Innholdsfortegnelse for 19-Jan-2022 i Country Life

THE best time to plant a tree is always yesterday, but deciding what variety to choose is very much a job for now, when we are still in the dormant season. That decision, like so many in gardening, depends not only on what’s fashionable or new or is tipped to appear at a flower show near you, but, more importantly, what will be happy on the sunny bank you have in mind. Another question is what to plant now that so many elms, ash and horse chestnuts are affected by pests and diseases. All is not lost. The hearty oak, which, since time began, has hosted more parasites than any other English tree, seems still to flourish and other natives such as beech, hornbeam and maple are, so far, free…

BAFFLING to some, a stroke of genius to others, there’s no doubt that non-fungible tokens or NFTs (digital files with unique signatures) have taken the art world by storm in the past 18 months or so—indeed, Christie’s punched through the $100m ceiling for NFT sales worldwide within less than a year. Speaking of storms, the British Museum has 20 Turner paintings within its vaults that were bequeathed by Robert Wylie Lloyd in 1958 under the proviso that they should only be shown for two weeks a year in February or by special request, and would never be lent. Little could the former Christie’s chairman have imagined the modern-day digital loophole that now allows the British Museum to create up to 484 NFTs from these precious works, to be auctioned with…

I SEND you a photograph of an ancient Cornish cider mill at Trewinnard, near Penzance. It consists of a circular stone and within its top edge a trough is cut. In this trough the apples are placed and a solid circular stone called the ‘runner’ is made to roll around and crush the fruit. This stone is put in motion by a horse attached to a bar of wood called the ‘roundabout’ projecting from its centre. The apples are thus crushed all to a pulp and the resulting mass is called ‘applemock’ or mash. It is next placed on the ‘cider-press’. This consists of a circular stone having a smooth surface and a shallow groove. The apple-mock is built up in layers with straw, a cover placed on top and…

Never knowingly under-read I’M not sure how many people read my copies of COUNTRY LIFE (Leader, January 5), but it recently increased. My tutor-group students (aged about 15) are required to bring something to read every Thursday; I thought I’d supply material for those who forgot. From assorted novels, poetry books and magazines, COUNTRY LIFE has proved by far the most popular. There is a scrum every lesson as students compete to get it. My plan has backfired, as they now have no incentive to bring a book of their own and I get complaints if I don’t have up-to-date copies. Rachel Heath, North Yorkshire Going underground REGARDING the model of the Channel Tunnel mentioned in the 1900s Notebook (January 5), your readers may be interested to know that in…

WHAT time did you say high tide was?’ There is mild panic in the kitchen on New Year’s morning as the Chief Caterer and I cook sausage rolls and pour trayloads of whisky and Port. Outside, the sea is rolling in, covering the shore where, in traditional style, we are due to host the meet in 40 minutes, the first act of community spiritedness/rural defiance of 2022, call it what you will. Happily, by the time George arrives with hounds, closely followed by a clattering cavalcade, there is a thin strand of shingle on which the first mounted drinks party of the year convenes, similar in pied colouring and honking noises to the geese that also sometimes hold gatherings at low tide. It is a family affair and a joy…

Pea ‘Hurst Green Shaft’ AGM A 19th-century wrinkle-seeded pea that crops heavily in summer. Each pod has 9–11 peas and the plant produces a pair of peas per node. Sow outside in early to mid March, late April and early May for a three-month succession. Or try heavy cropping pea ‘Terrain’, the most mildew-resistant pea, which can be sown up until June. Broad bean ‘Imperial Green Longpod’ AGM This produces green, flavourful beans that freeze very well. If you prefer a stronger flavour and paler Windsor-type bean, opt for ‘Jubilee Hysor' AGM. Or try ‘De Monica’. Sow from February onwards and you'll get an early harvest. Each pod contains 5–6 large pale beans. Carrot ‘Adelaide’ F1 AGM An early-maturing carrot that can be sown early, forced in cold frames or…

