Innholdsfortegnelse for 29-Jul-2020 i Country Life

THE Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) is seeking nominations for its annual Dairy Industry Woman of the Year Award. The award is designed to celebrate the achievements of women in dairying and is currently in its fourth year. Previous winners include Mary Quicke of Quicke’s Cheeses, dairy farmer and NFU board representative Janette Prince and livestock consultant Jude Capper. The award is run by the RABDF initiative Women in Dairy (WID). ‘There are lots of inspiring women involved in our industry and they are fundamental to driving our sector forward,’ says WID patron Di Wastenage. ‘Nominees do not need to work on a dairy farm, but they must be involved in the industry. This means, as well as farmers, we can receive nominations for vets, consultants, technicians and…

David Bolton, Master of the Worshipful Company of Farmers, tells Country Life about what he and the livery company have been up to these past few months ‘The demand for quality meat produced in this country remains significant’ ‘Extremes of weather, from last winter’s floods to the droughts of May, have reduced the harvest prospects for 2020 and early reports of barley and oilseed-rape yields are beneath expectations. Milk has, at times, been scarce on the shelves, but in surplus at the farm gate. However, vegetable growers have seen 30% increases in retail sales and imports have been needed to protect supplies. The sugar beet and potato crops both look tremendous. Meanwhile, Marmite stocks have run out! ‘Farms that have diversified rely on visitors—first diminished by lockdown. Now, their masks…

This member of the rose family-named in Gerard’s Herball as ‘Mede-sweet, or Queene of the Medowes'-will be looking its best and filling the air with a sweet-almond scent from now until September. Frothing with clusters of cream flowers and feathered, long-stalked leaves on tall stems, it frequents damp locations, including riverbanks, ditches and meadows. Its common name, however, is thought to derive from its use as a flavouring in mead, as well as Port and claret. Much-valued by druids and said to have been gifted its sweet fragrance by the Irish goddess Áine -although, if crushed, it exudes an air of antiseptic-it was a forerunner of aspirin, used to treat headaches and hangovers.…

WE’RE all going to be able to have 13 days of half-price meals in our local pubs and restaurants as long as we eat in. That was the surprise unveiled by Rishi Sunak in his mini budget earlier this month and, already, 32,000 businesses have signed up to the scheme, with more joining every day. You have to give the Chancellor full marks for imagination and the Treasury for keeping a secret. It’s a cheerful way of getting people back into the habit of eating out and the hospitality industry certainly needs the boost. Of course, it’s a gamble, but it may be the lifeline country pubs and restaurants need. Some 99% of British hospitality businesses are small or medium size and the sector is the country’s third-largest employer. Before…

‘I was not a good sailor, but I loved the week to 10 days we had on board Bloodhound . This picture illustrates her in her element and it’s a real sea. We had our roles, even if I was a bit small for most of the sails, but she had a mizzenmast astern, which was perfect for keeping us busy and out of most people’s way. You learnt to cook without realising because we shared duties. I was old enough and strong enough in the last few years to helm. She had a tiller, which was heavy, but also taught you to feel the balance better. I still don’t really understand wheels! Above all, we went to some wonderful places that we have been able to revisit in…

• A border collie from Northumberland became the world’s most expensive sheepdog when she was sold to an American owner at auction earlier this year for £18,900 • Sadly, Covid-19 meant the ISDS trials have had to be cancelled, as they were during the First and Second World Wars, as well as for the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak • In 1949, the trials were held in Hyde Park and sponsored by The Daily Express. The newspaper reported a 20,000 strong crowd that held remarkably silent ‘at an event which has neither balls, bats, bookies nor blows’ • The basic commands used by handlers include ‘away' for a right-hand command, ‘come bye' for a left-hand one, ‘steady' to get the dog to slow down and ‘that'll do' for recall • Famously…

