Innholdsfortegnelse for October 30, 2024 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk IT is now common policy for more progressive managers of public woodlands to retain standing deadwood or to leave the chain-sawed trunks where they fall, complete with brash heaps of twigs and branches. It is equally standard for some of those managers to receive public grumbles about untidiness. It often doesn’t help if public complaints are deflected with the argument: ‘Untidy woods are good for fungi.’ Not everyone loves mushrooms, occasionally with good reason. Wet and dry rot are capable of devouring the wooden elements in a property and causing the collapse of whole houses. Honey fungus may look lovely as the mushrooms gather like troops of mahogany toy soldiers around a beech, yet they may…

Trees of hope THE situation in Lebanon gives a special poignancy to Jack Watkins’s article on cedar trees (‘Timber of the gods’, October 9). I visited this beautiful country, where my daughter’s husband was posted, last year. I was only in Beirut for a week, yet that was enough to understand the love that not only the resilient, charming and entrepreneurial Lebanese people have for their country, but all who visit it. One of my daughter’s most treasured possessions is a pair of earrings in the form of Lebanon’s ancient cedars. Over centuries, these trees have been used for the construction of buildings, roads and railways, but, now, only 0.4% of the original forests remain, clinging to seven square miles of the rocky limestone slopes of the Qadisha Valley in…

‘Duggie Fields’s Big House in the Landscape, or ‘Magic Landscape’, as I call it, is displayed in my maximalist rainbow home and is the perfect vibrant view. Duggie was an incredibly talented artist and my best friend, who sadly passed away in 2021. This painting reminds me of our deep friendship and how greatly Duggie inspired me with his creativity and unique outlook on life. I acquired it in the mid 1960s, not long after I first met him. I immediately fell in love with its graphic geometric shapes, spectacular use of colour and magical vista. It is a completely original post-pop wonder’ Charlotte Mullins comments on Big House in a Landscape DUGGIE FIELDS was a larger-than-life character. He was a graduate of the Chelsea School of Art in the…

‘O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods, How often has my spirit turned to thee!’ Wordsworth, from ‘Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, July 13, 1798’ THE River Wye runs 136 miles from its source in the Cambrian Mountains of Wales until its drowning in the Severn Estuary and for 30 accumulated years has flowed alongside my life. I cannot quite say I grew up on the Wye’s banks, but from the gates of my childhood home I could throw a stone, across a road and a sheep paddock, into its waters. This was just south of the city of Hereford, where the Wye grows plump and silk and slow; or, put another way, where it achieves a very English pastoral. Downstream, near Monmouth, the river runs…

THE ghost orchid (Epipogium aphyllum) has been rediscovered (Town & Country, September 4). Often cited as the rarest plant in Britain, the ghost has flowered only twice in the past 30 years and, at one point, it was declared extinct. That we now know that it isn’t is largely thanks to a few dedicated ghost hunters who, year on year, religiously scoured the orchid’s old haunts, searching for the tiny plant that stands about 3in high with a couple of pendant flowers that resemble spiders. The ghost orchid has no leaves; in fact, no green parts at all. It flowers in deep shade, down among the leafmould and, in no time at all, the flowers wither or are eaten by slugs. Most of this weird plant’s life is spent underground,…

THERE are all kinds of enticing seats thoughtfully placed throughout Alan Titchmarsh’s garden in Hampshire, but, generally, he is too busy to take advantage of them. On a sunny afternoon, however, the comfortably upholstered, old fashioned swing seat is hard to resist. It’s here that he most likes to pause, to look across the meadow where, hidden deep within the drifts of purple knapweed, devil’s bit scabious and honey-scented ladies’ bedstraw appear dramatic stands of the pyramidal orchid. Between the seat and the meadow is a patch of hallowed grass, kept short for the grandchildren’s football games. ‘I’m not allowed to do anything here,’ he says, almost wistfully, before adding, ‘but you need areas where you can breathe. It’s the same with music, the silences point up the notes. There’s…