SOME people might find it inconceivable that anyone should be fascinated by telegraph poles, but I’m not among their number and Martin Evans’s interest in the subject seems to me completely logical. In the first place, he is a self-described ‘country boy’ who grew up in a village on the Welsh border and has since lived in remote parts of Wales, acquiring and restoring rambling historic houses—which is relevant because telegraph poles are mainly a rural phenomenon. The majority of electric cables serving the countryside are carried on wooden poles. Some bear power lines, others telephone lines, but most people call all of them ‘telegraph poles’, although telegraphs were phased out in the UK in 1982 and had fallen from mass use long before. The poles used to be in…

THE Duke of Sutherland, so Hardy Amies recalled, used to drive south from the Highlands in a brown Rolls-Royce upholstered with tweed, stopping en route to switch into his black, leather-upholstered, ‘town’ Rolls-Royce to continue his journey to London. The image of tweed as a country cloth derives from its traditional use for sportswear. Estate tweeds developed for shooting and stalking as camouflage for the hill, with a reputation for being tough-wearing and weatherproof. They were woven from the thicker, native wools long used by Scottish and north-country mills, which gave tweed its image of being a rough, coarse-textured cloth. However, says textile manufacturer and merchant Richard Martin, ‘tweed is a perception more than anything else. It’s hard to define because there’s no technical definition. Any twill (cloth with a…

COMING hard on the heels of a hectic trading year in 2020, the market for traditional Scottish sporting and residential estates was ‘fast and furious’ in 2021—notably in the Highlands, where land values increased significantly year-on-year, says Tom Stewart-Moore of Knight Frank in Edinburgh. With more buyers than sellers, he expects the market for Scottish estates to remain equally buoyant in 2022. Highlights of Knight Frank’s year include the sale of the picturesque Castleton estate overlooking Loch Fyne, Argyll, on Scotland’s wild west coast, for which ‘offers over £1.95 million’ were sought at its launch onto the market in August 2021. Currently under offer, completion takes place on January 24. At the heart of the 68-acre estate, once part of Shirvan lands owned by the Graham-Campbell family, stands Category C-listed…

Deanna Petherbridge (b. 1939) is one of our most distinguished artists. She is not strictly a war artist, rather an artist of war. Her large ink and watercolour drawings are ‘traumascapes, conjuring up the casualties of 20th- and 21st-century urbicide, from Warsaw and Dresden to Grozny and Homs'. There are no figures, but her meticulously geometric compositions provoke disquietude, rather as if Escher had recorded an unpeopled construction, or rather destruction, site. Lately, she has turned her attention to the immediate traumas of migration and Covid (above). In her practice and teaching she is an ardent and effective advocate of the supreme importance of drawing. Her latest show, at the Art Space Gallery, 84, St Peter's Street, London N1 (February 25–March 24), will prove she has lost none of her…

THE 150th anniversary of the birth of composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) falls on October 12 this autumn, with celebrations taking place all year and through to next summer, says the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society (RVWS) (see box). Perhaps most famous for The Lark Ascending and Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis —regular ‘nation’s favourites —Vaughan Williams was a contradictory man, who refused a knighthood, but later accepted a higher Order of Merit. His father was an Anglican vicar and Charles Darwin his mother’s uncle, yet, despite his own agnosticism, he edited the 1906 English Hymnal and even wrote an opera based on The Pilgrim’s Progress. As a child, when he asked his mother about The Origin of Species, she responded: ‘The Bible says that God made the world…

Unemotional cooking In a UK first, Waitrose now stocks onions that won't make you cry, but critics are calling them both too sweet and tasteless Fisheries Exactly 1,090,068 anglers purchased fishing licences between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, an increase on the previous year by almost 150,000, giving the Environment Agency £24.6m for conservation work Driving in style Last year, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars delivered the highest ever annual sales results in its 117-year history, up 49% on 2020, with growth driven mostly by the Ghost and Black Badge Ghost Vegetarians Protein from gorse could feed millions, claims a professor from the University of Aberdeen, whose research was inspired by the fact that gorse and broom were fed to cattle when crops failed in the past Exploring history The…

