Innholdsfortegnelse for September 25, 2024 i Country Life

SIR LAURENCE OLIVIER is chiefly remembered—and revered—as the consummate charismatic actor, but his talent extended beyond the artistic; without his personality and vision, the National Theatre might never have survived. Even before he became its first director, in 1962, it had taken more than a century to get off the ground, from the first pamphlet calling for its creation, A House for Shakespeare by publisher Effingham Wilson in 1848, to the National Theatre Act of 1949. This authorised £1 million of state funding to be spent on a new building on London’s South Bank, although that theatre was not completed until after Olivier’s tenure, in 1976. It was, however, to his design and, when he retired in 1973, he performed the topping-out ceremony. His National Theatre was at what is…

SOCIETY knew what it thought about them and it was mostly bad. Brave, independent, resourceful, even entrepreneurial they may have been, but the women who, in the 17th and 18th centuries, turned to crime on the nation’s highways inspired deep mistrust—and not simply for the danger they posed to travellers. For highwaywomen, a term coined in the 1730s, were worse than criminals. More than their male counter parts, they represented a potent challenge to the established order: gun-toting, pipe-smoking, violent and, more often than not, cross-dressing. Of one of Britain’s best-known highwaywomen Mary Frith, known as Moll Cutpurse, whose life of crime lasted five decades, including targeted offences against Parliamentarians during the Civil War, the author of A History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Noted Highwaymen, Footpads,…

AS part of a project to restore a five-storey 19th-century townhouse in Notting Hill, interior designer Guy Goodfellow was asked to transform the principal bedroom. ‘Even a bedroom of this scale can feel cosy and charming,’ he says. ‘We wanted to create a hideaway in the heart of the city.’ The centrepiece of the space is an antique four-poster bed. ‘I had in mind the magnificent green velvet bed at Houghton Hall in Norfolk,’ recalls Mr Goodfellow, who chose a bespoke handwoven emerald silk from Susan Deliss (07768 805850; www.susandeliss.com). ‘The fabric is shot with subtle golden yellow, giving it an unusual translucence,’ he adds. ‘We lined the green with our Taza linen, designed for this project—it is light and fresh and I’m told that it’s lovely to wake up…

High society BUILT side by side by feuding relatives, the Waldorf-Astoria originated as two hotels, built in 1893 and 1897 respectively. Reimagined in 1931, the 625ft Park Avenue landmark set the standard in American hospitality and has become synonymous with old-fashioned glamour and a New York way of life. Cole Porter took up residence in 1934 and kept his 10-room, 33rd-floor suite—which he proclaimed was ‘a dream of beauty’—until his death in 1964. Inspiring the next generation of residents, the Waldorf Astoria New York enters a new era this year following an extensive restoration, offering fully furnished homes—with exclusive access to more than 50,000sq ft of private residential amenities, from health and wellness to entertaining and business spaces—starting from $1.8 million. ‘Coupled with bespoke audio visual offerings from Bang &…

THERE are 191 turns in eight miles,’ says the woman, who smiles as she warns of the Oatman Highway just up the road. She is a clerk in Cool Springs Station, the last roadside stop before this treacherous part of Route 66 in north-west Arizona. ‘Just stick to the speed limit and there’s nothing to worry about.’ She knows the face of a concerned traveller when she sees one. I’m right to be worried. Dangerous Roads, a website dedicated to highlighting the world’s most difficult routes, describes this stretch as having ‘very few guardrails giving you no leeway for error’. It is, indeed, technical, with steep drops that will put the fear in your passenger if they peer out of the window. It’s also high—the summit of Sitgreaves Pass topping…

DRIVE along a country lane at this time of the year and you may see an apple tree growing out of the hedgerow. Drive along a major road, however, and you will see many more. All have grown from the apple cores that we throw out of the window as we travel along. You first notice the trees in spring, when pink-and-white apple blossom bursts prettily into flower. It’s then that you realise exactly how numerous they are—it’s rather awe-inspiring to think that all those flowering beauties have grown from apples, probably bought in shops and supermarkets years ago and consumed by drivers or passengers on long car journeys. There’s a stretch of road near one of the army bases on Salisbury Plain where you can see innumerable apple trees…

THE shifting colours of London captivated and maddened Claude Monet in equal measure. ‘There is no country more extraordinary for a painter,’ he gushed in a letter to his wife, Alice, in February 1901, only to rail a month later that ‘to keep going with a canvas is almost impossible… No one will ever know how hard I worked to achieve so little’. The French painter first came to London as a young man in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war, but returned to paint it in 1899, 1900 and 1901, always in winter, when the fog was at its thickest. ‘He wanted to capture the atmospheric effects the city was very well known for,’ said Karen Serres, senior curator of paintings at London’s Courtauld Gallery, when she presented the museum’s…