EACH time we are invited to work with a village community to build affordable homes, we can almost guarantee three types of reaction. There will be those who see the value in and need for homes to help local people and secure a boost for the community. A second group will noisily oppose building anything, convinced that even a handful of well-designed homes will be a visual blight, cause environmental and social devastation and result in the plummeting of local property values. The biggest group is ambivalent, distracted by the busyness of everyday life. When time allows, this group usually considers the proportionality of proposals in a balanced way. Indeed, the biggest challenge faced by a rural-housing association is not finding land, securing planning or resolving technical challenges that come…

THE British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) was set up more than 50 years ago in 1967, by the leading doctor and nutrition scientist Prof Alistair Frazer, who reportedly enjoyed good food and wine as much as he did his research and teaching. Established as a charity, its aims included stimulating nutrition research, supporting education on food and providing evidence-based information on diet and health for the public. Much has changed in the world since the BNF started its work, but these aims are arguably more relevant than ever. Obesity has nearly tripled globally since the 1970s and the ill health that results from this is estimated to cost the UK economy more than the fire service, judiciary and police force put together, not to mention the personal cost to the individuals…

MEADOWS mean waving grasses, brimming with buttercups and butterflies, which shimmer and buzz in a swarm of life. Contrast that vision with the sterile sward of a mown lawn and, for me, there is no doubt about which I want more of in my garden. Making a meadow isn’t giving up on gardening. There are many ways of adding to the traditional mix of flowers, but respecting the soil and site will always deliver the best results. I’m writing this in Devon, where the field below the cottage is a mass of meadowsweet and greater bird’s-foot trefoil. This is damp, clay soil—I would never achieve such abundant clouds on my high, dry limestone plot at home in the Cotswolds. The best way to make a flowery mead is to…

The charity Farms for City Children would normally be encouraging children from all over the country to spend a week at one of its three rural farms, but, as is the way during lockdown, it has had to improvise. Its farm in Gloucestershire, Wick Court, has partnered with a local firm to send fresh produce down to a London school that has had its visit postponed and Yeo Valley Primary, in Devon, will bring its students to the charity’s Nethercott House for weekly day visits, instead of the usual week-long residential stay. ‘The experience of a working farm is invaluable to the children of Yeo Valley Primary, as they work together to undertake all manner of purposeful farming tasks and develop self-confidence and a sense of pride in their…

ENGLISH WILLOW, one of the leading producers of Salix alba Caerulea (also known as cricket-bat willow) has signed a contract with Blenheim, Oxfordshire, to manage and harvest trees on the estate. The firm creates new plantations, purchases mature trees and replaces every tree it fells. English willow trees are perfect to grow on low-lying, wet and heavy soils that are often unproductive, it says, and they sequester carbon and improve biodiversity. ‘The estate has a long association with cricket; the Blenheim Park Cricket Club still plays home fixtures on the South Lawn (above), so for us to be able to supply the timber to make bats is absolutely brilliant,’ says Rachel Furness-Smith, head of estates at the palace. ‘Working with English Willow means we can manage our willow trees in…

THERE are two ways to reach the lighthouse at Rubh’A’Mhail, or Ruvaal, on the north-east point of Islay: by boat or by walking for more than two hours across The Hill, a windswept wilderness of cotton-grass bogs and heather moorland riddled with gullies, waterfalls and burns. Those that make the journey to Howard and Suzanne Cobb’s one-acre garden, where salt-laden storms can sometimes topple a grown man, will be amazed at what has been coaxed into growing in this barren landscape of exposed rock and topsoil that is, in places, only 1in deep. They will be even more surprised that this horticultural miracle is the work of a slender, 5ft 1in-tall, 75-year-old woman—yet the indomitable Mrs Cobb, who made and maintains this garden pretty much singlehandedly, is a gale force…

STYLISH in its simplicity and muted in colour, this space was designed to evoke the spirit of service rooms in grand old country houses. ‘Anything too elaborate wouldn’t have felt authentic,’ explains Bruce Hodgson, founder and creative director of furniture and kitchen designer Artichoke. ‘I see this room as the valve between the outside world of mud and rain and the interior of a house. It should be a practical, functional space, that everyone in the house uses—including the dogs.’ These rooms are, admits Bruce, something of an obsession for the firm, as they present a variety of design challenges that, when well executed, improve the smooth functioning of a house. ‘First, we consider the individual requirements of the family and then it’s about designing the space around them,’ says…