IT’LL be a year-long party for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, it was announced last week. Although the anniversary falls on February 6, the main event is the four-day bank-holiday weekend on June 2–5. Until then, Fortnum & Mason and the Big Jubilee Lunch are inviting public submissions for a new Platinum Pudding; judges include Dame Mary Berry and Buckingham Palace head chef Mark Flanagan. On May 12–15, more than 500 horses and 1,000 dancers, musicians, actors and performers will take part in the Platinum Jubilee Celebration at the Royal Windsor Horse Show (www.rwhs.co.uk), tracing history from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II. Preparations are in hand for the presentation of commemorative medals to frontline members of the police, fire, emergency services, prison services and the Armed Forces, too, and The Queen’s…

As the original wild duck and ancestor of most of our domestic breeds, the mallard, having an omnivorous appetite, is familiar in both town and country. The drake is glamorous in his breeding plumage of shimmering, emerald green over the head and neck, ringed by a white collar; his chestnut-brown breast and taupe-silver body perch above bright-orange, webbed feet. The brown, mottled female is better camouflaged, as discretion is required when she incubates up to a dozen eggs through spring and early summer. Often, her nest is on the ground near water, but that's a gamble with corvids, mink and foxes at large. Consequently, she may nest in the trees or even on a roof (although it's helpful to the ducklings if such places overhang water or a soft landing).…

MY mother played the organ for many years and couldn’t bear the thought of the instrument being destroyed when the chapel closed (‘Piping up for church organs’, December 15/22, 2021). An army of local brawn carried it down 20 steep steps onto a tractor and low loader and it was transported seven miles to my parents’ house, where it was deposited in their modest sitting room. My mother spent many hours playing and it remained in the house for the rest of her life. She loved Bach and every time I hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor, I think of her. Happy memories. Rosie Rowley-Wootton, Worcestershire The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne…

1940s Unpublished The main street of Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, viewed from beside the Abbey lychgate. Two boys, one with loaves of bread under his arms, stop and stare at the photographer. It's so hot that one child has removed his shirt. In the background, another group of children chatter by the Post Office. 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…

IT was Daniel Defoe who described Chatsworth as ‘a perfect beauty’ amid ‘a howling wilderness’. It is a clever contrast and neatly sums up the long descent from the heather moorland of the Dark Peak into the sheltered green valley by the house with its famous gardens. Defoe, writing in 1724, saw the full extent of London and Wise’s garden layout of the 1690s, of which the cascade and other elements remain. Capability Brown gave us the lovely sloping lawn, really a piece of close-mown moor, then along came Joseph Paxton in the 19th century with his gigantic rockworks. All these diverse features and many more are brought into harmony by the views into the great green park, rising to the horizon. Everything is on a monster scale, a daunting…

Gloucestershire £1.75 million This Cotswold idyll enjoys glorious views from its position at the top of a no-through lane in the hamlet of Prescott (home to the Prescott Speed Hill Climb), about seven miles from Cheltenham. A lot of work has gone into landscaping the south-west-facing garden over the years, with a pergola, pond with bridge and colourful trees, shrubs and flowers. Well-kept Manor Farm has Gothic-arched doorways, a Rayburn and four bedrooms; various outbuildings include an indoor swimming pool and plant room (needs updating), various barns and a stable block with three boxes. The land extends to 31 acres over fields, woods and pasture that is occasionally steep as it runs up the valley's edge. Hayman-Joyce (01608 651188) Northumberland, £1.975 million Original servants' bells and arched plaster…

DID you ever see an avalanche on stage before?’ The question was put to me by a venerable theatre historian on the first night of Force Majeure at London’s Donmar Warehouse. The play itself has been adapted by Tim Price from a 2014 film by Ruben Östlund and is set on the slopes of a French ski resort. As far as I can tell, the last stage avalanche was at Drury Lane in 1907 in The Sins of Society: needless to say, I wasn’t there to see it. This new play is more about the sins of an individual than of a society. It shows us a Swedish family having a skiing holiday at a swish Alpine resort. Soon after arriving, they are having lunch when a supposedly controlled avalanche…

