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MAY 15, 2019
EVERY WEEK
Let Chelsea’s experts inspire you
Garden sculpture: what to buy ‘Darling, I’ve bought a 50-bedroom house’ Ho to let the sunlight change your life
Th e Gi r a ffe & A c a ci a Tree C a n del a br a i n Sterl i n g Si lv er
A rtis ans of e x tr a ordinary gif ts fr om A fric a 1 0 4 - 1 0 6 F u l h a m R o a d, L o n d o n, S W 3
w w w. p a t r i c k m a v r o s . c o m
Immaculate family home sitting in 288 acres.
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4
5 288 acres
Wiltshire Robert Adam designed country house in a peaceful setting in the middle of its own land. Beautiful gardens, parkland, lake, range of outbuildings with potential, 3 bedroom bungalow, stabling, manège, extensive modern farm buildings, mixed pasture and arable land. • • •
Pewsey 6 miles (London Paddington from 59 minutes) Marlborough 10 miles London 87 miles
Will Matthews and Rob Wightman look forward to helping you. will.matthews@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1440 rob.wightman@knightfrank.com 01488 688547
Guide price
£4,950,000 knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
BEDFORDSHIRE TODDINGTON
WO B U R N
An impressive Listed Grade II country house set in a stunning position, within an hour of Central London, with permission to convert to a country hotel with spa and conference facilities.
woburn@jackson-stops.co.uk jackson-stops.co.uk
• Main house extending to 9,500 sq ft • 4 bedroom gatehouse • 2 bedroom cottage • 7-car garage • Stabling for 12 • Manège • Post and railed paddocks • Mature grounds with lake • In all about 29 acres
GUIDE PRICE: £5,000,000
01525 290 641
Local and National reach through a network of London and Regional offices
A stunning Georgian design.
5
5
4 9.82 acres
West Sussex Situated within the South Downs National Park. Summers Place has been built to exacting modern standards with a top quality specification and a superb, newly built matching four bedroom cottage. • • •
Liss 2 miles Haslemere 11 miles Guildford 24 miles
Oliver Rodbourne and Russell Grieve look forward to helping you. oliver.rodbourne@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1093 russell.grieve@knightfrank.com 01428 770562
knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
Outstanding Country House Dorset Sturminster Newton: 2.6 miles, Shaftesbury: 6 miles, Blandford Forum: 8.9 miles Exceptionally restored country house, 4 reception rooms, office, 8 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, coach house, outbuildings, lodge cottage, beautifully landscaped gardens and grounds, tennis court and pasture fields.
About 51.87 acres | Guide ÂŁ6.5 million
Lindsay Cuthill Savills London Country Department 020 3733 7265 lcuthill@savills.com
Charlie Stone Savills Salisbury 01722 569 523 cstone@savills.com
savills
savills.co.uk
Sutherland, Ardgay
Offers Over ÂŁ750,000
An attractive mini estate with environmentally friendly house and cottage, in an idyllic riverside setting. Tain: 18 miles, Inverness: 41 miles, Edinburgh: 194 miles Attractive mini estate | 3-Bed farmhouse | 2-Bed cottage | Useful range of outbuildings Deer stalking and shooting rights | Outlook to the River Carron Excellent views across the Strathcarron valley. About 179 acres Diane Fleming Euan MacCrimmon Scotland Estates and Farm Agency | 0131 226 2500 Scotland Estates and Farm Agency | 01463 723 593
/struttandparker
@struttandparker
struttandparker.com
60 OfďŹ ces across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.
Northumberland, Nr Alnwick
One of the finest houses in Northumberland with spellbinding views Alnwick: 9 miles, Alnmouth mainline station: 14 miles, Rothbury: 11 miles, Morpeth: 22 miles, Newcastle Airport: 37 miles 4 Reception rooms | Orangery | Large kitchen | 4 Bedrooms and 3 bathrooms including principal suite with dressing room and bathroom 2-Bed guest flat | 2-Bed cottage | Courtyard with traditional outbuildings | Walled garden | Paddocks and parkland Formal gardens | Woodland | Restored dovecote About 18 acres Luke Morgan Country Department | 020 3642 4591
/struttandparker
@struttandparker
struttandparker.com
60 Offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.
Sam Gibson Morpeth office | 01670 897 443
Immaculate diverse sporting estate with rich history.
1,468 acres
-
Herefordshire Stunning Grade II listed Manor, in an outstanding position, exceptional shoot, diverse income stream, 19 additional residential properties, superb range of agricultural buildings, world class equestrian facilities, arable, pasture and woodland. • • •
Gloucestershire Airport 43 miles Birmingham Airport 70 miles London 139 miles (from 50 minutes by helicopter)
clive.hopkins@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1064 will.matthews@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1440 Joint agent: Savills cholhorow@savills.com 020 7409 8871
knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
A fine Georgian villa in a stunning parkland setting.
6
4
5 127.6 acres
Hampshire An historic house located in the South Downs National Park. There is a three bedroom lodge, three bedroom cottage with two bedroom annexe, approximately 22,500 sq ft of farm buildings, gardens, parkland and productive orchards. • • •
Swanmore 1 mile Winchester 13 miles (London Waterloo from 54 minutes) Petersfield 14.7 miles
Available as a whole or in 3 lots
Rupert Sweeting and George Clarendon look forward to helping you. rupert.sweeting@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1078 george.clarendon@knightfrank.com 01962 850333
knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
Georgian splendour in the New Forest.
6
4
5 30.98 acres
Hampshire A Grade II listed family home with an additional two bedroom flat and three bedroom coach house. Tennis court adjoining a converted milking parlour with games room and studio. Stabling, outbuildings, extensive gardens, parkland and ancient woodland, totalling over thirty acres. • • •
M27 (Junction 1) 2 miles Lyndhurst 3 miles Lymington 12 miles
Ed Cunningham and George Clarendon look forward to helping you. edward.cunningham@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1080 george.clarendon@knightfrank.com 01962 850333
knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
A beautifully situated period house.
10
6
5 15.48 acres
West Sussex An impressive and handsome country house built at around the turn of the last century. The property commands an elevated position in dramatic surroundings in the heart of the South Down National Park. • • •
Petworth 3.5 miles Midhurst 4 miles Haslemere 10 miles (London Waterloo 49 minutes)
Guide price
£5,500,000
James Crawford and Russell Grieve look forward to helping you. james.crawford@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1065 russell.grieve@knightfrank.com 01428 770562
knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
A Grade II* listed former manor house.
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West Sussex An attached family home, believed to date from the 16th century. The garden occupies a southerly position looking towards the South Downs. • • •
Petersfield/Midhurst 5 miles Haslemere 11 miles London 55 miles
Aelish Paterson looks forward to helping you. aelish.paterson@knightfrank.com 01428 770560
Guide price
£1,350,000 knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
Georgian village house with walled garden.
6
4
4 1.91 acres
Wiltshire A wonderful Georgian family house with well proportioned rooms, good ceiling heights and large windows. Two bedroom cottage and studio. Set in approximately 1.91 acres of beautiful mature gardens with tennis court, orchard, glasshouses and garaging. • • • •
Rob Wightman looks forward to helping you. rob.wightman@knightfrank.com 01488 682726
Devizes 6 miles Pewsey 7 miles (London Paddington 70 minutes) Marlborough 11 miles M4 (J15) 19 miles
knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
An attractive village house with cottage and studio.
4-5
3-5
4-6 0.32 acre
Wiltshire/Berkshire borders This compact Grade II listed village house is well-presented and private with extensive additional accommodation and pretty garden. • • •
Hungerford 1.5 miles (London Paddington 60 minutes) Marlborough 9 miles Newbury 10 miles
Nick Loweth looks forward to helping you. nick.loweth@knightfrank.com 01488 682726
Guide price
£1,300,000 knightfrank.co.uk Connecting people & property, perfectly.
Idyllic Home in Rural Setting Ascot, Berkshire Sunningdale: 2 miles, Heathrow Airport: 8.7 miles, London: 24.6 miles Charming 4 bedroom home set in beautiful gardens and situated moments from Windsor Great Park. 3/4 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, detached garage and games rooms, garden house, swimming pool, pool house and 3 stables. EPC = D About 1.5 acres | Guide ÂŁ1.95 million
Pippa Dougall Savills London Country Department 020 3944 5937 pippa.dougall@savills.com
savills
savills.co.uk
property showcase
Newton Regis, Warwickshire
£1,000,000 guide price
Slawston, Leicestershire
£799,500 guide price
Cossington, Leicestershire
£625,000
Newton Farm is a most exceptional six bedroom detached period property, beautifully presented as a purist English home. Contact: Market Bosworth 01455 364852
Five bed period cottage with extensive range of outbuildings. Overlooking fields within the picturesque village of Slawston. EPC D. Contact: Market Harborough 01858 513929
A stunning former water mill with planning permission to convert to a substantial five bedroom family residence. Contact: Melton Mowbray 01664 518924
Kiltarlity, Highland
Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire
Stanton, Staffordshire
£1,100,000 guide price
£1,175,000 guide price
£500,000
Highly desirable, immaculately presented country home. Lovely grounds with courtyard garden, rose garden and productive orchard. Contact: Inverness office 01463 357908
The Tower Wing of Netherswell Manor is an idyllic Cotswold retreat within a gated private estate. Contact: Moreton-in-Marsh 01608 503959
An enchanting four bed stone barn conversion with far-reaching views of countryside. Set in 1.88 acres, including a paddock. Contact: Ashbourne office 01335 671950
Auchterless, Aberdeenshire
Barton St David, Somerset
Clyst St. Mary, Devon
£995,000
offers over
Elegant eight bed Victorian mansion house in the Ythan Valley, with luxury ancillary accommodation and 7 acres of grounds. Contact: Aberdeen office 01224 939800
£900,000 guide price
The sale of this delightful period farmhouse in peaceful South Somerset also includes two lucrative self-catering holiday cottages. Contact: Yeovil office 01935 590898
£915,000 guide price
Brand new four/five bed detached house with far-reaching countryside views, on the edge of a convenient East Devon village. Contact: Exeter office 01392 976715
To view these and the fi est selection of premium proper ies, search See www.onthemarket.com/newandexclusive. Agents specify exclusivity and are committed to accuracy under terms of use. Agents’ Mutual Limited – A company a wholly owned subsidiary of OnTheMarket plc. Registered Office: PO Box 450, 155-157 High Street, Aldershot GU11 9FZ, England.
All these properties appeared exclusively with us 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.
