Innholdsfortegnelse for February 5, 2025 i Country Life

IT is fitting that a man who had his likeness painted more times than George III (including by Gains-borough, right) should be remembered in a London club (the Garrick) famous for its portrait collection. Described as ‘ye best Actor ye English Stage had produc’d’ by William Pitt the Elder, David Garrick (1717–79) was born to Capt Peter Garrick and vicar’s daughter Arabella Clough and grew up amid strict economy. Letters to his father reveal a lively mind and he attended Dr Samuel Johnson’s academy before the pair set off together for London. Garrick rejected law for the wine trade, then the stage called and, in 1741, he took London by storm with his Richard III. Six years later, acclaimed for a naturalistic style that banished bombast and ‘restored nature, ease,…

DREAMS, those elusive and universal experiences, are a part of every person’s reality. They aren’t merely figments of our imagination; they’re complex tapestries woven from the threads of our subconscious, reflecting the kaleidoscope of our daily lives. We all dream and, in doing so, we fulfill essential biological, emotional and psychological functions. Dreams provide insight into our waking lives and often reveal hidden truths about ourselves and our environments through symbolic meanings. The concept of symbols in dreams has long fascinated thinkers from all walks of life. Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychiatrist, introduced the notion of archetypes: universal symbols and themes that resonate within our collective unconscious. Jung believed dreams act as a bridge to our inner selves, guiding us toward understanding and self-discovery. Interestingly, dreams aren’t limited to…

Cumbria, £2 million Augill Castle—a charming yet sizeable Victorian Gothic folly and currently an award-winning boutique hotel near Kirkby Stephen that can be hired out for weddings and other events—would make a dream country house, subject to the necessary permissions. There are seven en-suite bedrooms in the main house and a range of formal and informal reception rooms, including a Music Room (which, in its hospitality guise, is used as a 46-cover restaurant) with an Arts-and-Crafts fireplace. The library leads out onto a terrace and the hotel’s bar is located in the conservatory. Five separate garden suites and estate houses provide a further six bedrooms. Grounds, including a tennis court, parking for 30 cars and a playground, extend to 10 acres. Knight Frank (01423 222076) North Yorkshire, £6 million Some…

RUMMAGING through an antiques market can be a joyful way to pass the time. There’s no knowing what treasures might lie in store. Those who are well seasoned in doing the rounds—increasingly, that includes interior designers on the hunt to find things that will ensure their rooms have that much-desired settled look—advise coming armed with a tape measure, a comfortable pair of shoes and cash to woo the stallholders. Sunbury Antiques Market Kempton Park Racecourse, TW16 Although officially known as Sunbury Antiques Market, everyone calls it Kempton. This bimonthly fair, about a half-hour drive from west London, brings together more than 700 dealers, selling everything from stoneware jam pots to Belgian chandeliers and French farmhouse furniture. First established by Sue Cruttenden in 1979, it’s seen as one of Europe’s premier…

Sporting action From the Paris Olympics to the Euros in Germany and ‘racketeering’ (a term that’s been coined by Globetrender to describe the increasing popularity of playing tennis, pickle-ball and padel on holiday), sports tourism boomed last year. It’s a craze that’s set to continue. According to the UN’s World Tourism Organisation, an increasing numbers of travellers are interested in either participating or watching some form of sweat-inducing activity—something that upcoming mega events, such as the UEFA Champions League Final in Munich, Germany (May), and the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy (February 2026), are sure to accelerate further. Another staple in the sporting calendar is Formula 1, which kicks off the season next month when Sir Lewis Hamilton will make his much talked-about move from Mercedes to Scuderia Ferrari.…

