Innholdsfortegnelse for 17-Jul-2019 i Country Life

Quiz of the week 1) Scorpions belong to which class of creature? 2) Which jockey won the 1981 Grand National on Aldaniti? 3) The uninhabitable island Rockall is officially part of which country? 4) Gametophobia is the irrational fear of what? 5) What is the common English name for the herb known as cilantro in the USA? Time to buy Hotel velour robe, £65, Tielle (01442 843769; www.tiellelove luxury.co.uk) Three-month chocolate-box subscription: Seasonal flavours, £38, Charlotte Flower Chocolates (01887 830307; www. charlotteflowerchocolates.com) Royal Gardens sugar bowl, £14.95, Highgrove Royal Gardens (0333 222 4555; www.highgrovegardens.com) Unmissable events Exhibition Until July 28 ‘Spirit of Place’ (right), The Red Dot Gallery, Holt, Norfolk. New works by some 14 artists and makers, all inspired by the ‘history, mystery and nature’ of Blickling Hall,…

THERE was a time when the English scorned what we saw as an alien and foreign temperament, the sort that embraced passionate extremes. Moderation was our watchword and views that smacked of undue enthusiasm were suspect. It was an attitude that, as Ronald Knox so acutely observed, was best exemplified by the Church of England. Its characteristics were decorum and decency rather than fire and zeal. Indeed, in both Church and State, we did dignity and order, but not flamboyance or exuberance. We were proud of our pragmatism, of our willingness to compromise and our habit of letting sleeping dogs lie. We didn’t let dogma get in the way of a sober assessment of reality. ‘We need to recover our historic character as a tolerant, moderate people’ This settled state…

‘A persistent man kept waving coasters, books, oven gloves and glasses at us, saying “I’ll give you 20p”’ I’M in the foothills of the Himalayas, surrounded by three sacred mountains, the moonlight is picking out a small cluster of houses and Jelac is about to walk to school. Actually, it’s early evening in the Itchen valley, but I’m transported 5,000 miles away by a sound-scape on my iPhone conceived by Jane, who has organised this fundraiser for the impressive NGO Stay at School. We walk along the chalky riverbank, crossing small empty lanes, skirting the edge of the vineyard and fields of poppies on the easiest of paths for an hour and a half—the same amount of time it takes Jelac to walk to school each morning and home…

PERCHED on a parapet, gargoyle-still, a female peregrine falcon is scanning the skies above Salisbury’s cathedral close in Wiltshire. Sally, as she has been christened by the cathedral staff, is a familiar sight around the spire, having successfully raised a brood of chicks in 2017. She’s the only peregrine falcon in the UK to have been fitted with a transmitter. This year, Sally has yet to find a mate. However, 26 miles east at Winchester Cathedral, Hampshire, four brown eggs are already being incubated by the resident pair that has returned to its nest beneath the rose window on the north transept for a third consecutive year. In the past decade, cathedrals have become important nesting sites for these charismatic birds of prey. Once a bird of steep cliffs, the…

I LIKE to show the beauty of things that no one looks at twice,’ wrote Eliot Hodgkin in 1975, looking back over more than 40 years of painting. On the surface, it was a modest aspiration. Hodgkin’s attitude towards his work was invariably self-effacing. At home, where he worked in a corner of a bedroom, without a studio, he concealed his paintings inside a cupboard—he preferred to hang his walls with a carefully put together collection of mostly 18th-century French drawings, a foil for antique French furniture acquired with equal discernment. However, Hodgkin’s aim was more ambitious than his modesty always acknowledged. Exhibiting with the Royal Watercolour Society in 1946, he had quoted William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence— he endeavoured, he claimed, ‘to depict “a World in a grain of…

1. Haydon (1910) The oldest piece in the Barbour archive; versions of this longer jacket appear in the collection today 2. Durham (1969) Designed by John Barbour, this thin, lightweight jacket in oiled cotton with a hood remains one of the company’s most popular styles 3. Bedale (1980) A shorter, stylish jacket, designed for riders 4. Beaufort (1982) One of Barbour’s most successful jackets, designed for shooting and country wear 5. Border (early 1980s) Longer again than the Beaufort; equally at home slung over a suit or striding through undergrowth 6. Liddesdale (1994) Quilted jacket, in a range of colours…