Leavening, North Yorkshire
£385,000 guide price
Llangollen, Denbighshire
£650,000 guide price
Dufton, Cumbria
£700,000 guide price
Detached 18th Century former post office with glorious garden and views, situated in thriving Wolds village between York and Malton. Contact: York office 01904 595677
A historic Grade II listed property situated on the fringes of Llangollen, with extensive gardens and views of the Llangollen Canal. Contact: Llangollen office 01978 255856
A Grade II listed five bedroom country house with a self-contained two bedroom apartment, in an idyllic village location. Contact: Penrith office 01768 257978
Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire
Flore, Northamptonshire
Harmby, North Yorkshire
£2,250,000 guide price
£1,250,000 guide price
£395,000 offers in excess of
Occupying a charming setting below the Cotswold Hills with river frontage and unspoilt views, a six bedroom former mill with 8 acres. Contact: Cirencester office 01285 367138
An 18th Century seven bedroom, five reception room mill house and former mill, with 4 acres of landscaped gardens and paddocks. Contact: Northampton 01604 419097
A spacious detached three bedroom cottage, with a double garage and private gardens to the rear. Contact: Leyburn office 01969 738984
Thrandeston, Suffolk
Nevern, Pembrokeshire
Burtons Green, Essex
£735,000 guide price
Grade II listed five bed house with two receptions and separate studio building. Over an acre, set in a quiet rural location. Contact: Diss office 01379 441944
£775,000
Glandwr sits alongside the River Nevern surrounded by nature, combining traditional appeal and modern luxury. Contact: Fishguard office 01348 427979
£1,250,000 guide price
Luxury 4123 sq. ft. bungalow with open-plan contemporary layout with five double bedrooms. Set in 4.6 acres with stables and man•ge. Contact: Maldon office 01621 467922
OnTheMarket.com at CountryLife.co.uk and set up a property alert today. limited by guarantee. Company No: 8381458. Registered in England & Wales. OnTheMarket.com and its logo are registered trade marks of Agents’ Mutual Limited,
www.rettie.co.uk
The Old Manse, Edrom, Duns, Scottish Borders Guide Price: £875,000
Maryfield, Murray Street, Duns, Scottish Borders Offers Over: £625,000
The Old Manse in Edrom is a very special detached Georgian family house in the heart of the Scottish Borders, just outside the popular town of Duns. Built as a Manse in 1825, the property offers comfortable family accommodation in excellent condition over three principle floors. It is situated in beautifully tended garden grounds of approximately four acres and includes a two bedroom holiday cottage known as The Old Carriage House, a number of outbuildings and a double garage.
Maryfield is a large stone built B-Listed Georgian home set within its own private and secure garden grounds. Situated in the popular town of Duns in the heart of the Berwickshire countryside, the property offers manageable family accommodation over 2 principle floors, particularly stunning garden grounds of about 1.5 acres and benefits from a large garden/basement level which could easily be converted into additional accommodation.
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Patrick Paton
Viewing by appointment only. 01289 305158 | patrick.paton@rettie.co.uk
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Patrick Paton
Viewing by appointment only. 01289 305158 | patrick.paton@rettie.co.uk
Coveyheugh House, Reston, Scottish Borders Guide Price: £550,000
The Mansion House Site, Nr Berwick upon Tweed, Scottish Borders Guide Price: £500,000
Coveyheugh is a stone built Victorian country house of circa 4306 sq ft set within its own private and elevated grounds that extend to circa 8 acres. The property offers manageable family accommodation over 3 floors and benefits from a detached fully renovated cottage and a former stable/garage with outlined planning permission offering developmental potential. The property lies within walking distance of the village of Reston and the A1 (T) road is within easy reach, providing quick access to Edinburgh.
The Mansion House Site at Fishwick Mains offers a very rare opportunity to build a substantial country house, centred on 9 acres of high and level grassland above and immediately adjoining the River Tweed, famous for its salmon fishing. It is a unique and exciting opportunity to totally replace a former riverside Manor House with spectacular panoramic river and open country views especially over unspoilt rural land to the Cheviots to the south. Situated 5 miles from Berwick and its LNER mainline railway station, which offers regular services to London in 3hrs 40mins. Viewing by appointment only.
3 Amy Brown
EDINBURGH 0131 220 4160
7
5
Viewing by appointment only. 01289 305158 | amy.brown@rettie.co.uk
BEARSDEN 0141 943 3150
NEWTON MEARNS 0141 639 1999
SHAWLANDS 0141 406 4999
Patrick Paton
GLASGOW 0141 341 6000
01289 305158 | patrick.paton@rettie.co.uk
MELROSE 01896 824 070
BERWICK 01289 305158
LONDON 0207 839 0888
peter brown
‘Down on the Beach, Southwold’ oil on canvas
61 x 61 cm
E xhibition dates: 8 -31 May 2019 Peter Brown has won a reputation as a great ‘plein air’ artist and rightly so. He enjoys the bustle of everyday life in the city as much as the more tranquil moments of painting along the tow path of the Norfolk broads. But in this exhibition we find him also celebrating home. His first floor studio is only a few yards from his children’s bedrooms and his new paintings depict this studio at different times of the day, often with his family forming part of his busy work place. A painter at peace with himself, perhaps, which indeed he should be, for this year he succeeds as President of the New English Arts Club.
MESSUMS LONDON 28 C o r k Stre et, Lo n do n W1S 3NG
Te l: + 4 4 (0)20 74 37 55 4 5
info@me s sum s.c o m
w w w.me s sums.com
Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers
FINE FURNITURE, EASTERN RUGS, CLOCKS & TAPESTRIES FROM EASTINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
AUCTION Tuesday 21 May, 10am VIEW DAYS Sunday 19 & Monday 20 May, 10am-4pm Chorley’s, Prinknash Abbey Park, Gloucestershire, GL4 8EU
01452 344499 | info@chorleys.com
www.chorleys.com
JAMES GILLICK
STILL LIFES 2019 6 – 29 June
Deco Silver Coffee Pot & Spoon oils on linen over panel 9.45 × 13.19 ins (24 × 33.5 cm) Catalogue available
Jonathan Cooper 20 Park Walk London SW10 0AQ +44 (0)20 7351 0410 jonathancooper.co.uk
Selected highlights on view at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, 21 – 25 May Eastern Avenue 419
BRian SinfiEld GallERy
CHRIS SIMS 12th - 25th May
127 The Hill, Burford, Oxon OX18 4RE t: 01993 824464 e: gallery@briansinfield.com www.briansinfield.com Catalogue available on request
Jardin Exotique, Eze, Alpes Maritimes, Oil on Canvas, 100 x 130cm
POUL WEBB SOLO EXHIBITION 16th MAY – 3rd JUNE 2019
CATTO GALLERY 100 Heath Street • Hampstead London NW3 1DP Tel: +44 (0)20 7435 6660 www.cattogallery.co.uk art@cattogallery.co.uk Opening times: 10am - 6pm Mon - Sat 12.30pm - 6pm Sunday • and by appointment Catalogue available upon request
ROUNTREE T RYO N GALLERIES
SPRING EXHIBITIONS ANN FRASER 7 - 18 May PETWORTH The Old Tavern, Market Square, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0AH
21 - 24 May LONDON 19 Ryder Street, London, SW1Y 6PX
ANN FRASER The white border with small white Butterflies, watercolour, 20 x 28 in. £3,550
RODGER McPHAIL 21 - 23 May PALL MALL LONDON La Galleria Pall Mall, 5b Pall Mall, 30 Royal Opera Arcade, London SW1Y 4UY
25 May - 7 June PETWORTH The Old Tavern, Market Square, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0AH
RODGER McPHAIL, A pack of Grouse, oil on canvas, 35½ x 47¼ in. £18,500.
To request a catalogue please contact the gallery info@rountreetryon.com The Old Tavern Market Square, Petworth West Sussex GU28 0AH
www.rountreetryon.com
London: +44 (0)207 839 8083 Petworth: +44 (0)1798 344207 info@rountreetryon.com
Sue Campion, RBA and Pamela Kay, RWS, RBA, NEAC 10th May - 8th June
Pamela Kay Path of Poppies 16 x 20 inches, Oil
Sue Campion, RBA Little House in the Hollow 18 x 20 inches, Pastel All works are online and available for sale Island Fine Arts, 12 Southgate, Chichester, PO19 1ES T: 01243 532798 E: gallery@islandfinearts.com www.islandfinearts.com
bada.org Explore the exceptional
The reasons the National Trust chose Alitex, could well be yours. The National Trust is Europe’s largest conservation charity. To best care for the nation’s heritage, the Trust only ever works with companies who share their vision and values. As a result of over 60 years’ experience, and in partnership with the Trust, we have created a range of eight elegant greenhouses. Each one precisely emulates the timeless Victorian style. Each is crafted using the highest quality materials, advanced aluminium technology and bestowed with a lifetime guarantee. Our work with the National Trust helps the charity look after hundreds of special places for the benefit of millions of people every year.
Visit us at RHS Chelsea Flower Show on Main Avenue 334
G R E E N H O U S E S A N D C O N S E R VAT O R I E S
www.alitex.co.uk
01730 826900
COUNTRY LIFE VOL CCXIII NO 20, maY 15, 2019
Miss Rowan Blossom Rowan, elder daughter of Dr and Mrs Ewart Lewis, is engaged to be married to Johnny Gilmour, only son of Mr John Gilmour and Mrs Robyn Gilmour. They will be married at Our Lady and St Therese Church, Painswick, Gloucestershire, this weekend. A florist, Rowan recently published her first book, Living with Flowers: Blooms & Bouquets for the Home, and will be speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in October. Photographed in Eccleston Square Gardens, London SW1—with help from the Eccleston Square Hotel—by Mike Garrard
Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire/PA Images
Contents May 15, 2019
Baby love: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex present their son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, who was born on May 6
86 Let there be light Jay Griffiths reflects on how light dances with and enhances our landscape and explores its power to change our moods
This week
Cover stories
48 Sir Robin Knox-Johnston’s favourite painting The yachtsman chooses a work that ‘conjures up the romance of the last great age of sail’
52 Back to Nature Take a walk on the wild side at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show as Mark Griffith advises us on what to see and what to buy
60 The phlox list These gloriously scented plants must be bedded in now if we’re to make the most of them this summer, advises Val Bourne
72 The shape of things to come Enliven your environs with the most stylish garden sculptures, chosen by Amelia Thorpe
64 Brimming with brilliant ideas The ambitious restoration of the gardens at Morton Hall in Worcestershire cleverly fuses past and present, finds Jacky Hobbs
Walled garden at Carolside, Scottish Borders (Andrea Jones/Carolside Gardens (www.carolside.com))
74 A rash purchase Hampshire’s Avington Park was saved from demolition when a new buyer fell in love with it at first sight, reports John Goodall 34 Country Life, May 15, 2019
82 Like a bat out of hell Marianne Taylor extols the virtues of these mysterious yet comicallooking creatures
94 Interiors A sumptuous and cosy sitting room and how to go green 98 The count’s cocktail Flora Watkins tastes the bittersweet Italian digestif Amaro 100 Kitchen garden cook Melanie Johnson gives the humble potato salad a stylish makeover 120 Ibsen’s back in favour Michael Billington is moved by the new Rosmersholm 124 Make this year count David Profumo celebrates the International Year of the Salmon 126 Travel Luxury in Leith and Tokyo views
Every week 36 Town & Country 40 Notebook 42 Letters 43 Agromenes 44 Athena 46 My week 50 In the garden 102 Property market 108 Properties of the week 112 Exhibition 116 Books 122 Art market 129 Bridge and crossword 130 Classified advertisements 142 Spectator 142 Tottering-by-Gently
COUNTRY LIFE
Try six issues of Country Life for only £6 Subscribe online at www.countrylifesubs.co.uk/32af Telephone 0330 333 1120 and quote code 32af Offer closes June 4, 2019. Terms and conditions apply. For full details, please visit www.magazinesdirect.com/terms
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Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF Telephone 01252 555072 www.countrylife.co.uk
Flirtatious spring T
here’s no finer time to travel through the country than now, when the hedges are puffed up in their new green coats and the verges change colour almost by the day, as red campions and pale shepherd’s purses give way to the frothing umbels of cow parsley. From train windows, green and yellow fields flash past, iridescent with fresh sap, the oaks acid-yellow with catkins and the innocent white May blossom hiding its vicious spines. Checking The Shepherd’s Calendar, in which the Northamptonshire poet John Clare describes the passing months, it’s reassuring to find the timings haven’t changed so much. As it was in the May of 1827, so it is with May 2019: the white thorn bush is bowed low, loaded with its mockery of snow, the delicate red crab-tree blossom is out, the brooks flow beneath grass and water cresses and the yellow flag iris is ‘swording high’.
