Innholdsfortegnelse for August 21, 2024 i Country Life

Scone Palace, Perthshire, part I The seat of the Earl and Countess of Mansfield and Mansfield SCONE PALACE—as the modern visitor encounters it—is a magnificent Regency country house. Set in spreading parkland on the River Tay about two miles north of the centre of Perth, the present building is almost entirely the creation of the architect William Atkinson working for the Earl of Mansfield between 1803 and 1812. The form of the house as a battlemented mansion partly reflects the Romantic taste for the Gothic style (Fig 2). It also, however, evokes the exceptionally deep history of this place. Scone is first reliably recorded as a site of importance at the time of the Viking invasions of Britain more than 1,100 years ago. According to the Chronicle of the Kings…

IT’S up, it’s up—quick! Oh, no, it’s dived again.’ Such is the lament of the birdwatcher attempting to point out a diver or grebe to a companion. Whether the subject is a stately great northern diver floating off a picture-perfect Hebridean beach or a diminutive black-necked grebe playing hide and seek among a flock of ducks in the deepest reaches of an Essex reservoir, the challenge is the same. These masters of the underwater world seem to shun the feeling of air on their feathers, such is their eagerness to immerse and immerse again. Of all the UK’s waterbirds and seabirds, few are as well adapted to swim underwater as divers and grebes. Their stout legs, with webbed toes in divers and lobed in grebes, sit so far back on…

QUALITY not quantity is the phrase that best describes the current state of play in the Scottish estates market. The highlight of the year to date is the launch in today’s COUNTRY LIFE of the historic, 764-acre Newliston estate at Kirkliston, near Edinburgh, which has never before been seen on the open market. Evelyn Channing of Savills Edinburgh office (0131–247 3720) seeks ‘offers over £15 million’ for the ‘pastoral oasis’, with its Category A-listed mansion built in 1792–93 by Robert Adam within an important designed landscape, both designated of ‘outstanding architectural and historical interest’ by Historic Scotland. Despite its location 10 miles from Edinburgh city centre and four miles from Edinburgh airport, the estate is sheltered from the outside world by acres of gardens, woods and farmland that create a…

Chilli, lime and lobster risotto Ingredients Serves 4 A splash of olive oil1 onion, finely diced2 cloves garlic, grated1 red chilli, diced300g arborio rice125ml dry white wine1L fish stock, hot50g Parmesan, grated2 limes, juice and zest of1tbspn butterSeasoning50g butter1 clove garlic, grated1 red chilli, finely diced1 lime, zest and juice2 cooked lobster tails, halved (or use prawns)Fresh coriander or parsley to serve Method ⯈ Add a splash of olive oil to a large heavy-based pan over a medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook until softened, but not browned. Add the grated garlic and chilli, then cook for a further minute. Pour in the rice and toss to ensure all the grains are covered in oil and cook for several minutes. Pour over the white wine. Only when it…

I FIRST contacted the House of Automata to enquire about restoration of a mechanical silver bird from my Cabinet of Curiosities, which I recall sweetly singing when I was a boy, but which has sat silent these past few decades. Michael Start sent an estimate and suggested we pay a visit, so my wife, Helen, and I drove north to Forres on the Moray coast (she is keeper of the purse strings for my collections) and there, just off the high street, we entered a house of wonders. An automaton is a mechanical figure that appears to come to life—part of a long tradition of kinetic art and engineered entertainment. Mr Start and his sculptor wife, Maria, now have the largest collection (more than 600 items) that is open to…

THE Hundred is finally making headlines, but, of course, not for the right reasons. England Test captain Ben Stokes has injured a hamstring. Injured doesn’t seem like the right word. I have injured a hamstring and had to limp around for a while. Stokes had to be helped from the field. He’ll be absent for the rest of the summer. There are questions that perhaps should be asked. This season has seen Stokes participate in the Hundred for the first time since 2021. What was the reason for him playing? Might it be that it was important to the English Cricket Board (ECB) that its star player was to be seen playing in its flagship competition when potential investors were being courted? Either way, it’s a shame to see him…