The Dominion of Flowers: Botanical Art and Global Plant Relations Mark Laird (Yale, £35) THIS is a beautiful, but unusual book. At first sight, it promises a jolly romp through the English gardening scene 250 years ago, with an erudite text and beautiful illustrations. These include lots of watercolours of flowers by John Müller and Henry Seymer (father and son), plus paper collages by Mary Delany and illustrations from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine—all with long, informative captions. ‘Prof Laird is with the modern moralists. You may not like it, but it makes you think’ It is much more complicated than that, however. Mark Laird is an academic, a professor emeritus at Toronto University, Canada, who has for many years been responsible for ‘floral beauty’ at the restored Painshill landscape garden in…

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk TO celebrate our special American issue, here is a reminder of what we love most from across the Atlantic. Domestic bliss The refrigerator, the dishwasher, the washing machine, the electric iron and the microwave oven were all invented there, for which we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Influential women In 1873, Leonard Jerome, proprietor of the New York Times, rented Rosetta Cottage on the Isle of Wight for Cowes Week. Within three days, his daughter Jennie had accepted a proposal from Randolph Churchill—a plaque marks the spot; their son, Winston, was born the following year. Another heiress, Nancy Tree (later Lancaster), owner of Colefax and Fowler, was an arbiter of taste who taught…

Electric field THANK you to Kathryn Bradley-Hole for highlighting the unseen menace of radio-frequency radiation and electromagnetic fields (In the garden, August 28). I am one of the (unfortunate) people who can feel electromagnetic radiation (EMR). I noticed this more than 15 years ago, although no one could or would give me an explanation. Finally, after hearing a broadcast by Dr Olle Johansson, I recognised my health problem, which is most unfortunate given this technology is the future. A recent report in the Sénat in France on the impact of EMR on the health of intensively raised hens and also on milk production raises some interesting questions. Dianne Robat, by email Calling the shots THE attached photograph (above) may interest readers—it is the Baker rifle, recently referred to in COUNTRY…

The Arab Tent by Sir Edwin Landseer ‘When we trained a racehorse at home, it was a struggle to think of a stable name for Premier Portrait by Portrait Gallery. My thoughts turned to my favourite painting in my favourite art gallery, the Wallace Collection–Landseer’s The Arab Tent–so we named him Wally. He won 13 races for us and was National Champion point-to-pointer. Because the Wallace Collection is free, I wander in often and just stand in front of this painting. As a child I wanted to snuggle up with the dogs and be part of it’ Charlotte Mullins comments on The Arab Tent SIR EDWIN LANDSEER came from a large artistic family—his father, John, was an engraver and all his siblings became artists. A precocious draughtsman, Landseer began exhibiting…

BRITAIN’S revived canal network is a marvel of centuries-old engineering and volunteer-led grit. This winding system of interconnected channels meanders its way through landscapes rural and urban, unpretentious and unhurried, imbued with an unmatched charm. Two centuries on from its commercial heyday, when nearly 4,000 miles of canals criss-crossed the country, the network provides a welcome opportunity to step into a world where there is no choice but to slow down. ‘Volunteers give a collective 671,000 hours to the waterways annually’ The resurgence of Britain’s canals underscores not only their resilience, but their evolution—although no longer used for their original purpose, they are as valuable a commodity today as they ever were. Canals were the bustling arteries of the Industrial Revolution. Between the 1770s and the 1830s, an era dubbed…

PERCHED on the western slopes of Windwhistle Ridge in south Somerset, the serene medieval parish of Chaffcombe is bounded to the north by Knowle St Giles, to the east by Cudworth, to the south by Cricket St Thomas and to the west by the market town of Chard. Half a mile south of Chaffcombe village stands historic Avishays House set in some 90 acres of parkland, paddocks and woodland, now for sale through Savills (020–7016 3822), either as a whole at £6 million, or £3.5m for the main house and buildings with some 43 acres of land. In the early 1500s, the Avishays estate was held as a freehold under Chaffcombe manor before being sold in 1559 to John Browne of Frampton, Dorset. Several generations later, Robert Browne sold the…

AUTUMN rain fell heavily upon the great parade, as thousands marched along New York’s Fifth Avenue to the rousing sound of military bands and the cheers of enthusiastic crowds. It was October 28, 1886: an American icon was about to be born. Frédéric Bartholdi, an artist, sculptor and photographer from Alsace in France, was attracted by large antique statuary when visiting Egypt in the 1850s. He planned a giant female figure that he hoped to set, like a colossus of Rhodes, at the entrance to the Suez Canal. However, the Khedive would not pay. In 1865, he was delighted to accept a proposal from French lawyer, politician and fable-writer Edouard de Laboulaye to create a monument for France to give to the US. It was the ultimate consolation prize. Laboulaye…

Wild-mushroom, spinach and creamy herb polenta with Parmesan truffle oil Ingredients For the herbed polenta 1 litre chicken stock300ml whole milk200g polenta50g butter75g Parmesan, finely grated2 sprigs rosemary, leaves removed3 sprigs thyme, leaves removedSeasoningA splash of olive oil1 onion, finely diced1 clove garlic, grated400g mixed wild mushrooms (such as chanterelle, porcini, shiitake)100ml dry white wine200g spinach leavesTruffle oil, Parmesan and fresh parsley, chopped Method ▸ Heat the chicken stock and milk in a large saucepan until simmering and then pour in the polenta. If it’s the coarse kind, process it briefly in a blender so the end result can be entirely smooth and creamy. Using a whisk, mix the polenta to ensure there are no lumps. Cook for about 30 minutes. Once cooked, remove from the heat and stir in…

