Innholdsfortegnelse for 22-Jul-2020 i Country Life

LET all the world, in every corner sing,’ runs George Herbert’s uplifting hymn, a staple since the 17th century, ‘the church with psalms must shout: no door can keep them out.’ Singing has forever been a physical manifestation of hope, joy, protest, defiance, comfort and courage. It has made the world a better place, from Dame Vera Lynn’s concerts in munitions factories to Sir Cliff Richard amusing a damp Wimbledon crowd. Is there anything more stirring than an audience rising for the Hallelujah Chorus or the haunting reproach of an African American spiritual, a Welsh male voice choir’s richly hushed Abide with Me, small children chorusing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes or the pivotal moment in Casablanca when Victor Laszlo incites an insurgent rendering of La Marseillaise? There are happy…

IN the same way that we challenge ourselves, it’s important that we challenge our dogs,’ explains Tamsin Durston of the Dogs Trust’s canine-behaviour team. ‘They’re intelligent and social creatures, so without mental stimulation can become bored, frustrated and restless. A problem-solving task enriches your dog, directing its energy into something positive.’ When it comes to canine companions, walks are obviously essential, but studies have shown that keeping their brains busy is equally as important. Brain games encourage the natural skills and senses of our four-legged friends, as well as preventing anxiety and boosting their confidence, not to mention how much all that brain work tires them out. ‘Physical exercise is only half of the equation when it comes to keeping your dog healthy and happy,’ confirms Bill Lambert, head of…

SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL dubbed the British ‘an island race’. He was right, with our nation itself an island, but his words are truer for some than others. There are hundreds of islands around the coast, ranging from large ones, such as Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides, covering more than 770 square miles, to myriad tiny, uninhabited ones barely big enough to moor a dinghy. Island life can be a dream, promising sea, seclusion and satisfaction—but does the reality match the fantasy? Is it feasible or impractical? Idyllic or too isolated? Most island dwellers say they wouldn’t swap it for the world, but to live the life requires practicality, pragmatism and adopting a routine shaped by sea and tide. Rev Canon Dr Sarah Hills, vicar, Holy Island Sarah Hills…

RITA KONIG has an enviable knack of creating rooms that look as if they have evolved effortlessly over time. Having bought a ground-floor flat in west London after returning from New York, she set out to make better sense of the rooms, creating a small kitchen leading through to an open-plan dining and sitting room. ‘It’s an end-of-terrace building and I realised I could re-route the entrance to the flat through a gate in the garden wall. That way, you can walk straight into the kitchen—as you often do in New York. It makes so much sense, as you can immediately drop the shopping off.’ The dining area sits a few steps up from the kitchen. Rita lightened the north-facing space by painting the floorboards white. The peach walls are…

Dorset, £1.1 million The opportunity to live in the woods at the end of the lane is a rare one, but Dogshole in Higher Houghton provides the perfect place for those looking for a large dose of peace and solitude. With white-washed walls and a thatched roof, Dogshole is something of a typical longhouse, but it's believed to have been built in the 17th century as three separate farm cottages that have been merged into one family home. The property offers four bedrooms and three large reception rooms, as well as 19 acres of grounds, including paddocks, bluebell woodlands and a lawned area with rose beds and climbers. The owners have spent the past 12 years conserving and modernising the property, retaining features such as inglenook fireplaces and…

I WAS benighted about day-lilies until a morning in 1990, when my great friend, John, drove us from his place in Manhattan to the house in Greenwich, Connecticut, of his mother Ann Skakel McCooey. I’d often visited her before. It was lovely Ann who’d first welcomed me to the US five years earlier and the lady has been infinitely dear to me ever since. But this was the first time I’d made the trip in high summer and so early in the day. New wonders lay in wait for me in consequence. As the roadside woods flashed by, I began to spot many of the New England natives that grace England’s gardens and arboreta: tulip tree and hickory, silver maple and scarlet oak, black locust, redbud and flowering dogwood,…

DAME ELISABETH FRINK was the first female sculptor to be elected a Royal Academician (in 1977) and her public commissions number 38, from Blind Beggar and his Dog (1957) in London’s Bethnal Green to the monumental Risen Christ, installed at Liverpool Cathedral a week before her death. Yet, perhaps in part because she was a woman in a still male-dominated world and because she made figurative bronzes when Abstract art and Conceptualism were in fashion, until now, she has been under-represented in public galleries and museums (see box). This, in spite of the extraordinary expressive power and originality of her sculpture, through which she explored the themes of humanity and Nature that preoccupied her through her life. Frink acquired a deep love and knowledge of the natural world growing up…