This is peak spring, when the weather’s ebbs and flows will very soon tip us into summer. It’s also the very happiest moment in the garden. Past mistakes are forgotten as awkward pruning scars are kindly hidden behind soft new foliage and fresh buds are fat with promise—and there’s not a greenfly in sight.
Spring isn’t tidy. It doesn’t start with the bleep of a digital display Chelsea Flower show is next week (see preview on page 52) and, as keen observers know, we could be in for rain or hail. suncream may be required and, as sure as eggs is eggs, the plane-tree pollen will cause misery for many.
Chelsea marks the start of the garden season and engenders a sense of urgency, almost a panic, as gardeners scan their beds and borders and worry they might miss the moment to sow, but hold on. The danger of frost is not past us yet. Whatever the experts say, and whatever the injunction on the back of a seed packet, true gardeners look to their own plots. When the weeds start putting on fast growth, they know the soil is warming up. spring isn’t tidy. It doesn’t start with the bleep of a digital display. Indeed, says the rhs, there’s a month of difference across the country between when it’s safe to plant out tender young plants. southern england and south Wales are just off the starting blocks, but the Midlands up to the North-West and North Wales must wait until the end of the month. It’s not safe to plant out in the Northeast or southern scotland until early June and those in the highlands must endure until mid June. however, it’s always worth the wait.
PPA Front Cover of the Year 2018 British Society of Magazine Editors Scoop of the Year 2015/16 PPA Specialist Consumer Magazine of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Innovation of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Columnist of the Year (Special Interest) 2016 Editor Mark Hedges Editor’s PA/Travel Rosie Paterson 555062 Telephone numbers are prefixed by 01252 Emails are name.surname@ti-media.com Editorial enquiries 555062 Subscription enquiries 0330 333 1120 Backissues 01795662976;support@mags-uk.com DeputyEditor Kate Green 555063 Architectural Editor John Goodall 555064 Gardens Editor Tiffany Daneff 555067 Fine Arts & Books Editor Mary Miers 555066 Interiors Editor Giles Kime 555083 Managing & Features Editor Paula Lester 555068 Deputy Features Editor Victoria Marston 555079
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News & Property Editor Annunciata Elwes 555078 Luxury Editor Hetty Lintell 555071 Acting Art Editor Sarah Readman 555080 Deputy Art Editor Heather Clark 555074 Designer Ben Harris Picture Editor Lucy Ford 555075 Deputy Picture Editor Emily Anderson 555076 Group Chief Sub-Editor Jane Watkins 555077 Sub-Editor James Fisher 555089 Digital Editor Toby Keel 555086 Property Correspondent Penny Churchill GroupManagingDirectorAndreaDavies ManagingDirector StevePrentice Assistant Business DirectorKirsty Setchell 551111
Group Art Director Dean Usher Photographic Library Manager Melanie Bryan 555090 Photographic Library Assistants Paula Fahey 555092; Sarah Hart 555093 Marketing Manager Nicola McClure 555115 Antiques & Fine Arts Manager Jonathan Hearn 01252 555318 CommercialDirectorProperty Paul Ward 0800 316 5450 Country Julia Laurence 07971 923054; Lucy Khosla 07583 106990; Oliver Pearson 07961 800887 Head of Market: Country & Gardening Kate Barnfield 07817 629935
Interiors & Gardening Advertising Chloe Lummis 01252 555345 LuxuryAdvertising Jade Bousfield 07583 672665; Katie Ruocco 07929 364909; Lucy Hall 07950 188233 Classified Advertising Sophie Bailey 01252 555316 AdvertisingandClassifiedProduction StephenTurner 020–31482681 Inserts Canopy Media 020–7611 8151; lindsay@canopymedia.co.uk
Country Life, May 15, 2019 35
Town & Country
Edited by Annunciata Elwes
FhF Greenmedia/GAP Photos; MYN/JP Lawrence/nature.pl; John Holder/iStock/Getty Images; De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images
With bells on
A
LLAY your fears of the blue (or white), tubular-bell flowers Spanish interloper: on only one side of its drooping the British bluebell stem and a sweet fragrance in is not headed which Dr Trevor Dines of Plantlife detects ‘cooking apple, for extinction after all, say scientists, at least not mango, lychees, ginger and through hybridisation. For freshly mown grass’. the past 20 years, as the Researchers from the Royal Spanish bluebell’s numBotanic Garden Edinburgh bers rapidly doubled, (RGBE), University of Toronto and Lincoln University, New many feared the worst— Zealand, planted both varithat our ‘little trembling flower’ with ‘silent eloquence’ eties in large numbers and (as Anne Brontë had it) allowed them to breed. The results showed that, although the would be overtaken by thedominantContinental Spanish bluebell spreads well variety, which has peplocally and is difficult to eradicate, pered forest floors here since the its fertility is not as strong. Victorian era and is now found in ‘The pollen of the nonnative bluebells in the one in six of our native woodlands (incidentally, see page 108 for propUK was often misshapen erties for sale near bluebell woods). —indicating lower pollen ferThe biggest fears were of crosstility,’ explains Dr Deborah Kohn breed contamination. Hyacinthof the RGBE. This, ‘coupled with oides hispanica (right) has wide the huge numbers of individuals that leaves, powder-blue conical-bell exist in the wild means that [British flowers all the way around its upright bluebells have] considerable resilistem and no scent, although some say ence against any threat from these there is a hint of old onions. introduced plants,’ adds Prof Native H. non-scripta (top) The Spanish Pete Hollingsworth, the RBGE’s interloper director of science. has narrow leaves, violet-
36 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Careful there, vicar D
ROVES of volunteer vicars are sought in north Oxford on Friday, May 31, in dog collars (but no cassocks, please), to undertake a brief lesson from the Penny Farthing Club before riding en masse around town. Event organisers hope this bizarre spectacle will raise awareness for Ride + Stride (September 14), an annual event that’s seen its numbers dwindle in recent years. Supported by the National Churches Trust, Ride + Stride is a sponsored bike ride (or walk) in which people travel between churches countrywide, raising about £1.5 million a year, much of which goes towards installing kitchens and heating in places of worship as well as for urgent repairs. Richard Tilley, who’s organising the event on behalf of Oxfordshire Historic Churches Trust (OHCT), hopes to see ‘plenty of dynamic and not so dynamic clergy. We think it would be very nice if churches and congregations that have had investment from OHCT are represented at this event, but this is for all clergy. You don’t have to be super-fit. The only real requirement is that you turn up.’ If you’re a vicar and would like to ride a penny farthing, email richard@oandb.agency; lay persons hoping to ride bicycles less precariously in September should visit www.rideandstrideuk.org. www.countrylife.co.uk
For all the latest news, visit countrylife.co.uk
Through the grapevine
Good week for Lost property A cylinder drilled from one of the sarsen stones at Stonehenge during 1950s restorations and taken as a souvenir has been returned to English Heritage, whose experts relish the thought of X-rays and core analysis
A
STATUE that’s been lost for some 60 years has been restored to High Glanau Manor, Monmouthshire, the home of H. Avray Tipping, Architectural Editor of COUNTRY LIFE from 1907 until his death in 1933. Just before the First World War, Alfred E. Henson visited Mounton House in Monmouthshire—Tipping’s then home—to take photographs for the magazine. A few years later, Tipping had High Glanau Manor built nearby in the Arts-and-Crafts style. He laid out the gardens himself, with terraces, an octagonal lily pond, a pergola and winding paths through woodland, and he brought his statue—The Grape Picker by Francisque-Joseph Duret, which can be seen in Henson’s original photographs of Mounton—with him. This jovial mandolin player starred again in COUNTRY LIFE, in articles about High Glanau and its gardens, written by Tipping himself (June 8 and 15, 1929). Mysteriously, it disappeared in the 1960s, but is now back in situ after the house’s owner, art dealer Hilary Gerrish, tracked it down.
Explanations After widespread criticism, MPs will quiz Defra and Natural England on May 21 over their decision to revoke the general licences for controlling wild birds (Town & Country, May 1) Braw lassies The Scottish Highland Games Association has launched a drive to encourage more female participants in its summer sporting events
Bad week for Back home once more: High Glanau’s owners have been searching for The Grape Picker since 2002
‘Tipping was born at the Château de Ville-d’Avray near Paris, so may have seen the original bronze in the Louvre and had it copied,’ explains Helena Gerrish. ‘We’ve been trying to get it back since we bought the house in 2002! Once we’d found it, it took us 15 years to persuade the owners to agree to sell so it could return to High Glanau.’ The manor’s gardens are open to the public on May 12, 2pm–5.30pm, for the NGS and on June 2, 11am– 4pm, for the Rare Plants Fair.
Hefty hedgehogs They’re chubby, losing spikes and hibernating less in some areas, such as Surrey, due to suburban households indulging in competitive feeding wars with neighbours Trainspotting Enthusiasts are risking their lives to trespass on tracks and photograph the Flying Scotsman, halting services and causing delays. Extra police have been deployed and the train will be fitted with spy cameras
It certainly doesn’t grow on trees
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NEW report has, for the first time, examined the economics of ash dieback and come to the sobering conclusion that it may cost the country £15 billion. In the report, partly funded by Defra and published this week, researchers from the University of Oxford, Fera Science, the environmental charity Sylva Foundation and the Woodland Trust estimate that half of this cost will be experienced over the coming decade as the fungal disease spreads through Britain’s 150 million ash trees. Much of this is based on the cost of clearing dead and dying trees, as well as the loss of water and air purification and carbon sequestration. Dr Louise Hill, the study’s lead author, says that the projected total is ‘a third more than the reported cost of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001’. Chalara ash dieback, first confirmed in this country in 2012, is caused by Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, a fungus that originates in Asia and was brought here years ago. On the Continent, where it’s widely present, ash dieback has been quick to kill young and coppiced trees. It weakens mature trees, which are thus less able to resist attacks from other pests. According to Forest Research, gardeners can help stop the local spread by collecting and burning, deep composting or burying ash leaf-litter (www.forestresearch.gov.uk). Some fungicides may also be effective, but the necessary repeat applications are expensive. We lost almost 30 million trees to Dutch elm disease in the 1960s and 1970s, but with Chalara expected to kill 95%–99% of our 150 million ash trees, the threat is very real. The report’s authors say we can’t stop Chalara in its tracks, but £2.5 billion could be saved by replanting lost ash with other native, but non-susceptible, trees and we need greater biosecurity on imports of live plants to stop other diseases being brought in (see page 50). TD ➢ www.countrylife.co.uk
Country Life, May 15, 2019 37
Town & Country
Don’t hedge your bets
A
ncient cornish hedges are currently under serious threat, according to campaigners, as hundreds of miles of them are destroyed to make way for building developments. the 30,000 miles of cornish hedges in the South-West are a much-loved part of the local landscape— some date back to the Bronze Age. they also provide crucial habitats for a diverse selection of wildlife, from bats to hedgehogs. Hedgerows are usually protected under law, but the stone-based structure of cornish hedges currently exempts them, making them vulnerable. According to the cornwall Wildlife trust (cWt), 100 miles of hedges were dismantled between 1998 and 2008, in many cases to make way for housing developments or industrial sites. Local efforts are under way to reverse the decline: cornwall council is fighting to win Government protection for the hedges and has invested £250,000 towards Kerdroya, a project to connect local master hedgers with community groups and schools keen to help. Meanwhile, the cWt is ‘upskilling’ volunteers to repair and rebuild hedges as part of its Penwith Landscape Partnership project. cheryl Marriott, head of conservation at the cWt, says cornish hedges are a ‘vital element’ of the landscape, which is extraordinarily expensive to replace. ‘they cost about £100 a metre to build,’ she explains. ‘not many people are putting them in.’ Holly Kirkwood
‘As the UN has declared an emergency on many species of animal, insect and plant, farmers in the Cranborne Chase, Dorset, have been encouraging bees and other insect life to visit its rolling hills, planting acres of wildflowers,’ explains photographer Russell Sach. ‘This image shows red campion near Sixpenny Handley’
38 country Life, May 15, 2019
How are you now, brown cow?
