Innholdsfortegnelse for 21-Jul-2021 i Country Life

WHAT a joy it will be to be out and about again this summer and autumn. We’re fortunate to have a landscape richly furnished with historic sites, beautifully preserved by their owners, whether institutional or private. One such body is English Heritage (EH), the holdings of which are formidable—more than 400 historic sites and monuments—but apt to be overshadowed, perhaps because many of them are ruins. However, EH’s interpretation often provides a refreshing contrast to increasing wokeness and shows how desirable it is to have an alternative voice in this area of heritage. To spend an hour or two amid the tranquillity of, for example, Waverley Abbey in Surrey—which was still possible during lockdown—is a glorious experience. As the sun slants through the remains of the monastic arcades and we…

THE oldest botanic garden in the country celebrates its 400th anniversary this year. Oxford Botanic Garden was founded in 1621 by Henry Danvers, 1st Earl of Danby, as a physic garden to teach medical students—it still grows plants for research and education in plant sciences. Together with its sister site nearby, the Harcourt Arboretum, it holds more than 5,000 different species. Some are rare in the wild and some exist nowhere else, making the collections internationally important for plant conservation. Behind its walls, visitors will find an English yew planted in 1645 by the first keeper, Jacob Bobart, and many unusual plants. In 2014, a huge Austrian black pine split in half and had to be felled. The tree was loved by Tolkien, who enjoyed wandering in the garden seeking…

MORE than fifty years ago I was walking with my father when shrill screams arose—my father said at once, ‘That is a snake after a frog.’ On a bank, a grass snake lay at full length, and in its mouth was a frog, the hind legs and half the body already gorged, while the poor creature made frantic efforts to get free, at the same time making the pitiful scream. A stone thrown on the snake made it jump and wriggle off, letting go the frog, which made a tremendous leap and remained panting. It was not injured at all. My father said it had been a recognised sport among country boys in his youth to wriggle a stick in the grass, with as near an approach to a snake’s…

Until August 1 ‘Kate Friend: Botanical Portraits, As Chosen By…’ exhibition, Garden Museum, Lambeth Palace Road, London SE1 (020–7401 8865; www.gardenmuseum.org.uk) Until August 29 Essex Book Festival (01206 872739; www.essexbookfestival.org.uk) Until September 25 ‘Jock McFadyen: Lost Boat Party’ exhibition (pictured), Dovecot Studios, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh (0131–550 3660; www.dovecotstudios.com) July 31–August 1 Summer Jousting, Hever Castle, Kent (01732 865224; www.hevercastle.co.uk) August 3–October 16 2:22 A Ghost Story, Noël Coward Theatre, St Martin's Lane, London WC2 (0844 482 5138; www.noelcowardtheatre.co.uk) September 24 Bampton Classical Opera’s Paris and Helen, St John's Smith Square, London SW1 (01993 851142; www.bamptonopera.org) The Old Mill, Ramsbury, Wiltshire. July 25, 1.30pm–5pm. Admission £6, children free (www.ngs.org.uk) As its name suggests, this is a supremely watery garden with all the fascination that brings, on which the owners have capitalised…

1944 Published December 1 COUNTRY LIFE rarely troubled to record service wings in the 1940s, but the kitchen of Charters, Sunningdale, Berkshire, built for the industrialist Frank Parkinson in 1938, recommended itself by virtue of its astonishing modernity. The white and chromium tiles match the finish of such ‘entrancing devices' as an electric dishwasher. 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…

John Goodall investigates AT 8.30pm on August 31, 1927, the membership of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) gathered in the auditorium of the Majestic Theatre in Leeds for the inaugural meeting of its annual conference. After a few preliminary formalities, the new president of the association, the anatomist Prof Sir Arthur Keith—who assumed his role from no less a figure than the Prince of Wales—stepped up to the podium to deliver an address entitled ‘Darwin’s Theory of Man’s Descent as it stands today’. Sir Arthur explained that, 69 years before in 1858, when the BAAS had previously met in Leeds, its then president had used his address to argue that, although Man had clearly existed on earth for much longer than Biblical chronology suggested, it was…

