Innholdsfortegnelse for June 26, 2024 i Country Life

A reconstruction of Bury St Edmunds Abbey BURY ST EDMUNDS is a much-loved historic town, its parish church of St James elevated to the status of a cathedral in 1914. St James’s is a fine building, the body of it designed by the master mason John Wastell in about 1500, but extended with transepts and an eastern arm in 1959–70 by the architect Stephen Dykes Bower. Dykes Bower also left £2 million to fund the cathedral’s completion and, in 2000–05, the superb central tower, which now forms the town’s chief landmark, was finished. Impressive as this church is, behind it are the fragments of a building that once dwarfed it: the Benedictine abbey of St Edmund. If the abbey church had survived, it would be a building of European stature…

BEFORE its demise during the pandemic, my son and I stayed at the gatehouse at Sharrow Bay in Cumbria, which is due to reopen next year. When it launched in 1948, it was the first hotel to be described as ‘country house’ and, by the time we stayed, it was definitely of the charmingly threadbare variety, with ancient chintz curtains as thick as duvets and quilted counterpanes. It evoked a lost world of mothballs, Hinge and Bracket and lapsang souchong. Bliss, in other words. (Another highlight was a plaque that commemorates the day Lord Cameron launched himself into Ullswater from its bank.) ‘Posh granny’s spare room’ is an endangered vibe, but elements are being revived; needlepoint stools, loose covers, lustreware and now, out of the blue, comes crewelwork, the embroidered…

WEEKS are not as long as they once were thanks to advances in hybrid working, meaning that more of us are prepared to venture further out of the capital in search of a house. The countryside that lies to the south of London, taking in Kent, the Surrey Hills and the South Downs, has been a hunting ground for house buyers since the dawn of commuting, which was spearheaded by the opening of the London & Greenwich Railway in 1836 and oxygenated by the huge expansion of the network in the 1840s. Here, we hone in on the best areas within a one-to-two-hour train ride south of the capital. Down South As a general rule of thumb, property buyers will know that the further down the track you go, the…

CHÂTEAUX HAUT-BRION and La Mission Haut-Brion, two of Bordeaux’s most historic wine estates, are situated either side of a small road in what are now the southern outskirts of the city. The setting may be unremarkable, even humdrum, but everything else about these ‘two households both alike in dignity’ is full of intricate and noteworthy detail. The relationship between the two is not (thank goodness) fraught with bloody rivalry like that of the Montagues and Capulets, but there used, perhaps, to be a certain competition. Although it was Haut-Brion that was classified in 1855 as a Premier Grand Cru Classé (it was, in fact, the first of the First Growths to be created, by the enterprising Pontac family starting in the 16th century), its neighbour has long had a reputation…

Raspberry Maritozzi buns: brioche buns with raspberry whipped cream Method ▸ Heat 25g of the flour and the milk in a saucepan over a medium heat, stirring continuously to form a gloopy, but smooth paste. Add to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and then pour in the remaining cold milk (which will cool the paste to lukewarm). Add the sugar, yeast, custard powder, salt, eggs and the remaining 350g of flour, then mix the dough on a medium speed until it’s smooth and elastic, about 15 minutes. Add the butter a cube at a time, with the speed still on medium, until fully incorporated and then tip into a lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and place somewhere warm for about an hour or…

WE create a garden for many reasons; a desire to improve our surroundings, the need to create a sanctuary or for the simple pleasure of watching it grow and bloom. For floral artist Sarah Holland, however, her Worcestershire garden provides the inspiration and raw materials for her delicate pressed-flower arrangements. It’s a long, narrow plot, with far-reaching views of the surrounding countryside and the burgeoning, curving borders segue into a rough area of ground that’s been encouraged to grow wild, in order to blur the boundary between the garden and the fields beyond. ‘When we moved in six years ago, it was mostly mud, so it was the perfect blank canvas,’ she recalls. ‘Now, there are lots of wildflowers, such as ox-eye daisies, buttercups and red campion. I encourage plants…

IT seems that a renewed enthusiasm for drawing may be making its way through the art world and one wonders whether that could translate into a growth in new collectors. Fifty years ago, the market for English watercolours was heating up; they began to make prices unseen since the late 19th century. Dealers abounded and for years, from 1986, there was an enthusiastically received annual specialist fair in London. However, the practice of drawing, once an essential part of education, was disappearing, perhaps most of all in art schools. In Paris, Christine Phal and Carine Tissot, founders of the Drawing Now fairs, are also responsible for the Drawing Hotel in the Rue de Richelieu, with its Drawing Lab, where all are welcome to hone their skills. In New York, the…

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk IN 2002, the Burrell family decided to stop farming and rewild the Knepp estate in West Sussex. Its ensuing explosion of butterflies and turtle doves swiftly captured public (and political) imaginations. A film, Wilding, has just been released. Thousands of acres have now been ‘wilded’ across Britain, restoring habitats, but reducing food resilience, and we are now able to take stock (Opinion, page 56). The common perception is that land-owners face a binary choice: to farm or to rewild. It is much more nuanced than that; instead of ‘cows or trees’, you can have cows among trees. Every acre is somewhere on a spectrum between untamed, birdsong-rich scrub and intensive, silent food production and most estates…