I
t seems the trend for self-care is spreading from social media into the farmyard, as new research finds that a spot of ‘pampering’ vastly increases the well-being of dairy cows. Researchers from Scotland’s Rural college compared the scientific findings on positive welfare in cows with a series of interviews with dairy farmers and discovered that both approaches led to the same recommendations for fostering well-being in dairy herds, with self-care high on the list. the briefing, published by Alistair Lawrence, Marie Haskell and Belinda Vigors, reveals that cows love using automatic brushes, suggesting they find self-grooming pleasurable. ‘i think it’s the best bit of fun cows have,’ says one farmer. ‘i just can’t see it getting any better than that.’ Robotic milking, which allows individual cows to choose when they’re milked, also produces happier animals, as does maintaining established social groups and creating positive human-animal experiences. By combining clinical and social sciences, the authors hope their paper can foster a new approach to animal health: ‘Positive animal welfare… involves thinking about how to allow animals to have positive experiences on a regular, perhaps daily, basis,’ the report states. HK www.countrylife.co.uk
Country Mouse Mixed signals
A concrete Utopia W
HAT do Capability Brown and modern rewilders have in common? A thought-provoking show at the new MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire (until May 26, www.mkgallery.org), considers such questions and explores how the English landscape has been shaped by changing attitudes. Accompanied by an excellent book of essays, the playfully titled ‘The Lie of the Land’ investigates such themes as outdoor leisure, landownership politics and the links between urban and rural living. Works by more than 85 artists, from Gainsborough and Paul Nash to Richard Hamilton, Yinka Shonibare and James Walker Tucker (‘Hiking’, above) are shown alongside ambitious visions by planners and designers and artefacts such as Ruskin’s rock samples and an early lawn mower. Lutyens and Jekyll feature, although strangely not COUNTRY LIFE —a regrettable omission considering the magazine’s influence in this field since 1897. Milton Keynes—as well as its newly remodelled MK Gallery, which opened in March—is worth the visit alone. The UK’s largest new town was built in the early 1970s by a group of radical architects and planners with the aim of providing ideal living conditions in a setting that fuses Miesian Modernism with the English Picturesque. Linked by 130 roundabouts and landscaped with 22 million trees and 5,000 acres of parkland watered by lakes and rivers, this concrete-gridded Utopia has many more attractions than one might assume. Particularly memorable is the sight of Starship Technologies’ driverless robots trundling along the leafy highways delivering groceries. MM
A new website seeks to promote British-made food and drink, from Cornwall’s Tregothnan tea to Kent’s Chapel Down Brut, plus other items such as clothes and household goods. YouK features 418 British cheeses and 580 different types of gin, not to mention seasonal vegetables, such as Isle of Wight tomatoes (summer) and Welsh cabbages from Blas Y Tir (winter)—and all within an easy search or browse function that links through to the relevant retailer’s page. Every brand on the website supports the environment and UK workers. Visit www.goyouk.com for more details. www.countrylife.co.uk
John Beedle/CWT; Russell Sach; Christina Blum/mauritius images/Agefotostock; © Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums/Bridgeman Images; Annabelle King
A
FTER I had prostrated myself three times in front of Buddha and received some holy saffron water from the head monk, he took a call on his mobile. This is Bhutan, the Himalayan mountain kingdom: ancient, incredible and almost impossibly remote. Back home, my mobile phone cut out for the third time on the way to work, in one of the shallow dips under the shadow of the South Downs. It left me musing how the UK could have worse reception than a country where almost 80% of the population live at subsistence level. I once managed to make a call in Rwanda while looking at a family of gorillas halfway up a mountain; sadly, my friend’s phone cut out somewhere on the west side of Dartmoor. I stay in many hotels and find myself constantly challenged by three things. First, how do you identify the shampoo among all the little bottles they kindly leave you? The tiny writing is almost impossible to read. Second is how to turn the lights out when I want to go to sleep—each of the army of switches seems to illuminate more, rather than fewer, bulbs. Finally, the air-conditioning system, often defeats me completely. Coming home will always be a treasure, even if I don’t seem to be able to call anyone to let them know I’ve arrived. MH
Town Mouse Murder, probably
T
HROUGH the kindness of grandparents, my wife and I were able to make a short visit to Berlin by ourselves last week. One of the children offered a flawless performance of grief bravely borne on the night of our departure. Happily, however, they were asleep when we actually slipped away and were unable, therefore, to exact any further feelings of guilt from us. It was wonderful to explore the city without long interludes of argument about how many rooms in a museum constituted ‘enough’ or negotiating the timing of the next ice cream. Instead, we could wander all day, grab sandwiches for lunch and relax in the evening. We hugely enjoyed ourselves, although the visit was not without its odd moments. These included a cheerful encounter with an almost legless stag party and a frustrated bar visit; the waiter explained courteously that he was unable to serve us because he’d run out of red wine. On our return, the children listened with detached interest to our account of the trip. They clearly thought their weekend had been much more fun. When I asked teasingly what they would have done if we’d taken them along, they calmly agreed: ‘Three whole days sightseeing with you? Well, murder, probably.’ JG
Country Life, May 15, 2019 39
Town & Country Notebook Quiz of the week 1) A hinny is the offspring of which two creatures? 2) In 1935, who became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California? 3) What colour is the inner ring of an Olympic archery target? 4) Who became UK Prime Minister in April 1955? 5) In Morse code, which number is represented by five dots?
Edited by Victoria Marston
Time to buy Royal Victoria list notepads (set of two), £9.99, Historic Royal Palaces (020– 3166 6848; www. historicroyalpalaces. com)
‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you’
Riddle me this I am black when you buy me, red when you use me and grey when you throw me away. What am I?
Catch-22, Joseph Heller
Seven Seas smoking kit, £4,020, S. T. Dupont (0333 300 1234; www. harrods.com)
100 years ago in
COUNTRY LIFE May 17, 1919
A
NYONE can keep bees, but it takes a master to keep them for long. My first step was to place myself in the hands of an expert, and the next was to buy a handbook on bees. My expert can remember the bee-masters of a former age and some of their quaint ceremony; for example, the solemn induction of the new master in his robes of office knocking on the hives and repeating this doggerel: Little bees, your master’s dead, But I will see you want no bread. For a time all went well with me. My stock and my ‘nucleus’ prospered. The handbook gives a list of the enemies of bees including birds, toads, mice, wasps, moths and others; but no mention is made of burglars. Did the bees surrender without a fight? I hope not. Will the thieves be arrested? The local constable is sanguine of success and tells me that he has ‘the case in hand’. 1) A donkey (female) and a horse (male) 2) Amelia Earhart 3) Gold (or yellow) 4) Anthony Eden 5) Five Riddle me this: Charcoal
40 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Chalkdown Cider 2015 Vintage, £12.95, Chalkdown (01962 217760; www. chalkdowncider.com)
Five things you (probably) didn’t know about… Chelsea Flower Show • The first RHS flower show in Chelsea took place in 1913. It ran from 1914 to 1916, but was cancelled for the remainder of the First World War. To honour the dead, Phillip Johnson used nearly 300,000 hand-crocheted poppies for his 2016 installation. • Once contained in a single marquee, the show now has a capped attendance of 168,000 and, via numerous TV and radio channels, a broadcast audience that is truly global. Chinese channel CCTV-9 alone has 45 million subscribers. • Hillier Nurseries holds the record for consecutive Chelsea Golds and is going for a 74th this year, with its new designer Lilly Gomm. • The planning cycle for the show lasts 15 months and 2020 is well under way. • Organisers have long played a cat-and-mouse game with forbidden gnomes. Gardener and herb expert Jekka McVicar says she took in her lucky gnome, Borage, for years, hiding him carefully in foliage. Daniel Pembrey www.countrylife.co.uk
Oh, the agony! Resident agony uncle Kit Hesketh-Harvey solves your dilemmas
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Q
A close friend has had the most disastrous haircut, but she—rather unbelievably—seems to be pleased with it. I know that it’s her hair and her choice, but she’s doing herself a disservice. Is there any way to subtly dissuade her from maintaining this severe look without hurting her feelings? J. G., Oxfordshire
What to drink this week
A
Now, careful. If she’s ‘pleased with it’, how is she ‘doing herself a disservice’? You say— absolutely correctly—that ‘it’s her hair and her choice’. I’d hate to suggest that anyone too controlling cannot be a ‘close friend’. I would, however, suggest that a close friend would wait until an honest opinion is sought, keeping quiet until and unless that happens. Heaven knows, in our selfie-obsessed generation, once she starts posting, there will be comment enough from friends less ‘close’ to sway her mind, should it require swaying. Leave it to them and don’t risk the friendship. Unless, of course, you happen to be a gay man, in which case it is meet, right and your bounden duty to let her have it with both barrels.
Vintage Champagne
Harry Eyres rounds up the best of a miracle decade Regular readers will know of my predilection for vintage Champagne. So far, no cure for this condition has been discovered, apart from the regular replenishment of exhausted stocks of older vintages with younger replacements. Fortunately, we seem to be living in a golden age of vintage Champagne, with much more regularity of good vintages than was the case in the past. The price differential between vintage and nonvintage remains relatively modest and doesn’t really reflect the vastly increased sharpness of focus you obtain when you look through the lens of a single year.