FOR sale for the first time in 25 years —at a guide price of £9.5 million through Savills Country Department (020–7016 3780)—handsome, early-Georgian Blissamore Hall at Clanville, near Andover, sits comfortably at the centre of its 150 acres of well-tended gardens, rolling parkland, rich pasture and ancient woodland on the edge of the North Wessex Downs AONB. Although ownership of the former manorial land on which the hall stands can be traced to the mid 10th century, when it was held by Edith, consort queen of Edward the Confessor, and after the Conquest by Wilmington Priory, the present Blissamore Hall has at its core an early to mid-17th-century house, altered in the 18th, early and late 19th centuries and, apparently, ‘to a great extent rebuilt’ at some point. In the…

ON the night of June 8, 1778, the wife of the English landscape painter William Pars was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, having died of consumption two days earlier. ‘All the English artists who were then in Rome walked in procession with torches, to the number of 18 or 20. Banks the Sculptor read the Service, and great numbers of Romans attended, who behaved with the greatest Decorum, and a profound Silence was observed. The Scene was grand and striking. The Moon, just hid behind the Tomb of Caio Sesto, cast her Silvery Tints on all the Objects around, save where that large and dark Piramid thrust its broad Shadow over the Place where the Solemn Ceremony was performing by the dusky Light of Torches…’ It was thus…

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FARMERS have kept the nation going during the lockdown and, in the background, so, too, has the Oxford Farming Conference (OFC), as its series of online webinars continues to address and discuss the key issues facing agriculture. On August 6, the latest instalment of the one-hour virtual events will take place, with Mark Roach and Charlie Steer of Grosvenor Farms discussing ‘The Case for Expansion’ with OFC director Tom Levitt. Grosvenor is Tesco’s biggest single milk supplier and Mr Steer and Mr Roach will be tackling the theme of ‘Forget the doomsayers, recession and Brexit. There is a case to be made for confidence in the future of UK farming, or is there?’. The session will run from 12 noon to 1pm and the audience is invited to submit questions…

Letter of the week One man’s weed THE reference to hairy bittercress (‘Real men eat ground-elder quiche’, July 15) brought to mind Gertrude Jekyll’s advice on using the weed in a sandwich in her charming book Children and Gardens ( COUNTRY LIFE Library, 1908). Illustrated by her drawings of the cress as a rosette, in flower and with its explosive seed-dispersal mechanism, Jekyll tells her young readers to cut off the root, wash and dry the leaves, then eat them between two bits of bread and butter for nursery tea: ‘And if it transmits to you its fine quality of perseverance, why, you will be none the worse.’ Richard Bisgrove, Oxfordshire The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne…

1923 August 11 published Toddlers wait for tea in the long gallery at the Nursery Training College, Hampstead Garden Suburb. Despite building work commencing at the outbreak of the First World War and outcry from householders who did not want such an institution built near them, the school opened in August, 1915. It closed in 1979 and is now apartments. 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…

GATCOMBE PARK is inhabited by curious Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs that like to watch dressage, elegant, sooty-nosed White Park cattle, a matronly Suffolk filly, bustling Buff Orpington hens and their feisty cockerel and venerable grazing Wiltshire Horn sheep that resemble the inhabitants of a pastoral scene from a Thomas Hardy novel. Britain’s endlessly diverse, entertaining and genetically crucial native farm animals have long owed a great deal to the agricultural interests of the Royal Family. The idea of improving livestock dates back centuries, but it was during Queen Victoria’s reign that enthusiasm for breed societies, official studbooks and competing at agricultural shows really took off and, ever since, British livestock breeds have benefited from knowledgeable, close royal interest and loyalty. The Queen Mother presided over the North Country Cheviot Sheep…

