Innholdsfortegnelse for 23-Jun-2021 i Country Life

Dive into Greece RECREATIONAL divers have the opportunity to discover a treasure trove of wrecks on the Greek seabed, part of a drive to catalogue and preserve European underwater cultural heritage. The country’s first designated underwater museum opened in 2019 within the National Marine Park of Alonissos and Northern Sporades. It centres on the Peristera shipwreck, which sank near Alonissos island, in the Western Aegean, in the 5th century BC, carrying a cargo of some 4,000 wine amphorae. The site will re-open from June to November, and three more will launch in the near future, including a Roman wreck off Cape Telegrafos and a Byzantine shipwreck at Kikinthos. The Ministry of Culture announced in March that it will gradually open up the sites of nearly 100 underwater wrecks dating between…

IMAGINE you woke up one morning and looked out of the window to discover that, as if in a tale by the Brothers Grimm, all the plants of foreign origin in the garden had mysteriously vanished overnight. An inevitable legacy of the nightmare might well be the realisation that so many of our familiar friends come from quite unexpected places. How could that be and how did they get here? It is a curiosity of our climate, oft remarked upon by visitors from overseas, that so many exotic plants are quietly prepared to grow in our gardens without looking as if they would rather be at home. That irritating combination of changeable weather, rain throughout the year and the subtle influence of the Gulf Stream makes this a happy home…

I ENDED up in Germany by chance. I have always had an interest in antiques and country houses and my poor father would wait outside with our two labradors as I rummaged around shops or country houses. After school, I was interested in pursuing a career in art, but my father, a trained artist, was rather sceptical and suggested I’d do something else for a while, so I joined the crew of the QEII to see the world. During that time, I met one of my two current business partners, who is German. We came up with the idea of opening an upmarket tea and coffee shop. Initially, we thought of Bath or Cheltenham, but my business partner had been offered empty premises in the town where he had grown…

Babes in the woods A pregnant pig destined for slaughter in Nottinghamshire has escaped and given piglets woodland near Ollerton, as a walker discovered last week Hazel dormice Last week, the People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) released its 1,000th hazel dormouse, in Lancashire, part of an ongoing recovery scheme for the species, which has declined by 51% in the past 20 years Literature come to life Bath's House of Frankenstein opens on June 30 and features a model of the monster exactly as Mary Shelley described him-not a green zombie with a bolt in its neck, but an 8ft-tall, Paradise Lost-reading ‘man' with watery eyes and black lips Green wheels Raleigh is donating £42,000 of electric bikes and e-cargo bikes to the National Trust, for staff to use around…

I AM looking across a hay meadow where the buttercups are just over their best, but where the ox-eye daisies are in full bloom and the patches of ragged robin and red campion stand out against the green of the meadow grasses. This is the joy of the traditional countryside: a field self-seeded, where there have been no chemicals for almost 30 years since last they poured on the nitrogen to attempt a crop of oilseed rape. It’s taken time and patience, but the vetch and the clover, the bird’s-foot trefoil and the loosestrife have emerged, some from where they lay dormant in the soil and the rest carried by the birds, which themselves are back in noisy profusion. There’s rural history everywhere. The star of Bethlehem and our lady’s…

When the venerable furniture company Heal's calls ‘the timeless' Anglepoise 1227 Desk Lamp a national treasure, ‘ranking up there with the Mini Cooper or the London Underground Map' and epitomising British design at its best, for once it doesn't sound like hollow marketing hype. Unsurprisingly, the Anglepoise has also been adopted by popular culture. It has been a staple prop of ‘James Bond' films and, in 1982, Peter Gabriel's video for his single Shock the Monkey cast dancing Anglepoise lamps in a supporting role. In 2009, to mark the lamp's 75th anniversary, it was given its own Royal Mail stamp (above). It has even penetrated international culture, featuring in the logo of the animated-picture company Pixar.…

‘Nomenclature is based on attempts to understand behaviour, hence woodcock pilot’ ON a rainy night in early March of 1928, after hours of debate about soldiers’ pensions, the Protection of Lapwings Bill was read out in the House of Commons. The legislation had been proposed in the hope of bringing an end to people setting out in spring to pick the iridescent waders’ eggs. It wasn’t felt that a gamekeeper taking one or two from a clutch for their master’s supper was much of a problem, but the going rate at London markets was three shillings a dozen, which provided a tremendous incentive for the eggs to be harvested commercially. In the late 19th century, at an estate near Potter Heigham on the Norfolk Broads, it’s recorded that one lone…

