Innholdsfortegnelse for November 12, 2025 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk PRINCE PHILIP once observed that the horse ‘was a great leveller’ and Elizabeth II said she enjoyed the ‘gamble’ of breeding racehorses—being royal was no guarantee of success with an animal that could be unpredictable. The same could perhaps be said of their son’s great passion: gardening. Knowledge and instinct are key, but no guarantee against the unpredictable vicissitudes of the elements, this summer’s drought being a case in point, or the restrictions of local soil type, which may favour no man. This week, we feature the gardens and parkland at Sandringham, where The King, whose 77th birthday it is this week (November 14), has overseen a ‘miraculous’ restoration over the past three years (‘A royal…

The rise of the pet-nup IN a famous scene from 2001 film Legally Blonde, Jennifer Coolidge shows up at her ex-husband’s caravan to take back the dog she’d lost in the divorce. When she is unable to stand up for herself, Reese Witherspoon hits them both with a barrage of legalese that puts the ex on the floor and the dog back in Coolidge’s arms. I’m not sure whether ‘canine property ownership’, as Ms Witherspoon’s Elle Woods names the situation, is a proper litigious term—but the recent rise of pet-nups suggests that, among certain lawyers, such language may not be total nonsense. A formal agreement between couples over what should happen to their pets in the event of a split, the pet-nup made headlines recently when the future of the…

THE film Chariots of Fire, the stirring 1981 dramatisation of two British runners’ journey to the 1924 Paris Olympics, is one of the most fêted British productions of all time, scooping four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Its director, Hugh Hudson, who died in 2023 aged 86, never set out to conquer Hollywood: like Ridley Scott, his background was in advertising. It was there, however, that he met David Puttnam, the producer of Chariots of Fire. Mr Puttnam had happened upon the story of Eric Liddell, a devout Christian who refused to run on a Sunday, and needed a director with an informed, but not rose-tinted awareness of the Establishment. Hudson was ideally qualified: he had been to Eton and done his National Service with the Dragoon Guards, yet felt…

Far unfit to bear the bitter cold,I can scarcely move or draw my breath…‘The Cold Song’, music by Henry Purcell,libretto by John Dryden, 1691 WE have all seen it. You are driving over the moor in dead winter, the snow descending unceasing; but, by the wayside, there is an Exmoor pony, or a Welsh, grazing unconcernedly. Or, you open the bedroom curtains on a January morning, the garden mummified in mortal white frost, and a tiny, fragile wren is, somehow, hopping perkily about the acacias. How do they survive the depths of winter, the animals and the birds? Winter in Britain is variable, yes, often mild and wet, but then it soars in all its cold majesty. In English, the seasons are not capitalised, but Winter must be. Winter, with…

THE Gay Hussar was a resolutely old-school Soho institution that served up hearty portions of traditional Hungarian food to various Labour grandees, sozzled hacks and Laurent-Perrier Lefties (as well as the occasional damp Tory). It was a place fuelled not only by lashings of Bull’s Blood, that mighty red from Hungary’s Eger, but by whispers and intrigue, treachery, double-dealing and good old-fashioned gossip. As to food… well, that was somewhat of an afterthought, more boozy ballast than culinary high art. There was a decent cold cherry soup and a pretty respectable roast duck. But it was the goulash soup (or gulyásleves) that I really remember (well, as much as anyone can precisely recall a lunch at this unashamedly bibulous establishment)—soft beef, sweet paprika and onion, all swimming in a broth…

Holbein Elizabeth Goldring (Paul Mellon Centre, £40) ACCORDING to a 19th-century biographer (John Ruskin), ‘In looking at a portrait by Holbein, we are minded of the person painted, not the painter’ and, considering the fame of his greatest works, the paucity of documentary evidence for the details of Hans Holbein’s life is remarkable. Elizabeth Goldring’s achievement is equally so. This is the first full-scale scholarly biography for a century and, as she says, it is ‘the first book to tell the story of Holbein’s life, art and afterlives in relation to the larger story of the history of art’. Hans Holbein the Younger was born in Augsburg in about 1497 and died in London, perhaps of the plague, in October or November 1543—the uncertainties begin at once. His grandfather, father…

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A bird in the hand YOUR correspondent’s errant peacock (Letters, October 29) could well have come from Corsham Court, north-east of Bath. The town of Corsham is well stocked with such birds, who stalk disdainfully down the High Street, making full use of a convenient zebra crossing and paying scant attention to the cars that invariably stop to let them pass. A favourite destination is a patch of ground opposite the Co-op. Perhaps the peacock in question would welcome a lift to join his fellows in Corsham—or perhaps he prefers the solitude in Somerset. Stephen Tudsbery-Turner, Wiltshire Woolly thinking IT was such a pleasure to see our village church, St Mary the Virgin in Meppershall, Bedfordshire, mentioned in COUNTRY LIFE (Town & Country, October 29). Having been married there in…