UNTIL recently, the ski resort of Andermatt in Switzerland was best known for the time that James Bond arrived by Aston Martin in Goldfinger. Now, there’s another man in town with the Midas touch. He’s turning Andermatt into the mountains’ fastest-growing playground and, since 2010, property prices have more than tripled. Egyptian businessman Samih Sawiris, 67, first visited Andermatt in 2005 when it was a simple military garrison town, albeit with two excellent ski peaks: the ‘steep and deep’ Gemsstock, which is north facing and exceptionally reliable for snow, and, on the opposite side of the Ursern Valley, the sunnier and gentler Nätschen ski area. The former offers advanced skiers some of the most rewarding black and red runs in all of Europe, whereas the latter is ideal for intermediates…

IT is sunrise, -20˚C and I am dressed like an assassin. My black, all-in-one outfit is a little on the big side, as are my rubber boots, but the balaclava fits like a glove. I have a crash helmet under my arm, a getaway motor-bike glinting at me in the early morning light and a quick briefing has delivered handy tips on how best to shoot my target with minimal exposure of bare hands to the cold. And there, you might be pleased to hear, the analogy ends. My weapon is a humble camera, my motor-bike a skidoo, my outfit a fully thermal, protective suit for winter adventures and my target the mighty geyser otherwise known as Old Faithful. ‘Welcome to Yellowstone National Park’ reads a sign to my left.…

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk MALA tempora currunt, sed peiora parantur. This means ‘bad times are upon us, but the worse are yet to come’ for those who may have forgotten their Latin O level—and for those who will never take the present-day equivalent, now that the Department of Education is halting its Latin Excellence Programme this month, leaving some 40 state schools to reshuffle the timetables of thousands of pupils. It is a cost-cutting exercise (of less than £4 million), but a short-sighted one because a significant number of the children keenly learning the subject, dismissed by some as ‘middle class’ and ‘high brow’, live in deprived areas and are eligible for free school meals. The voluntary programme included mind-broadening…

Fallen star GARDENING on a dull January afternoon, my attention was drawn to a strange ‘object’ (above) underneath our Thuja plicata trees. At first, I thought it was a plastic toy or part of a firework. I touched it and discovered the flesh to be mushroom-like in texture, with the centre emitting a puff of dusty spores. I have left it undisturbed and believe it to be an earthstar mushroom—beautiful! Marianne Corbin, Cambridgeshire Succession ON the subject of fingerposts (Letters, January 22), Sir John Betjeman was amused to come across one in rural Lincolnshire. It was to Mavis Enderby and Old Bolingbroke and had been augmented with the words ‘the gift of a son’ (Henry IV, above, was born at Bolingbroke Castle in 1367). Neil Stuart, Cumbria School rules I…

LAST year, in early December, a mural appeared in the dead of night at the end of my street in Camberwell. The painting is of a typical south London scene, with swans on a pond, looming plane trees and a fox, slightly bigger than lifesize. A century ago, a painting of Vulpes vulpes would have been out of place in Zone 2, but foxes are now such a major feature of life in the city that any artistic rendering of Southwark would feel empty without one. It’s generally believed that foxes were first sighted in London after the Second World War and their numbers have been rising ever since. By the 1980s, the capital’s fox population was thought to have stood at about 10,000, which was when a fox census…

Celeriac-crusted cod with chorizo butter and romanesco sauce Ingredients For the romanesco sauce 2 roasted red peppers, jarred or freshly roasted, skins removed50g almonds and/or hazelnuts, toasted1 clove garlic, grated1tspn smoked paprika1tbspn red-wine vinegarA good splash of olive oil½ lemon, juice of For the fish 1 celeriac, peeled and coarsely grated50g panko breadcrumbs2tbspn parsley, chopped1 lemon, zest of 2 tbspn olive oil4 cod fillets For the chorizo butter 100g chorizo, finely diced50g butter1 clove garlic, gratedFresh rosemary and thyme½ lemon, juice of Method 1 Preheat your oven to 180˚C fan/200˚C/400˚F/gas mark 6. 2 Either in a pestle and mortar or a processor, combine the red peppers, almonds, garlic, smoked paprika, red-wine vinegar, olive oil and lemon juice with some seasoning until you have a coarse paste. Set aside. 3 Make…

