Innholdsfortegnelse for February 14, 2024 i Country Life

‘Late one evening in 1997, walking with my wife, Carol, across a dark and deserted St Mark’s Square in Venice, I saw in the distance what seemed to be a painting, lit like a beacon, drawing me inexorably to the window of what transpired to be an art dealership, Galleria Ravagnan. It made a deep impression on us and my wife remarked that the painting looked like my music sounded. We returned the next day, bought the painting and began a firm friendship with gallerist Luciano Ravagnan, who sadly died a few years ago. Interno Teoretico is by the eminent artist Andrea Vizzini. Originally from Sicily, he works and lives near Venice, in Jesolo. On a return visit, we met him, only to discover that he, not knowing who had…

WHEN the Beast from the East swept across the UK in early 2018, Wiltshire-based shepherd Jess King had a serious problem: ‘Sheep were buried in the snow and others, in trying to escape the drifts across the fields, had gone up onto a bank and got caught in brambles. They were stuck and it was too steep for me to reach them.’ Luckily, help was on hand in the form of her farm dog, rough collie Tully. ‘As I stood there trying to work out what to do next, Tully climbed up the bank and, with-out any instruction, began to pull each sheep free of the brambles,’ she recalls. ‘He did it for hours, calmly taking the lead in the situation. Tully has always been able to figure anything out—there…

Made to last Inspired by the designs of the Victorian engineer Thomas Messenger, this bespoke double-hipped, freestanding Messenger glasshouse is made from aluminium for structural integrity and longevity, powder coated in Wood Sage, with nuts and bolts capped to create a faithful replica of a traditional timber design, from Alitex (01730 826900; www.alitex.co.uk) Modern elegance ‘A bespoke orangery is a wonderful way of being creative with design, breaking the tradition of conventional rooms in the house and offering a distinctive atmosphere with almost unlimited use,’ says interior designer Nicky Dobree, who worked with Vale Garden Houses (01476 564433; www.valegardenhouses.co.uk) to create this bespoke timber dining extension to a kitchen at the rear of a family house, opening on to the garden (020–7828 5989; www.nickydobree.com) Take a dip Featuring two striking…

The gardens at Glyndebourne, East Sussex The home of Gus Christie and Danielle de Niese IT is 90 years since John Christie and his wife, the soprano Audrey Mildmay, put on their first opera at their home, Glyndebourne, near Lewes in East Sussex. Although the idea has been taken up by other country houses since, nowhere else is set in such an unforgettable landscape, nor has an opera house of such quality. Since 1934, Glyndebourne has been looked after by three generations of the Christie family, who have balanced the needs of family and visitors, of staff (there are 120 permanent ones, from costumiers and dyers to caterers and gardeners) and performers, backstage technicians and of that magical setting that lifts the spirits of everyone who visits. ‘The gardens are…

FAT clouds roll across the sky, above a horse-drawn cart that approaches a riverside farmhouse guarded by naked poplars and blanketed in snow. Au Temps des Giboulées, Neige et Soleil, by French artist Alexandre Louis Jacob, captures the glory of a serene winter day. Post-Impressionist landscape painter Jacob (1876–1972) was born to a tailor and a laundress in Paris. He trained at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, before exhibiting at the Salon between 1899 and 1914, when he won a gold medal. The First World War put a temporary stop to his career—he was drafted into the army, which he only left in January 1919—but new successes came: another gold medal (this time for the Universal Expo) in 1937 and the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, France’s highest recognition,…

FOLLOWING on the dainty heels of Hilary Davidson’s Jane Austen’s Wardrobe (Books, September 6, 2023) and with a canny Valentine’s Day publication date, comes another stance on the Austen age. As the writer acknowledges in the pre-face, all authors of such social histories owe a debt to Lawrence Stone’s The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800, published in 1977. This challenged received wisdom by probing how the concept of ‘family’ changed over the early-modern period—in effect, from extended groups bound by economics to the ‘nuclear’ unit more familiar today—as well as signalling that intimate, personal or ‘domestic’ relations at all levels of society could, indeed should, be the subject of academic study. Since the 1970s, university courses in ‘gender studies’ and ‘women’s history’ have highlighted other yawning gaps in…