Unmissable events
May 17–25 ‘In the Garden’, Red Dog Gallery, Oakhanger, Hampshire. Contemporary botanical art, including paintings, prints, photography, sculpture, glass, fresh flowers, ceramics, jewellery, textiles and garden accessories, for a range of budgets (07748 677859; www. reddoggallery.com) Until June 9 ‘Journeys in The Holy Land: Alexander Creswell’, Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey. Small watercolours exploring the architecture of Petra and ancient stones of Jerusalem by the artist who has been likened to J. M. W. Turner and David Roberts (01483 810235; www. wattsgallery.org.uk) Festival May 19 The Alresford Watercress Festival, Hampshire. The town built from the riches of the watercress industry pays homage, with the crowning of the Watercress King and Queen, the World Watercress Eating Championships, cookery demonstrations, stalls and entertainment. From 10am (www.watercressfestival.org) May 21–25 Hebridean Whisky Festival, various venues. Tours, tastings, music, casks and special www.countrylife.co.uk
events at the four Hebridean Whisky Trail distilleries: Torabhaig, Talisker (both on Isle of Skye), Raasay and Isle of Harris. Entry to events is free (https://hebrideanwhisky.com) Fair May 19 Plant Sale, Holywell Youth and Community Centre, Flintshire. Rare and familiar plants from the Hardy Plant Society Clwyd and invited nurseries, with a tombola and refreshments. Free admission and parking, 10.30am–1.30pm (01352 375385; www.hardy-plant. org.uk/clwyd) May 25 Plant Lovers’ Day, Creake Abbey, Fakenham, Norfolk. More than 30 nurseries showcasing perennials, exotics, bulbs, shrubs, climbers and carnivorous plants. New this year are two iris specialists, The English
Iris Company and Seagate Irises. 10am– 4pm, adult entry £4 (01328 730399; www.creake abbey.co.uk) Book now July 6 Preview of ‘A Passion for Opera: The Duchess and the Georgian Stage’, Boughton House, Kettering, Northamptonshire. Blacktie event hosted by the Duke of Buccleuch, featuring a Champagne reception, a guided tour of the house and new exhibition on Elizabeth Montagu, 3rd Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry (open to the public throughout August) and a special concert from Opera Prelude. Tickets from £50 (01832 274734; www. oundlefestival.org.uk)
Chilworth Manor, Guildford, Surrey GU4 8NN. May 19, 11am–5pm. £6, children free Chilworth fulfils the English idyll of a house—formerly home to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough—and garden nestling in a natural bowl, behind which the landscape stretches up to a wooded hillside. Owners Graham and Mia Wrigley have skilfully woven a garden that retains the best of the past with an invigorating contemporary layer. The walled Duchess’s Garden is as impressive as ever.
Joao Paulo Burini/Getty; Ron Sutherland/Photolibrary/Getty Images Plus; Karl Martens
Exhibition Until June 1 ‘Karl Martens: Moments in Flight’ (right), Cricket Fine Art, Park Walk, London SW10. The art of bird watching is translated into ethereal watercolours of birds, painted mostly from memory, with large Asian calligraphy brushes on handmade paper (020–7352 2733; www. cricketfineart.co.uk)
Why you should be drinking it The 2000s were something of a miracle decade for vintage Champagne, with one of the greatest of all vintages in 2002, possibly matched by the splendid 2008, with 2004 and 2006 not far behind. I have a soft spot for the overlooked 2007s and the ripe, delicious 2009s. Now, 2012 is showing why some consider it the equal of 2002. What to buy Henriot 2008 (£586 per dozen; www. ivvltd.com) impressed me especially, with its crisp, crunchy texture and lovely balance (50% Pinot Noir and 50% Chardonnay). More Pinot Noir-dominated and even more complex and magnificent, with ripe, roasted aromas and great mineral freshness, is Billecart-Salmon 2008 (below, £70; www.champagnedirect. co.uk). Moving to the newly released 2012s, Pol Roger 2012 (£79.95; www.thefinestbubble.com) is showing delectably pure, crisp apple and citrus fruit and superb balance. Moët et Chandon Vintage Blanc 2012 (£54.95; www. thefinestbubble.com) is pale gold, with some biscuit, brioche notes on the nose. It’s appley crisp and fairly tight and will get better and better as it loosens—I wish that were true of all of us. Country Life, May 15, 2019 41
Letters to the Editor Letter of the week
Mark Hedges
Subtle genius
T
HE photograph used to illustrate Dr Vadgama’s letter about Lutyens in New Delhi (May 1) is, in fact, one of the nearby pair of secretariat buildings designed by Sir Herbert Baker. The Viceroy’s House or Rashtrapati Bhavan (below), as it is now known, showed Lutyens’s genius in the subtle blending of Indo-Saracenic elements with pure Classicism. COUNTRY LIFE’s founder, Edward Hudson, commented: ‘Poor old Christopher Wren could never have done this.’ Richard Page, by email
Hare today, gone tomorrow
Ma’am’s the word
H
T
HE article on Deepdene, Surrey, was particularly interesting (‘Immortality restored’, April 10). As it notes, the house was used by Southern Railway as its headquarters during the Second World War. The London Midland & Scottish Railway similarly moved its headquarters to a country house: The Grove, near Watford. Railways used as many code words as possible when telegraphing, to keep messages short. During the war, they started to identify the royal train in code for security reasons and chose ‘Deepdene’ and ‘Grove’. Grove was the full royal train, conveying the Monarch, and Deepdene was either the train with lesser royals or a public train conveying royal passengers in a private saloon. The little-used derivative ‘Deeplus’ seems to have been the Monarch in a saloon on a public train. David Pearson, West Yorkshire
The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne
Contactus (photographs welcome) Email:countrylife_letters@ti-media.com Post: Letters to the Editor, COUNTRY LIFE Editorial, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Hampshire GU14 7BF (with a daytime telephone number, please) TI Media Limited reserves the right to edit and to reuse in any format or medium submissions to the letters page of COUNTRY LIFE N.B. If you wish to contact us about your subscription, including regarding changes of address, please ring Magazines Direct on 0330 333 4555
Send in the clowns
M
Y most recent copy of COUNTRY LIFE is now soggy with tears. Our miniature smooth-haired dachshund (‘Small legs, big personality’, May 8) died just before Christmas, aged 151∕2, and our lives have been wretched without him. He was a flâneur, an international traveller, an inveterate partygoer and a connoisseur of cashmere. He was a ratter, a slayer of chickens (well, only one) and could walk for miles —if it suited him and it wasn’t raining. The article summed up this brilliantly funny breed perfectly. Lesley FernándezArmesto, Northamptonshire
AVING found my cocker spaniel pestering a small leveret, I shut her inside. Later, I found her with the hare in her mouth and she refused to part with it. They slept together that night and, in the morning, I found the hare alive and well. We returned it to the garden and it hopped off. Bun Matthews, Anglesey
A Fiennes show
N
O tribute to the Fiennes dynasty, especially in COUNTRY LIFE (Leader, May 1), should leave the patriarch ungarlanded. Mark Fiennes’s architectural photographs (above) were a glory of these pages between 1983 and 1995. It was a privilege to accompany him on a commission. Huon Mallalieu, London
COUNTRY LIFE, ISSN 0045-8856, is published weekly by TI Media Limited, 3rd Floor, 161, Marsh Wall, London, E14 9AP, United Kingdom. COUNTRY LIFE Subscriptions: For enquiries and orders, please email: help@magazinesdirect.com, alternatively from the UK call: 0330 333 1120, overseas call: 00 44 330 333 1113 (Lines are open Monday–Saturday, 8am- 6pm GMT excluding Bank Holidays). One year full subscription rates: 1 Year (51) issues. UK £185; Europe/Eire €380 (delivery 3–5 days); USA $460 (delivery 5–12 days); Rest of World £359 (delivery 5–7 days). Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to COUNTRY LIFE, Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named Air Business, c/o Liberty Express Distributions USA LLC, Suite 201, 153–63 Rockaway Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at TI Media Ltd, Rockwood House, 9–16, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 3DH. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. BACK NUMBERS Subject to availability, issues from the past three years are £6 a copy (£8 in the EU, £10 overseas): 01795 662976; www.mags-uk.com. Subscriptions queries: 0844 848 0848. If you have difficulty in obtaining COUNTRY LIFE from your newsagent, please contact us on 020–3148 3300. We regret we cannot be liable for the safe custody or return of any solicited or unsolicited material, whether typescripts, photographs, transparencies, artwork or computer discs. COUNTRY LIFE PICTURE LIBRARY: Articles and images published in this and previous issues are available, subject to copyright, from the COUNTRY LIFE Picture Library: 01252 555090/2/3. INDEX: The COUNTRY LIFE Cumulative Index, in PDF format and updated annually, which lists all articles on country houses and gardens published since 1897, is priced at £42.50 plus VAT and is available from Paula Fahey (clpicturelibrary@ti-media.com) Editorial Complaints We work hard to achieve the highest standards of editorial content and we are committed to complying with the Editors’ Code of Practice (https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/cop.html) as enforced by IPSO.If you have a complaint about our editorial content, you can email us at complaints@ti-media.com or write to Complaints Manager, TI Media Limited Legal Department, 3rd Floor, Marsh Wall, London E14 9AP. Please provide details of the material you are complaining about and explain your complaint by reference to the Editors’ Code. We will try to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and we aim to correct substantial errors as soon as possible.
42 Country Life, May 15, 2019
www.countrylife.co.uk
F
RESH from reading your magazine, I found what has to be the saddest stone yet, on the Northumberland coast (Letters, April 3, April 17, May 1 and May 8). We will never look at rocks in the same light again. Jo Wall, Shropshire
Y
ES, another face —this time, a Yorkshire pudding with a grand Yorkshire smile. Sylvia Wheatley, by email
Making your own luck
Y
OU write about lucky charms without mentioning four-leaf clovers (‘I should be so lucky’, May 1). I have always found them easily and often pressed them in a book. When my mother’s car was stolen and the numberplate changed, she proved ownership as the AA book found in the car had my four-leaf clovers between its pages. Diana Bourdon Smith, by email
COUNTRY LIFE MAY 22
Victorian issue: lives of Victoria nd Albert, a history of the era and Osborne House; plus bees, luscious lilacs and Jersey Royals Make someone’s week, every week, with a COUNTRY LIFE subscription 0330 333 1120 www.countrylife.co.uk
The falling branches of our family tree
T
HE news that our rural population has grown yet again isn’t something that most country people will welcome, yet, this year’s update of England’s rural population says we’ve added more than 400,000 people in six years. It’s a figure that gives substance to the mounting concern at the increasing building in our villages and market towns and the speed of the change that we see overtaking the countryside. Of course, England’s population as a whole is on the rise and rural growth is less than in the cities. However, in urban England, the numbers are much more balanced. Only 40% are aged over 45, whereas, in the country, it’s 60%. We’re ever older and we tend to live longer. It all sounds like a worrying pressure on services in general and on medicine in particular. Throughout the rest of Europe, country people would be thrilled if it were happening to them. Where we are challenged by growth, they have to deal with abandonment. They live longer and are older, but there’s no growth and no new blood. Rural decline is a serious threat in France, Spain, Italy and Greece, as well as in all the former Communist countries. It’s at its worst where the population overall is falling sharply. Bulgaria, for example, now has seven million people, whereas, only 30 years ago, there were nine million. The effect is felt most acutely in the countryside. For many of these nations, it’s emigration, not immigration, that is the threat—emigration from the countryside to the towns and from the towns to better prospects beyond their borders. The population is falling in 80% of Spanish municipalities. Only in Madrid and the southern littoral is there growth. That’s a fairly typical pattern in mainland Europe. A third of Italy’s villages risk depopulation. Back in 2006, rural France accounted for 22.6% of the
population; today, it’s barely 20%. Greece, with the lowest birth rate in Europe, has the highest proportion of old people, many of whom live in the decaying villages of its Mediterranean islands. We are a dying continent and we hardly dare speak of it. While Asia and Africa struggle with ever-growing numbers, we are seeing our ancient rural communities dwindle and our historic towns swell to bursting, but only with sightseers. Natural population growth has stopped in the industrialised countries of Europe. From Russia to Portugal, we are embracing the micro-family or choosing not to have a family at all. Perhaps our concentration on the problems of too many children has distracted us from the perils of too few. Eradicating extreme poverty and empowering women has enabled Indian states such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala to bring birth rates under control. Parents no longer need huge families to provide for their old age. However, here in the old world, where we believe we’ve long gone beyond that, we’ve still not gone to a good place. Too many of us have preferred ‘stuff’ above all else and pursued standard of living, instead of joy in living. The structure of our society has developed to accommodate that attitude and isn’t built around the family. Of course, we must recognise that many don’t have that family choice and none of us should be judgemental. Nonetheless, that shouldn’t disguise the fact that our developed societies have failed to make space for families, either in the towns or in the countryside. We need, once again, to celebrate children and build our lives around them, instead of having them only when they happen to fit in with other plans.
