Innholdsfortegnelse for October 29, 2025 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk The dusk is down on the river meadows,The moon is climbing above the fir…The last of the light is almost gone,But hark! They’re running!They’re running on! THESE evocative lines by sporting poet Will H. Ogilvie, read at many a countryman’s funeral (‘Good men follow the good men gone’), obviously reflect an age before motorways were built and legislation drafted, before intrusive drones flew overhead and urbanisation spread its tentacles—pre-internet even (imagine that). Yet the field sportsmen and women of today still enjoy in the quieter winter months the privilege of closeness to unspoilt landscapes and enthralling wildlife: beside the mesmerising peace of the river, observing the spectacular red-deer herds of the West Country and Scottish Highlands,…

Why we love period drama FOR my money, one of the best television shows of the past few years was The Buccaneers. Apple TV’s take on Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel is the very essence of stuff and nonsense: characters whose nominative purpose is to secure husbands end up delivering a drama so riveting it has been called a lovechild of Bridgerton and Gossip Girl. Its third season was announced this month and with it, the conversation about what constitutes going ‘too far’ in modern adaptations has reared its head once more. Yet the beleaguered question of how best to adapt a period piece—which, depending on your view, has either plagued or sustained the narrative surrounding Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights—is less interesting than considering why we’re obsessed with period pieces in the…

WHAT do Genghis Khan, scientists at the National Accelerator Laboratory, Illinois, US, and a small boy on the South Downs have in common? Lithe, inquisitive, quicksilver ferrets. That boy, James McConville, grew up to found the West Sussex Warreners, a thriving group of ferreters: ‘It’s three animals working together as a team, ferret, dog, human, to do a job. It’s magical.’ Ferrets have done that job for thousands of years, for the ruler of the Mongolian hordes on the warren-riddled steppes, in Egyptian ships and on the dusty hills of the Peloponnese (Greek references date to 450BC). Pliny the Elder writes of ferreting and the Romans may have brought the animals to British soil with their rabbits. Ferrets and ferreting were mentioned in court rolls in 1223 and as part…

Pick of the crop Log baskets…

Middleland: Dispatches from the Borders Rory Stewart (Jonathan Cape, £22) RORY STEWART has written a thoughtful love letter to his former constituency of Penrith and The Border, which draws on letters and his fortnightly column for the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald. Unsurprisingly, he writes with a wonderful familiarity of the region for which he was an MP for nine years before having the whip removed by Boris Johnson. He understands the distinct geological and topographical reality of the landscape, from its ‘limestone and volcanic hills’ to its coal-seams, which shape the needs of its people, from mountain rescue to upland farming and rural services. ‘Rory Stewart exposes both the flaws of MPs and the challenges they face’ By studying the area first hand—walking (and sometimes clattering around on a horse)…

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…

Bucket list MY wife’s grandfather, Sir John Russell, was director of Rothamstead Experimental Station in Hertfordshire in the 1920s (The way we were, October 15). The mind boggles as to what he told that man in the picture (above) to do. George Ahusen, by email Holm comforts HOW wonderful to have three pages in COUNTRY LIFE dedicated to holm oaks (‘Holm is where the heart is’, October 15). As a child growing up in London, I was fascinated by the venerable holm oak in the grounds of Fulham Palace and could scarcely believe that any living thing could be 500 years old. It was my introduction to both Nature’s resilience and Man’s responsibility to safeguard it and, although I have not visited the tree for many years, my memories of…

AT the end of the 19th century, when driven pheasant shooting was at its zenith, the sport on offer at British estates was the envy of the world and none more so than at Holkham, a 25,000-acre wild-bird bastion on the wind-lashed north Norfolk coast. This corner of East Anglia has long been a haven for game (not-ably wild grey partridges and wily pheasants that stand on their tails even when rising from flat-as-a-pancake sugarbeet fields), due to its light soil, dry climate and abundance of wildfowl-rich creake-riven marshland. An invitation to shoot at Holkham is like gold dust, as it is the birthplace of driven shooting and its owners, the Earls of Leicester, take the sport very seriously indeed. The estate’s fine sporting and agricultural standing was established by…

