Innholdsfortegnelse for September 18, 2024 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk SOMETHING strange is going on with the normally diminutive tree fern this year. Instead of its customary eight to 10 fronds, it is tending to produce more than 30, all huge and healthy, with a matching increase in the size of the trunk. This is evidently due to the relatively large amount of rainfall Britain has enjoyed—or endured—rather than the love and attention lavished upon it by the gardener. Forestry England recently suggested that such a large amount of rain has similarly, if not so dramatically, increased the number of leaves on British trees. This, it says, will probably treat us to an exceptionally spectacular autumnal display. The beloved rich, glowing colours of autumn are due…

All-seeing eye YOUR photograph included a box of prosthetic eyes, presumably for the puppets (‘Reality is merely an illusion’, August 21). My late godmother, Mollie Surman (right), was the last of four generations of glass-eye blowers (160 years in total); she estimated that she had blown between 10,000 and 12,000 eyes. Among her patients was a South African diamond trader who requested a hole in the back of his prosthesis. Some years later, a replacement was requested for him from Her Majesty’s Prison Service (HMP). Another bon viveur patient requested an eye of a different countenance; a morning ‘bleary and bloodshot’ one to match his native eye following a ‘session’. Tom Dehn FRCS, Berkshire Low rider THE vehicles listed in your first-car feature may look basic by today’s standards, but…

An Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight, by Pierre-Jacques Volaire ‘I love this work as much for the things I associate with it as for the picture itself. As a painting, it is spectacular and a little bonkers: the beauty of the Bay of Naples in the moonlight is almost enhanced by the erupting volcano, which would be a scene from a nightmare, but here is almost romanticised. You can imagine the Grand Tourists trying to get a piece of lava to take home and say “I was there”. But it also makes me think of holidays, of beautiful Ischia and Capri–on a demanding day, I can go downstairs, look at it and dream about being in the south of Italy. It’s such a feast of the imagination, it opens so…

BUILT on the sheep’s back, now banking on the tourist dollar and ‘down from London’ (DFL) second-homers, the Cotswolds is noted for pretty villages, great pubs, good food—and crowds. My strict instructions in compiling this guide were to avoid the honeypots and temples of taste and find the places not everyone knows about: where to stay, eat, shop, exercise and unwind in peace. For this, I would need spies, a network of local intelligence to ferret out the stories of people and places flying under the radar. I began with my friend Frances in Cheltenham, who met me with her two whippets, Bertie and Maud, on a small industrial estate near her home. Here is La Boulangerie Artisan (01242 317730; www.laboulangerieartisan.co.uk), purveyor of allegedly the best almond croissants outside of…

AS soon as I could walk, I was involved in the care of our donkeys,’ reveals Esme Higgs. ‘My earliest memories are out in the field, looking up and stroking the softest of noses, feeling their breath on my face and watching their large ears move independently, finely tuned to the quietest sounds around them.’ With 970,000 subscribers on YouTube and more than two million social-media followers, equestrienne Ms Higgs has amassed a legion of fans with cheerful and informative videos about her countryside lifestyle, but she’s not alone in the spotlight—her loveable donkeys and horses have built up large fanbases of their very own. When she announced the news earlier this year that two of her donkeys, Willow and Bruno, had died within months of each other, she received…

LAUNCHED onto the market in today’s COUNTRY LIFE, North Hay at Tackley, in the lovely Cherwell Valley on the eastern edge of the Cotswolds, is an elegant, Georgian-style country house. It’s set in some six acres of beautifully landscaped gardens designed by Simon Johnson, with 25 acres of grounds enclosed by a ha-ha and surrounded to the north, east and west by 121 acres of mixed and semi-ancient woodland, much-loved and carefully managed by three generations of the owner’s family. Designed by Dorset-based Stuart Martin Architects and built between 2004 and 2007, North Hay was the only new house listed among ‘the 12 best family houses in England’ in a survey by COUNTRY LIFE (February 2, 2011), which coincided with the magazine’s involvement with the annual Georgian Society Awards. It’s…