FOR centuries, shepherds across Britain have tended their flocks with the help of a remarkable and steadfast companion, the sheepdog. To watch one at work is a privilege—an extraordinary, unspoken bond in action, the border collie moving quickly and nimbly at its handler’s command. In 1906, the International Sheep Dog Society (ISDS) was founded to preserve and improve the sheepdog and, in doing so, protect the shepherd’s calling and stock welfare. Today, supported by its patron, The Princess Royal, the society continues to work tirelessly to this purpose. ‘It all stemmed from the banter between shepherds and farmers about whose dog was better,’ smiles chairman Ian Fleming, a member of the society from the age of 14. ‘Eventually, they decided to have a contest to prove who was right. That…

The fishermen’s friend Fred Stroyan, 55 Champion credentials Warden of The Fishmongers' Company (www.fishmongers.org.uk)and New England Seafood founder I suppose you could say that the sea is my countryside. What gets me out of bed every morning is the world of fishing, plus I’m passionate about sustainability. New England Seafood, the company that I founded in 1991, began with me supplying lobsters to Billingsgate from a shed in Wandsworth. It now supplies seafood to British supermarkets and restaurants and employs 800 people, including a team to drive sustainability forward. We operate in 40 countries and, rather than beating industries with a proverbial stick, we offer them a prize—a commercial outlet for their fish if they come on the sustainable journey with us. We have seen fisheries transformed as a result.…

EFFECTIVE supply chains and efficient transport networks are vital to keeping Britain moving. In an interview last year with The Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CILT) membership magazine, Focus, The Princess Royal described logistics and transport as ‘a massive profession’ and one that ‘should be recognised as intermodal and crucial to adding value to the whole supply chain from production to movement’. Logistics and transport are the arteries that keep the UK flowing. ‘If you can’t get things from A to B, you’re not going to be able to make money or save lives,’ she added. The supply-chain process plans, implements and controls the effective forward and reverse flow and storage of goods and services, as well as the related information between the point of origin and the…

THE sleepy, unspoilt parish of Edgmond, which includes the hamlets of Adney, Calvington, Caynton, The Buttery, Edgmond Marsh and Sidlington (‘total population 2,062’, according to the latest census), lies on the edge of the fertile north Shropshire plain—rich, lush land that stretches away flat in every direction. Apart from a slight disturbance in 1066, when a Saxon called Leuuin was forced to hand it over to Roger de Montgomery, a rumour that Ozzy Osbourne was living on the High Street during the 1970s and having the lowest temperature weather ever recorded in England (in 1982), it’s fair to say that not much has happened in the area since it was first settled and farmed some 4,000 years ago. Indeed, from the picturesque 13th-century church, the friendly village shop and the…

An exhibition that has really impressed you? It has to be the ‘Icons of Modern Art: The Shchukin Collection' show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2019. The Impressionist and post-Impressionist art was phenomenal-a unique collection housed in a sensational building. Your aesthetic hero? Syrie Maugham, for her flair for theatrical interior design. She broke away from the stiffness of traditional decoration, mixing antiques with the contemporary pieces of the early 20th century. Although her work is often quite voluptuous, there is a sense of calm to all her interiors. Which book have you found inspiring? On a recent visit to Istanbul, the vibrant interiors of the palaces and mosques sparked a new-found fascination for me in Islamic tiles. Damascus Tiles by Arthur Millner (Prestel Publishing) is…

Cheshire, £2.5 million Grade II-listed Swanwick Hall, in Alderley Edge, is an ideal site for equestrian enthusiasts looking to turn a profit from their hobby. The main family house boasts six bedrooms, three reception rooms and a glass garden room, as well as a utility and boot room, perfect for keeping the muck outside and away from the immaculately presented and modern interiors. Outside, the 23½ acres of grounds are a mixture of gardens and paddocks, and the equestrian facilities are run as a livery yard. The business offers 18 stables, tack, feed rooms, rug rooms and store rooms, and a 200ft by 100ft Martin Collins sand and CLOPF-surfaced school, combined with turn-out paddocks, offers a place to ride whatever the weather. Jackson Stops (01625 540340) Devon,…