Innholdsfortegnelse for 30-Jun-2021 i Country Life

OUR holiday wings have been clipped, but let’s not despair. Britain has been here before, notably during the Napoleonic Wars when the Grand Tour that completed every gentleman’s education became off limits. Even before that, the Revd William Gilpin had discovered the Wye Valley, which he found as Picturesque as the Continent—who needs a Danube cruise? In 1812, Shelley, unable to travel to Europe, stayed in Lyn-mouth, Devon, ‘a fairy scene… rose-clad and myrtle-clad… it was enough’. The Victorians likened Devon—and even Haslemere in Surrey—to Switzerland and, in the early 20th century, we had the Cornish Riviera, courtesy of a publicity drive by the Great Western Railway. What was it Blake wrote about seeing the world in a grain of sand? Some places were deliberately made to look like abroad.…

Quiz of the week 1) In the BBC TV series, what was the profession of Steptoe and Son? 2) What is the largest water mass on Earth? 3) To the nearest hundred thousand, how many words is The Complete Works of William Shakespeare? 4) How is the shape of a DNA molecule commonly described? 5) When Chartwell was taken over by the National Trust, the Churchill family asked that there always be a marmalade cat named what in residence? Word of the week Redivivus (adjective) Restored to life; revived 1) Rag-and-bone men 2) Pacific Ocean 3) 900,000 (884,647, according to Marvin Spevack) 4) Double helix 5) Jock Time to buy Let’s go outside Gilfach, Rowen, Gwynedd. July 4, 2pm–5.30pm. Admission £3.50, pre-booking essential (www.ngs.org.uk) Many gardens in Wales boast fantastic…

COUNTRY people are beginning to wonder whether Defra, the farming and rural affairs ministry, has really got a plan for the countryside at all. It’s a question that jumps out of last week’s report by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). Parliament has charged this independent body with the job of assessing how well the Government is doing in fighting climate change. It looks at each ministry individually, as well as the Government as a whole, and Defra does not come out well. That’s a particular concern because it is supposedly the department directly responsible for adapting the nation to deal with the climate change that’s already happening. ‘It’s difficult to see what Defra is going to contribute to the net zero strategy’ Whatever we do to reduce our emissions,…

DOGS are wonderful, but they’re naughty, too,’ declares illustrator John Holder. ‘They do terrible things. They slobber, they sniff bottoms, they always seem to go to the loo at the wrong time and they tear things to bits—but, then again, there’s not much fun in a dog sitting quietly, is there?’ This summer sees the release of No Dogs on the Bed, a joyful and humorous collection of illustrations by Mr Holder, celebrating the misdemeanours of Man’s best friend and exhibiting scenes that will be embarrassingly familiar to the nation’s dog owners —from the inevitable destruction of furniture when a pampered pooch is home alone, to a gundog’s sudden development of selective hearing in the shooting field. Yet, in spite of the chaos and frustrations, the book captures the way…

WALKING along the Chelsea Embankment in 1983, admiring the colourful array of vessels bobbing off Cadogan Pier, art dealer Martin Summers was asked by his young daughter the inimitable question: ‘Daddy, why don’t we have a boat?’ It sparked an idea. Having discussed some options with his friend Scott Beadle, an artist and experienced mariner, Mr Summers began to scan through magazines advertising boats for sale until one caught his eye. Moored deep in the Camargue and in a state of considerable disrepair, her elegant lines were nevertheless arresting. Better still, she had been built for the British speed-record breaker Sir Malcolm Campbell and, at £12,500, appeared to be cheap. The pair ventured to the port of Le Grau du Roi in the Gard, where another chapter in her history…

IN my most recent column (March 31), I described our winter work: pruning, but also looking at and trying to understand the garden at Iford Manor and what Harold Peto and those before him were trying to do here. A garden is not an object, it is a process and cannot be understood at a single moment. In common with all historic gardens, traces of the past build upon traces of the past. These laminas of history require careful peeling back if we are to understand the layering of time and interventions made. As the great landscape architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe said, ‘we should ponder on the past not as the past, but as a pointer to the future’. The question is how to introduce flora and something of the…