Natural population growth has stopped in the industrialised countries of Europe
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Country Life, May 15, 2019 43
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Face off
Athena Cultural Crusader
Art to the people or people to the art?
Fred van Deelen
A
THENA was delighted when the National Gallery (NG) announced its acquisition of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria. With her combination of intense post-Caravaggio style and a tumultuous backstory of rape, torture and arranged marriage, Gentileschi is emblematic of the neglect and abuse of women artists. Since Germaine Greer featured her in the 1979 book The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work, Gentileschi’s reputational star has been rising. There has long been another fine Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, in the Royal Collection, but the new painting is an especially significant
addition to the NG. That’s true not only in aesthetic and historical terms, but also because its collection of some 2,300 works has a mere 20 pictures painted by women. This has been £3.6 million well spent. Soon after the purchase, the NG decided that, once the painting had been restored, it should be sent out on tour, most recently appearing on a wall of a GP’s surgery in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. Athena regards Yorkshire as God’s own country, almost on a par with Mount Olympus itself, and is an admirer of Pocklington: it’s a hand-
An imaginative leap has been made from minor truth to major craziness some town, gateway to the beauties of the Yorkshire Wolds and where the unlikely duo of William Wilberforce and Sir Tom Stoppard was educated (although not at the same time, of course). In announcing the visit of Gentileschi to Pocklington, Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the NG, declared that the gallery was
‘taking a masterpiece to unexpected venues, where it can be enjoyed by people who may not be able to see it in Trafalgar Square’. Mr Finaldi is an admirable and excellent director and it is undoubtedly true that there are people in Pocklington who may not be regular visitors to London. It’s testimony, moreover, to his leadership that this undertaking has not been frustrated by the legion of practical concerns and difficulties—not least over security —that might all too easily have overwhelmed it. Nevertheless, in this case, an imaginative leap has been made here from minor truth to major craziness. The NG is what it says on the tin: the gallery of the nation. More than six million visitors a year go there. How many of them will be disappointed in order to satisfy what may amount to a few thousand at most who will see it in Pocklington? Moreover, devoid of the context and interpretation provided by its place in the nation’s pre-eminent collection (or as part of a major exhibition if it was on more conventional loan), Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria is reduced to mere wall decoration or, even worse, a gimmicky populist public-relations stunt sophistically purporting to bring great art to ‘the people’.
The way we were Photographs from the COUNTRY LIFE archive
1898
Unpublished, February Did his wish come true? A young boy gazes down a well in the grounds of Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, the ancestral home of the poet Lord Byron
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My week
Joe Gibbs
Skirting the issue
I
CAME home to news that a man had been found dead in our garden. Not just any old man, but a bloke dressed in women’s clothing—the full Monty —and, reputedly, a prominent citizen, which was why the police were concealing the identity. There was a noticeable absence of incident tape or technicians in white boiler suits in our shrubbery or a courtesy call from the police to say sorry, they’d been in and removed a stiff and had we missed anyone recently? However, my informant, Derry, had heard the news from unimpeachable sources, including Alec, who services the mower, and Charlie Barley, who farms next door. We put our heads together to discuss who it might have been. Most of the local crossdressers sashayed off to the celestial boudoir years ago. I can think of one candidate who might, just might, have perished in taffeta and high heels, but he has 10,000 acres of his own in which to die. In the end, it reached us from the bobbies, in a roundabout sort of Highland way, that the whole thing was bunkum: one of those tales of mystery and imagination that emerge from the long, dark winter night of the Celtic psyche and evaporate in a puff of peat smoke.
Illustration: Clare Mackie
P
rivately I think Derry was so gratified by the drama attending his last discovery of a corpse that he yearned for a repeat. That corpse had been a buzzard’s. You will be aware that the demise of a raptor causes much more of a stir than something as relatively unimportant as a human. On the day in question, Derry called to say he’d been taking the forklift through a gate when, blistering hook bills, there was Buteo buteo prostrate below a granny pine, beak down, wings half-folded, dead as a dodo— a very dead buzzard. 46 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Within minutes, I was on the scene. We’d have to move the cadaver to get the forklift through. Should I draw a chalk outline? Call 999? After consideration, I emailed the constabulary. That night, our local wildlife officer came out. By torchlight, he examined the bird and dropped it solemnly into an evidence bag. I provided a signature.
We’ll be gathering after a walk in the heather and picking ticks off each other like baboons The Grouse Moor Management Group set up by the Scottish Government under the chairmanship of Prof Alan Werritty is considering licensing grouse moors and, thus, lowering the threshold of proof required for intervention in the conduct of a shoot. Even if the Prof recommends against licensing, it’s quite probable, on past form, that ScotGov will ignore him. It took 10 weeks for our buzzard’s toxicology report to
come through: nothing suspicious, bit of a mystery, no crime to record. If that bird had been found by a ‘passing rambler’ on a grouse moor in August and the shoot’s licence withdrawn until tests were completed, how many ruinously expensive shooting days would have been forfeited while the process chuntered on, one wonders. Strange to relate, these birds can die of natural causes, although the raptor lobby may find that difficult to believe.
O
ur son-in-law went home from Easter with midge, mosquito and tick bites. Later, he called to say he’d found dog flea-bites as well—sorry about that, Rob—plus two more ticks, but no telltale rash. Ticks are a problem; I’ve met too many stalkers, gillies and shepherds crocked by Lyme disease. Dr Jim Douglas in Fort William, a specialist in Lyme, tells me he’s coming across more cases picked up in gardens. He thinks roe deer brush against washing lines and leave the insects on clothing. He puts part of the increase in ticks down to less effective sheep dip; the old organophosphate version used to zap them, but also gave its human users worse symptoms than Lyme. Anyway, there are many
less white woolly tick mops in the hills these days. The only way to remove a tick is via one of the plastic forks or cards that should be much more widely available than they are. Squeezing with tweezers or fingernails is dangerous—it can push poison into the blood—and dousing in whisky and burning with a cigarette are useless. Some of the wee beasties get into intimate parts of the anatomy, but if the good doc has his way, we’ll be gathering after a walk in the heather and picking the ticks off each other like a colony of baboons. That sort of behaviour needs to become culturally acceptable, he says. The Forestry Commission has met with some success by issuing workers with trousers impregnated with insecticide. However, I have a theory that wearing nylon under one’s trews is the best defence. When I’m found dead from heart failure in a peat hag in a pair of ladies’ tights, that’s my story anyway.
Joe Gibbs lives at Belladrum in the Highlands and is the founder of the Tartan Heart Festival (August 1–3, www. tartanheartfestival.co.uk) Next week: Kit HeskethHarvey www.countrylife.co.uk
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My favourite painting Robin Knox-Johnston Two Clippers–Nocturne by Montague Dawson
Courtesy of Doyle Auctioneers & Appraisers; John Millar/Country Life Picture Libary
Two Clippers— Nocturne by Montague Dawson (1890– 1973), late 1950s, 39in by 49in, private collection
John McEwen comments on Two Clippers
T
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston is a yachtsman. The first person to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the globe, he published his autobiography, Running Free, last year
‘
This painting conjours up the romance of the last great age of sail, when voyages depended on wind, skill and muscle. The two vessels are shown pressing hard in strong winds and heading close enough to hail each other and pass on their positions before the introduction of radios
’
48 Country Life, May 15, 2019
o be a marine artist was in Montague Dawson’s blood. His grandfather, Henry Dawson (1811–78), was best known for marine pictures; his father was a sea captain and yachtsman. In middle age, John Ruskin’s encouragement was all that kept him going, but, after a climactic retrospective, he wrote: ‘My pictures delighted me. I don’t think the work of any landscape painter living or dead could be put in competition with them.’ on leaving school, he worked in London for a commercial art studio until volunteering for the Royal Navy in 1914. It took him to Falmouth, where he found time to have lessons with the marine artist Charles Napier Hemy (1841–1917), a Royal Academician and his principal influence. At the war’s end, he witnessed the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow and illustrated the
event for The Sphere. He made his reputation between the World Wars and was an official war artist in the Second World War. Dawson specialised in the great age of sail, which, like that of the stagecoach, was surprisingly short. Clippers were very fast sailing ships in the mid 19th century. Square-rigged, most commonly with three masts, they delivered limited bulk freight globally until replaced by steam ships. Their boom years were fuelled by the demand for tea from China and gold from California and Australia. This picture displays Dawson’s pride in accuracy. The pitch of the foreground ship emphasises the narrowness of the deck, the three figures her scale, the lookout in the prow straining towards the dimly discernible lights in the sister ship. This atmospheric nocturne made £200,000 at auction in 2017.
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In the garden
Friedrich Strauss/GAP Photos; Alamy
T
HE RHS informs us that ‘the arrival of new pests and diseases in the UK is linked to the rise in the volume and diversity of plants being imported’. I am therefore pleased to report that I’ve done my bit to limit that ‘volume and diversity’. Last year, an Italian friend gave me a very pretty oleander (pink, double-flowered and sweetly scented), which I brought back to England in the boot of the car, alongside quantities of wine and olive oil. Only after I’d grown it at home for a while did I notice a massive colony of scale insects happily hugging its stems. There are thousands of species of scale insect and one can co-exist with most of them without fear of the consequences, but some are serious parasites of economic crops such as citrus fruit. Suddenly, I was filled with great fear that all the fruit trees in southern England would succumb to the embraces of my oleander scale insects. As proper insecticides are no longer available to amateur gardeners, I was left with no alternative: the oleander and its guests had to go. And go they went—straight onto the drawing-room fire. The usual English reaction when told of a new pest that threatens our way of life is to do too little, too late. I remember the first time I saw oak processionary caterpillars, in Italy at Villa Taranto on Lake Maggiore. The way they stomped along nose to tail seemed to me more comical than worrying. I pushed
Charles Quest-Ritson
Pestilential foreigners
Scale insects and other potentially dangerous pests can be all too easily brought home on plants such as this oleander
one aside and created chaos among its followers (I didn’t know then that the hairs along their backs carry an allergic irritant that can provoke a serious reaction). The moths arrived in England (no one knows how) about 15 years ago. Yes, they were illegal immigrants, but no, no one did anything about them, at least not until it was too late. Money and manpower were short, so members of the public were just told to look out for them. Of course, by the time people saw the caterpillars processing along and stripping our English oak trees of their leaves, it was too late. We shall never be rid of them now. We haven’t been clever about Asiatic hornets either. They started off in Bordeaux in 2004
Horticultural aide memoire Water newly planted trees and shrubs Gardeners often do too much watering, but one desirable object of that exercise is the newly planted tree or shrub. The first summer after planting is the time of concern. If water falls from the sky, fine, but, in a dry spell, it’s a good idea to supply a canful of water once a week. Keep the surrounding soil free of weeds to avoid competition and apply a mulch of well-rotted organic matter about now, as this will keep the soil surface moist. At no time should standing water be visible. SCD 50 Country Life, May 15, 2019
—just one queen hibernating in a consignment of garden pots from China. Honey bees are their diet of choice. No bees means fewer pollinators and more problems for our fruit trees. The French told us that the insects were progressing at a rate of about 100km every year, but we made no preparations for their arrival.