IDENTIFICATION books on British birds dating back a few decades seldom trouble themselves with the little egret. Into the 1980s, the chances of spotting its snow-white outline, perhaps hunched and motionless by the water’s edge in the classic heron family pose or awkwardly stepping through the muddy shallows like a man in oversized shoes, were slim. Yet, what a transformation in fortunes Egretta garzetta has experienced in the years since. The first official record in England was of a bird shot in Yorkshire in 1826, but, as recently as 1960, the total number recorded amounted to only 33. Today, the total British breeding population, according to the British Trust for Ornithology, is about 11,000 nesting pairs, with the total swelling to more than 12,000 in winter, when they are joined…

• Cut two pieces of thin wire, about 18in in length and 2mm in diameter. Metal coat hangers work well for this. • Bend the wires to create a right angle about two-thirds along their length. • Hold one in each hand, by the short length, then raise the rods, keeping your elbows to your sides and the rods pointing directly forwards. • Start off by placing a bottle of water on the floor, then walking over it. Eventually, the rods should cross involuntarily when you reach the water source. • Don’t worry if it doesn’t work immediately—try to relax and keep practising. The British Society of Dowsers offers classes and further advice (01684 576969; www.britishdowsers.org)…

THIS is the library of a house that the designer has bought to life for a new generation. ‘I was asked to open up the rooms, re-arrange the astonishing collection of art and furniture and make it sing again,’ she explains. ‘The aim was to maintain the sense of grandeur, but not make it too precious.’ Her approach was to bridge the gap between the rigid formality of the bookcases and the soft lines of the silk curtains that frame the tall sash windows. To achieve this, Miss Soames upholstered a Regency-style sofa by Max Rollitt in a rich blue velvet (01962 791124; www.maxrollitt.com). ‘Blue is not an obvious colour for an English country house, but it lends the room a sense of formality.’ Married with the sofa is a…

North Yorkshire, excess £700,000 A private natural pool fed by a cascade worthy of a water nymph is attached to this sweet four/five-bedroom property in the hidden valley at Golden Grove, about 10 minutes from Whitby. Formerly owned by the Turnbull family-a big name in the golden age of shipbuilding-sandstone Beck Cottage has been created by merging two adjoining houses. It overlooks Cock Mill Beck and the kitchen opens directly onto a sun-dappled waterside terrace; a footbridge over the beck leads to another sitting area with lawns and wooded grounds along the beck with fishing rights. A further 51½ acres lies slightly to the east of the hamlet, including 4½ acres of paddocks and broadleaf woodlands criss-crossed by becks (more fishing potential) and monks trods-footpaths created by monks hundreds…

CLOSE your eyes and picture yourself in your ideal getaway. Are you enjoying a sundowner on the terrace after a day amid meadows or diving off the side of a boat into warm waves? Most of us have a natural preference: some are only happy with sun, sea and sand; others need the serenity of the countryside to unplug. There are pros and cons to each (assuming, of course, that one must choose), so which will provide the perfect overseas property? Beach destinations offer a great deal of variety: they can either go ‘disco’ (the bright lights and endless summer nights of Ibiza or Mykonos), ‘go slow’ (the refined version of barefoot luxury at many exotic resorts) or somewhere in between. The beach also tends to work well for multi-generational…

When Nature every sweet prepares To entertain our wished delay,— The images which morning wears, The wakening charms of early day! THUS wrote the Romantic poet John Clare in Summer Morning. Clare knew all the land’s secrets and none was greater than this: nothing on earth compares to the first hour of a summer’s morning in the British countryside. Immortality is insufficient to contain all such mornings we would wish to enjoy. Not yet 5am—the village cockerel crows, but few, if any, humans stir. Even the dairy farmer turns over in her bed, hits the snooze button, wanting a few more zzzzzz. The land itself is discarding the sleepy duvet of night and everything is vital, the air absolutely transparent. We can see clearer now. Laurie Lee, that other consummate…

• Prepare the artichokes by removing the coarse outer leaves, until the pale-yellow leaves appear. Use a peeler to strip the stem until the tender part is exposed and scoop out the ‘choke’ with a teaspoon. Drop prepared artichokes into a bowl of lemon water. • Steam the artichokes over a pan of lemon water for about 30 minutes. • Combine a splash of olive oil, a knob of butter, crushed garlic and the juice of a lemon in a pan and gently heat, making sure it doesn’t brown. Remove from the heat and add grated Parmesan. • Mix dressing and pour into centres of the artichokes. Serve with bread.…