DID it rain less in centuries past? The artistic record suggests that, until the 19th century, blue skies were the norm—but then paintings are not the most reliable meteorological documents. We know that, up to the 20th century, the climate pattern was a zigzag in which periods of heat reliably alternated with cold stretches and that rainfall followed the same lines on the graph. For a long time, however, artists were remarkably detached from what was falling on their heads. ‘Only one topic brought out artists’ inner pluviophile–the Biblical deluge’ There was only one topic that brought out their inner pluviophile—the Biblical deluge that set Noah afloat. Even Michelangelo, who was supremely uninterested in depicting the landscape or, indeed, anything that didn’t have the human figure at its heart, painted…

THE countryside is alive with people working from home (WFH). Before covid, few would have thought that there would be so significant a difference in the way we work. Yet country people will increasingly have to come to terms with a change that will have a profound effect on the way our communities operate. People who only need to be in the office for two or three days a week can make living in the country a reality that is wholly different from mere weekending. They become residents rather than regular visitors. About 42% of British workers are now working at home at least once a week, compared with about half of the German and Italian workforces and a significant increase over about 30% of workers in France. Even so,…

FOR an archaeologist such as Samuel Lysons (1763–1819), the Cotswolds was a good place to be born. By the 4th century AD, the area had acquired the highest concentration of villas for the Romano-British elite in the country. Woodchester was the largest of them, having 64 rooms and three courts, and Lysons’s excavation of it in 1793 established his reputation. It was one of many digs from which finds were sumptuously published after his drawings or with etchings made by himself. The best of the artefacts were among those he gave to the British Museum, founding its Romano-British collection. The term archaeologist is, of course, an anachronism; a younger friend of Horace Walpole, Lysons was proud to call himself an antiquarian. Archaeology—a word that had only recently come into currency—then…

I AM induced to lay before the Geological Society the annexed representations of parts of the skeleton of an enormous fossil animal.’ With these words, on February 20, 1824, the Revd William Buckland began a presentation that would go down in history. London’s Geological Society was at that point fewer than two decades old; the bones, by contrast, dated back some 168 million years—and they were not only ancient, but enormous. ‘The beast in question would have equalled in height our largest elephants,’ Buckland’s speech continued, ‘and in length fallen but little short of the largest whales.’ What he was describing, some 17 years before the word was even coined, was the first identified dinosaur. The fossils being displayed to the presumably baffled audience of academics included a jawbone, a…

HOUGHTON HALL in Norfolk created an Instagram post recently about its striking lift in the back staircase, built in the 1920s. The post was surprisingly popular and reminded me of rising to the first floor in a similarly constructed cage-style lift at Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire with the late Lord Snowdon, whose level of mobility, thanks to a bout of childhood polio, meant travelling by lift was preferable to stairs—especially post-supper. As the rattly construction—which had us both quaking in our boots—propelled us upwards, we watched the massive collection of armoury lining the Red Hall walls pass by. We weren’t convinced that we would make it to the top without getting stuck, which James Hervey-Bathurst, Eastnor’s owner, cheerfully recalls happening only once. ‘We have replaced it with a more modern…

Gloucestershire, £1.25 million From the 1950s to the 1970s, Sherborne House—former home to the Dutton family and rebuilt by Lewis Wyatt in the 1820s—was occupied by King’s School, the corridors of which felt the rhythmic tread of pupil Mick Fleetwood, later of Fleetwood Mac. The Grade II*-listed building was divided into 30 apartments in 1981–82 by Peter Yiangou and, now, principal Apartment 1, with three en-suite bedrooms and a drawing/dining room that was once part of the original grand hall, with an enormous pillared fireplace and floor-to-ceiling shuttered windows, is available. Within the 12-acre grounds open to residents, including an orangery, swimming pool and tennis court, is England’s only surviving 17th-century grandstand, built as an observation post for deer coursing; in fact, Sir Ralph Dutton’s deer-coursing rules are thought to…

Pear and saffron clafoutis with blackberries Ingredients A pinch of saffron30ml almost-boiling water (truly boiling water will burn the saffron)4 large ripe pears50g unsalted butter50g golden caster sugar1tspn vanilla-bean paste For the batter 50g plain flour50g ground almonds100g golden caster sugar4 free-range eggs300ml whole milk100ml double cream1tspn vanilla-bean pasteA pinch of saltIcing sugar to dustBlackberriesLemon verbena to decorate (optional) Method ▸ Preheat your oven to 160˚C fan/180˚C/ 350˚F/gas mark 4 and butter a 25cm (10in)-diameter oven dish. ▸ Add the saffron to a small bowl and pour over the almost-boiling water. Set aside to infuse. ▸ Peel, core and slice the pears into wedges and add them to a frying pan with the butter, sugar and vanilla. Heat over a medium heat until caramelised all over, about 10 minutes, then…