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Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk DON QUIXOTE tilted at windmills, imagining them to be unfriendly giants. There is nothing imaginary, however, about the threat brought by steel forests of wind turbines and pylons to the Highland landscape, renowned throughout the world for its wild, unspoilt beauty and famed as Europe’s last great wilderness. New lines of giant pylons, 1,000 more mega turbines—140 in Skye alone, many of which, at 650ft tall, would be more than five times the height of the Skye Bridge—and the utilitarian substations and battery plants that follow in their wake and spread over hundreds of rural acres are threatened for the Highlands in the panicky rush to net zero. A request to relevant government bodies for a…

North-South divide MICHAEL HALL rightly draws attention to the continuities in Low Countries art between the early-15th and late-17th centuries (‘Going Dutch’, August 7). One characteristic on which he doesn’t comment is the artists’ fascination with interiority. All, in their portraits, capture their subjects either in churches or in exquisitely furnished rooms, in the 15th century often kneeling to a saint, with a window at the back affording a view of the world beyond. In van Eyck’s ‘The Arnolfini Portrait’ (right), the window is placed to the side, slightly behind the figures, exactly as in Vermeer’s works more than two centuries later. Not for the Northern artists the preoccupation with public spaces so often found in the work of the artists of the warm south. Northern art was private and…

THE late American critic Harold Bloom described James Boswell’s book on the towering 18th-century literary figure Dr Samuel Johnson as ‘the greatest biography written in the English language’. Boswell, in fact, had his severe critics, for giving himself too much prominence in the book, but what made Life of Johnson (1791) stand out was the journalistic approach, the assiduous research and the use of recorded conversation and quotes, all of which resulted in a comprehensive portrait of a literary colossus. Charles Grosvenor Osgood, a professor at Princeton University in the US, who abridged Life of Johnson in 1917, sticks up for Boswell: ‘He is almost as much effaced as is Homer in the Odyssey. He is indeed so closely concealed that the reader suspects no art at all.’ Boswell, 9th…

NESTLED deep in the Derbyshire Dales lies one of the greatest country houses of England. Every year (bar three) since 1981, the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire has played host to Chatsworth Country Fair, which has given enjoyment to millions of people in the four decades it has been running. Many attendees may be unaware that profits from the event have given help to thousands more. This is the work of a group of volunteers who set up and run the event and the origins of the project stem from one man’s mission to raise money to help others. Andrew Cuthbert is the founder of the Red Sock Country Fairs, including Chatsworth, the proceeds of which are used to help charitable causes. In 1975, a small game fair was…

The walled garden at Whitburgh House, Midlothian The home of Mr and Mrs Alastair Salvesen WHEN Elizabeth Salvesen and her husband, Alastair, moved to Whitburgh House, Midlothian, in 1992, the one-acre walled garden contained little save a few shrubs, grass and a network of paths inherited from the days when fruit and vegetables were grown for the house. It was the perfect site in which to create a new garden. It might seem counterintuitive, but there can be disadvantages to an open aspect and rich soil. In a normal year—if there is still such a thing—the rainfall at Whitburgh is only about 26in per annum. Likewise, being on a hill 750ft above sea level may allow for huge skies and wonderful long views of rolling farmland from the 19th-century house,…

TO the chagrin of many Scots, the Victorian stereotype of the Romantic North remains the prevailing image of the Highlands. The best-known paintings of the region are still those sublime landscapes by Horatio McCulloch or Edwin Landseer, featuring a ruined castle or stags. One exception is the group of luminous works by the Scottish Colourists, who introduced their Mediterranean palette to the Hebrides in the 1920s. They were not the first painters to discover Iona—see, for example, the lovely views by John Duncan, who first visited the sacred isle in 1903 and would make it the setting of some of his most important Symbolist works. Francis Cadell, who first went in 1912, wrote to his fellow Colourist Samuel Peploe: ‘When the War is over I shall go to the Hebrides,…

Hairy-foot, Long-tongue: Solitary bees, biodiversity & evolution in your backyard David Perkins (Whittles Publishing, £18.99) THE wettest spring anyone can recall has caused social media to buzz loudly about the sheer dearth of insects. In this richly illustrated book, David Perkins explains what we have been missing, but also why we should care about the issue. His subject is bees, but notably not the one with which most are familiar, the honey bee. He explains how this domesticated species is actually not the best pollinator for our gardens or orchards: ‘A rich and diverse population of solitary and social bees,’ he concludes, ‘is most advantageous for growing human crops.’ Dr Perkins sets out to acquaint us with these lesser-known family members. They range from the largest in Europe, the violet…