• The little egret is most easily seen on open, muddy or sandy watersides, reedbeds or rocky islands. It has a slim dark bill, black legs and yellow-sometimes mud-discoloured-feet. It eats small fish, frogs and snails • The largest European population of little egrets is in north-west Italy • When seen from a distance, the little egret is sometimes confused with the great white egret (numbers of which are also increasing in the UK). Similar in colouration, the latter is much larger and more like the grey heron-with the exception of the three swan species, it is the largest all-white bird in Britain • The latest of the egret family to arrive in this country is the cattle egret (right; here, it does not confine its attentions solely to bovines).…

IT was a thoughtful present for an exacting mother-in-law. When her fifth and youngest child, Maud, was still an infant, Alexandra, Princess of Wales, gave Queen Victoria a gold-link bracelet. From it hung five gold lockets, each one decorated with stone-set motifs, including a diamond horseshoe and Maud’s monogram in turquoise. Within each was a photograph of one of Alexandra’s children, Victoria’s grandchildren, with their name and birthday engraved on each locket’s inside cover. In style, it resembled a bracelet Victoria already owned, presented to her by Prince Albert three days after the birth of her eldest daughter, Vicky, in November 1840, and subsequently extended to accommodate nine heart-shaped enamelled charms, one for each of the couple’s children, all containing a lock of baby hair and inscribed with the child’s…

CAREFULLY considered simplicity is surprisingly hard work. The process of distilling the necessities of function so that they disappear in a haze of clean lines requires a designer with the skills of Sir Jonathan Ive, the visionary creator of the iPhone. When applied to furniture and brought to life in beautiful materials with texture and depth of colour, such as bronze, marble and timber, it’s a highly seductive combination. And yet, yet, en masse it can be overwhelmingly dull, like a Modernist hotel or an airport lounge (remember those?). ‘There’s something refreshing about objects that celebrate bold shapes’ After a decade or two dominated by pared-back, less-is-more, designed-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life design, there’s something refreshing about the exuberant shapes and textures of objects that celebrate the materiality of bold, often handmade, shapes. It’s…

Best for wild swimming Sicily, Italy FROM the powder-soft sand of Sicily’s beaches, you can take easy dips in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, but for the ultimate exhilarating summer swim, you should try what the Italians call acqua dolce (literally, sweet water). Wild swimming in this southerly Italian island is, indeed, sweet. For a sense of complete seclusion, head to the freshwater pools at Cavagrande del Cassibile Nature Reserve (above). Also known as the Laghetti d’Avola, these natural bathing spots are set in a dramatic limestone canyon with 984ft walls, formed by the River Cassibile. Be prepared to walk for more than an hour through a hillside of plane trees, willows and ferns down to the emerald-green pools, with a slightly longer climb back. Luckily, there is a…

OVER the years, Mallorca has shown contrasting facets to different people, but its transformation from a symbol of the ravages of sun-and-sangria package holidays to a sophisticated Mediterranean destination is—reality television shows aside—well under way. The dated mid-market hotels that blighted the beaches near Palma are increasingly being torn down or updated (even the beach at Magaluf has been rebranded Calvià Beach) and townhouses and farmhouses across the island are being converted into elegant luxury or boutique hotels. The largest of the Balearics, Mallorca also has the biggest airport, with the most frequent year-round flights to all European capitals. It has, at the last count, 17 international schools and high-speed fibre-optic broadband covers 82% of homes. But its lure goes far beyond such practical considerations: no other island in the…

In the footsteps of Keats IN 1821, and in true Romantic form, John Keats died, with tuberculosis, at the age of 25 (‘Thou wast not born for death’, February 3). At the time, his 54 published poems had not been well received—‘the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language’, one critic wrote—but praise from the likes of Tennyson and the pre-Raphaelites brought him fame in the second half of the 19th century and he is still one of England’s most popular poets. Those craving the ‘season of mist and mellow fruitfulness’ during a hot June may look forward to a walk through Winchester’s water meadows—a place where ‘the air is worth sixpence a pint’ and which inspired To Autumn—with poet Stephanie Norgate and naturalist and poet James Simpson. Organised…