Birds flock to the city’s walls IT’S an odd thing, walking around some of the more deprived areas of the nation’s capital and coming face to face with a mural of a bittern—a strange juxtaposition to see some of the country’s rarest and most threatened bird species in urban places that seem so hostile to them. These birds are the work of ATM, an artist who, from London to Bristol and from Poland to Norway, uses his talents to celebrate the beauty of birds and warn us about the threat of extinction. ‘When I was a kid, I was obsessed with painting birds and animals,’ he says. ‘I loved birds and I loved painting them. When I went to art college, pictures of birds weren’t taken that seriously, so…

As we enter late summer, the conical heads of common teasel-or donkey's thistle-are adorned with tufts of blue-purple and sometimes white flowers, with prickly leaves on tall, tough stems that might grow as tall as you or me. Common across the south of England on grass or wasteland, the name ‘fuller's teasel' remembers a time when the spiny heads were employed in the fulling process, to comb textiles. Used as thatch in Ireland and to protect against witches in Wales, it was thought to cure malaria, warts, sore eyes and freckles; water from the leaves was said to preserve beauty. Come autumn, look out for goldfinches alighting on the brown flower heads in search of seeds.…

1915 January 16 published Across the water to Brittany for this charming scene in the town of Vitré, with the mighty château keeping watch over the peaceful streets. The photograph-taken about a decade before publication -was part of a specially commissioned series by COUNTRY LIFE on the châteaux of France by pioneering photographer Frederick H. Evans. The COUNTRY LIFE Picture Library contains 120 years' worth of photography and articles from the world's leading architectural and gardens experts. We are delighted to note that works are again available to license or purchase in print form, from £35 plus VAT. Please email enquiries to clpicturelibrary @futurenet.com…

JAMES WYATT has a reputation for eclectic architectural gigantism, a purveyor of such enormous buildings as Fonthill Abbey, Ashridge, Kew Palace and Woolwich Barracks. There was, however, another side to his practice: the estate buildings that he designed for private clients throughout his career. These smaller-scale works, unconstrained by the needs of occupation or domestic comfort, allowed him to experiment, have fun, and express his developing architectural ideas. Both his earliest Gothic buildings, for example, as well as one of his most accomplished neo-Classical designs, were dairies at, respectively, Goodwood in West Sussex and Dodington Park in Gloucestershire. Wyatt was catapulted to fame by the opening in January 1772 of his astonishing re-creation of the Roman Pantheon on Oxford Street in the capital. After his return from six years of…

IT’S an enjoyable paradox that a material born of the Industrial Revolution should have become assimilated into the built vernacular and produced some of our most delightful small-scale buildings. Wrinkly tin, as it’s affectionately known, saw its heyday between the 1860s and the First World War, but hundreds of corrugated iron structures survive today, as photogenic when gently succumbing to shades of rust as when trim in their livery of colourful paintwork. Foremost among them are tin tabernacles —that distinctive breed of portable chapels, churches and mission halls put up in response to the church-building boom of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Unpretentious by nature and assembled from kits, they are associated in particular with the burgeoning of non-conformist religion, with its myriad congregations of Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists, Mormons,…

Your aesthetic hero? Kit Kemp breaks all the rules; nothing matches and everything looks as if it has been thrown together, but clearly isn't. She has the best eye for modern British painting, sculpture and bright uplifting textiles. Her designs instantly put you in a good mood. A book you’ve found inspiring? Twenty years ago, on a trip to Paris, I picked up a book on Jean-Michel Frank in the hotel where I was staying. It changed everything for me; he used shagreen, vellum, bronze and plaster to make simple designs that were in stark contrast to the elaborate, self-conscious work of many of his contemporaries. I headed straight to the galleries of St Germain to see his work for myself. It was the best day ever. An exhibition that…

THE making of the garden at Harvard Farm is a story of two generations of gardeners who, after years of pursuing separate paths, began to work together with delightful results. First is Dilly Hobson, who moved to Dorset more than 25 years ago with her artist husband, Tim, to renovate a farmhouse on a windswept hill—her goal was to make a garden from scratch after the children had left home. Second is their son, Jake, who travelled to Japan after his Fine Art degree and fell in love with the Japanese approach to gardens, not least with the exacting and passionate approach to pruning and training trees and shrubs so that they sit happily in a garden context. Their two or so acres now form a sheltered haven, a much-loved…