Pastimes and Pleasures in the Time of Jane Austen Sarah Jane Downing (Amberley, £15.99) I POUNCED on this slim volume having just listened to Emma on Audible, beautifully read by Juliet Stevenson. Where and what exactly was Astley’s? Robert Martin was invited by John Knightley to join him ‘at Astley’s’, to which he was taking his two eldest boys, who were clearly excited at the prospect. ‘Away from the hushed drawing rooms, society had a cruel and reckless edge’ Well, among the wonderfully detailed illustrations in this picture-filled book is one of Astley’s Amphitheatre, by the river at Lambeth, from Ackermann’s Microcosm of London (1808); it was ‘one of a growing number of lesser or illegitimate theatres in London who avoided the licensing laws’. When Jane Austen attended with her…

WITHIN 10 minutes of the Rolls-Royce Cullinan arriving, my phone began to ping constantly. It was the neighbours. ‘Toby, that wagon you have is off the scale,’ read the first message. ‘Awesome great beast!!’ was another. ‘A Sherman tank with heated seats,’ came the third. Next, my personal favourite: ‘You should go full rapper, gold chains, booming tunes, shades when it’s raining… just drive around and around the block.’ It’s fair to say that the Cullinan isn’t your usual Rolls-Royce. Nor is it a choice for shrinking violets —the only thing modest about this car is the way the Spirit of Ecstasy retracts bashfully beneath the bonnet when the ignition is switched off. Everywhere you go, people will stare, and not only because this ‘awesome great beast’ has blocked out…

The BBC Philharmonic and Hallé Orchestra kick things off on February 26 with a performance of the Pastoral Symphony, On Wenlock Edge and Symphony No 5 in D Major, many , and the BBC Symphony Orchestra begins a series of London performances at the Barbican on March 11. Various other orchestras will perform at venues and festivals across Britain throughout the year. Visit https://rvwsociety.com for full details of these and international concerts. A new stained-glass window by Tom Denny will be unveiled in the church at Down Ampney, the Gloucestershire village where Vaughan Williams was born and where a number of celebratory events will be held, in October (www.ampneychurches.info). An online event will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first performance of the Pastoral Symphony and there will be a…

IT was a dark, cold night and the lights in No 10 were blazing. The nation was in crisis and its civil servants were still at their desks. Only one set of windows was different: no bright lights, only a diffused glow—the Prime Minister’s Political Office. The strict distinction between party politics and national decision making was being fully observed. For this was ‘the three-day week’ and the key civil-service personnel were classed as essential, whereas party-political workers were clearly not. The door of No 10 opened to one of the Prime Minister’s political secretaries carrying a large Army and Navy bag. It was filled with camping-gas cylinders to recharge the lamps by which his team continued to work. Diaries still had to be updated and correspondence answered. In an…

KEEN gardeners will be ordering their vegetable seeds in the next few weeks and, for many, there’s a tendency to pick the same varieties, again and again. Although it makes sense to stick with what works, it is worth bearing in mind that plant breeding is constantly improving yields, disease resistance and vigour, something that’s increasingly pertinent as seeds and plants become global. Surrey-based independent seed company Tozer Seeds, for instance, has introduced F1 (short for Filial 1) sweetcorn and winter-squash varieties that are suited to British summers, rather than American ones. Tozer also raised the first F1 parsnip, ‘Gladiator’ F1, and gave us superior F1 carrots and leeks. The first runner x French bean interspecific hybrids, bred to crop well in hot conditions, were also developed by Tozer Seeds,…

Natural tone The Blickling is from the National Trust range of sheds by Crane Garden Buildings, made to order in Norfolk. It comes complete with a log store and is available in a palette of six natural hues and four different sizes, from £4,199 (01760 444229; www.cranegardenbuildings.co.uk) Custom choice Known for its bespoke greenhouses, made in Hampshire, Griffin Glasshouses can produce a custom solution to your specifications. This three-quarter span design would cost £27,000, including installation (01962 772512; www.griffinglasshouses.com) Handmade style Norfolk-based family-run firm Philip Hall specialises in timber buildings produced to last, including its Posh Sheds, handmade to order in sustainably sourced Scandinavian redwood. Prices from £1,650 (01263 519672; www.philiphalltimber.co.uk) Garden hideaway Handmade to order in smooth-planed Redwood lap boards with a roof of Canadian Red Cedar shingles, the…