‘Fennel divides us–we either love it or hate it! It does have a distinctive aniseedy flavour, but one that mellows when cooked’ More ways with fennel Cauliflower, fennel and spring-onion soup, with edible petals Chop one cauliflower, two fennel bulbs and three spring onions, add to a large saucepan, cover with vegetable stock and simmer until tender. Season and process in a blender until smooth, then refrigerate. Serve the soup chilled and scattered with edible petals. Extremely pretty for summer entertaining. Fennel, apple and cabbage slaw Cut two fennel bulbs and two apples into even-sized matchsticks and add to a large bowl, together with half a thinly shredded white cabbage. Stir in 300g of Greek yoghurt and 100g of crème fraîche. Mix well, squeeze lemon juice over the top…

THE launch onto the market of pristine, Palladian-style Sydenhurst near Chiddingfold, Surrey—at a guide price of £30 million through joint agents Knight Frank (020–7861 1065) and house (01483 266705)—suggests that the age of ‘blue-sky thinking’ is far from over. Built on the site of a former care home by a British businessman with a passion for all things Georgian, the spectacular, almost 27,000sq ft, modern country manor house combines the best of Classical building design with the ultimate in intelligent management systems, through which lighting, climate, audio, video and security are all controlled at the touch of a button. For more than 60 years from 1949, Sydenhurst was a home from home for disabled Ukrainians stranded in England after the Second World War. The original residents, for whom Sydenhurst…

YOU might be surprised to hear that Tel Aviv is home to the most tech start-up companies per capita in the world —until you visit, that is. It’s a vibrant, culture-heavy city on the Israeli Mediterranean coast, home to welcoming, forward-thinking, creative types. Just 4½ hours from London, come sunset, the air buzzes with anticipation of the evening ahead. Ours were filled with exotic and exciting things to eat —this foodie haven has a gem on every corner, whether it’s Israeli classics, modern fusion or simple hummus. Service is impeccable everywhere and booking—best done through your hotel concierge—is essential. It’s also remarkably safe. Electric bicycles and scooters rule the streets —simply download an app—and I zoomed happily from beach to museum to market to restaurant. It’s the ideal way to…

RECENT initiatives to introduce dogs to hospitals and care homes have a long pedigree and not just because they provide emotional comfort. The sores of the beggar Lazarus were licked by the dogs at the rich man’s gate; we are not told to what effect, although he died in the following verse. However, at the shrine of Aesculapius in Ancient Greece, dogs were trained to lick wounds and, in the Middle Ages, St Roche was said to have been cured of the plague by a dog licking his buboes. Both the god of healing and the saint are shown accompanied by dogs. Obviously, too much licking can harm and dogs may transfer other infections, but the saliva of many animals, including humans, does have bactericidal properties. The French saying…

Towards ground zero LIVESTOCK farmers are coming in for criticism from vegan, health and climate-change lobbies—NFU president Minette Batters was even asked on Radio 4 if meat was the new smoking —but her profession found some unexpected allies at the recent climate-change and farming conference at Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire. Entitled ‘Towards Net Zero Carbon Emissions’, it aimed to tackle the conundrum of farming being both a sink and a source of greenhouse gases, was jointly organised by the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) charity and the NFU and came as Theresa May committed the UK to net-zero emissions by 2050. ‘My aim is to have rebellious farmers,’ declares Gail Bradbrook, founder of Extinction Rebellion, who urged her audience to ‘stop being so British’. ‘There can be a mix-up in the animal-rights…

WHEN Reggie Heyworth first saw white rhino Monty, he ‘looked so sweet. It’s impossible something so big could do so, but he did’. Mr Heyworth’s father, John, founded the Cotswold Wildlife Park in 1970 and the first rhinos arrived in 1972. They never bred, but then Monty, Nancy and Ruby arrived in 2008 and 2009. ‘They got on like a house on fire. We’ve had five calves—Tinkerbell and Alan are still here.’ When Mr Heyworth was trying to import the females, ‘Defra dragged its feet for a year. I wrote to our MP, a certain David Cameron, and the logjam cleared instantly. He’s been hugely important to us, so we named Nancy after his daughter’. Ruby’s name acknowledges the park’s ruby-wedding year, as well as another keen local supporter, Ruby…

THE saying ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing’ is commonly attributed to the fell walker Alfred Wainwright, but it might just as easily have been coined by John Barbour. This enterprising Scottish draper began selling his oilskin clothing in South Shields in 1894, settling on the area because the Tyne was then one of the busiest rivers in the country. Barbour’s, as the shop became known, thrived, supplying mariners and shipbuilders with the clothing they needed to protect them from the elements. An advertising slogan from the 1980s—when Barbour became a household name —ran: ‘The best British clothing for the worst British weather.’ However, over the years, Barbour has come to symbolise so much more than just a waterproof jacket. It inspires a mood, an idea…