Landscape 4 by Anastasia Lewis ‘This is a personal one. It’s by a family friend, Anastasia Lewis. She was an amazing artist and used to be a costume designer. My parents [actors Imelda Staunton and Jim Carter] have loads of her paintings. It’s a beautiful landscape of Lincolnshire, where Anastasia and Jim [Broadbent, actor] used to have a house. What’s amazing about it is that it has these little swatches on it, which are what, as a costume designer, she would have used for costume fabrics. She’s using her old life of a costume designer and bringing it into a beautiful coloured landscape. If you’re an artist and you create a piece of art, you then live on forever. She passed away after quite a struggle with cancer, but I…

The gardens of Sandringham House, Sandringham, Norfolk A home of His Majesty King Charles III MOST gardens have their ups and downs, even royal ones. The gardens at Sandringham in Norfolk reached their peak at the beginning of the 20th century, when Edward VII laid them out on an imperial scale and employed some 100 gardeners. Fifty years later, they hit their nadir, when the walled kitchen gardens and most of the formal gardens around the house were abandoned. Their recent resurrection by The King is little short of miraculous. The kitchen gardens remain unmanicured, used as grazing for foals from the Royal Stud, but Sandringham’s 60 acres of pleasure gardens, surrounded by woods and parkland, are once again a showcase of the finest designs, expressed through an exceptional palette…

SPRING never fails us, does it?’, Philip Larkin wrote to his mother in 1954. ‘How beautiful it is, even though it isn’t spring for us!’ One might expect these gentle, honest words from a minor character in a Barbara Pym novel, but hardly from the Larkin of popular consciousness—the great suburban Eeyore of 20th-century verse, the bard of intrays and radiograms and rented rooms in shabby terraces. During his life, Larkin was well aware of (indeed, played up to) his reputation for being, as he put it in a 1964 BBC interview with John Betjeman, ‘a miserable sort of fellow writing a kind of Welfare State sub-poetry’. With this year marking the 40th anniversary of his death in December 1985, it’s a fitting moment to poke a little at Larkin’s…

THE direction in which we travel is often a response to the headwinds we’re facing. At present, the geopolitical gusts feel as blustery as they’ve ever been; it’s all rather End Of Days. In times of uncertainty, comfort is found in the familiar and nowhere is this more true than in restaurants. Chefs are downing their tweezers in favour of food that doesn’t need explaining as it’s served and even dining rooms look more like they used to: low lighting, dressed-up waiters, reassuringly crisp white tablecloths and seating that is actually comfortable. None of this is in the idle name of nostalgia or owing to a deficit of creativity, but is because it’s what diners want. ‘It’s really resonated—in fact, it’s been one of our most popular menus, with hundreds…

West Sussex, £1.2 million ‘What I love most about Stone Cottage is its incredible character—you really feel the history in every room,’ says agent Samantha Di Mond of this Grade II-listed, three-bedroom house that is reputed to have been built when Henry VIII was on the throne. Period details throughout include exposed beams and fireplaces, not least one made of brick in the dual-aspect sitting room. On the ground floor, too, is a study, cloakroom, dining room and a music room, which equally could be turned into a library, reading room or studio. The large Aga in the beamed kitchen would certainly appeal to keen cooks. Stone Cottage, reached via a quiet country track and set in the hamlet of Greatham, sits in 12 acres and there is even riverside…

WE have a gravel drive—I say ‘gravel’, but actually there’s hardcore underneath it and the fine gravel tends to pile up in the middle and along the sides, as the wheels of our cars grind down the hardcore and encourage the development of ruts in the surface. That said, our potholes are no match for the size and depth of those that open up along the publicly owned tarmac road beyond the gate. Anyway, our drive is just over 100 yards long and ends in a turning circle, but we are far too busy to rake it in the way that our rich friends do—or, rather, their gardeners and handymen do. Goodness how I envy those rakes with a 6ft head of teeth and sigh for the pleasure of knowing…

THROUGHOUT his life, Stanley Spencer was drawn to the numinous. As a small child, he defined angels as ‘great big white birds wot pecks’; he likened the sound of his brother William, a child prodigy, playing Bach on the organ of the village church, to the joy of angels. The village in question was Cookham, on the Thames, close to Maidenhead in Berkshire, afterwards described by Spencer as ‘my Paradise’. He was born there in 1891 and died there 68 years later: so great was his attachment to it that, as a young man, his fellow Slade School students called him ‘Cookham’. In the village, where his father read the Bible aloud daily to all nine Spencer siblings, he was ‘brought up with the notion that Heaven was, if not…