Serves 8–10 (fills a 1¼ litre/2 pint/1⅓ cup mould) 10 leaves of gelatine485ml/17 fl oz/2 cups double creamFinely grated zest of 1 lemon2tbspn caster sugar55ml/2 fl oz/¼ cup amaretto liqueur500g/17 oz/2 cups apple purée, sweetened to tasteVegetable shortening, for the mould2 litres/3½ pint/generous 2 quarts ice cubes, for settingEdible rose petals, to serve Divide the gelatine equally between two bowls, and soak in cold water to soften it. Mix the cream, lemon zest, sugar and amaretto in a saucepan and bring to a very low simmer. Add half the gelatine and stir well to dissolve. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Heat the apple purée in another saucepan and add the remaining gelatine to this. Again, stir to mix, remove from the heat and cool…

Make a dive for the Caymans ONE of the world’s most popular diving spots is opening its doors—and waters—to international travellers again. The Cayman Islands, in the British West Indies, have announced plans to remove quarantine restrictions for fully vaccinated visitors, from October 14—just as our own Government adds them to England’s green list. That’s not all: there’s a new hotel to shout about on Grand Cayman, the largest of the three islands (the other two are Little Cayman and Cayman Brac). Palm Heights is Grand Cayman’s first boutique hotel, with 52 suites and a library of 2,000 fiction and non-fiction titles, including an enviable number of first editions. Furniture for the 1970s-inspired hotel has been sourced from Paris, France, Mexico and Los Angeles. On-site activities—which make the most of…

IF one swallow doesn’t make a summer, then perhaps the same is true for one glass of rosé. This is certainly the case at my tennis club, where heroic quantities of it are consumed throughout the year. However, two glasses of rosé… even those quite frequent grey or rainy days of what is meant to be the British season of outdoor jollity will appear more estival—and if the sun really is shining, all the better. Rosé needs no special pleading, as the consumption of this category of wine in the UK has been growing rapidly in recent years. Exports to the UK from Provence—the best-known and most fashionable source of the pink stuff—rose by 51% in both volume and value between 2019 and 2020. The point isn’t only about numbers.…

WISE as he was, as Winston Churchill puffed on a Romeo y Julieta at his Mountbatten desk in Whitehall’s Old War Office—a Portland-stone, Edwardian Baroque behemoth built in 1906 at the eastern edge of St James’s Park in central London—he could little have imagined the building’s future as one of Europe’s first ultra-luxurious Raffles-branded residences. Located on the site of the former Palace of Whitehall, the Alfred Drury sculptures of Virtues and Values atop the Grade II*-listed Old War Office witnessed a turbulent century before MoD operations moved out in 2015, a year after the building’s sale to the Hinduja Group, for a cool £350 million on a 250-year lease. This building was the centre of operations during both World Wars—walls reverberating with Morse-code beeps and whispers over rustled papers—and…

Pest control is a practical reality in every garden. Even those who use chemical methods acknowledge that a stitch in time saves nine. Inspections in the likely places will soon reveal unwelcome intruders and early action prevents a population boom. The kitchen garden is exactly the place to be a caterpillar of the cabbage white butterfly at present. One kind dwells gormlessly on the outer leaves in full view and is easily picked off-simply drop it on the ground and the birds will do the rest. The other kind dwells cunningly within the heart of the cabbage and is, accordingly, harder to trace.…

I recently visited the new exhibition spaces at 4, Cromwell Place, London SW7. The organisers of London Art Week took a grand ground-floor room to show one item each for many of their participants and it was a nostalgic pleasure to enjoy a traditional private view among so many good things. Up two floors was another space taken by Stephen Ongpin for a week's exhibition of 19th- and 20th-century landscapes he was showing in addition to the wider range of master drawings at his gallery in Mason's Yard, SW1. An outstanding discovery for me was the Swedish watercolourist Carl Johan Forsberg (1868–1938) and what he declared his masterpiece, the 20¾in by 28½in Pax, 1905 (below). He was deeply impressed by the Rhone Glacier and the Totensee, Lake of the Dead…