WHEN the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition opened in May 1952, one painting caused a sensation. In the Room: A Problem Picture showed a woman waking up to find a male ghost by her four-poster bed pointing at her. Another man—alive, if not hugely brave—is crouched down on all fours, staring at the apparition. It wasn’t only the spectral subject matter that intrigued the public, but the fact that it was by a man better known for his horses: Sir Alfred Munnings. Reactions were mixed. At the preview, whispers spread: ‘Is it a leg pull? Did he do it as a joke? Has he made fun of the selection committee?’ (When asked, Munnings replied: ‘Leg pull? You tell ’em…I think it’s a helluva picture’). Some critics found it ‘humorous’ or ‘entertaining’,…

Mondrian: His Life, His Art, His Quest for the Absolute Nicholas Fox Weber (Knopf, £30) IF pets are said to resemble their owners, the same can be said of paintings and painters. One visitor to Piet Mondrian’s apartment recalled his shock when, on knocking, the artist opened the door midway through shaving. His face was not the normal mess of lather, however, but marked by an immaculate vertical line from nose to chin: one side was perfectly smooth, the other still covered in shaving soap. Even this man’s ablutions were ruled by geometry. The celebrated grid paintings that Mondrian started to make in the later 1910s—black lines on a white canvas (in fact, almost imperceptibly, shades of off white) and rectangles of red, yellow and blue—were pure expressions of the…

Water of life ENGLAND’S wettest 18-month period since records began has certainly put the ‘river reset’ at the Holnicote estate in Somerset through its paces—with highly satisfactory results. The three-year project is the first of its kind in the UK, with the goal of fully reconnecting a section of the River Aller with its surrounding floodplain, using the innovative ‘Stage 0’ technique, first pioneered in Oregon, US. A 1.2sq km (0.46 square mile) part of the river that had straightened and deepened over time was filled in with more than 4,000 tons of earth, as 700 tons of fallen timber from the estate were scattered about the floodplain, creating vital deadwood habitat, on which 40% of UK wildlife partially depends. The result is a 1,780% increase in aquatic habitat over…

OUR food and farming industry is in real trouble. This is because the most difficult issues facing the nation are coming together to challenge the whole agricultural system. The reality of climate change has meant that farmers have been hit by the worst harvest for many years and their confidence in the future of the industry is undermined by the certainty of having to cope with increasingly extreme weather. Food security is, therefore, now front of mind, not least because the whole world is affected not only by flood and drought, but also by the impact of war and civil unrest. We cannot rely upon imports. That threat of shortage is now compounded by an increasing realisation that the food system itself is seriously flawed. This has been dramatically underlined…

Knowsley Hall, Lancashire The seat of the Earl and Countess of Derby IT is 25 years since the architectural history of Knowsley Hall was first unravelled in three articles in COUNTRY LIFE, published in the spring and summer of 1999. They marked the resuscitation of the house after the Earl and Countess of Derby took it back following a long institutional lease to the regional police force. Since that time, a considerable amount more has been achieved. Continuing structural renovation has included the renewal of most of the sash windows in the west and north fronts and the 20 skylights over the State Dining Room. The restoration of the terrace gardens to the east and south has been carried out, with new borders and planting (Fig 5), as well as…

THEY barked to the north, they barked to the south, they barked to the east and west. And each time, they began with three very strange short sharp barks… All dogs know about the Twilight Barking. It is their way of keeping in touch with distant friends, passing on important news, enjoying good gossip.’ The Twilight Barking will be familiar to readers of Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians and to those who grew up with the Disney animation. Pongo and Missis (renamed Perdy in the film version) bark to spread the message that their 15 puppies are missing. The news travels from Primrose Hill via the Great Dane ‘over towards Hampstead’ to reach a remote Suffolk village and soon the brave spotty-dog parents have their lead.…