Quiz of the week 1) Which member of the Royal Family has won an Olympic medal? 2) How many (Imperial) teaspoons are in a tablespoon? 3) To date, what is the UK’s best-selling single? 4) In which English county did the miners’ strike of March 1984 begin? 5) How many arches comprise the Glenfinnan Viaduct in the Highlands? 1) Zara Tindall 2) Three 3) ‘Candle In The Wind’ by Elton John (1997) 4) South Yorkshire 5) 21. Riddle me this: The match Riddle me this You have three stoves—gas, wood and coal—but only one match. Which should you light first? Time to buy On this day… November 12, 1847 Scottish obstetrician Sir James Young Simpson (right) publishes a pamphlet titled Notice of a New Anæsthetic Agent. Seeking a substitute for…

AGROMENES hates bully boys and, in the past fortnight, we have seen them at their destructive work in three of the areas most important to readers of COUNTRY LIFE: agriculture, heritage and intellectual rigour. First, there was the bullying of a small food producer. After probably the best grape harvest ever in this country, there’s a good deal of envy of the emerging excellence of English wine. As the changing climate impinges on traditional French vintages, we are increasingly winning prizes, even against the great Champagne houses. Of course, this small business, Folc, employing only about 11 people, wouldn’t claim to be in that class, but it has many faithful followers of its sparkling rosé. It joked about its product on social media saying: ‘None of the same old Bollie….…

Links to the past JASON LINDSAY examines a family tree of the de Vere family compiled in 1571, happily back in the castle after 425 years. Deep ancestry was an attribute of nobility and a lineage of this kind, richly ornamented with heraldry, was a proof of status. This example was commissioned to celebrate the marriage of Anne Cecil, the daughter of Elizabeth I’s Secretary, William, Lord Burghley, and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The de Veres had a long and illustrious family history. They arrived in England from Normandy with William the Conqueror and became hereditary Chamberlains of England in Henry I’s reign (an office they continued to enjoy until 1703). The keep of Hedingham Castle was probably begun in 1142 to mark their acquisition of an…

Dorfold Hall, Cheshire, part II The home of Charles and Dr Candice Roundell WHEN Ralph Wilbraham completed Dorfold Hall in 1621—as described last week—he might reasonably have felt that he had not only created a worthy seat for his descendants, but secured their future prosperity as well. By the time of his death in 1637, however, the kingdom was on the path to civil war. When hostilities began in 1642, both the house itself and his heir, Roger, were drawn into the turmoil. Thanks to the diary of Edward Burghall, vicar of Acton, the parish church, we have an unusually detailed picture of how the fighting affected the locality. Cheshire was a largely Royalist county, but the neighbouring town of Nantwich, after attempting neutrality, declared for Parliament. It was immediately…

IN the past week, many of us will have taken part in Remembrance ceremonies in which the words ‘saviours of the nation’ will have been heard. These ‘saviours’ were originally Britain’s farmers during the First World War, although the then government’s initial gratitude only lasted until the repeal of the Corn Production Act in 1921. This action was known as ‘the great betrayal’, which was compounded by removing the import ban on Canadian cattle in 1922. With some exceptions, farming entered an extended period of depression and lack of investment. Even the gathering of the next war’s storm clouds didn’t focus the government’s mind on food security. In 1936, the money for agricultural war preparations came to a total of seven shillings (35p) per head of population; by July 1938,…

GRADE I-LISTED Raynham Hall, near Fakenham, Norfolk, was built by Sir Roger Townshend in 1620 and extended by William Kent in the early 1720s. It is one of the earliest neo-Palladian houses in England. A project to repair some of the damage caused by work in the 1950s and 1960s began in 2014 and, when Tom, Viscount Raynham, and his wife, Octavia, moved in, they set about creating a kitchen suited to their young family. Having chosen a space previously used for entertaining, they asked kitchen designers deVOL for help. ‘They wanted a family kitchen, the heart of the home,’ says senior deVOL designer Francesca Froggatt. ‘As the building is so protected, all the services had to be accessed in the centre of the room so nothing on the walls…

ONE might imagine that staying in a royal property would only be possible with a gilt-edged invitation. Far from it: two properties on the private Sandringham estate, Gardens House and The Folly, have undergone major refurbishments—a project in which The King is said to have taken a great interest—and are now available for short-term stays through Oliver’s Travels, a ritzier version of Airbnb. The Gardens House, in richly coloured brick, was built in 1865 for Sandringham’s head gardener William Carmichael, who lived here with his wife and daughter. In keeping with the estate tradition, the house was referred to as ‘Carmichael’s’ rather than Gardens House until long after his retirement. It has four bedrooms, sleeping up to eight, and has been handsomely furnished with a blend of rustic pieces, modern…