AS National Marine Week starts this weekend (July 24), conservationists are highlighting the vital role oceans play in stemming climate change. They warn that there’s only a decade to save ‘blue-carbon’ habitats and keep the global surface temperature rise to no more than 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial era. The sea, explains Peter Richardson, head of ocean recovery at the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), is facing the double threat of ocean acidification and climate change. ‘Oceans have become more acid... we know that’s going to have an impact on species with calcareous shells.’ Some sea creatures will have to put more energy into shell repair rather than growth and reproduction, so ‘some won’t survive at all and others may evolve smaller’. Higher temperatures are also changing marine ecosystems. In the UK,…

THE future looks brighter for British wool, as initiatives to support traceability and local production gain momentum. The British Wool marketing board has launched a scheme that tracks woollen products from farm gate to shop floor. Initially starting with bedding supplies, the programme is set to sell about 500 tons of traceable wool through the board’s auctions. Marketing director Graham Clark explains that producers will receive a premium price; he expects interest to grow ‘as brands and consumers are increasingly demanding to know the origin of the products they are purchasing’. Traceable duvets are already available for sale via the board’s e-commerce site (www.britishwool.org.uk/shop). Gloucestershire sheep farmer and knitwear designer Katie Allen, of award-winning business Loopy Ewes (www.loopyewes.co.uk) doesn’t sell her own wool through the board, but thinks ‘it’s fantastic…

HUMAN beings can’t deal with inconvenient truths. The facts can be staring us in the face and we still take refuge in denial or diversion. It’s only when reality finally overwhelms us that we decide we have to act. Coronavirus and climate change are issues where the expert warnings were ignored, preventative measures put off and only when the stark truth finally threatened destruction did we act. The deaths and the damage in the meantime were soon forgotten when finally we stepped up to the mark and dazzled with the resourcefulness, innovation and technical brilliance of which only human beings are capable. ‘Our reaction to the Dimbleby report is dodging, denial and prevarication’ The trouble is that we can’t transfer the learning. We discover that it’s enormously painful when we…

I WAKE disorientated. Outside, I can hear barnacle geese barking and the high-pitched peeping of oystercatchers. My inner satnav is telling me I’m at home on the Solway Firth in winter, but the vastness of the four-poster bed, the Old Master on the wall and the warmth of the July sun coming through a chink in the tapestry curtains say something completely different. I piece together a night of watching Eng-er-land beat Denmark, lubricated by copious quantities of Pomerol’s finest. I open the curtains to see house martins dancing across the Palladian façade of one of England’s best-loved country houses and, across the park, fallow deer drinking in a waterfowl-flocked lake. It is a vision of Eden. I remember my host telling me the barnacle geese had arrived in 2009…

SQUAB means pigeon—there isn’t any pigeon in this pie.’ I am being taught to make Devonshire squab pie by Avis Crocombe, the cook at Audley End House near Saffron Walden in Essex in late-Victorian times. I’ve not quite managed the art of time travel—she’s talking to me from my iPad, which I’ve balanced on my fruit bowl as I fry off mutton cutlets. We’ve also been through Victorian ice cream, unseasonal mince pies and chocolate pudding. Next week, I’m planning a traditional Victorian kedgeree for brunch. Mrs Crocombe is actually historical interpreter Kathy Hipperson, who has for the past 13 years been portraying the cook—currently via a YouTube series. With almost 40 videos, it has been a magnificent success: a guide on how to make butter has had more than…

FEELING a Thoroughbred, the ultimate equine athlete, bunch beneath you and extend its stride defines horsepower. Perched above the tiny saddle in short stirrups, head down and eyes up, it’s impossible to stop grinning in sheer delight, intoxicated by the speed. When Goodwood contacted the Editor of COUNTRY LIFE, asking if anyone on the staff would be interested in taking part in the Magnolia Cup, a charity race on Ladies’ Day of Glorious Goodwood, he asked me, as I am well known for charging off across country. The chance to learn a new kind of riding and race on the hallowed turf of the South Downs course was impossible to pass up. And it is hallowed turf. Not only did the 5th Duke of Richmond’s friend Lord George Bentinck create…