AFTER spotting a yellow-painted scullery in the London showroom of Plain English, a young couple asked senior designer Tracey Hyde to create a similar design in their Victorian home in north London. ‘They’re very cheery, warm people, so it didn’t surprise me that they wanted such a happy colour for their kitchen.’ To add a modern feel to the traditional cupboards for which Plain English is famous, Tracey created a scheme with walls, doors and woodwork painted in Boiled Egg from the company’s own collection. ‘By painting everything in the same colour, the cupboards retreat back into the walls to create the sense of a vibrant room with less of a kitchen feel,’ Tracey explains. An eggshell finish has been used for all the woodwork, with walls in satin emulsion,…

THE first week in June—a full month earlier than my previous visits—I set off for the Laxford, Sutherland, one of Scotland’s most delightful spate rivers. By the road over Struie, rhododendron blooms were cavorting like can-can girls and the hillscape was irregularly scribbled with whin bushes, as if by a child’s bright crayon. It was still the northern springtime. ‘Bring everything’ had been the reply of my friend Robert the gillie when I asked for advice on what tackle to pack. There had been a week of large, vacillating spates, plus high tides that had brought in a run of spring salmon. At least, for once, we would have water—but would this initial stock have sprinted through to the deep safety of the loch, leaving an interval before the summer…

Hampshire, £2.4 million The pretty plants gracing the exterior of Ashe Warren House perfectly suit the style of this substantial period family property, which is located just outside the village of Overton. With 10 bedrooms, six reception rooms and four bathrooms, the house has plenty of room for an extended family or entertaining. The downstairs rooms cater for almost any requirement, from the billiard room to the snug. Upstairs, the master-bedroom suite has wonderful dual-aspect views over the gardens. The tennis court and swimming pool are extremely private and the property also comes with some grazing, in grounds of about eight acres. Knight Frank (01256 350600) Northumberland, £1.75 million A combination of wisteria and mixed foliage graces the smart stone exterior of Shildon, a small country estate…

ASK a group of rose lovers what they feel about a blue rose and most of them say ‘it will never happen’. Press them to say whether they’d welcome one and most reply in the negative. Then, they babble about blue being unnatural and retaliate with some sort of circular argument such as ‘who would want one anyway?’. Well, I would, for starters. I would love to have such roses in my garden. Blue is the only colour that roses lack. The Victorians longed for a bright-yellow rose (the first, Soleil d’Or, came out in 1900), so why do we say ‘yuck’ when blue roses are mentioned? The possibilities are enormous. Imagine gentian-blue Floribundas in flower throughout the summer and autumn. They would revolutionise our gardens, as did Soleil…

WHEN the English adventuress Janet Ross set off for Puglia in 1888, she was advised to leave her gold earrings at home as it was ‘very likely’ she would be ‘captured by brigands and murdered’. Banditti were common in this once-impoverished region (the heel in the boot of Italy), which is one reason its fertile, olive-studded fields are sprinkled with fortified farmhouses known as masserie. Some have now been converted into charming boutique hotels, including the five-star Masseria Torre Maizza in Savelletri di Fasano, which opened two months ago following a € 6 million (£5.38m) transformation by Rocco Forte Hotels. As I laze beside its enormous heated pool framed by stone pillars and rampant vines, I find myself fascinated by a magnificent dragonfly cruising the blooms on a vivid cascade…

‘The Paper Museum: The Curious Eye of Cassiano dal Pozzo’ is at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, until September 1 (www.barber.org.uk) This collaboration between Barber Institute MA students and the Royal Collection focuses on an extraordinary collection of drawings, watercolours and prints built up in 17th-century Rome by the antiquarian and collector Cassiano dal Pozzo, patron of artists such as Poussin and Caravaggio. The creation of this visual encyclopaedia of antiquities, architecture, zoology, botany, geology, topography, portraiture, social customs and military maps was inspired by the principles of the Accademia dei Lincei, the first scientific academy, which pioneered the study of Nature through direct observation and experimentation. Much of dal Pozzo’s Paper Museum was sold to George III in 1762 and remains in the…

1931 June 6 The striking Art Deco drawing room at Mulberry House, Smith Square, London SW1, following its redesign by Darcy Braddell. The room’s main focus is Scandal , a bronze relief above the fireplace by Charles Sargent Jagger, commissioned by the then owners in defiance of rumours about their love life. The sculpture is now housed in the permanent collection at the V&A The COUNTRY LIFE Picture Library contains 120 years’ worth of photography and articles from the world’s leading architectural and gardens experts. Many are available to license or purchase in print form from £28 plus VAT. Please email enquiries to clpicturelibrary @ti-media.com…