What a wondrous place is the midsummer garden at night, with its mysterious visitors on ground and wing. Jasmines, honeysuckle, stocks and nicotiana create their heady perfume blends, the point of night scent being to attract insect pollinators. Among the most fascinating of these is the beautiful, olive-green elephant hawk-moth, pencilled and chevroned with flashes of pink. Hovering over suitable blooms, it unfurls the drinking straw of its long proboscis to draw nectar from the depths. Valerians, heathers, hebe and buddleja supplement its garden larder if wayside and meadow flowers are scarce. Yet we know now these remarkable moths don't rely on night scent to guide them. Unlike us, Deilephila elpenor can see in the dark-and it sees in colour, not even needing moonlight to assist. In late summer, the…

Of rod and reel I WAS delighted to see David Profumo and his father fishing with the same rod that I had aged five (Reel Life, May 26). I walked three miles to the Grand Union Canal at the age of seven and caught my first fish—a roach—with that rod and reel (above). It now hangs proudly in the ‘rod and dog’ room. With one of my homemade sticks, I am still never far from the river. Andrew Harding, West Sussex The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne…

1925 Published February 14 This lyrical view of St Catherine's Valley, its contours delicately picked out by the evening light, was taken from the roof terrace of Cold Ashton Manor, Gloucestershire. The distorted perspectives of the Elizabethan gate in the foreground, encrusted with sculpture in the 1660s, make clear the high vantage point of the photographer. 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 licensing@futurenet.com…

Although George Carwardine was essentially a versatile engineer, Robert Dudley Best (1892–1984) was a true lighting specialist, embracing ideas about art as well as function. When he inherited his Birmingham-based family lighting company Best & Lloyd in 1925, he was concerned that its lamp designs were too heavy and laden with the ornate trimmings of an earlier era. Friendly with Walter Gropius of the German Bauhaus school and an admirer of other Modernists, such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, he began making sketches of what would become known as the Bestlite, which married form with functionality. The simple, swan-necked lamp would at first be favoured by car mechanics because of its easy adjustability, but it penetrated the national consciousness when photographs showed that Churchill had a Bestlite…

IN 1920, amid intensifying violence, Ireland was partitioned. By the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, the six counties in the north of the island were divided from the remaining 26 to the south, and each was provided with an assembly to control its internal affairs. The former desired political union with Britain and the latter independence from it, but both regarded partition as an act of betrayal that compromised Ireland’s geographic integrity. Nonetheless, political division proved irresistible and, in December 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty conceded Dominion status to the Irish Free State, the future Republic of Ireland. A few months earlier, on June 22, 1921, George V and Queen Mary had braved the dangers of an ongoing and bitterly fought civil war (Country Life, December 30, 2020) to…

HAVING spent my childhood making (and selling) rose-petal perfume, to have a beautiful bottle of the proper stuff on a dressing table is a daily excitement—and feels very grown-up. Penhaligon’s Elisabethan Rose is inspired by the Tudor rose, the symbol of Elizabethan England that represented the fusion of the Lancastrian and Yorkist noble houses. The white of York and the red of Lancaster came together through marriage and battle, marking the end of the War of the Roses.…

TODAY sees the launch onto the market of one of Cornwall’s best-kept secrets, the secluded, 246-acre Pengreep estate, between Gwennap and Ponsanooth in south Cornwall, which is for sale for the first time in its history, through joint agents Jonathan Cunliffe in Falmouth (01326 617447) and Lodge & Thomas in Truro (01872 272722). The agents quote a guide price of £7 million for the estate, which sits in its own woodland valley close to the towns of Truro, Falmouth and Redruth, and within seven miles of both the north and south coasts of Cornwall. Its focal point is Grade I-listed Pengreep House, originally a farmhouse built in the early 18th century by the Beauchamp family, enlarged by them in the mid 18th century and further extended in about 1865 by…

ROSE HILTON, who would have been 90 this summer, is being celebrated with a sparkling memorial show in London. Her brilliantly abstracted landscapes and figures in intriguing settings combine in a toast to life. She was the last survivor from the heyday of Modernist art in Cornwall. As muse and carer for the rampageous Roger Hilton, she also had a rare perspective as a liberated artist and a put-upon wife. Her art evolved ravishingly in the half of her life spent in merry widowhood, but it had always been her mainspring. She made the most of every scrap of existence, revelling in people most of all. When I posed for her once, in a studio high above Newlyn harbour, she said: ‘This is so good of you. The last man…