Innholdsfortegnelse for July 31, 2024 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk IN about 1850, a sanitary inspector called Thomas Rammell visited High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, to compile a report on the living conditions of the furniture workers who lived in slums clustered around a now-lost chalkstream. His little red book can be found in the town’s public library and makes sobering reading. Those who testified described lives of unremitting squalor, dogged by ‘low fever’, dozens of people sharing one latrine, these suspended over the river or dug into the water-table alongside wells from which they also drank. One man told how the latrines of his courtyard drained through his front room. Rammell recommended the town’s authorities install mains drainage and a water supply, to relieve the lives of…

Parental perseverance I WONDER if I might have a world record-breaking pair of robins in my garden. This year, they are feeding their fourth brood of roblings—as my children call them—having been at it continuously for six months. They successfully raised three or four chicks from each of the first two broods. Sadly, none of the third brood survived, but half an hour after the last dead chick was removed, the female was topping up the nest, ready to go again. They are a lesson to us in perseverance and determination. Christina Davis, London Legless in the Asclepieion I WONDER if the 6th century pottery vase in the form of a flexed and sandalled leg (Art market, July 17) had a hole in the toes? If so, it may have…

CHALKSTREAMS are a natural wonder and a national treasure. They are unique to our corner of Europe and are almost exclusively English. There are some in Normandy (arguably English between 1066 and 1450, although perhaps don’t say that when in France) and some in Denmark. By far the most flow through England: more than 200 named streams that rise from the folds and furrows of rolling chalk downland that reach across southern England, from Bridport in Dorset and up to Bridlington in East Yorkshire. Their names have a music of their own: Sydling, Ebble, Cheriton, Pang, Misbourne, Granta, Babingley, Bain, Great Eau and Gypsey Race. The most famous of all are the stately Rivers Test and Itchen, in Hampshire. These are majestic chalkstreams of the platonic, Eternal Form ideal: broad…

FEW Somerset houses can boast a mix of owners as illustrious as that of grand, Grade II-listed Harptree Court, which stands in some 52 acres of gardens, spring-fed lakes, woods, pasture and parkland on the edge of the popular village of East Harptree, within the Mendip Hills National Landscape, nine miles from Wells, 13 miles from Bristol and 16 miles from Bath. Joint agents Knight Frank (01225 325999) and Savills (020–7016 3822) quote a guide price of £6.75 million for the recently restored Georgian country house, which was built in 1797 (with 1820 additions) to the Classical designs of Charles Harcourt Masters of Bath, a successful surveyor and architect who was closely involved with the development of the city and also laid out formal gardens and grounds for many important…

SUMMER is in full swing after months of heavy rain and grey skies, so it seems exceptionally welcome this year. It’s been warm enough for the fragrance of roses and woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum) to drift across the garden, but the flowers haven’t frazzled in extreme heat as they have in recent times. Rosa ‘Champagne Moment’, a buff white, and the soft-pink ‘Wildeve’ obviously enjoyed the winter wet, for they are better than ever. There must be truth in the old adage that roses love the rain. Perhaps that should be our consolation, if we suffer yet another wet winter—as we surely will. The real stars are the eryngiums, or sea hollies, with their architectural metallic stems and branching heads of thimble-headed flowers encircled by jagged bracts. I didn’t expect these…

WHEN the revered German virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter steps onto the platform at the Royal Albert Hall for her Proms performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto on August 11, she will be carrying her treasured ‘Lord Dunn-Raven’ Stradivarius violin, crafted in 1710 by the legendary Italian luthier, Antonio Stradivari. ‘It’s an instrument that never fails to amaze me,’ she says. No other name in the stringed-instrument field carries the same cachet. Stradivari’s contemporary and fellow Cremonese, Giuseppe ‘del Gesù’ Guarneri, runs him close in terms of lasting reputation. Between them, they took the art of violin construction to a new level, enabling ever more accomplished soloists to meet the demands of increasingly challenging music. ‘I had a palette of colours at my disposal that I wasn’t previously even aware existed’ Stradivari’s…