WILLIAMSTRIP is a marvel. Not only has this Cotswolds house been enlarged, the estate overhauled, a shooting lodge built and surrounding estates purchased, but two quite astounding garden buildings have been pushing the boundaries of Classicism. Readers have already been introduced to the bath house, designed as a swimming pool and gym by Craig Hamilton, in the form of a Greek temple ( Country Life , September 18, 2013). This stands by itself, proudly visible from windows of the house. The other is in a more secluded position and set against trees. It is also a temple and in a more literal sense, as this is the new Chapel of Our Lady, built in memory of the owner’s mother, Mary (Mae) Kennedy. Seating 72 people, it was dedicated in September…

Known for deeply comfortable rooms with a sense of unpretentious luxury, Adam Bray has more than 25 years’ experience of interior design and decoration. He has his own collection of furniture and a range of rugs produced with Vanderhurd. He’s also created two collections of paint colours for Plain English produced in collaboration with creative director Katie Fontana and art director Sue Skeen. What’s your approach to kitchen colour? The kitchen should be treated like any other room in the house; I wouldn’t use any colour here that I wouldn’t use elsewhere. The choice will depend on the size and location of the room, its aspect and link to other rooms in the house and the amount of natural light, but, ultimately, it’s about what you like. Can you tell…

THE Subaru XV is another strange concoction from the bestiary of the Dadaist Japanese car-makers. The late Robin Williams had a stand-up routine imagining God stoned out of his mind putting a duck’s beak on an egg-laying beaver and taking the mickey out of Charles Darwin. Hmm. So, too, the XV? If the moniker stands for crossover vehicle, that would fit, I suppose, the design brief of this platypus of a car. It’s just what is crossed over with what and towards what end that I can’t quite fathom, in spite of the car’s many impressive features. Like all Subarus, it scores well in the safety tests. Not only in Europe, but in Australia, too. In Japan, it recorded the highest ever off-set frontal impact score and, in the…

REDDISH is my dream house’: this is the almost universal response to a mention of the extraordinarily pretty Queen Anne house set in an idyllic position in Wiltshire’s Chalke Valley. It was most famously home to the glamorous portrait photographer and theatre designer Sir Cecil Beaton, who was pleased with its comparatively grand detailing, yet reassuringly neat proportions and the way it sat at the heart of the village, but within five acres of garden. ‘I am the proud owner of an exquisite country seat… it is the beginning of a new interest and I am thrilled at the prospect,’ he wrote in 1947. Taking up the baton of this romantic idyll in the 21st century is understandably as challenging as it is exciting. When the dust had settled for…

I’VE been to the circus. I make no apology for this, because, as the owner of Sleary’s Equestrian Circus lispingly says in Dickens’s Hard Times: ‘People mutht be amuthed.’ I was not merely ‘amuthed’ by Giffords Circus, during its run in the grounds of Chiswick House, I was cheered, uplifted and given a whole new perspective on the possibilities of this fascinating form of entertainment. Like many people, I first fell in love with the circus as a child. In the Leamington Spa of the 1950s, I awaited eagerly the arrival of the touring versions of Bertram Mills and Chipper-field’s and was entranced by everything: the sawdust, the acts of physical daring, the red-coated ringmaster and, in those far-off days, the performing animals. Today, circus seems to have gone…

MY grandmother was very fond of Noddy,’ says Sophie Smallwood, referring to Enid Blyton, the creator and author of the original series of 25 Noddy books—a character with which her name became synonymous. ‘He really was special to her.’ It’s 70 years since Blyton penned the first book, Noddy Goes to Toyland, as well as the second, Hurrah for Little Noddy. Both were initially serialised, the other way around (between June and September 1949), in the Sunday Graphic newspaper, introducing the rosy-cheeked wooden toy with the wide, innocent eyes and nodding head to preschool children. Since then, the books featuring instantly recognisable illustrations—by, among others, Harmsen van der Beek (who died after producing the first seven books) and Robert Tyndall—of the character sporting a deep-blue pixie hat, sky-blue shorts and…

Social history Glorious Goodwood James Peill (Constable, £25) THREE years ago, I took part in one of the greatest sporting spectacles of my life. There were nearly 100 of us mounted for a revival of the Charlton Hunt at Goodwood in West Sussex. The hunt staff were resplendent in the blue-and-gold livery worn by their forebears well over three centuries before. The paintings by Stubbs inside Goodwood House were brought to life as hounds, horses and the present Duke and Duchess, with their guests, milled around outside, sharing the stirrup cup. It was a historic day, bringing together members of hunts from round the country and across the globe, celebrating the purchase of Goodwood by the 1st Duke of Richmond so that he could ride with the famous Charlton Hunt.…