Tipping the balance THE suggestion that rubbish tips are ‘always staffed by remarkably good-humoured people’ must be applauded and echoed (Leader, June 12). My local tip is also graced by knowledgeable, polite and welcoming individuals. Similarly, those who collect our bins brighten up my two-year-old son’s day, with their smiling and waving as he gazes wide-eyed, awestruck with wonder. Hurrah for these fine people, who should be cherished. Iain Robertson, North Yorkshire Wombling free EDUCATION at a young age is fundamental to overcome the scourge of litter, which continues to choke Britain (Leader, June 12). In the late 1970s, one of my teachers, the Revd William ‘Willy’ Pryor, established the practice of ‘wombling’. Dressed as Uncle Bulgaria, he led the volunteers in their wombling vests to pick litter in Summertown,…

IF a design looks right, it might be wrong. If it looks wrong, it can never be right.’ The confounding dictum of yacht designer Uffa Fox (1898–1972) has steered many of the innovations that contributed to the modern popularity of dinghy and keelboat sailing. During the Second World War, he got wind of a curved wing shape designed to give aerodynamic lift and manoeuvrability to a generation of military aircraft. Influenced by aviation developments, Fox’s outstanding contribution to naval architecture would be the introduction of the planing hull to yacht design, a concept that would become a standard underwater shape for racing yachts. His first boat with a swept fin keel was the Flying Fifteen, an idea that would come to him in the bath: ‘I saw quite clearly the…

IN the summer of 2011, on a remote stretch of Salisbury Plain in southern England, a gang of 30 scythesmen, bearded and in rustic clothing, spread out in a line in the knee-length grass. Their gangmaster stood before them; when he gave the signal, 30 blades sliced an arc through the grass, then another and another, advancing in steady synchrony to the sound of a gentle swish, swish, swish. Behind them came women in long homespun skirts, spreading the fallen grass out to dry with rakes and pitchforks. Of course, this was not for real. This was a shoot for a film version of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina; the gangmaster was director Joe Wright. Sadly, the sequence was given only 12 seconds in the finished film, despite being one of the…

The walled garden at Knepp Castle, West Sussex The home of Charles Burrell and Isabella Tree I HAVE a tremendous sense of relief that Charlie Harpur is head gardener: there is a predator with teeth!’ I have just returned, as intoxicated as my fellow visitors, from a trip to see the transformed walled garden at Knepp Castle. The garden is airy, lacy, explosive, intense, full of life—and I am full of questions for its original mastermind, landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith. ‘Never more with a project have I felt that I am simply providing a starter pack. Charlie understands the science and he understands the botany. We’ve got some ideas about the direction the garden will take, but there are bound to be things that are unpredictable. These are his choices…

The Royal Palaces: Secrets and Scandals Kate Williams (Frances Lincoln, £25) IN 1999, a footman working at Buckingham Palace apparently took great exception to the yapping of the late Queen’s corgis. I shall let you decide if it’s one of the ‘secrets’ or the ‘scandals’ referred to in the title of this book, but it seems that the footman started adding gin to the corgis’ bowls, amused at seeing them drunk. Alas, ‘14-year-old Phoenix died of alcohol poisoning, and the footman was in trouble’. Back in the 16th century, at Greenwich Palace, Edward Squire got himself into far deeper trouble. The disaffected Squire worked in the palace stables and tried to kill Elizabeth I by putting poison in her saddle. The plot wasn’t revealed until a year later, when one…

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Conservatives Farming and food Pledges Increase farming budget by £1 billion, with legally binding target to enhance food security; 50% of public-sector food expenditure to be on local food with high environmental standards; fast-track planning permission for farm infrastructure; invest in technology, such as for fertilisers and vertical farming; move away from reliance on migrant labour; stick up for British farmers in trade deals; tackle live-stock worrying; champion the fishing sector. Environment Pledges Natural England and Environment Agency to have increased accountability; invest water-company fines in river-restoration projects; legislate to tackle illegal deforestation; designate an 11th national park; support disadvantaged children in accessing green spaces; work with landowners and charities to open up more countryside access; crack down on fly-tipping; develop the deposit-return scheme. Energy Pledges Protect the best agricultural…

IT is testament to a fundamental political change that, for the first time in six elections, Agromenes has not had to remind leaders of the importance of food and farming. All the main parties have taken rural issues much more seriously and the issue of food security has loomed large—a result of the invasion of Ukraine and the ravages of climate change. Opinion polls reveal that it is also clearly necessary for politicians to show their commitment to the restoration of Nature and the protection of the environment. River pollution, the loss of biodiversity and animal welfare have all risen so far up the political agenda that the three main parties have had to address them. The manifesto results are remarkably similar. It would be naive not to recognise that…