Thatch under threat THE 2024 harvest is approaching, thatchers are in high demand and a new generation is keen to enter the trade, yet the thatching industry is functioning under a proverbial leaky roof. A Historic England (HE) report released this week, following another last year, outlines some of the issues. Thatchers face a shortage of supplies due, in part, to poor harvests in unpredictable weather and labour shortages since Brexit. Unreliable vintage machinery is the only type available (combine harvesters, which took over in the 1950s, prioritise the yield of wheat), with hard-to-source spare parts. The war in Ukraine has made things worse, too, as 97% of the water reed we’ve used in recent years has been imported, some from Eastern Europe. There are 25,000 listed thatched buildings in…

OVER the past month, police have been out at night visiting farms in rural south Shropshire in a high-profile effort to deter rural crime. Operation Whitebeam is designed to give confidence to country people in police concern and to warn increasingly well-organised criminal gangs of police presence. The widely publicised support of John Campion, the local Police and Crime Commissioner, is a much-needed example of official acceptance that theft of equipment and animals in the countryside has reached serious proportions. We are no longer talking of opportunist burglary by individuals, but of nationally, and even internationally organised, sophisticated crime. A recent report by Durham University found that there were 22 serious organised gangs active in the countryside. It’s not, therefore, surprising that, in recent months, police forces in Cumbria, North…

Tomato ketchup with crinkle-cut chips Ingredients Makes one large bottle of sauce 1.5kg fresh tomatoes1 red onion½ red pepper2 celery stalks1 carrot4 dates, halved and stoned2 sprigs rosemary4 sprigs thyme½tspn coriander seeds½tspn chilli flakes100ml extra-virgin olive oil4tbspn apple-cider vinegar1tbspn tamarind4 large ‘Maris Piper’ potatoes50ml olive oilSea salt Method ▸ Preheat your oven to 185˚C fan/200˚C/400˚F/gas mark 6 and line two large baking trays with foil. ▸ Chop the tomatoes into large, even-sized chunks and arrange them on the baking tray. Chop the remaining vegetables—red onion, red pepper, celery, carrot—into similar sizes and arrange them around the tomatoes, together with the prepared dates. Add the rosemary, thyme, coriander seeds and chilli flakes, then pour over the olive oil and vinegar. Mix everything well, ensuring the vegetables are evenly coated, and roast…

A FLEET of origami boats manned by sculpted schoolchildren sits at the bottom of the sea on a barren sandbank off the coast of Carriacou, north of Grenada, in the Caribbean. The 30 boats—which look like paper, but are actually made of stainless steel and eco-friendly cement—double up as artificial reefs to support marine biodiversity, their sails working as coral nurseries. They are the work of Kent sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor (https://underwatersculpture.com), who has long campaigned for marine conservation through his work. The pristine coastlines he saw when living in Malaysia and travelling across South-East Asia in his youth sparked his passion for the sea. On his return to the UK, he became a diving instructor at the same time as training as a sculptor, but it was in the…

Visit Tottering-By-Gently on our website: www.countrylife.co.uk/tottering We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. All contents © 2024 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future…

THE world’s longest-running serial, billed by Radio Times as ‘a serial play of country life’ and now an unmissable fixture in many listeners’ daily lives, was launched on January 1, 1951. The Archers was born out of a 1948 conference at which Godfrey Baseley, farming producer for BBC Midland region, invited suggestions from farmers for improving the coverage. Henry Burtt, a Lincolnshire farmer, proposed a ‘farming Dick Barton [a popular radio thriller] without the violence’. ‘The dangers and risks in farming were just as great as those in Dick Barton,’ observed Baseley. ‘Henry was a great grower of blackcurrants and knew it could all go in a storm.’ Burtt, with his son Stephen, inspired the characters of Dan and Phil Archer. ‘It was revolutionary as far as farming and the…