Green, pleasant and now protected CHESHIRE’S majestic Sandstone Ridge and the chalk hills and dry valleys of the Yorkshire Wolds could soon become England’s latest Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Natural England has put forward proposals to designate the two places and expand the existing Surrey Hills and Chilterns AONBs, as well as providing funds to farmers and landowners within protected countryside to help them improve the environment and boost public access. It is part of the Government’s response to Julian Glover’s 2019 review on National Parks and AONBs (‘Our national pride and joy’, May 29, 2019), which indicted the system for being too ‘fragmented’. The plan goes a long way towards meeting a commitment to protect 30% of the land by 2030, according to Environment Secretary George Eustice,…

UNDOUBTEDLY molluscs are very beautiful. You may call them snails if you prefer to, but at once the vision is unwittingly conjured up of a glutinous and unappetising mass in some gardener’s pail: whereas if you call them molluscs it will be acknowledged that they can be beautiful. After all, there is much in a name, in spite of what any authority may have said to the contrary. Advertising agents know that there is, and the unthinking public believe that there is. For instance, ‘bête-de-bon-dieu’ rouses a sentiment which ‘lady-bug’ leaves unstirred, and ‘fly larva’ demands a respect which will never be given to ‘maggot’! If the garden snail were known by her scientific name of Aspersa we should show more toleration even of her—and she is worthy for the…

• In a mixing bowl, combine 100g of plain flour, half a teaspoon of baking soda, 50g of crème fraîche, two beaten eggs, 200g of peas, 2tbspn of mixed chopped herbs and seasoning to form a batter. • Heat some oil in a frying pan (about half an inch in depth) and carefully drop in spoonfuls of the fritter batter. • Fry for a few minutes on each side, until lightly browned, then remove with a slotted spoon and place them on kitchen paper to absorb excess oil. • Serve with salad. For a more substantial meal, top the fritters with some crushed avocado, bacon and a fried egg.…

As time goes by YOUR wonderful article on British businesses (‘The jeweller, the baker, the bicycle maker’, June 9) made us all, I am sure, nostalgic for handcrafted, quality goods, which have largely been overwhelmed by mass-produced, cheap items, mainly manufactured in China. It also made me reminisce of days gone by and I soon found myself getting angry that my grandchildren might be denied some of the delights I took for granted in my youth. The article made me more determined than ever that I should share my memories so the youngsters could be as captivated as I was—and still am—at the artistry and skill of many of the items one can still buy today, made in Britain. Jim Bell, Herefordshire Up in smoke THE article on bindweed (June…

‘Wren had the chance to build the only one of our cathedrals to be in the Classical style’ AN inscription, Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice (Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you), in the crypt serves as a memorial to Sir Christopher Wren, who is buried there. It’s a modest epitaph in an immodest building. Not everyone is infatuated with the pomp and grandeur of London’s largest cathedral, but it works as a street spectacle. The most exciting approach is from the end of Fleet Street as it dips into the valley of the now subterranean River Fleet, affording a suspenseful preview of one of Wren’s Baroque towers, the giant dome looming beyond. The gradient rises again up Ludgate Hill and you get a glimpse of another of…

THERE is English tea, (full) English breakfast, the English language, an English summer (sometimes disappointing) and English mustard. Less well known, but equally as much fun, is the English goat, as Johanna Tavernor, secretary of the English Goat Breeders Association (EGBA), firmly believes. ‘My kids use me as a climbing frame,’ she says. ‘If I open the back door, my goats will come into the house and my billy, Millwind Gambit, once got totally stuck in the hay rack and had to be extracted by my husband.’ GSOH apart, the deer-like, eel-striped English goat has great presence and its ears stand to attention as if part of a military parade. With so many striking physical attributes, coupled with intelligence, politeness and curiosity, it is small wonder that this rare breed…