The oleander and its guests had to go– straight onto the drawingroom fire I have a house in the Cherbourg peninsula and first saw the Asiatic hornets two years ago. On warm evenings in May, I sit (wine glass in hand) by my collection of cotoneasters and slay the queens with common fly spray when they come to gorge themselves on the foulsmelling flowers. The problem is that their nests (which are huge, as much as 6ft high) are always way up
at the top of tall trees, hidden from view until the leaves fall away in autumn—by which time, it’s too late because next year’s queens have already escaped, mated, emigrated and bedded down for the winter. However, 100km is 62 miles and much of the coast of northern France is closer to England than that. Asiatic hornets crossed the Channel in 2016 and no one has worked out how to stop them spreading. In France, the council will destroy their nests for free, but I can’t see the penny-pinching English following suit once they get established in places such as the New Forest, where no one will notice them anyway. Numbers were up in 2018: Asiatic hornets are here to stay. I suppose we shall learn to live with them. After all, gardeners have to put up with rabbits, which were introduced as food by the Romans 1,900 years ago, although most of us would be glad to be rid of them. Our garden trees would be grateful if we could exterminate American grey squirrels and those ugly Asian brutes the muntjac deer— both do nothing but damage. Badgers, alas, are native; I wish they would eat every Spanish bluebell that infests my garden, but they seem to prefer the dainty wild daffodils. They have their supporters and champions—all these furry creatures do. So cuddly. The Germans (remember how powerful the Greens are there) have already declared European hornets a protected species. I suppose it won’t be long before some idiot suggests we offer the same protection to those fascinating and beautiful exotics the oak processionary moths and Asiatic hornets.
Charles Quest-Ritson wrote the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses Next week: Courtyards www.countrylife.co.uk
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Chelsea Flower Show 2019
Back to Nature Take a walk on the wild side at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, advises Mark Griffiths, who previews the essential Show Gardens and new plants on offer
Colm Joseph Landscape + Garden Design
A
LL genuine gardens are, to some degree, autobiographical, but The Laskett is extravagantly and brilliantly so. Created by Sir Roy Strong and his late wife, Julia Trevelyan Oman, this Herefordshire paradise became their shared memory palace, replete with features that relate to their professional lives and celebrate the life they made together. It’s also a place of extraordinary beauty, drama and fascination, born of the Strongs’ love not only for each other, but for gardens and gardening. Now, it’s given rise to one of the best exhibits at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Designed by Colm Joseph and Duncan Cargill in consultation with Sir Roy, The Perennial Lifeline Garden in the Great Pavilion translates The Laskett’s enchanted chambers and galleries into a Modernist idiom. I suspect that its main device, the enclosed flowery meadow planted with roses, will be much copied. As for its inspiration, in 2015, Sir Roy bequeathed The Laskett to Perennial, the charity that, for more than 180 years, has been assisting gardeners in retirement and hardship. What future could be more fitting?
Flower-spangled long grass is also much in evidence among the Show Gardens on the Main Avenue, but as glades set in lovingly re-created passages of woodland. Designed by Andy Sturgeon, the M&G Garden is a monumental composition of stone platforms and immense burnt-timber sculptures that represent rock formations. These surround a succession of plant-fringed streams and pools and the whole is enclosed and canopied by trees, their greenery and dancing shadows revitalising the rugged terrain. It’s a magnificent design, a quintessence of wildness that cries out to be installed in some quiet corner of a densely built, inner-city area. For a more sparkling treatment of the same theme, visit the splendid Savills and David Harber Garden, designed by Andrew Duff. It reimagines natural woodland and water for an urban setting and is suitably urbane, with sitting areas beside a pool that’s skirted with irises and punctuated by a shard sculpture. In fact, it’s hard not to take a walk on the wild side at Chelsea this year. The naturalistic combination of woods and water also manifests itself in The Family Monsters Garden, The Facebook Garden, The Greenfingers
Charity Garden, The Manchester Garden, The Morgan Stanley Garden, The Resilience Garden, The Welcome to Yorkshire Garden and Viking Cruises’ The Art of Viking Garden. Forgive me if I’ve forgotten any. It’s remarkable to see so many talents approach the theme in so many ways. It’s also, frankly, a very welcome relief from the woeful visions (climate wrecked, no water, trees and perennials reduced to arid scrub) that Chelsea exhibitors have conjured in recent years. These sylvan scenes are largely for pleasure and contemplation. Two others serve different
Seven-time Chelsea Gold Medal winner Andy Sturgeon has created a woodland of ferns and jewel-like flowers for M&G Investments
52 Country Life, May 15, 2019
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From the past comes the future: the Perennial Lifeline Garden (top) designed by Chelsea first-timers Colm Joseph and Duncan Cargill is inspired by Sir Roy Strong’s garden Laskett (above), which he bequeathed to the charity in 2015
purposes. Designed by Jonathan Snow, the Trailfinders Undiscovered Latin America Garden re-creates a montane forest, complete with cascades, from temperate South America. It aims to illustrate the astonishing diversity of plants found in such places (among them, many species beloved of British gardeners) and to draw attention to the loss of these ecosystems to deforestation—devastation that is once more rampant. I’ll end this tour of the Show Gardens with an exhibit that’s more optimistic. Designed by The Duchess of Cambridge with Andree Davies and Adam White, the RHS Back to Nature Garden is a joyous ramble-cumadventure playground. Here, children can experience woodland and wetland, let off www.countrylife.co.uk
steam and, in calmer moments, watch the comings and goings of flora and fauna. After the show, much of the planting and landscaping will go to an NHS Mental Health Trust as part of a national competition run by the RHS, but that seems far too selective to me. Her Royal Highness and colleagues have created something that should be made available to all children nationwide. The Great Pavilion this year throngs with exhibits that show a long-overdue revival of interest in certain major plant groups. Of these, the bravest has to be the display from McBean’s Orchids of East Sussex (GPF228, www.mcbeansorchids.com)— brave, that is, in both its renaissance sense of exceptionally beautiful and in its present-
Top: Iris Confiture de Roses from the Cayeux family nursery. Above: The new Rhododendron Jessica de Rothschild
Country Life, May 15, 2019 53
Chelsea Flower Show 2019
day sense, as a magnificent example of courage and endurance. Founded in 1879, McBean’s is Britain’s oldest surviving orchid nursery and the most pioneering. A few years ago, it looked doomed finally to close, but Rose Armstrong saved the business and resolved to support the continuation of its work in breeding and growing award-winning plants (Country L ife, January 16, 2019). The nursery has exhibited at every Chelsea, but never before can it have been so welcome
a sight as this year. Not only does the McBean’s stand vividly illustrate what we very nearly lost, it also points the way to a future in which superb British-grown orchids, in all their variety, supplant the so-so, samey mass of EU imports that are as cheap in looks as in price. As a fancy, cacti and succulents were scorned as old-fashioned and oddball until recently. Now, however, they’re more popular than at any time since the 1960s. Back then, they were considered good beginner’s plants for
child gardeners. Today, young educated adults form their greatest following, a demographic that’s doing wonders for the plants themselves, in that many of their new devotees wish and are able to take them seriously. In the Great Pavilion, exhibits from three nurseries show why anyone of any age might develop first a fondness and then a passion for these prodigies of adaptation and survival: Craig House Cacti (GPC160, www.cactuscouple.co.uk), Ottershaw Cacti (GPB114, www.ottershawcacti.com) and
Left to right: Dianthus Cherry Burst, a brilliant new pink from Hardy’s; Clematis Meghan flowers in May to June and again from late July to September; the exquisite new soft-apricot English shrub rose Eustacia Vye from David Austin Roses
54 Country Life, May 15, 2019
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William’s Cactus (GPE193, www.williams cactus.co.uk). Rhododendrons and azaleas (all, botanically speaking, members of the genus Rhododendron) were also declining in popularity until a few years ago. They continued to flourish in some of our greatest gardens and to be loved by some of our most distinguished gardeners, but they were shunned by followers of a succession of design fashions, from the Rosemary Verey manor-house look through prairies full of New Age perennials to Modern Minimalism. Now, happily, all that is changing. To settle any lingering doubt that they deserve to be in the resurgent, take in the exhibit by one of our finest specialist growers, Millais Nurseries (www.rhododendrons.co.uk, GPC171). It displays the most notable of the vast number of rhododendrons and azaleas bred and selected by Lionel de Rothschild and his heirs at Exbury, their great Hampshire garden, which celebrates its centenary this year (Country L ife, May 8). Above: Recycled-brass Kasvaa pendant light by Cameron Design House
Many of the plants on show are classics, but there are also new introductions, among them the outstandingly lovely Rhododendron Jessica de Rothschild, a compact shrub with handsome foliage and rounded trusses of large, bell-shaped flowers in primrose yellow with tints of chartreuse and rose. The exhibit from David Austin Roses Ltd (GPE216, www.davidaustinroses.com) is always a highlight of the Chelsea Flower Show. This year, however, it seems more sublime than ever, as if in floral tribute to the nursery’s late founder. The newly introduced cultivars include the exquisite Rosa Eustacia Vye, named for the heroine of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native. Bushy and upright-growing, it’s massed with delectably scented flowers on red-flushed stems. Each bloom opens as a shallow cup, dense with a swirl of petals in peachy coral, before it expands in a ruffled rosette of pure palest pink. I’ll offer no superlatives for this heavenly rose—they’d all be painfully inadequate. It is a masterpiece worthy of the old and much-missed master. Val Bourne’s superb article in Country Life on November 7, 2018, on Itoh peonies
Above: The Trailfinders Garden, designed by Jon Snow, brings South America to SW1. Below: Thomas Hoblyn’s design for the Dubai Majlis Garden
Rosa Eustacia Vye is a masterpiece worthy of the old and muchmissed David Austin www.countrylife.co.uk
Country Life, May 15, 2019 55
Chelsea Flower Show 2019
Left to right: Digitalis x valinii Firebird, a cracking new foxglove from Hardy’s; Salvia Amethyst Lips makes a sizeable 3ft-wide bush that flowers into autumn; Prince George, one of the glorious new Cymbidium hybrids, bred by McBean’s Orchids, which has exhibited at every Chelsea. Below: The Art of Viking Garden, designed by Paul Hervey-Brookes and built by Big Fish Landscapes
won many converts to these hybrids between herbaceous and tree peonies—not least in showing that, for all their glamour, they’re remarkably easy to grow well. For physical proof of their wondrousness, and a first-rate supplier, visit the exhibit by the Bedfordshire nursery Primrose Hall Peonies (www.primrosehallpeonies.co.uk, GPE197).