1878 The year in which the world’s first hydroelectric-power scheme was developed, at Cragside, Northumberland, by William George Armstrong. It was used to power a single arc lamp in his art gallery 84 The percentage of people who said they have altered their behaviour towards Nature after wild swimming, in a survey done by the Outdoor Swimming Society; 53% regularly litter pick at beaches and swim spots and 50% have made purposeful lifestyle changes to protect blue spaces 45 The minimum temperature, in degrees celsius, of the water in the UK’s only natural hot springs at Aquae Sulis (Bath). The largest spring is dedicated to the goddess Sulis, who was worshipped there before the Romans arrived in Britain, when she was conflated with Minerva to become Sulis Minerva 40,000 The…

THIS three-storey house in St John’s Wood was built during the 1930s and lies within the Eyre Estate development, acquired by Henry Samuel Eyre in 1732. Set back from the road, with a large front garden, the original layout was arranged as self-contained rooms. The kitchen redesign was part of a wider refurbishment. A priority was an open-plan ground floor that linked the kitchen, living and dining spaces, but which still provided an opportunity to close off a formal sitting room. ‘The couple has three young boys,’ explains Claire Sá, co-founder of architectural and interior-design firm De Rosee Sa, ‘so wanted a large, practical kitchen where the children could run around, in and out of the garden, but that would also look good for entertaining.’ Along the length of the…

The gardens at Badminton House, Badminton, Gloucestershire IF you take the main road from Tetbury, watch out for a kink in the road and a gap between the trees on the left, shortly after Didmarton village. Suddenly, a light and airy, four-storey neo-Classical confection appears, flanked by pyramid-roofed pavilions. This is Worcester Lodge, an enchanting parkland building, created by William Kent in 1746 and set on the northern edge of the vast Badminton estate. It marks the start of an arrow-straight, three-mile grass avenue that terminates at Badminton House itself and the renowned gardens that were created only within the past 40 years. Russell Page (1906–85) is a name known to all serious garden enthusiasts. One of the most influential designers of the 20th century, his classic gardening memoir, The…

FOR many of us, the only water features in our gardens are outside taps and watering cans, but water has always played an important role in garden design. Without water, of course, we wouldn’t have gardens at all, so perhaps it’s not surprising that, from the dawn of recorded history to the present day, gardens have been animated by the splash and burble of running water and the flash of sunlight reflected from the surface of a pool. Blessed with a temperate climate and generous quantities of rain, this country enjoys the ideal conditions for water gardens of all kinds. Medieval monasteries, such as Fountains and Rievaulx in North Yorkshire, were usually built alongside (or even across) rivers, to supply fresh water and to wash effluent away, and stew ponds…

WHOSO pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is right-wise king born of all England,’ wrote Thomas Malory in his compilation of Middle English and French tales of King Arthur, Le Morte d’Arthur. Malory, who died in 1470, did not invent the ‘sword test’ of kingship that has since been central to Arthurian legend. In Robert de Boron’s less well-known epic poem Merlin, written nearly three centuries earlier, a similar prophecy appeared: ‘Who taketh this swerde out of this ston sholde be kynge by the eleccion of Jhesu Criste.’ About 700 years later, in 1911, watercolourist Walter Crane supplied 16 illustrations for Henry Gilbert’s King Arthur’s Knights: The Tales Re-Told for Boys & Girls. In King Arthur asks the Lady of the Lake for the Sword Excalibur, it…

Winston Churchill in 100 Objects Phil Reed and Anthony Richards (Greenhill, £25) THEIR actions may speak loudest, but the hearts of men are often revealed in small things. When Winston Churchill met President Roosevelt in the Oval Office for the first time in December 1941, he was intrigued by the clutter on FDR’s desk: not the usual appurtenances of executive office, but ceramic pigs and roosters, stuffed animals and figurines of Democratic donkeys and Republican elephants, revealing his whimsical side. The two had first met, briefly, in London in 1918 and then at sea off Newfoundland in August 1941 before the Americans entered the war. The latter meeting was fruitful, but hardly conducive to getting to know each other. That began in the White House in December and continued for…