A WOLF in the Highlands? Or perhaps some beavers in the brook? A lynx in the scrub? Rewilding Britain from the top down with charismatic wild animals from the past is unquestionably the conservation concept of our days. The allure, in a nation consistently described as ‘Nature depleted’, is easy to see. I mean, really, when going for a walk in the dead, silent prairie fields of arable England, we struggle to find any Nature of note. Wouldn’t a slinky lynx liven things up and be a thrill? On that same walkabout, I’m tempted to throw up my hands and despair. We humans have so damaged the natural world that, seemingly, only by withdrawing and letting Nature self-rule can its future—and our own—be assured. Or, in other words, adopt the…

THE idea that we can carry on what we’ve been doing for the past couple of centuries, which is the war against Nature, is over,’ declares Prof Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, who believes that the damage wreaked can be reversed if we all play a part in the rejuvenation of the natural world. Taking issue with the term ‘wilding’, however, he states: ‘Going back to the wild, or just going wild, suggests that there’s a separation between us and Nature, but we’re a part of it and nothing in Nature is now non-human, and so I prefer the old-fashioned idea of conservation management. ‘If everyone did No Mow May, allowed wildflowers to grow and got rid of pesticides on their own patches,’…

AS part of the transformation of this house, a link was created between the main house and the kitchen in a barn extension. ‘As lifestyles have evolved, the formal dining room has largely been sidelined, but you still need a spacious dining area in a big country house,’ says interior designer Philippa Thorp. ‘This part of the house has a pivotal role: it can be adapted to seat 24 for Christmas lunch or provide a light-filled space overlooking the garden for a smaller gathering.’ Plentiful glazing creates an uplifting, light-filled space. ‘Our concept was to make the room feel as if it had always been there,’ she explains. With this in mind, the walls are finished in lime plaster, the floor laid with flagstones and the ceilings lined in wood,…

IN the late 1700s, Robert Williams, described in his History of Parliament entry as ‘a self-made man [who] became a leading London banker and a director of the East India Company’, purchased estates at Littlebredy, Dorset, and Moor Park, Hertfordshire, and, in 1807, secured himself a seat in Parliament as MP for Dorchester. The Littlebredy lands, listed as ‘Brydian’ in the Domesday survey, were owned by Cerne Abbey until the Dissolution and by the Mellor family in the 18th century. They were absentee landlords and neglected the estate, especially the manor house, which was in a state of disrepair when Williams acquired it in 1797. At this time, his main estate was Moor Park and building activities at Littlebredy were limited at first, although he visited frequently and, having selected…

SITUATED midway between London and Paris—in both miles and mentality—Le Touquet has drawn the smart set of both Britain and France to its elegant shores for more than a century. Nicknamed ‘Paris Plage’ for its proximity to, and popularity with, residents of the French capital, in the 1920s it also became the favoured destination of England’s cultural and social elite. Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham and P. G. Wodehouse bought Art Deco homes in Le Touquet’s broad, leafy boulevards. Later, its beaches, villas and hotels were frequented by the late Elizabeth II and her uncle Edward VIII, as well as Winston Churchill, H. G. Wells and Ian Fleming. The latter is said to have conceived the idea of James Bond when staying at the town’s Le Westminster hotel and based his…

I’VE just been sent jolly jam and Jerusalem-worthy news about a potted herb garden created at Cambridge University. It’s an archipelago—as all pot gardens are—created by the cheerful bases of retired Henry and Hettie hoovers. Those iconic smiles and eyes now have scented fringes of awaiting harvests. Smiles aside, there is seriousness to any potted passions, particularly to the floral power they can give to bleak urban deserts. Earlier in the summer, I gave a talk at the Derby Book Festival that took place in a wonderful young garden called Electric Daisy, which had been co-designed by the Eden Project. At first, I was a little worried at not having the usual slide show of garden photographs with me, but, once on stage, I realised I didn’t need them anyway:…

IT was late June and, although the solstice had passed, the evening air still had the feeling of ethereal magic that Shakespeare captured once and forever in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was light when my watch said it should have been dark; the owl in the window of the barn sat, moon-chested, as shooting swallows dipped in and out of their rafter nests behind her, their chattery day’s work not yet complete. At the farm pond, three red-poll heifers stood motionless, water dripping off their whiskers, as if waiting for the start of some drama of which they were unaware. The air was heated and heavy with the scent of honeysuckle and of the new hay in the barn. Ghost moths, Hepialus humuli, danced a nocturnal slow sarabande, as…

THERE were studies of fat legs and ample bosoms,’ novelist E. F. Benson wrote in 1922 in Miss Mapp, describing the studio of Tilling’s enfant terrible, painter Irene Coles: ‘The walls were hung with specimens of Irene’s art. There was a stout female with no clothes on at all, whom it was impossible not to recognise as being Lucy.’ Lucy is Irene’s maid and her model. She may be much more to her mistress. Undeniably, she is the avant-garde painter’s muse, transformed by Irene’s characteristically bold brushstrokes into a primitive Eve and a sister-hood of enticing and alarming fleshy women. Inspiration embodied, Lucy provides the catalyst that liberates Irene’s vision. That Benson’s fictional painter should respond creatively to one woman is not a figment of the author’s imagination. Artists have…