I AM normally wary of novel adaptations. The rhythm of drama is different from that of fiction and, if you fillet Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Jane Austen or Henry James, you often end up with melodrama. To my surprise, David Eldridge’s version of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold—the first adaptation of a John Le Carré novel for the theatre—at the Minerva, Chichester, West Sussex, is a great success. It is worth asking why. In the first place, Mr Eldridge preserves the labyrinthine ingenuity of the original. As in the book, we see worn-out spy Alec Leamas sent by his bosses at MI6 to his old stamping-ground of Berlin for one final mission. His task is to eradicate Mundt, the head of East German intelligence, who has systematically destroyed all…

FOR those born sans silver spoon, the unexpected career path of the unassuming Harry Brearley saved them from unhygienic rusty forks, plastic knives and the unbearable thought of doing away with cutlery altogether. Harry (1871–1948) was the eighth child of John and Jane Brearley, raised in a house in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, no larger than 12ft square. He had less-than-average schooling (‘never clamoured for more’), but became fascinated with watching metal-workers, including his father, crafting their wares. The 12-year-old, however, was ‘too frail’ for such an industry, so became a bottle washer at a chemist’s laboratory, where the chief chemist provided mathematical books to pass the time. Brearley enrolled at night school, attacking (academically) ‘one steelmaking interest after another’. In 1902, he published the 600-plus-page The Analysis of Steelworks Materials,…

IT rather smacks of the delusional, doesn’t it? Much as a big-cat spotting or a reported glimpse of a humongous marine creature peeking above the waters of Loch Ness might cause snorts of derision, any suggestion that you’ve encountered a wallaby, a chipmunk or a scorpion on your afternoon ramble through the British countryside is likely to raise eyebrows. Yet you may well be right. Thanks to escapees from private collections and zoos, hitchhikers and releases of inconvenient pets, followed by the breeding efforts of these resilient species, the British Isles are now home to all kinds of exotic fauna not at all native to these shores. Coatimundi (Nasua nasua) IS it a fox? Is it a badger? No… it’s a member of the raccoon family. About the size of…

Traditional touch Inspired by a visit to magnificent Lanhydrock in Cornwall, the Country House cup handle, £52, is made of solid brass with an aged finish, from deVOL (01509 261000; www.devolkitchens.co.uk) In the detail The Bronze finish of the sockets and switches from Corston enhance the appearance of this kitchen by design studio House of Logan. A 3G Two Way Toggle switch costs £74.40 and a Double Socket UK £34.80, Corston Architectural Detail (01249 549332; www.corston.com) Pepper pick This sturdy, handmade Brushed Nickel pepper mill cracks and grinds peppercorns for maximum flavour. It costs £82, from Freight Household Goods (01273 474917; www.freightstore.co.uk) As good as it gets Officine Gullo offers its top-notch range cookers in the configuration, colour and detailing of your choice. The Fiorentina 120 with six burners, fry…

Coates Barn, WarwickshireThe home of the Sonneborn family AGRICULTURAL buildings are, as often as not, situated in places that were never intended for human habitation. That is fine, until they are converted into homes, at which point the drawbacks of their position are inevitably exposed. Coates Barn in the north Cotswolds is a case in point. It was converted into a large family house some years ago and has magnificent 360-degree views of the escarpment, but the same open aspect that allows for those views also means that there is little protection from the elements, including the winds that can swirl in from every direction. When Mr and Mrs Sonneborn bought the house in 2021, they did so both as a home for themselves and as a place for their…

Great British Elms Mark Seddon and David Shreeve (Kew Publishing, £30) IF you want cheering up, I strongly recommend Great British Elms. In this celebration of some of our most venerated trees (elms come in many shapes and sizes), there is, as you might expect, nostalgia and regret for what we have lost: 20 million trees, as Dutch elm disease sweeps through Britain (it is only now killing the last elm trees in the Highlands). Elms are especially vulnerable as many are descended from single clones and the disease spreads quickly through their suckers. However, the sad chronicle of the disease is trumped by the focus on the trees that have survived (more than you might imagine) thanks to the dedication of landowners, such as Lord De Ramsey in Cambridgeshire,…

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…