THE journey took me past a small Herefordshire wood I knew well. The recent days had been wet, but clement, so I found a woven-willow trug in the potting shed and packed it, plus a labrador, into the car. The suspended end of October, before the world falls into winter, is almost a season in itself. Mushroomy, a mini-era of earthy scent and fungal plenty before the frigid lockdown of Samhain and after the tarty, berry bit of autumn that is airy, vinegary-energising, when wasps are a-wing. We arrived at the wood under the black hill under a louring sky. It was late afternoon and rain drops tick-tocked off leaves tenaciously clinging to trees. I let the dog out of the boot and collected the trug. A jay screamed, then…

The idyllic rural hamlet of Beach, south Gloucestershire, lies on the slopes of Lansdown Hill, scene of the brutal Battle of Lansdown during the first English Civil War and now a peaceful hidden enclave within the Cotswold National Landscape, roughly halfway between Bath and Bristol. Thought to take its name from an ancient beech tree that once stood amid springs close to where occupying Romans built villas and cultivated vines, the picturesque settlement comprises a group of eight or more 17th- and 18th-century stone houses scattered informally within a typical Cotswold landscape of green fields, thick hedgerows, dry-stone walls and trees. Beach was designated a conservation area in October 1989, with the stated aim of protecting ‘the tranquil rural setting of the hamlet, the important tree groups, and the attractive…

AS COUNTRY LIFE readers will know, for many decades the National Garden Scheme (NGS) has organised and supported people to open their private gardens to visitors, providing enjoyment and gentle education (not to mention tea and cake), at the same time as raising impressive amounts of money. Most of this is given to nursing and health charities: in 2023, a total of £3.5 million was donated. Recently, however, the NGS has started giving out grants to community gardens up and down the country. The sums are not huge, but the grants, which range from £1,000–£5,000, make a real difference to these small-scale locally run gardens where most people have probably never heard of the NGS or its Yellow Book, let alone engaged with it—or, indeed, with mainstream British gardening traditions.…

THE early-19th-century landscape improver Humphry Repton affirmed that ‘the pleasure derived from a garden has some relative association with its evanescent nature… we view with more delight a wreath of short-lived roses, than a crown of amaranth, or everlasting flowers’. The mutability of gardens, like the fleeting nature of flowers, makes them enduringly appealing. Although we often view change within our gardens as desirable and even enriching, we are generally less enamoured with the loss of garden land: we regret the disappearance of familiar landmarks, amenity, open space or biodiversity. Few places in Britain have lost more green spaces than London: during the past 500 years, the ever-expanding metropolis has swallowed up thousands of acres of land, much of which has been redeveloped. Inevitably, owing to the nature of the…

IN the spring of 1857, Venetian society was riveted by the events at a dinner given by Count Vettore Pisani in his Gothic palace on the Grand Canal. He asked his three daughters—who were his heirs, as he had no sons—to line up in front of three basins, into which he poured equal shares of 360,000 Austrian francs in silver coins that had been paid to him by the British Treasury. The explanation for the money was the large gap on his walls where, until a few days before, one of the city’s most famous paintings had hung. To the dismay of the Venetians, Paolo Veronese’s monumental The Family of Darius before Alexander was already rolled up and on its way to London’s National Gallery. Pisani’s theatrical gesture was his…

AFTER 66 years and 5,200 episodes, John Hunter Blair (1903–64), founder and producer of Blue Peter, has well and truly earned his badge. A former schoolmaster, his television career began at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Brisbane, where he lived from 1940–47. Upon returning to Britain, he attempted to follow his passion for music, but was rejected and directed to Schools Broadcasting. Owen Reed, head of children’s television at the BBC, sensed that Hunter Blair understood what appealed to children, so commissioned him to produce a weekly, 15-minute ‘magazine-style’ programme. The title’s origins are contested, but one version is that Hunter Blair took the name from the flag flown by ships ready to sail, representing the voyage of adventure on which the programme was embarking. It was his ‘gleeful instruction’…