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Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk WHEN it comes to declarations, some prefer a Shakespearean sonnet to ‘You and me, babe, how about it?’ (as Dire Straits crooned), but the sentiment is the same. There are thousands of narratives on love, because, quite simply, we love love; ‘I don’t want to hold your hand’ would never have been a hit. In the natural world, swans, penguins and wolves mate for life—we humans try our best and we certainly enjoy the journey. Here are 10 of our favourite romantic moments in literature, poetry and film. 1 ‘I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her’ (Notting Hill, 1999). Who wouldn’t welcome a romantic overture accompanied by…

Devaluing the currency JULIAN GLOVER sensibly describes the Government’s proposal for another national park as ‘hardly a priority unless it can be funded and run differently’ (‘So much more than a walk in the park’, January 24). Also significant is that national parks cover more than 10% of the land area of England and nearly 20% of Wales, so there is a risk of devaluing the currency by adding more. All 12 of the areas proposed for National Parks in 1947, in the Report of the National Parks Committee under Arthur Hobhouse charged with investigating this, have already been designated, albeit with some-what different boundaries. The enthusiasm for more national parks stems essentially from a widespread desire for extending the benefit of the more exacting planning controls and other commitments…

ST ALBANS CATHEDRAL in Hertford-shire has two faces. From the High Street, the easiest way in, there’s a new Welcome Centre snuggled cleverly between the Norman Abbey and 20th-century Chapter House. Entering that way into the south transept, there’s an eye-catching view of the Crossing and Rose Window. It’s a spectacular, if slightly confusing way to enter a cathedral, as you have to work your way westwards to find the glorious nave, said to be the longest in England. From the south and west, St Albans sits on a green hill, its nave and squat Norman tower commanding the view. It is a popular cathedral and, on the day of our visit, it’s wonderfully full of young mums with buggies, purposeful yoga participants and guided tour parties. This is a…

ROSES are the world’s most popular flower. And they were among the first to undergo domestication, both in China and in the Middle East—the famous Fertile Crescent that was the cradle of settled civilisation as we know it. In Roman times, roses were imported every year from Egypt, where they flowered many weeks earlier, for feasts and festivals—think of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s painting of the Emperor Heliogabalus smothering his roistering guests beneath an avalanche of rose petals. After some hesitation—because roses were associated with heathen tales of Venus and Adonis—the Christian church absorbed the symbolism of roses into its allegories and practices. The red rose came to represent Christ’s suffering and is often seen in Medieval and Renaissance art. The usual subject for these images was Rosa gallica ‘Officinalis’, the…

WHEN my late grandmother was a girl, she was most impressed by the only commuter in the village because of the hats he wore. She was used to seeing men wearing tweed caps or going to Newmarket or to church in a trilby (interesting that the races and God warranted the same hat). However, the gentleman she remembered especially had an additional set of headwear that was necessary to go ‘up to’ London: a stiff and very formal black hat, possibly a Homburg or a bowler. ‘Your headgear said as much about you as it did about what you were getting up to’ Until relatively recently, it was unthinkable to see anyone outdoors without a hat and your choice of headgear said as much about you as a person as…

I HAVE a house plant that will be 50 years old in April. We used to call it Setcreasea purpurea—in fact we still do—but the RHS tells us that we should use the older name of Tradescantia pallida ‘Purpurea’, which is almost as grim as its common name of purple spiderwort. It has thick, intensely purple leaves, rather like a dense and compact wandering sailor (which is what the botanists say it is). I was given it as a cutting from her garden by Norah Warre, a wonderful plant lover, then 94 years old, who lived at Villa Roquebrune near Menton. Warre said that Graham Sutherland had greatly admired it when he came to lunch and she had given him some pieces to root. ‘And, you know,’ she said, ‘it…

JOHN SINGER SARGENT was born in Florence, the son of American parents. His father, FitzWilliam, was by that stage a non-practising medic and his mother, Mary, manipulated her health to keep the family on the move, seeking sun in the winter and the cool of the mountains in the summer. John was one of six children, three of whom died young, leaving him with two sisters, Emily and Violet. The family drifted, travelling, as they said, for health, not pleasure, renting accommodation according to the season in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France, but favouring Nice for the winter. As a result of this peripatetic life, the children had little formal education, but were fluent in French, German and Italian, as well as English. In May 1874, Sargent enrolled as a…