When the poetic tide turned THE wreck of a ship captained by William Wordsworth’s brother has been granted protected status by Historic England. On the stormy evening of February 5, 1805, the East India Company’s Earl of Abergavenny—a rare 1,460-ton vessel launched in Northfleet, Kent, in 1796—struck the notorious Shambles bank off Dorset’s Isle of Portland and later sank within sight of land, about a mile and a half from Weymouth Bay. Its captain, John Wordsworth, younger brother to the Romantic poet, was among the 263 lives lost in icy waters; he is said to have exclaimed ‘O pilot! pilot! you have ruined me!’ as he attempted to steer the ship to safety—and ‘He who had been our living John/Was nothing but a name’. About 100 aboard survived and the…

THERE is a quiet revolution under way in the countryside and it will make Britain more untidy. It insists that Nature is not well-ordered and controlled, but fully measured and running over. Neatness is the enemy of Nature. A well-manicured hand may be the sign of a gentleman, yet manicured land is not the mark of the countryman. Fulsome hedges and long grass, wild patches and overgrown corners give life and fecundity to the sterile fields by which so much of rural England is now occupied. This is the alien landscape that we have created since the Second World War and it’s that which regenerative farmers seek to change as they work to produce food without destroying the natural order of things. There is nothing prescriptive about this growing movement.…

THE Perridge forest in Devon has been my home for more than 60 years. My children grew up under its protective branches and I sprinkled the ashes of my father and two of my grandparents to rest in its soil. For 35 years, it has been my turn to care for it. The mix of trees—gnarly oaks, feathery birches and tall Douglas firs—make a frame, but are only one element of a multi-sensory, multi-layered place. Gossamer-thin subterranean tendrils of fungi link with tree roots and mine a soil churned by worms and alive with numberless invisible microbes. Above ground, insects buzz, snakes creep through mosses, deer peep from thickets and hunting hawks windhover above tree tops; the wood supports at least 10 red-listed bird species. The forested landscape provides a…

BANE of agricultural land, despoiler of picnics and of little practical value, it is odd that the ever troublesome thistle has, nevertheless, earned our affection. Respect, as everyone knows, is something they uncompromisingly demand. What counts as a thistle? If you will forgive the unavoidably clumsy caveats, they are usually prickly members of some of the tribe of plants known as the Cardueae, one of the many tribes in the daisy family. Most British thistles belong to the genera Cirsium and Carduus, the first including the creeping, spear, meadow, marsh, dwarf (or stemless or picnic) and woolly thistle. The second group houses the musk, welted and slender thistle. There are also other familiar thistles within the Cardueae family, such as the Scottish thistle, milk thistle and carline thistle, and among…

REACHED down a narrow lane, this 1980s house on the coast of south Cornwall has far-reaching views over Mylor Creek and beyond. When the new owners acquired it, they asked the Truro-based practice CSA Architects to design a kitchen extension and open up access from the garden to the creek below, where a boatshed has been converted to a home office (01872 265310; www.csa-architects.co.uk). At the same time, Sims Hilditch was asked to reimagine the interiors. ‘A key aim for our clients was to connect the house more seamlessly to the surrounding landscape,’ explains Hannah Linford, senior studio lead, who oversaw the project. ‘Previously, the layout of the ground floor was made up of a large hall dominated by a staircase and lacked a central hub for the family to…

THERE were only 24 lots in Christie’s principal London Old Master paintings session for the summer season. Inevitably, fewer and fewer great works are available to the market, but, nonetheless, these included a Titian, a Metsys, a Hals and a Bonington. The 18¼in by 24¾in Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Fig 1) by Titian (1485/90–1576) has one of the most impressive provenances that would be possible to trace. The first known owner was Bartolomeo della Nave, a Venetian merchant and collector who was born at the end of the artist’s life, and from him, in 1638, it went to the 2nd Earl of Denbigh, then to the 1st Duke of Hamilton, who was executed by the Cromwellians in 1649, his collections sold. The Habsburg Governor of the Spanish Netherlands…