THE closest most get to it these days is the intensely blue flower nestling atop a properly constructed glass of Pimm’s. No herb, once so generous in its offerings to mankind, has retreated further from popular awareness. Its many English folk names—bee plant, bee bush, bee bread, ox tongue, talewort, star-flower, cool tankard, herb of gladness, borak, lisan selvi, lesan-el-tour, euphrosinum and common bugloss—reflect its perceived attributes. Its five-petal flowers grow together in long, scorpioid cymes and are wreathed in a haze of soft bristles. On the human palate, they have a moreish, honey flavour. The hairy leaves and stems may be likened to bovine tongues in texture and shape—hence bugloss, an inelegant word that comes from the Greek bou, a cow or ox, and the Latin glosso, tongue. Borage,…

THE whiff of motor oil from the antique-looking 4½-litre ‘Blower’ engine is the bouquet of an era one yearns to have witnessed. I flick down two magneto switches behind an immense steering wheel, engage the fuel pump and press fire. The effect is like that of a prewar flux capacitor, transporting me back to the rakish era of the jazz-age Bentley Boys. This car, however, was not built in 1929. It was built in 2021. A replica, then? Rinse your mouth out, please. This is a ‘continuation’ Blower, built officially by Bentley and forensically based on a car still in the company’s possession, the 1929 Team Car No 2, as raced by its inventor, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin, in the 1930 Le Mans 24 Hours. Upon its centenary in 2019,…

Bags of time NOW we have a need for a handbag, make it a spacious, practical and pretty one from Landa. The company crafts lovely, colourful bags, ideal for everyday—the extra pocket situation is exemplary. This pink one caught my eye. Teca cross-body with handle and strap, €365 (about £312) (www.landabags.com). Botswana bling THE third largest diamond to be unearthed was found on June 1 in Botswana by Debswana Diamond Co, a unit of De Beers Plc. Weighing in at a whopping 1,098 carats, this is the largest found since the company was founded five decades ago. Debswana Diamond Co provides more than 34,000 jobs in Botswana and the company has worked to ensure ethical and responsible practices. Before the discovery of diamonds, there were only three secondary schools in…

WITH little sign of any levelling off of demand for secluded country houses in picturesque rural locations, the North of England has been a happy hunting ground for buyers from outside the region in the first half of the year. To further whet the appetite, hot off the press come three exceptional country properties in idyllic settings within favoured areas of the North’s most scenic counties. Edward Stoyle of Savills in York (01904 617820) is handling the sale of Thiernswood Hall, a mid-Victorian former hunting lodge set in 20 acres of woods and farmland on the fringe of the hamlet of Healaugh, in the heart of Swaledale, a mile from the village of Reeth and 13 miles west of Richmond. He quotes a guide price of £2.5 million for the…

IN the 1950s, Fred and Sybil Spencer bought a stern stone farmhouse surrounded by a field and an orchard a few miles from Leeds. Over the next 40 years, they and their only son, Robin, transformed that scrap of land into York Gate. Fred died in 1963 and Robin stepped in to take prime responsibility for the garden. Sybil was a talented plantswoman, but it was Robin’s eye for detail that took the garden into the premier division. The original garden was little more than an acre, but into that acre they packed a whole series of treasures—it is like a magician’s hat from which yet another surprise is plucked as you turn every corner. At the entrance gate, you are greeted by a shaggy specimen of weeping Wellingtonia (Sequoiadendron…

Heavy lifting The World's Strongest Man proves to be a Scot, after 27-year-old Tom Stoltman won the competition, which took place in Sacramento, California, in the US. Mr Stoltman, from Invergordon in the Highlands, beat 24 other competitors and, in one event, pushed a locomotive 30 yards Dieting Major fast food and sweet companies will be banned from online advertising and offering tempting ‘bogof' promotions on fatty and sugary food, plus there will be a 9pm watershed for television adverts, which could cost broadcasters £200 million Birdwatching A RSPB warden on Lundy Island was jubilant when he realised the unusual bird trilling near his moth traps was a sulphur-bellied warbler (right) making its first known trip to British shores; meanwhile, over in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, bee-eaters have been causing…