What’s your earliest holiday memory? Being in Borth, a Welsh seaside town, in the pouring rain and being allowed one of those knickerbocker-glory ice-creams with bubblegum at the bottom. I must have been about seven and thought I’d died and gone to Heaven. What’s your favourite hotel? Denis Island in the Seychelles. I went there on my honeymoon; it’s completely magical. A proper feet-in-the-sand getaway, with no telephone signal, tortoises pottering around and little wooden huts on the beach. Have you had any travel disasters? The bed bugs in a youth hostel on Magnetic Island, Australia, felt pretty disastrous at the time. Where’s top of your travel bucket list? I’d love to take my sons and husband, Charlie, to Australia for a year. Ever since lockdown began, I’ve been fantasising…

Raspberry-and-pistachio choux Makes one large or 18 small buns Ingredients For the choux 220ml water85g butter105g plain flour, stirred through with a pinch of salt and 1tspn of caster sugar3 eggs For the filling 600ml double cream100g ready-made pistachio paste150g ready-made thick custard50g icing sugar Method Preheat your oven to 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4 and line a baking tray with baking parchment. Mark a 9in circle on the reverse of the paper to act as a guide for where to place your choux. Add the water and butter to a saucepan and gently melt together over a low heat. Once the butter has melted, turn up the heat and bring to a boil until you see a white, fluffy ring around the edge of the saucepan. Immediately add all the flour…

YOU’RE sprawled on the sofa, tea—brought by the butler—at hand. Nearby, the fire crackles deliciously. You are at peace, in beautifully designed surroundings. Except it’s not your house. You’ve rented it and, at the end of the week, you’re free to go home and not worry about the gas bill. Welcome to the super-rental. The concept of renting a country house for the holidays isn’t new; in 1881, Empress Elisabeth of Austria rented Combermere Abbey from Viscount Combermere for £600 a month, but an increasing number of estate owners have discovered the charm—and returns—of the high-end let. These are no ordinary holiday cottages, rather ‘exclusiveuse’ rentals, with privacy at their heart. ‘It doesn’t differ for the length of time that someone rents–they need to feel at home’ For 15 years,…

Not only is The OWO the site of momentous and clandestine 20th-century happenings-with underground parking taking the place of a Blitz-era bomb shelter -but this plot has seen much more. It began when Henry VIII confiscated Cardinal Wolsey's house in 1530, turning it into the Palace of Whitehall with a sumptuous interior much painted by Holbein and a footprint along the Thames larger than Versailles. His jousting tiltyard is now Horse Guards Parade. In 1611, Shakespeare's The Tempest was first performed here. Other monarchs made additions, including Charles I, who commissioned a Rubens ceiling for the Inigo Jones Banqueting House and, 20 years later, in 1649, was beheaded outside it. It was painted in about 1675 by Hendrick Danckerts (above) and, in 1698, a fire that raged for 15 hours…

THE first thing that seizes the attention of the visitor to the 15 acres of gardens at Brodsworth Hall near Doncaster is the population of individual topiary pieces that line up along the left-hand side of the drive. Domes, pillars and mounds of a mixed selection of evergreens are clipped into an entertaining crowd of varied heights and girths against the calm dark backdrop of the seemingly endless yew boundary hedge. It is a scene you might expect to find in an Italian garden. This impression is confirmed as one approaches the main south front of the house, an imposing white ashlar limestone building in the Italianate style of the mid 1860s. House and grounds are a perfect complement of Italianate green architecture and are linked by formal terraces with…

BERNARDO BELLOTTO was lucky to have the mother he did. Whatever her maternal qualities, Fiorenza Domenica Canal happened to be the eldest of the three sisters of Antonio Canaletto, the most famous view painter in Venice and darling of the art-collecting British lordlings making their way around Europe on their Grand Tours. Bellotto was more than talented enough to have made a name for himself in his own right, but having a celebrity uncle certainly helped. Bellotto’s father, Lorenzo, abandoned his wife and children when they were still young, so his mother’s family became even more important. Not only would Bellotto train in Canaletto’s studio and help him satisfy the growing demand for Venetian scenes, he would later point up the family connection by signing some of his works ‘Bernardo…