WHAT about elevenses?’ asks Pippin in Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, scandalised by the prospect that he might miss one of the day’s opportunities for eating. Not quite a meal, not merely a break, lacking the grandeur of afternoon tea and all the more charming for it, elevenses is a quintessentially British—and precious—tradition. In an age of constant connectedness, our days begin in a hurry: emails checked when swiftly consuming coffee and toast standing up in the kitchen. Yet elevenses invites something altogether slower and more convivial, providing both a chance to gather and to yield to the gentle temptations of the biscuit tin. When did we first start snacking between breakfast and lunch? The word ‘elevenses’ itself is a relatively recent invention—a Kentish dialect dictionary records it in…

Table manners LOUIS XIII cognac has graced history’s most memorable events, from banquets at Versailles in France to dinner with Elizabeth II. Now, the maison is taking its legacy from decanter to dining table with Art de la Table, made up of two signature porcelain collections. The first, Light of Time, is a reflection of the slow ageing process of eaux de vie in the darkness of cellars. Facets carved into the porcelain disperse the light and hand-painted copper decoration nods to the stills used in distillation. The second, Soil is our Soul (above), really captured my attention. Inspired by the chalky soil of Grande Champagne, where the cognac’s journey begins, it features a textured surface copied from 3D scans of the terrain that you can’t help but run your…

IN England, a substantial country house might be sited in a sheltered combe. In Tuscany, by contrast, an exposed, hilltop site is the location of choice. In the past, defensive considerations were important, but more abundant winter light and cooling summer breezes have ever been sought. Above all, such elevated positions enable the garden to bring in the wider landscape to dramatic effect. Villa La Pietra (COUNTRY LIFE, July 19, 2007), widely regarded as one of Italy’s most famous gardens and only a stone’s throw from the centre of Florence, would not be the same without the borrowed Tuscan landscape that forms the backdrop to its formal garden. A series of individually themed garden rooms, terraces and staircases is linked by vistas that terminate in views of statues and fountains,…

THE history of black pudding began with the Odyssey. Or, at the very least, Homer’s Greek epic—written some time around the 8th century BC—contains the very first reference to the beloved breakfast staple. That said, Homer’s version sounds a little different to black pudding as we know it today. ‘As when a man, besides a great fire, has filled a sausage with fat and blood and turns it this way and that and is very eager to get it quickly roasted’ runs the line—and there is no mention of the oatmeal present in the modern British variety. Clearly, however, Homer had black pudding on his mind as, some way into the poem, the hero Odysseus finds himself in a fight over something that sounds much like it; namely, ‘a stomach…

HALOED in darkness, naked but for a sheer gauze across his loins, Satan stands fierce on the edge of a flaming sea and raises his arms, muscles rippling under the weight of his staff, to call his legions. ‘Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!’ With only his glowering eyes and the snake circling his helm marking him as the Devil, Sir Thomas Lawrence’s handsome antihero is a far cry from the be-tailed monsters that boiled fallen souls in the 12th-century mural at Chaldon Church, Surrey. Vigorous or deformed, fearsome, humbled or desperate, the Devil has been shapeshifting since he made his artistic debut in late Antiquity, taking on as many forms as his names—Satan is the adversary, Lucifer the fallen angel—or, indeed, the religions for which he was the…

Quiz of the week 1) How many regiments of foot guards does the British Army maintain? 2) Blue roan, piebald and skewbald are all types of what? 3) In the game of darts, what is the name of the line behind which the throwing player must stand? 4) Poison derived from which common herbaceous plant famously killed Socrates? 5) In which English county was Nelson born? Riddle me this Some people cry when I’m in their sight, others lie beneath me all day and night. What am I? 1) Five 2) Horse coat colours 3) Oche (pronounced ‘ocky’) 4) Hemlock (‘Conium maculatum’) 5) Norfolk. Riddle me this: A tombstone Time to buy On this day… October 29, 1618 Courtier, writer and explorer Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded outside the Palace…

