Innholdsfortegnelse for July 30, 2025 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk HARES today, but hares gone tomorrow? Once again, there are calls for the introduction of a closed shooting season to save the brown hare from decline. Baroness Helic has introduced a private members’ bill and a petition on the same grounds is doing the rounds. The latter is organised by former political adviser Chloe Dalton, whose lockdown memoir Raising Hare, about her care for a leveret, has been a publishing success. No one stands before COUNTRY LIFE in admiration of Lepus europaeus, an iconic British animal whose antics have enthralled since the creature’s arrival in the Iron Age. The mad March ‘boxing’! The speed of the thing—45mph! Even the look of it, with its lion eyes,…

Lawn and order ALTHOUGH it may not have felt like it last week (rain, rain and more rain), the sixth driest spring on record and a succession of heatwaves have all but devastated our pastures. Midsummer is usually prime time for hay yields, with conditions favourable to drying out grasses that are at their most nutritious following wetter months. Not so this year. ‘Livestock farmers are having to feed supplementary hay and concentrate feeds at a time when grass should be plentiful,’ explains Tom Vacher, a chartered surveyor and partner in his family farm in Somerset. ‘This will have a knock-on effect on farm cashflows and reduce stores of saved forage.’ Good news, however, for those of us too lazy to trim the back garden. In such unpredictable climes, the…

LYING in bed as a child, listening to steam trains climbing 1:100-gradient Box Hill in Wiltshire, Wilbert Vere Awdry imagined he could hear voices. At the entrance to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s two-mile tunnel, the trains would stop and whistle for a banking engine to push them. In 1988, he told Terry Wogan: ‘The steam trains would puff “I can’t do it I can’t do it I can’t do it”, then the banking engine behind would say “oh yes you can oh yes you can oh yes you can”.’ The young Awdry (1911–97) was a willing partner in his father’s railway enthusiasm; in their garden at Hemp-field, Hampshire, where Awdry Snr was vicar, was a gauge 3 model railway. Studying Theology at Oxford, teaching English in Jerusalem and after his ordination…

DEBORAH MITCHELL, beekeeper and beautician, opens her front door a few inches. Two Jack Russells pogo around her feet, ignoring repeated commands to ‘go to your beds’. Giving up, she ushers me in and, after a cursory inspection, the dogs trot away. I’ve come to hear the story of how a dyslexic teenager with bad acne and limited formal education built a multi-million pound beauty empire endorsed by The Queen. We talk in the kitchen of her West Midlands home, all pale stone floors and sleek worktops, converted from a barn on her husband’s family farm. Light floods in through glass doors and there is a faint, delicious scent of rose and neroli. We start at the beginning. ‘When I left school, I really wanted to be an actress, but…

TO the Georgian artist, the painterly appeal of ruined priories and their broken outlines lay in the effect on the senses, recording decay as picturesque scenes, as places of poetic intrigue. Derelict strongholds and stony contours of some long-lost cloister sketched out in watercolour hinted at bygone status, drawing out a romantic retort. All kinds of architectural fragments survive in the parks of country estates, many former monastic lands granted post-Dissolution to aristocratic families who built new houses nearby. Buying a property complete with an ancient wreck is, to many, an attractive prospect, but it comes with caveats for would-be purchasers. ‘The draw is that it is historically interesting and the house looks out over the ruins and the river,’ points out John Coleman, director at GSC Grays in Richmond,…

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Woman, Queen and Legend Lindy Grant (Reaktion, £16.95) ELEANOR of Aquitaine (1124−1204), Queen of France and later Queen of England, is undoubtedly one of the most celebrated women of the European Middle Ages. Historians have been captivated by her for centuries, seeking to unpick and interpret the major phases of her life, looking for the smallest insight into the true nature of her character. In popular culture, few will forget the forcefulness of Eleanor’s cinematographic personality, as portrayed with considerable élan by Katharine Hepburn in the 1968 blockbuster The Lion in Winter. In this outstanding new biography, however, Lindy Grant seeks to set aside all preconceptions we may have, repeatedly challenging us to question how well we actually know Eleanor. After all, even contemporary chroniclers were divided…