PAINSTAKING restoration work by English Heritage (EH) has brought back to life a 450-year-old painting and comes close to unravelling the mystery of the artist’s identity. The Vegetable Seller was bought in the 18th century by Sir John Griffin Griffin, then owner of Audley End, Essex, and has been in storage for 60 years. It was unsigned and degraded, but was thought to be an 18th-century copy of an earlier work until EH’s two-year conservation project—which removed both a canvas extension and overpainting, unveiled the original colours and used non-invasive infrared imaging to compare The Vegetable Seller to other paintings—led curators to believe it could date from the late 16th century and have been painted by, or have connections to, Dutch artist Joachim Beuckelaer. ‘Now the painting is looking its…

New money for old ruins A Historic England grant of more than £280,000 will help restore the ruins of medieval Wallingford Castle, Oxfordshire. Despite being Grade I-listed, the castle, built at the time of William the Conqueror, is on the Heritage at Risk Register Natural engineering A beaver kit has been born on Exmoor for the first time in 400 years, on the National Trust's Holnicote estate, and has been named Rashford after the footballer Eco-conscious drinkers An independent distillery on Scotland's west coast, Nc'nean, has become the first in the UK to make carbon-neutral whisky. It uses 100% recycled-glass bottles and offsets carbon emissions through sustainable forest planting Green landowners The average value of farmland in England and Wales has risen and is now higher than £7,000 per acre…

SEVENTY conservation bodies have petitioned the Government to add a legal target for Nature recovery to the Environment Bill. Although the bill already includes a binding species-abundance target for 2030, campaigners believe this is not enough. ‘We are coming to the end of a decade-long global mission to try to halt the long-term decline in biodiversity and, unfortunately, the world has spectacularly failed,’ says Richard Benwell of Wildlife and Countryside Link. ‘Throughout, the missing piece of the puzzle has been translating these big global promises into national law. That’s what really cuts through.’ Dr Benwell believes the Environment Bill offers a chance to do for Nature what the Climate Change Act did for carbon neutrality more than 10 years ago: ‘Having the net-zero target in law has meant every business…

Its spotted caterpillars are the scourge of the vegetable gardener; from eggs laid in batches on cruciferous plants, the larvae hatch en masse and feed in packs, rapidly ruining the spherical perfection of cabbages and Brussel sprouts. Peppery leaves and blooms of nasturtiums are also to their taste, as are the leathery folds of wild sea kale hunkered into the shingle beaches of southern coasts. The large white (or cabbage white) butterfly has few friends among growers as a consequence, although the adults are the model of ephemeral and ethereal beauty, delicately supping on flowers of thistle, lavender, verbena, sedum and marjoram. Were it not for its reputation for juvenile delinquency, this remarkable creature would surely have legions of admirers as it briefly illuminates the summer garden in flutters of…

Weighing up your options LAST year, the Three Graces of Liverpool Waterfront were illustrated in Clive Aslet’s choice of 100 ‘crown jewels’ (‘There’ll always be an England, won’t there?’, September 23, 2020). UNESCO is now threatening to remove the site’s World Heritage status because of concerns over the city’s plans for redevelopment. There has long been fear that demand for housing will damage the countryside, as it encourages councils to remove designated green belts and AONBs. Now, there is increasing disquiet in our towns and cities for their layouts and historic buildings, as funding cuts seem to be prompting town halls to increase income from rates and attract visitors with multi-storey office blocks and sports centres. Yes, we need more affordable housing and councils need funds, but surely being able…