TWO battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment walked into hell at 3.05am on June 30, 1916. High explosives, shrapnel, mortar and murderous machine-gun fire greeted them as they advanced in three waves towards enemy trenches. When the devastated battalions returned to their own semi subterranean warrens five hours later, 17 officers and 349 men had been killed, with more than 1,000 wounded or taken prisoner. After the First World War finally ended, attention turned to honouring those who had perished. Almost every community in the UK suffered losses and the memorials have become the focus of Remembrance. However, there are a small number of villages that do not have a conventional war memorial. The term ‘Thankful Village’ dates back to the 1930s, when it was coined by journalist and writer…

Devon, £995,000 This four-bedroom, Grade II-listed Devon longhouse stands within Ringmore, an old smuggling village on the south Devon coast. It’s surrounded by National Trust land and its elevated position offers expansive, uninterrupted views down to Ayrmer Cove from an outdoor dining terrace. Attractively decorated with a good-sized kitchen and modern bathrooms, it’s set on a very quiet, no-through road that leads down to the valley, directly to the beach—a short 15-minute stroll (no doubt slightly more on the way back up). In the garden stands a detached studio, which could be turned into a home office or a painting room. Kingsbridge lies seven miles to the east. Marchand Petit (01548 831163) Oxfordshire, £1 million Manor Farm Cottage lies in the hamlet of Henton, at the foot of the Chilterns.…

Squash-and-burrata ravioli with hazelnut-sage butter Ingredients For the pasta 200g ‘00’ pasta flour2 large eggs1tbspn olive oil2tspn salt For the filling 300g butternut squash, peeled and cubedA splash of olive oil125g burrata cheese, drained and roughly chopped50g Parmesan cheese, grated¼tspn ground nutmeg For the hazelnut-sage butter 100g unsalted butter12 fresh sage leaves50g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped Method ▶ To make the pasta, pour the flour onto a clean surface and make a well in the centre. Crack the eggs into the well and add the olive oil and salt. Gradually mix the eggs into the flour with a fork, then knead by hand until you form a smooth, elastic dough. Wrap the dough snugly in clingfilm and let it rest for at least 30 minutes, so the gluten can…

THE last time I visited Uzbekistan was an incredible 22 years ago, some 10 years after the country opened to travellers. Hotels were unspeakable, the food inedible and a bottle of vodka served as all-purpose disinfectant. My guide, a relic of Soviet nyet-dom and not one to be trifled with, regarded any smile with suspicion. Policemen had to be bribed. But… what a country! The names of Bukhara, Khiva and Samarkand, pregnant with intrigue and romance, held—and still hold—magnetic appeal. When I heard, earlier this year, that the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express was blazing a 10-day trail across Uzbekistan, I could not help but jump aboard. Day three A nice surprise at our Champagne welcome: I run into a friend from my last trip aboard the Golden Eagle in Persia.…

IN recent years, I have regularly spent an August week near Sainte Maxime, on the Riviera coast opposite Saint Tropez. On the way to and from the market and restaurants there, I have inevitably passed the Hotel L’Arbois many, many times without ever really noticing it. In 1968, when staying in the area, David Hockney certainly noticed it and his 44in by 60in acrylic painting (Fig 1) recently sold for £13.15 million at Sotheby’s in London. He had just begun to take photographs as reference material and the building’s mixture of gentle curves and sharp angles evidently appealed, as did the glorious variety of vivid greens in the vegetation. Presumably, the façade was pink and orange then—or was that artistic licence? Now, it is a more genteel cream, but the…

A SMALL stretch of the Rochdale Canal, which runs through Castleton in Greater Manchester, has, says my poet friend Emily Oldfield, a great sense of ‘presence and absence’. She explains that, when you’re there, you look at the towpath, the bridges, the rotting sluice gates and can imagine the noise and people, the horses and the coal barges—an industrial world that is long gone in Lancashire. I was reminded of ‘presence and absence’ when talking to Leonard Baker, a historian at the University of Bristol. Dr Baker specialises in understanding how ‘agricultural improvement’ was perceived in Victorian England and he told me about hedges and what they ‘mean’, culturally. He explained that once, when you looked out across Somerset (his native county), there would be people in almost every little…

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