Parsnip mini bundts with brown-butter glaze Makes 6 Ingredients For the mini bundts Melted butter for glazingDusting of plain flour125g unsalted butter, softened175g golden caster sugar3 eggs1tspn vanilla60ml soured cream125g parsnips, peeled and grated125g self-raising flour½tspn baking powder½tspn bicarbonate sodaYou will also need a mini bundt tin For the brown-butter glaze 35g butter100g icing sugar1tbspn milk, or more Method Preheat your oven to 180°C/ 160°C fan/350°F/gas mark 6. Brush melted butter inside the mini bundt tin and sift over plain flour to coat. Invert the tin, give it a tap to remove any excess and set aside. ‘Parsnips used to be as common in cakes as carrots are today’ Add the unsalted butter to a mixing bowl and pour over the sugar. Cream together until pale and fluffy. I find…

AT sunset on December 29, 1170, a group of knights famously murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket in the lamp-lit gloom of Canterbury Cathedral. Less well known is the fact that this brutal episode followed an angry confrontation in the archbishop’s house, laid out in the shadow of the cathedral. It’s possible to reconstruct from the various eye-witness accounts of this episode—as well as the archaeology of the site (the last parts of the building described here were swept away in the 1830s)—a vivid impression of a 12th-century English residence on the grand scale and the realities of life within it. ‘The living unit was not the family, but the household’ Whether in towns or the countryside, large houses of this period—together with their surrounding gardens—were usually laid out inside walled or…

WHEN Rosanna Bossom was first asked to redecorate Grade II-listed Manor Farmhouse in Conderton, a great deal of reconfiguring was required to provide eight en-suite bedrooms and a large boot room to create a holiday property for big groups of guests. Firmly subscribing to the view that practical rooms deserve as much aesthetic attention as any other, Miss Bossom transformed a warren of small spaces, including a pantry and a larder, into a boot room and adjacent utility area. ‘I wanted a punchy autumnal colour—it seemed the perfect starting-off point for long walks. We went through several iterations of orange paint, many of which were dismissed for being too “burnt”, before deciding on The Long Room by Paint & Paper Library,’ she says (020–7823 7755; www.paintandpaperlibrary.com). Each of the bedrooms…

THE past couple of years have been an extended hibernation, punctuated by occasional sunlit forays. Many of us have tried to use the time to get on with creative projects, such as long-projected books, but they have taken much longer than they should. As one such laggard, I am full of admiration for people who have simply got on and done whatever it was. Among them have been several art dealers who have set up new businesses, or at least new premises. I wrote here about Jenna Burlingham’s move to a new space in Kingsclere, Hampshire (November 24, 2021). An opening at much the same time was that of GBS Fine Art on the first floor of 13, Sadler Street, Wells, Somerset. This is a new venture by Giles Baker-Smith,…

ONE late-July morning in 1939, a group of art students and their teacher could be seen out painting in the Essex village of Dedham. They were not recording the picturesque charms of Constable country, however; they were painting the smoking ruins of their former art school. Opened only two years earlier, the school was the brainchild of a couple of unconventional artists, Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, neither of whom had been through the art-school system. A well-born Welshman from the Swansea suburb of Sketty, Morris had dropped out of the Royal College of Music to become an artist; a middle-class Londoner from Maida Vale, Lett-Haines had joined the army before serving in the First World War. The two met on Armistice Day 1918, at a party thrown by Lett-Haines…

IN the City of Three Spires, one keeps watch over the rest. Coventry Cathedral’s medieval tower miraculously survived the Blitz, although the rest of the building wasn’t so lucky. Fragmented archways and broken brick walls shadow the reformed cathedral, which opened in 1962. Architect Sir Basil Spence’s insistence that the rubble should be preserved as part of his mid-century masterpiece is at the centre of Ghosts in the Ruins, a new work by Nitin Sawhney (b. 1964) that will be performed later this month (January 27–29). The piece was commissioned to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the consecration, an event that was also marked with music. Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem—created for an Arts festival held after the religious officiation—went on to become one of the great choral works of the…