‘It’s best to enjoy it as a romp, leaving space for its sad, resigned undertow to surface’ WRITING to her great friend Evelyn Waugh about her new novel, published in 1945, and contrasting it with his roughly contemporary Brideshead Revisited, Nancy Mitford told him it was: ‘About my family, a very different cup of tea, not grand and far madder.’ And so it was. Where Brideshead is a stately jewel, elegantly phrased, languorous and nostalgic, The Pursuit of Love is tight-packed and intimate, a gossipy, funny, affectionate portrayal of inter-war, upper-crust life. That was only to be expected. Waugh wrote as the wistful onlooker, the middle-class outsider; Mitford was on the inside as the eldest of the celebrated Mitford Girls, who entertained and scandalised the public in the 1920s and…

Charles Moore Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire As I head north this summer, I mean to return to Rievaulx Abbey, the first Cistercian abbey in the North. Majestically, yet peacefully placed in Ryedale, it offers Shakespeare’s ‘bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang’. Rievaulx’s choirs have been bare and ruined since 1538, when Henry VIII dissolved the abbey. So much has been written recently about British heritage in relation to slavery that we forget our great buildings’ much more direct involvement in atrocity—that committed by religious conflict. The great abbeys carefully built to inspire the contemplative life were closed and robbed. The whirligig of time has brought in its revenges, however: the ruins provoke contemplation in their own right. I like English Heritage’s online guide—thorough, clear, well linked. St…

BLINK and you might miss the entrance to the new Can Ferrereta, off the honeyed-stone streets of Santanyí. Inside, it all opens up and the calm, neutral interiors, monochrome artworks and bold, crittal doors are the dreams of us mere mortals. Texture is key, from the wicker beach baskets (there’s one for every guest) to the rough 17th-century stone walls (the building was once a large family home; there are now 32 bedrooms). Around the pool, sunbeds jostle for space among the trees that lend shade and privacy —the perfect place to lose yourself in a book until lunch at La Fresca. I repeat-ordered the Caesar salad, which partnered perfectly with crunchy ‘crystal bread con tomate’ and melting Iberian ham. Don’t leave without trying the croquetas (the flavours change daily)…

Raspberry-and-lemon madeleines with white chocolate ( below ) Preheat the oven to 200˚C and brush a madeleine tray with melted butter. Whisk together in a bowl two eggs and 100g caster sugar. Add 100g plain flour, 1 tspn of baking powder, the juice and zest of one lemon and 100g melted butter. Whisk to combine. Rest the mixture for 15 minutes. Pour the mixture into the tray and bury a fresh raspberry in each shell, tucking it beneath the mixture. Bake for 8–10 minutes. Cool and remove from the moulds. Add a spoonful of melted white chocolate to each hole and press the madeleines gently back in so the chocolate comes up the sides and coats one half of the madeleine. Freeze for about 15 minutes to set…

‘Burrow Farm’s 477 acres are a glorious mix of woods and deep valleys full of wildlife’ CLIVE HOPKINS of Knight Frank’s farms and estates department is overseeing the simultaneous launch onto the market of two of the most picturesque country estates in the Chilterns: the 477-acre Burrow Farm estate, set in the Hambleden Valley, Buckinghamshire, and the 285-acre Beech Farm estate, near Woodcote in south Oxfordshire. The sales follow the recent deaths of the both the estates’ former owners—David Palmer of Burrow Farm and Maj Sir David Black of Beech Farm—both of whom were champions of the countryside with a keen interest in local affairs, serving as High Sheriffs of their respective counties in 1993. Both were aged 92 when they died, Palmer in 2019, and Sir David in May…

‘Nina Raine provides no easy answers, but this is a terrific play’ IS genius compatible with morality? Can you be a great artist and, at the same time, a model spouse and parent? That is one of the many questions posed by Nina Raine’s Bach & Sons at London’s Bridge Theatre. It has had one or two sniffy reviews, but I have to say that this is far and away the best play I have come across since theatres re-opened and that Sir Simon Russell Beale gives a performance that all connoisseurs of acting will want to see. Miss Raine’s play informs even as it entertains. It first shows us the great Johann Sebastian passing on his musical knowledge to his sons, Wilhelm and Carl Philipp Emanuel. He explains counterpoint…