In the frame THE Army Museums (Ogilby) Trust, of which I am a trustee, has in its collection— rather incongruously perhaps—a fine painting of a Royal Navy midshipman (right). Signed ‘J Hardy, Bath, 1850’, it is almost certainly by the water-colour portraitist James Hardy Snr. Can any reader identify the handsome sailor? Allan Mallinson, Wiltshire Life’s a beach YOUR celebration of historic swimming spots (‘Come on in, the water’s lovely’, July 2) reminded me of an intriguing piece of London’s recent past: Tower Beach (below), on the banks of the Thames. During the 1930s, 1,500 barge loads of sand were brought to a spot near Tower Bridge to create a tremendously popular paddling spot for East End youngsters. However, in the late 1960s, concerns about pollution in the Thames grew…

FROM the archaic hills of Ceredigion to Buckinghamshire’s beech woods, from the dizzy cliff ledges of Co Antrim to the hedged meadows of Devon, wildflowers beautify Britain. Our native flora conquereth, whatever the terrain; on the sea-sprayed shingle of Pembrokeshire the pink and pretty thrift finds an unlikely home, as starry saxifrage, a sweet-stall confection of a plant, finds purchase on the acid rock of Scottish mountains. Of course, not all wildflowers are lovely, prospective ingredients for a bouquet. Even its mother must struggle to love the carnivorous flytrap that is sun dew. Then again, being interesting is a type of sublimity. You would need a head of stone if your heart were not uplifted by our wildflowers, all 1,600 of them. The nation’s wildflowers have more than aesthetic value…

WHEN Charlie Smallbone, Graham Clark and Mark Wilkinson established Small-bone of Devizes, Wiltshire, in the 1970s, they set out to champion the idea that a kitchen should be a sociable living space, rather than a place of drudgery. It was considered an unusual approach: in large country houses, kitchens were used primarily for the preparation of food that was served in a dining room and organised in a way that would meet the approval of Downton Abbey’s Mrs Patmore, with acres of scrubbed pine surfaces and gleaming copper pans alongside separate larders, sculleries, pantries and still rooms. Mr Smallbone championed putting a farm-house-style kitchen centre stage. ‘I had an interest in architectural furniture, such as dressers, housekeeper cupboards and sideboards, and felt they deserved a place in the centre of…

AT flower shows, everyone wanted to talk,’ remembers nurseryman and grass specialist Neil Lucas. ‘It was both the plant and the advice they wanted. This place is built around that.’ At Knoll Gardens in Dorset, Mr Lucas has spent decades experimenting, testing and observing how grasses work in every sort of environment. ‘When we arrived in 1994, this was a botanic garden run as a tourist attraction,’ explains Mr Lucas. ‘We would serve 100 cream teas a day.’ Undaunted by coach parties and gaudy bedding-out, he set about transforming his four acres into an innovative, sustainable and naturalistic garden and nursery. At first, he had no thoughts of being a grass specialist: ‘I just wanted to develop the nursery and if you specialise, you stand out. Grasses are also so…

IN the early 1970s, a young art student sat in a dusty Central Line carriage, daydreaming of the Essex countryside. The sketches she made on her journeys would become the ‘Brambly Hedge’ series of books, which remain as cherished by children—and adults—today as they were when they were first published 45 years ago. Translated into more than a dozen languages, they have sold in their millions globally and continue to inspire children to pay close attention to the natural world. ‘They inspire children to pay close attention to the natural world’ Their author, Jill Barklem, never imagined she would achieve such renown. The daughter of department-store proprietors in Epping, she turned to drawing as a schoolgirl when an accident forced her to miss sports lessons. Before long, she was illustrating…

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 © 2025 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…

Quiz of the week 1) Name the sweet treat that tempts Edmund to betray his siblings in C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe 2) Which British mammal goes through a process called ‘quilling’? 3) Name the tallest uninterrupted waterfall in the world 4) Which breed of dog was considered sacred in China, owned only by royalty? 5) Cannon fire and the French national anthem feature in which Tchaikovsky overture? 1) Turkish delight 2) Hedgehog (‘Erinaceus europaeus’) 3) Angel Falls, Venezuela 4) Pekingese 5) 1812 Overture. Riddle me this: A belt Riddle me this I hold up trousers and I help engines to turn—what am I? Time to buy On this day… July 30, 1938 The first issue of The Beano, Britain’s longest-running weekly children’s comic, was…