ARCHBISHOP USSHER calculated that the world began at 6pm precisely on October 22, 4004BC. More recent scientists tell us with relatively less certainty that the Big Bang occurred 13.799 billion years ago. In both calculations, the existence of time is unquestioned, the unstoppable flight of its arrow analogous to the doxology’s glory of God, ‘which was, is and ever shall be’. It is currently fashionable among some physicists to regard time as an illusion, with the ‘now’ as the only reality (more simply expressed in the Earl of Rochester’s Love and Life: ‘The present moment’s all my lot,/And that as fast as it is got, Phyllis, is only thine’). However, once we accept the necessity of time, whenever its starting point, then it becomes necessary to measure it. The earliest…

THE countryside often finds itself dependent upon the activities of organisations whose purpose is to protect particular interests. That is perfectly understandable, but they wield such influence that we need to be vigilant in monitoring their activities. Groups such as the National Union of Farmers (NFU), the Country Land and Business Association (CLA) and the Food & Drink Federation (FDF), not to mention the big supermarkets—all these can make a huge impact on how we live in the countryside and how farmers make a living and look after the land. That’s why last week’s riposte by the FDF to a serious report by Bite Back, the charity supported by chef and food writer Jamie Oliver, was particularly concerning. Bite Back had shown that the 10 largest food manufacturers had combined…

Mount Vernon, Virginia, US, part I A property in the care of Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association MOUNT VERNON—the former home of George Washington, first President of the US—is an extraordinary place; a dignified Virginian gentleman’s seat (Fig 1) overlooking the Potomac River that was built in several phases throughout the 18th century. With an exterior clad in timber, detailed and painted to appear like stone rustication, the house is probably the most intensely researched in America. It has been the subject of a sustained preservation campaign, with a great deal of significant work taking place over the past 12 years; this is due for completion in 2026 and will be part of the 250-year celebrations of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. A final phase includes the reintroduction of…

IT is impossible to say precisely when the first hedge in Britain was laid, yet it is beyond doubt that our hedgerows are the oldest in Europe. This truth came to light in the early 1980s, when archaeologist Francis Pryor and a team from Cambridge unearthed the traces of a hedged-in sheep fold and livestock market in the stark peatlands of Flag Fen near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. A nondescript piece of blackened hedgerow brash was exposed, visibly clean cut and angled, indicative of trimming with, one supposes, a billhook. When radiocarbon-dated, this barb helped to prove that some 4,500 years ago, people here were already well established in agricultural practices familiar to us today—mixed farming, draining land and managing hedgerows. It stands to reason, then, that if the hedge was integral…

Heritage chic ALEXA CHUNG has been announced as the new creative director of British heritage brand Barbour. She is perfect for the role, having worn Barbour jackets from her childhood in Hampshire through to the muddy fields at Glastonbury. The model and broadcaster has launched Barbour’s AW24 ‘The Edit by Alexa’ collection. ‘My intention was to create something immediate that reflects my wardrobe, interests and style in this moment, while staying true to the brand’s epic heritage,’ the designer explains. The collection comprises wax jackets with tartan liners, colourful quilted jackets and knitwear made by Harley of Scotland. It also introduces footwear—a short Wellington inspired by Alexa’s Chelsea Boot and a slip-on clog, which we all know ends up being the most useful shoe of the lot (www.barbour.com). The cheek…

NOTHING lasts forever, but in an age of commercial possibilities, the disposal of country-house estates can be unsettling for many and a golden opportunity for a monied few. The sales of Ripley Castle near Harrogate, to be revealed in more detail by Carter Jonas after October this year, and the Bridehead estate in Dorset, which went on the market in early summer, are sensational—Ripley especially for the sudden culmination of seven centuries of family ownership, which started with Sir Thomas Ingleby in the 1300s and will end with Sir Thomas Ingilby, 6th Baronet, in 2024. Both properties are asset rich. Bridehead is a traditional country domain with the estate hamlet of Littlebredy, farms and a neat Gothick mansion at its core. Ripley has its splendid Grade I-listed castle, 18th-century pleasure…

The garden at Ghost Wash, Paradise Valley, Arizona, USThe home of Lauri and Eric Termansen THE wildlife out here is not particularly friendly,’ the cab driver says, as we head to Paradise Valley from suburban Scottsdale in Arizona, US. ‘If you go off the trails, you have to deal with scorpions, rattlesnakes, javelinas…’ Javelinas are a type of wild pig, she explains. ‘They’re pretty aggressive.’ Plant life, too, has a spiky armoury here in the south-west and it’s not difficult to understand the basic appeal of smooth lawns and high hedges, the default position of designed landscapes across this continent. With the motorised hum of trimming, cutting, fertilising and weedkilling in every neighbourhood and on every day that is not winter, it’s a polluting, as well as a noisy response…

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