AS someone who generally eschews wild foodstuffs that are consumed for show, rather than such mundane considerations as nutritional content or palatability, it was a long time before I tried elfcups. When I did, I found them tough, with no detectable flavour beyond a hint of rose petals. Much ink has been used in praise of their beauty, but none that I know of in praise of their flavour. One would have thought they might taste a little better, as they are closely related to two other groups of fungi that we consume with considerably more relish: morels and truffles. A pity. I have been served elfcups in smart restaurants where simple beauty is sufficient to warrant their use and, indeed, a show is sometimes welcome at the domestic table…

ON the outskirts of an apricot orchard ringed by a low, dry-stone wall, the smell of lavender hangs heavy in the air, released as we press through the flares of purple flowers. A lady is busy harvesting and, spotting us, steps forward, her hands cupped around a generous bundle of fruit. It’s a sort of hospitality that characterises our entire trip, people we pass offering up sweet, wine-red cherries, as well as apricots. It’s July and I’m visiting Hunza in Pakistan’s far north with my husband and two children on a six-week trip through the Gilgit-Baltistan region, following a long drive along the legendary Karakoram Highway, which twists and turns in the shadow of some of Earth’s highest mountains. The highway was once part of the Silk Road—it’s been tarmacked…

TODAY, Yellowstone is so synonymous with the eponymous, neo-Western television show, spanning five series, two prequels and a sequel, that it’s easy to forget about everything that came before. The national park of the same name creeps across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and is believed to be the world’s first national park and certainly America’s (1872). The land, pockmarked by geothermal features, has been inhabited by Native Americans for more than 11,000 years. Back then, they would have had to contend with woolly mammoths, sabre-tooth cats and giant beavers; from the 1800s, they would have had to grapple with the increasing presence of colonising settlers. Some of the park’s modern-day hiking trails are probably the scars of ancient indigenous corridors, used by tribes such as the Kiowa, Black-feet and Cayuse…

You never know what you might find SEARCH your gardens, greenhouses and allotments this February, says Plant Heritage. The charity is calling on the public’s help for its annual Threatened Plant of the Year competition. Anyone can enter, be they amateur or professional. They only need a named cultivar that currently cannot be bought from any nursery, garden centre or similar, but that had been grown or sold in the UK or Ireland before 2015. The deadline for entries is April 30 and those shortlisted will be displayed with Plant Heritage at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, west London (July 1–6), with the winner announced on the first day. ‘Our Threatened Plant of the Year competition celebrates the UK’s rich legacy and raises awareness of the fact that…

WATCHING 91-year-old Michael Heseltine launching his latest book with a characteristic display of energy last week, we were reminded of how different later life is now. Country people should be particularly encouraged because, on average, we live longer than those in the towns. It wasn’t always so; in medieval times, rural life was often nasty, brutish and certainly short. If they weren’t the one in three children who died before they were five, women might expect to live to 43 and men to 48. It was worse in the mid 19th century, when women’s life expectancy was 42 and men’s 40. Today, it’s 82 and 78 respectively. The latest Government data shows an unrelenting trend: the rural population is growing and ageing. As always, the young tend to leave the…

Bramham Park, West Yorkshire, part IIThe home of Nick and Rachel Lane Fox ON Saturday, August 2, 1828, The Yorkshire Gazette carried a detailed account of a devastating fire at Bramham Park. In the early hours of the previous Tuesday morning, the only male servant in the building was roused from his bed by what he thought was the sound of his door banging. Stepping into the corridor, he was briefly knocked insensible by clouds of smoke. Returning to consciousness, he found the building ablaze and woke the young daughters of the house and their governess. No other members of the family were present. As the alarm spread, servants from the estate were dispatched to fetch help from the neighbourhood and the two fire engines on the property were set…