PUBS and restaurants with beer gardens and usable outside spaces are not the only fortunate businesses at the end of lockdown. Art dealers who have space for outdoor sculpture shows have been well placed to take advantage of the combination of the collecting instinct and itchy feet. Country picture galleries with converted barns and ancillary buildings will also attract visitors. As mentioned here on July 1, Hauser & Wirth Somerset has re-opened its Bruton site (Fig 3), so that pre-booked visitors can now have close-up access to its garden sculptures, as well as to the farmyard, galleries, restaurant and shop. Free open-air tours on Thursday afternoons provide an opportunity to discover more about the sculptures, including works by Bharti Kher, Richard Long, Not Vital (Fig 2) and Franz West.…

AGROMENES still isn’t suffering from cabin fever. Here, in the depths of the countryside, the past four months have been eye-opening. Of course, we’re missing the family, our friends and the dinner parties and pop-in suppers. We’ve made do with virtual drinks and, latterly, sitting outside at a social distance with neighbours. However, simply being in the same place and watching all the activity of the natural world at walking pace has been a revelation. ‘Going organic has resulted in flowers reappearing and we have been shamed by how few we know’ We forget how much we’ve let go. Once, we could all name practically every wildflower. Going organic in the fields around us has resulted in all sorts of flowers reappearing and we have been shamed by how few…

SHAPED like a diamond petulantly tossed into the Solent by a spurned lover, the Isle of Wight has to be one of the UK’s most overlooked jewels. More than half of the 150-square-mile island is designated an AONB. With its jagged chalk cliffs, undulating, wildflower-strewn downs, chocolate-box villages and even a Marilyn in the form of St Boniface Down—790ft at its highest point—it’s no wonder this little island is often described as Britain in miniature. The south-west coast arguably holds the most dramatic delights. To the far west, the Needles stretch in the direction of the Dorset coast, as if wanting to reconnect with the cliffs they were wrenched from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Directly north of them are the mesmerising rainbow-hued sandstone cliffs of Alum Bay, gently…

‘Oakwrights offers a bespoke service, ensuring that every project delivers not only the space customers need but also a place they’ll really love’ FOR a quick, elegant and effective way to add extra space to your house, little beats having an oak-frame outbuilding installed in your garden. Whether you are looking for a home office that’s just a pleasant stroll away, a peaceful room where you can relax or stylish accommodation for guests, older relatives or returning children, Oakwrights’ meticulously crafted oak-frame outbuildings provide a versatile solution that meets your requirements, adds plenty of character to your property and lasts a lifetime. Working with Oakwrights The company offers a bespoke service, working with customers from the initial design stage all the way through to installation, to ensure that every project…

THE biography of a hedge begins with its birth and whether this is dewy new or cobbled together. The first sort is the planted arboreal line; the other, a shrubby, scrubby barrier fashioned from pre-existing woodland. The hedge down the track to the house is the former—its hawthorns and blackthorns are as regular as teeth on a comb, evidence of a farmer planting by script. According to biologist Dr Max Hooper’s famous formula, the age of a hedge = number of woody species in a 30-yard stretch x 110 + 30. Thus, the long and winding trackside hedge is about 600 years old, its staple of prickly trees intended to keep Tudor livestock in their place. Behind barbs, as it were. Time has augmented the hedge with dogwood, hazel,…

LOCKDOWN buyers looking to swap a city environment for a family farmhouse in a picturesque location could narrow their search by homing in on houses historically owned by traditional landed estates: these are usually solidly built and always have the best views. Although not many of these buyers would consider a major renovation project in the current economic climate, the launch onto the market of a few expertly restored farmhouse complexes in idyllic West Country estate settings may tempt the more adventurous to go that extra mile. Most historic farmhouses sold away from a landed estate tend to be altered or extended over time, but few can match the progression of Scatterford, near Newland, in the Forest of Dean, 21 miles from Gloucester and five miles from Monmouth. Over…

‘As they approached land, a holy storm set in, driving their boat “onto the kingdom of the Picts, amid the rocks of the island of Albion”’ THE cathedral of St Andrews was irreparably damaged in 1559 and many of its stones were scavenged by locals. The tales that had been its lifeblood, once responsible for attracting countless medieval pilgrims, do much to fill the gaps. Andrew was an apostle of Christ and the brother of St Peter. According to Walter Bower’s Scotichronicon, a legendary history of Scotland written in 1437–49, Andrew ‘was dark-complexioned, handsome of appearance, of medium height, with a luxuriant beard’. He evangelised Scythia, beyond the Caspian Sea. Bower says that the Picts (a Celtic society later subsumed by the Scots) were migrants from Scythia: for this reason,…