden had…