AFTER the drought comes the rain or, more correctly, after one of the most persistent droughts ever experienced in the UK comes very heavy rain with yellow warnings from the Met Office over most of the country. Remarkably, on the very day that those warnings were broadcast, the Government was faced, in the House of Lords, with amendments to the current Planning Bill, which would have further restricted building on flood plains. These amendments would have ensured that, wherever there was a likelihood of flooding, planning permission would only be given to homes properly designed to minimise the damage done by floods. There were also proposals that would encourage water saving, water storage and more sustainable drainage in new developments. The scene was set for ministers to use the storms…

A seal of approval SARAH CALLANDER BECKETT holds a framed papal seal or bulla issued by Pope Honorius III (reigned 1216–27), discovered at Combermere this year by a local metal-detector group. Such seals—which continue in use—have bestowed the name of ‘papal bulls’ on the documents they authenticate. By long tradition, bullas are made of lead and decorated with Saints Paul and Peter on one side (identified by the inscription SPASPE) and the name of the issuing pope on the other. The discovery is a reminder of the medieval origins of Combermere as an abbey of the Sauvignac—and later Cistercian—order that was dissolved in 1538. It is not known to what lost document this bulla was attached. The Roman-born Honorius III was a towering figure in European affairs, driving forward the…

CLIMBING a wooded Highland hillside one October afternoon behind Erchless Castle, above the shining Beauly river, I heard a disturbance. I crept towards the sounds of trampled brash and found a clearing where two stags, of roughly equal size, were pacing side by side. I moved closer softly and stood against a nearby pine. As if upon command, both deer withdrew a few yards, gave a heavy chivalric prance and leapt at each other, head on. Their antlers clashed, jarred and meshed. Heads down, muzzles within inches of the grass, they strained and heaved in elemental adversity. Their hooves sought purchase, the muscles in their shoulders, flanks and thighs coiled and shook with strain. Back and forth they strove, flecks of foam at their mouths, neither prepared to yield. Their…

THE Romans came, saw and disliked our climate. Their historian Tacitus recorded of Britannia that its meteorology was ‘pretty foul’, largely because of its ‘extreme’ fog. They never did get the loveliness of fog, our signature weather. The Inuit may have a sledge-worth of words for snow, but the British lexicon for fog is rich in number and sophistication. I give you ‘fret’ and ‘roke’ for English mist coming off the sea, whereas the Scots have their synonymous ‘haar’. Then there is ‘brume’, the mist that summons melancholy, bruma being the Latin for winter. As the fog expert Laura Pashby declares in her 2004 book, Chasing Fog: Finding Enchantment in a Cloud, the white murk of the Tyne, the Fens, Dartmoor and the Fife coast is an intangible, but national…

YOU might think it unlikely, but making a garden for someone is thrilling. A telephone call out of the blue, a drive to some distant part of the country, knocking on the door of a strange house and meeting not only a new person, but a new garden. That first meeting bursts with potential—the views, the house, the trees, the flaws, the treasures and also the people. It is a bit like a blind date. We circle around each other, me trying to work out what the site needs and the client wants. How much gardening do they want to do? Will they employ help or do it all themselves? Kitchen garden? Ponds? Orchards? How much do they want to spend? There follows a flurry of sketching, specifying and tweaking.…

I WAS on my hands and knees peering into a burrow when I had my first serious attack of vertigo last July. My initial reaction was one of irritation, as its severity left me with no choice but to abandon what I was doing and take myself home. That morning, reading a back issue of the Irish Naturalists’ Journal, I had found the results of a local study (literally up the road from our farm) titled: ‘Other mammals at setts of European Badgers (Meles meles) in a vaccination area.’ Using camera traps, the authors had surveyed the comings and goings of 27 setts, with unexpected results. In addition to the resident badgers, the tunnels had been used on a regular basis by foxes, rabbits, rats, squirrels, minks, hares, stoats and…