BRITAIN is one of the meanest of advanced countries when it comes to support for ancient buildings, particularly churches. This year, as France was celebrating the state’s huge contribution to the rebuilding of Notre Dame, our Government was announcing a cut in help given to listed churches to pay for repairs. It beggars belief that the state lists buildings in order to protect them and then doesn’t contribute one farthing to their upkeep. Indeed, it’s worse than that. In Britain, the Government taxes repairs! The money raised to save church buildings, entirely by voluntary contributions, is subject to 20% VAT. The Government then has the effrontery to claim as a ‘grant’ the fact that it has agreed that some of that tax will not be levied. This year, even worse,…

Sennowe Park, Norfolk, part 2 The home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards THOMAS ALBERT COOK, the Edwardian owner of Sennowe Park, was a bon viveur. This would doubtless have attracted the disapproval not only of his late parents, but of his remarkable grandfather and namesake. Certainly, it suggests a deep-seated contrast in character between them. Thomas Cook Snr was born into a poor and devout non-conformist household in Melbourne, Derbyshire, in 1808. Just before his 20th birthday, with no more than a Sunday School education, he set aside an apprenticeship as a joiner and became an itinerant preacher. He married a farmer’s daughter, Marianne Mason, and the couple settled in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, where he set up as a wood turner to support his family. Together with his wife, he…

A FEW years ago, I travelled to the northernmost reaches of Scotland and visited the Shetland Islands, where I hoped I might encounter a giant sea creature. Its dorsal fin alone, sticking up above the waves, would be taller than me. I longed to catch a glimpse of slick black and white skin and feel the thrill of being in the presence of a formidable, super-smart predator. Shetland gave me my best chance anywhere in the British Isles of seeing a wild orca. Around this isolated subarctic archipelago the sea is brain-achingly cold and rich in wildlife, including large populations of harbour seals and grey seals. That’s why the orcas come—to hunt these nourishingly blubbery marine mammals. Two or three semi-residential orca pods regularly appear around Shetland. Collectively known as…

THE letter from St James’s Palace was written on April 15, 1851, at the command of the Mistress of the Robes. It requested ‘six Dozens’ of ‘the Royal Turkish Towel’ to be sent, care of Queen Victoria’s dresser Miss Skerrett, to Buckingham Palace ‘for the Service of Her Majesty’. The ‘Turkish’ towels in question were, in fact, manufactured in the small Lancashire mill town of Droylsden, on the Ashton canal east of Manchester, woven on a mechanised loom newly invented by a former child labourer, Samuel Holt. Within a fortnight of receipt of the Queen’s order, examples of Holt’s towels—woven with a pile of loops of uncut thread able to absorb quantities of water—went on display in the Great Exhibition. The usefulness of Holt’s innovation, alongside the Queen’s endorsement via…

SUMMER came early this year, which means that the dog days will come sooner. Twilight signals respite, however, a dewy dropping away from the heat of the day, strengthening shadows with that peerless exotic quality seen in John Singer Sargent’s girls with lanterns and lilies Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. Some-how, he paints the warm cinnamon scent of carnations, Japanese lilies, golden-rayed and star-gazing Oriental lilies. There are still scrambling roses, the Rosa moschata autumnalis ‘Princess of Nassau’ and the chic white dishes of Rosa ‘Paul’s Perpetual White’ making a cooler garden in the gloaming—ghostly like Miss Wilmott’s sea holly—but the best things in the thickening dusk are scented. This is traditionally the time of powdery daisies caked in sun; shasta, aster, rudbeckia, helenium and helianthus. Yet what I crave is…

I REMEMBER clearly my first ever sighting of this bird. All raptors are wonderful to watch in flight, but there was something truly special about a first marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus). The signature manoeuvre is a slow, wandering, almost haphazard float on wings held above the level of the body, so that they create a shallow V in full span. The bird rocks and tilts in the breeze or as it shifts its path. A hunting marsh harrier is entirely unfazed by strong wind and can almost never be rushed. The performance combines minimum effort and the slowest pace, yet with an aura of total control. Should it need to, a bird can drop to the ground like a steel weight or it can reach out with those ridiculously long,…