Its shrieking cry is the signature sound of the seaside, embedded into the national consciousness and reinforced weekly by the theme to Desert Island Discs. (Pedants in the 1960s briefly replaced the herring gulls' accompaniment with something more tropical, but the tenacious gull of northern European shores was soon reinstated.) These are big, powerful and characterful birds, with a complex language of greetings, warnings, pleas for food and declarations of territory, exercised with vigour on both clifftops and rooftops. Human carelessness has turned them into opportunistic scavengers of discarded food and accomplished pirates around seaside chips. Inland, they're followers of the plough -churned-up worms are nutritious fare. Monogamous by nature and pairing for life, they're attentive parents, the chicks pressing the red dot on the adult's yellow bill to request…

1935 Unpublished This view of the laundry at Christ's Hospital, West Sussex, is part of an unusually full set of photographs taken for an article on the school in 1935. A clock notes the time as being just after 10am. The slight blurring of some of the figures suggests concentrated labour, and everyone wears overalls. The sinks are of timber. Every week for the past 125 years, COUNTRY LIFE has documented and photographed many walks of life in Britain. More than 80,000 of the images are available for syndication or purchase in digital format. To view the archives, visit www.countrylifeimages.co.uk and email enquiries to licensing@futurenet.com…

Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), the great allrounder, was a scientist before he turned architect. An original member of the Royal Society and a professor of astronomy who created models of the solar system and the moon, he was described by Sir Isaac Newton as one of the three greatest geometers of the age. His skills in drawing led to an interest in building design; among his earliest commissions was the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford (1663). Even before the Great Fire, Wren had produced a plan for the rebuilding of Old St Paul's and, after it, launched a radical new scheme to rebuild the City on the more spacious, formally planned lines of Paris. Although the level of compulsory purchases required to bring this about proved unacceptable, it earned him the…

I asked a handful of experts for their verdict on the cult of continuation and feedback was mixed. ‘If anyone's going to do it, it's right that it's the original manufacturers,' asserts leading Aston Martin specialist Nicholas Mee. ‘As a commodity, I think they'll go down in value before they ever go up, like most new cars.' Aston collector Mark Donoghue is unconvinced: ‘As a concours judge, I like originality. As beautiful as the continuation cars are, as far as I'm concerned, they're not the real deal.' ‘Mechanically and aesthetically, the continuation cars will be marvellous. I don't have any objection to them,' counters Ron Warmington, former chairman of the Bentley Drivers Club. But his fellow Blower owner, Robert Fink, calls the continuation cars ‘fakes'. He continues: ‘Bentley is damaging…

HAVING been outlawed for much of the 20th century for its links to the cannabis plant, hemp fabric remains one of the most under-utilised natural fibres’ explains Babble & Hemp founder Charlie Thomas. ‘Modern milling has transformed it into a beautifully soft, elegant fabric with the allure of fine linen.’ Incredibly eco-friendly, a hemp shirt uses one-fifth of the water that a cotton shirt needs. ‘We are the only shirt brand making 100% hemp shirts, and our aim is for it to replace cotton because of its superior ecological credentials.’ Some 5,000 years ago, the plant was spun into fabric by stripping fibres off the stalk, then later used for ropes to construct the Egyptian pyramids and later still to make sails to aid the discovery of the New World…

North Yorkshire, £2.75 million Pastoral parkland wraps around this classic property, with mature trees, colourful borders, winding pathways and far-reaching views over its 28 acres, just south of the North York Moors and Dalby Forest. On the market for only the fourth time since its construction in 1742, Georgian Aislaby Hall's symmetry, sash windows, plasterwork and grand proportions clearly show the influence of John Carr of York, with impressive reception rooms that include a 30ft banqueting hall. In the tiny hamlet of Aislaby, not far from Pickering, there are eight bedrooms in the main house, plus a three-bedroom cottage and stables that could be converted to residential use. Knight Frank (01423 535373) Staffordshire, £1.5 million The cobbles of the private courtyard that Grade II-listed The Coach House surrounds…

Box hedges are days, longer-term outlook is good, so get on with clipping them. Now is a good time. It is a very enjoyable surface to clip, smooth, gliding and easy on the wrists. Use a pair of shears. Lay a sheet at the base to collect the clippings. Cut the back of the hedge first, then the front, then reserve your severest geometric approach for the top. Take your time, measuring if necessary, and don't be afraid to cut hard back if occasion demands. Box is exceptionally good at regenerating, even from ground level.…