Park that thought LAST month, opposition to the proposed creation of new national parks in Scotland brought some 110 farmers, crofters and other stakeholders to the Isle of Skye for a summit chaired by Alasdair Macnab, vice-president of NFU Scotland. The organisation is calling for independent evidence on the value that existing parks bring to the agricultural and local communities and asking more specific-ally why the ‘outcomes’ of a new national park cannot be achieved by extant funding organisations, such as VisitScotland. Contenders for a new designation include Ben Nevis/Glen Coe/Black Mount, the Cheviots and Border Hills, Galloway, Glen Affric, Wester Ross and the Isle of Harris. Based on the experience of farmers and crofters living or working in the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Parks, all…

Marlwood Grange, Gloucestershire The home of William and Catherine Allen MARLWOOD GRANGE is a handsome late-Georgian house, well protected by a deep encircling grove of trees and set on a limestone ridge south-west of Thornbury near Bristol. At first glance, the house appears to be all of one period, but closer inspection reveals that the late-Georgian villa was added to a smaller, stone-built farmhouse, which now reads as the service wing. Between 2015 and 2019, Marlwood Grange was carefully transformed by architects Biba Dow and Alun Jones, of Dow Jones Architects, in a scheme that has extended the family accommodation out into its adjoining outbuildings and yard. These changes have retained the character of existing principal rooms, at the same time as creating additional well-lit and flexible family spaces, as…

AS part of a project to completely refurbish her townhouse home in London, interior designer Louise Bradley chose to add an elegant and light-filled garden room to the ground floor. ‘I wanted to create a multi-functional room, perfect for dining and entertaining or a morning coffee with the papers,’ she explains. Opening onto the secluded courtyard garden at the rear of the house, the garden room was built by Architectural Bronze Casements (01476 249494; www.bronzecasements.com) to Mrs Bradley’s specification. ‘We used bespoke bronze floor-to-ceiling windows and doors to create a sanctuary in the city,’ she says. The structure is made from architectural bronze, a manganese bronze, copper and zinc-based alloy known for its corrosion resistance, durability and high tensile strength. ‘This bronze is also chosen for its timeless aesthetic appeal,…

Cumbria, offers over £3 million ‘A capital mansion house, known as Calthwaite Hall,’ detailed the York Herald on May 27, 1843, ‘has been recently erected… of the Eliza-bethan order, and stands on a gentle elevation, commanding extensive prospects over the richly cultivated and highly picturesque vale of the River Petteril, and is pre-eminent in every respect, as a fit residence for a Country Gentleman.’ The 7½-acre estate in the village of Calthwaite, which is just over seven miles from Penrith, remains in fine form and has been impressively adapted to create a wedding and luxury-holiday business with future bookings in place and an annual turnover of some £350,000. In the main house, with its striking spiral staircase, there are 12 bedrooms and seven bathrooms; without, there’s a two-bedroom cottage and…

PUDDING LANE. Best known as the flashpoint for the Great Fire of London, but also one of those thoroughfares that beguile with the easy allure of their name. Imagine a stroll, sometime at the start of the 17th century, on a spring morning so crisp you could snap it in half and spread it with butter. Where, on your wander down towards the Thames, your nose is caressed by scents both sweet and savoury, from the blessed pudding makers who line your route. Certainly a seductive vision, but one without even a glimmer of truth. Because ‘Pudding’ was another name for offal and the Lane used by Eastcheap butchers to transport their stinking carts of rotten innards—and meat scraps even the most dishonest pie man dare not use—down to the…

THE cover of the Sworders auction catalogue for ‘Dick Turpin: The Legend Lives On’ was an artwork in itself. Meg Wileman, head of photography at the auction house at Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, brilliantly portrayed the late antiques dealer in two lines (Fig 1). The minimalist master Fougasse could hardly have done it better. Turpin, whose given name was Maurice, was born in 1928 and died in 2005. Following the death of Jackie Mann, the companion of his later years, Sworders held the first of two final sales of contents from their London home last month; remaining jewellery and objects of art will follow shortly. Although Turpin was primarily known for high-quality furniture, his keen eye ranged widely and several of his interests, including figurative bronzes, Chinese and other porcelain and…