THE Ingilby family were already important landowners in North Yorkshire when, in the early 1300s, their estate increased substantially following the marriage of Sir Thomas Ingilby to the heiress Edeline Thweng. She brought with her, as her dowry, the Ripley Castle estate with its medieval manor house on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, four miles north of Harrogate and 20 miles from Leeds. Sir Thomas was well thought of in royal circles and was appointed an Assize Court judge during the reign of Edward III. Tradition has it that he earned his knighthood and the addition to the family crest of a boar’s head by saving the King, with whom he was hunting in Knaresborough Forest, from being gored by an enraged wild boar. Since his death, the Ripley…

THERE is one field between us and the sea,’ says Beth Tarling. She lives in Gunwalloe on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, where, for the past 10 years, she has been building a collection of vintage flowerpots. Not early Dutch porcelain or French lead planters, but ordinary, everyday terracotta flowerpots. Plenty of gardeners prefer their weathered surfaces: collections of geraniums and auriculas look so much nicer in old pots than in the brash orange of a new one. Finding the occasional old pot is one thing, but Mrs Tarling has achieved the rare feat of assembling a complete set of every size of pot that was handthrown by Richard Sankey & Son, of Bulwell in Nottinghamshire, as well as many other rarities, including a fragile, possibly 18th-century, flowerpot. Sankey, founded…

FOR those who, literally and figuratively, shuddered at the thought of all that Wim Hof cold-water swimming stuff, you’ll be warmed by the news that the humble sauna has firmly established itself as the wellness trend of 2025. Sauna, the word and the experience, is Finland’s most enduring export. The country lays claim to three million saunas for a population of 5.5 million—and, when that population is routinely voted the happiest on Earth, it’s no wonder we’ve been increasingly keen to observe their national ritual. The sauna rise here has been rapid. In everything from haute hotels (the Corinthia, London SW1, has an amphitheatre sauna, Estelle Manor, Oxfordshire, infuses its own with hay) to hidden-away huts—retreat finders Kip Hideaways (www.kiphideaways.com) and Canopy & Stars (www.canopyandstars.co.uk) now have popular sauna collections—they…

IN 1898, a 24-year-old man named Ewart Grogan attempted to travel from Cape Town to Cairo on foot as a romantic overture. Some 6,500-odd miles, over the course of 2½ years—in the hopes that it might convince the aristocratic father of his beloved that he was worthy of her hand in marriage. For decades previously, the journalist-turned-colonialist Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) and his colleagues in the Royal Geographical Society fantasised about a rail line that would connect the tip of Africa to its tail, the better to plunder the continent of its wealth. It was an idea readily championed by Cecil Rhodes (1852–1902), who hoped to buy up enough contiguous territory from the north to the south of the continent to create a ‘red line’ for the English Crown more…

IN the spring of 1855, a certain sniffiness on the part of the Art Journal failed to dampen the ardour of buyers at Christie & Manson. Over 32 days, the auctioneers sold more than 4,000 lots from the collection of recently deceased Whig politician and former president of the British Archaeological Society, Ralph Bernal. John Charles Robinson, curator of the Museum of Ornamental Art, made extensive purchases. Among them was an unusual survival: a handsome Gothic chandelier made in the final quarter of the 15th century in the European brass-making centre of Flanders. Given the frequency with which medieval metalware was melted down or repurposed, its longevity testified to its prestige and its design offered clues to its provenance. Above two tiers of candle branches, each decorated with vine tendrils…

Captain De Havilland’s Moth Alexander Norman (Abacus, £25) THE name de Havilland is as synonymous with aeroplanes as Mercedes-Benz is with cars, Cunard with ships. Capt Geoffrey de Havilland (later Sir) devoted his life to designing aircraft. He was one of the British pioneers of powered flight, or ‘mechanical travel’, at a time when few believed it had any practical use. However, Alexander Norman argues that one aspect of his accomplishments has been overlooked. During the 1920s, military strategists were waking up to the need for an unofficial reserve of able pilots who could be called upon in the event of a war. Private flying clubs and aero competitions were a means of encouraging wider participation, but it was de Havilland who was behind a design that aimed to do…

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