Lupins’ lack of sophistication is precisely why they are so appealing One of its highlights is Paeonia All That Jazz, an Itoh hybrid that’s new to UK cultivation. Although immense, its delicately scented flowers appear to be in no need of staking. Rather than jazz, they bring antique silks to mind—ruffled, palest peach to light buff-pink, and shot with streaks of crimson that spread across the petals from the blooms’ dark alizarin centres. Chic has characterised these newcomers so far. I doubt anyone could ever say the same of lupins. Their lack of sophistication and smartness is precisely why they’re so appealing. Lately, they’ve been enjoying a revival, in no small part due to West Country Nurseries in Devon (www.westcountrylupins. co.uk), where Sarah Conibear is breeding some outstanding cultivars. This year, one of the loveliest yet makes its debut on the nursery’s stand (GPA108): Lupinus Bishop’s Tipple, with 6ft towers in soft lilac-mauve and creamy yellow. Cultivars such as this one look better in colour-coordinated borders than in the informality of the lupin’s traditional haunt, the cottage garden. The latter, in any case, 56 Country Life, May 15, 2019
is evolving fast. It’s no longer simply a rustic jumble of familiar garden swaps and handme-downs, but also a place for experimenting with the rare, novel and remarkable. Of the nurseries driving this transition, the most energetic is Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants in Hampshire (www.hardysplants.co.uk). Its exhibit (GPF205) features three noteworthy introductions. The first has a pleasingly antique air: Dianthus Cherry Burst, a tough little pink with deliciously scented flowers that are rose with maroon eyes and ruby flakes and borne on short stalks all summer. The other two are more avant-garde. A surprisingly hardy, perennial hybrid between our native foxglove and its Canary Islands cousin, Digitalis x valinii Firebird produces 3ft flower spikes that glow in cerise, saffron and apricot. Salvia Amethyst Lips, similarly, is more long-lived than
one might expect, if given sharp drainage and a sunny, sheltered spot. It makes a bush about 3ft wide and across, that will be covered from summer into autumn in white flowers, with rich purple lips. These last three newcomers have been entered in the RHS Chelsea Plant of the Year competition, a contest settled by popular vote and thus notoriously hard to predict. In 2019, all of the entrants look like winners to me, which is more than can
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Chelsea Flower Show 2019 be said of their inanimate counterparts in the RHS Chelsea Garden Product of the Year competition. That said, among the shortlisted items, I’m impressed by the Tressa Planter from Tom Raffield (MA330, www.tomraffield. com), a splendid, if unshowy and naturalseeming, receptacle for indoors or out, all spirals of steam-bent oak.
Andrew Duff; RHS/Richard Carman
For domestic gardeners, a return to clay pots is surely the solution I’m also taken with Grand Plant Belles from Plant Belles (AR539, www.plantbelles. co.uk), metal frames, elegant and bellshaped, for lanky and unruly perennials and shrub roses. I’d like them to go grander still: tall and wide enough to support a climbing rose and/or clematis and give space for sitting inside. However, I suspect that victory in the products competition will go to Haxnicks (EA494, www.haxnicks.co.uk) for its range of pots and seed trays that resemble plastic, but are made from biodegradable bamboo, rice and natural resin. These are excellent, but they’ll have to become cheap enough to be standard in the nursery trade if they’re to make the difference that’s needed. For domestic gardeners, a return to clay pots is surely the solution—they’re healthier than plastics not only for the environment,
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Top: The Savills and David Harber Garden. Above: Biodegradable pots and seed trays from Haxnicks. Below: The RHS Back to Nature Garden, designed by The Duchess of Cambridge with Andree Davies and Adam White
but also for plants. The Swan Indoor Watering Can from Husk (www.made withhusk.com) is, likewise, plastic-free and proudly biodegradable. Sustainability is, of course, no laughing matter; far be it from me to mention the chocolate teapot, inflatable dartboard, waterproof teabag and other great inventions brought to mind by this disintegrating douser. Instead, I will recall the time when all watering cans were like the ones that I, and many others, still use today: made of metal. As with ‘Which plants shall we grow?’, the answers to ‘How shall we grow them?’ are often to be found in the not-so-distant past.
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order phloxes are fragrant, cut beautifully and look super-fresh during the dog days of August, when they produce strong stems topped with domes of insect-friendly flowers that seem to glow as evening light descends. This is the time to acquire them, before they start to dry out and sulk on garden-centre and nursery benches. Planted now, in good soil, they’ll flower after the roses and will keep on flowering until autumn if deadheaded. There are golden oldies that still hold their own, such as the salmon-pink eva Foerster (1934) and the pure-pink rijnstroom, a dutch variety from 1910. There are taller phlox suited to prairie planting, such as Hesperis, Luc’s Lilac and Utopia, and modern breeders have given us the Sweet Summer series, the Flames and the Peacocks. Gardeners are spoilt for choice, but the following three phlox aficionados are on hand to help whittle down the options by picking the ones they love the most.
Bob Brown, of world-famous Cotswold Garden Flowers (see box, facing page), is a discerning plantsman and witty lecturer who helped judge a huge RHS phlox trial at RHS Wisley between 2011 and 2013 l Phlox paniculata Franz Schubert AGM
Large heads of scented, lilac-mauve blooms flower from July until october on this robust, easy phlox that was raised by Alan Bloom in 1980 and named after his favourite composer. 31in in height l P. paniculata White Flame (syn. Bartwentynine) AGM A shorter front-of-theborder variety, from the recently bred mildewresistant Barty series, with scented white flowers on well-branched heads. 18in l P. x arendsii Luc’s Lilac AGM This taller phlox, especially suited to prairie planting, has smaller pyramidal domes of perfectly formed lilac flowers from July until
Growing guide ❍ The two key ingredients for phloxes are moisture and deep soil, so those on poorer soils may struggle with many varieties. However, there are toughies for drier gardens, including pale-pink Monica Lynden-Bell, white Grandiflora Alba and mauve-flowered, tastefully variegated Norah Leigh ❍ Phlox need space—they find it difficult to push through other plants
The phlox list Although they’re wonderful plants for high summer, when their sweet, old-fashioned scent fills the evening air, they must be bedded in now, says Val Bourne, if they’re to give of their best october. It was raised by dutch nurseryman Coen Jansen in about 1993. 51in l Bob’s favourite: P. paniculata Herbstwalzer A later-flowering, German-bred pink phlox, with rounded flowers, each with a deep-pink eye. raised in 1996 by Peter Zur Linden, the name translates as ‘autumn waltz’ because it blooms until october, thanks to its P. amplifolia inheritance. 47in Jaime Blake, the curator of his fatherin-law Alan Bloom’s Dell Garden at Bressingham in Norfolk, is a hands-on gardener, who manages six acres containing a living library of labelled plants, including phloxes. The Dell Garden should be on every garden lover’s itinerary (www. thebressinghamgardens.com) l P. paniculata Prince of Orange AGM
A vivid mixture of deep-orange and pink try to move them to a new site, if possible ❍ Divide them every third year to retain vigour and move them to a fresh site, if you can. However, variegated phloxes should not be moved, as this can prompt reversion back to green leaves ❍ Phlox are shallow-rooted and, if they get water-stressed, mildew strikes. Keep them well watered in dry spells and, when planting, add humus-rich garden compost
❍ They’re hungry—feed them in spring with either pelleted chicken manure or Vitax Q4
❍ Give them a Chelsea chop in late May by cutting the front stems only back to 9in and deadhead to encourage more flowers
❍ Plants start into growth early in the year. You can lift and divide phlox in September or in early spring. Always
❍ Purple-flowered phlox tend to suffer from rain damage. Uspekh, a shorter white-eyed purple, avoids this fate
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enlivens this shorter 1950 German phlox. ‘It makes a brazen pronouncement in the clamour of high-summer at Bressingham,’ according to Jaime, and also provides a perfect foil for blues and purples. The handsome, dark buds and good foliage were much admired by Alan, who particularly loved the colour. 30in l P. paniculata Monica Lynden-Bell AGM A silvery blush-pink, with a lavender flush, this trouble-free phlox was found as a seedling by Monica Lynden-Bell in her own Hampshire garden in about 1970. It was distributed by Bob Brown and will grow in drier spots. 24in–32in l P. paniculata Prospero AGM raised by Karl Foerster in 1956, this strong phlox has lavender-blue flowers mottled in white. At Bressingham, it thrives in a warm spot and this accentuates the scent. 35in or more l Jaime’s favourite: P. paniculata Bill Green A slightly later phlox with strong-pink, pronounced paniculate heads. each flower has an attractive darker eye. Bill Green was a longterm employee of Alan’s, as was eva Cullum, who had a fine pink phlox named after her. eva is easier to find than Bill. 47in
Rosy Hardy, of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, artfully combines perennials on her Chelsea Flower Show exhibits. Over the years, she has won an impressive 23 gold medals, using plants grown on her Hampshire mail-order nursery l P. paniculata Bright Eyes
extremely fragrant, with soft-pink flowers highlighted with dark-pink eyes. It’s readily available and an enduring phlox that was raised by British breeder Symons-Jeune in 1967. 35in l P. paniculata Logan Black Considered to be the same as Starfire on the rHS trial, this dramatic, red-pink phlox (named after Logan Botanic Garden by the late Michael Wickenden of Cally Gardens, Gatehouse of Fleet, dumfries and Galloway) has almost black foliage in spring. 24in l P. x arendsii Hesperis Named after the way it glows in evening light, this seedling was found on Coen Jansen’s dutch nursery. He describes it as ‘an intense, glowing red-lilac colour in warm weather, with many small flowers in many small heads’. It’s a neat plant and there’s a similar, redder-flowered sport named red Hesperis. 55in l Rosy’s favourite: P. paniculata Grey Lady AGM The large, grey flowers have lilac markings around the edges of the blooms. This plant has a bushy upright habit, with narrow green leaves, but is slow to establish. If you see it, snap it up. 35in www.countrylife.co.uk
GAP Photos/Fiona McLeod; GAP Photos/Nova Photo Graphik; GAP Photos/Martin Hughes-Jones; GAP Photos/Jan Smith; GAP Photos/Jason Ingram
Left to right: Sweetly scented Phlox paniculata Prospero; mildew-resistant P. paniculata White Flame; the rare P. paniculata Bill Green
Where to buy phlox
Above: P. paniculata Monica Lynden-Bell. Below left: P. paniculata Herbstwalzer. Below right: Neat P.paniculata Hesperis
www.countrylife.co.uk
l Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, Priory Lane, Freefolk, Whitchurch, Hampshire (01256 896533; www. hardysplants.co.uk), has a range of phloxes and other perennials available for mail order. The nursery is also open and is a frequent presence at gardening shows l Cotswold Garden Flowers, Sands Lane, Badsey Evesham, Worcestershire (01386 833849; www.cgf.net), offers a large range of phloxes and other perennials by mail order. The nursery is also open and Bob Brown attends many shows l Claire Austin (01686 670342; www. claireaustin-hardyplants.co.uk, mail order only) offers a full range of perennials grown at the nursery, including a list of 30 border phloxes
Above: P. paniculata Prince of Orange, which mixes well with blues and purples. Below: Don’t miss P. paniculata Grey Lady
Country Life, May 15, 2019 61
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How does your garden grow? Gardens are living, breathing and ever-evolving. If you’re seeking inspiration, this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show is just the place to find it
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1. Wilstone’s innovative and attractive Wall Greenhouse is made from a one-piece, solid-steel frame and toughened glass. The RHS Product of the Year 2018 runner-up has a clever mirrored back to maximise the available light and give the illusion of space, plus galvanised trays and folding shelves for practical functionality. Small, £1,450; large £1,750 (01694 771800; www.kadai.com). 2. Architectural Heritage is proud to be working with the National
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Trust to produce a faithful copy of the original copper planter situated in the Cottage Garden at Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Kent. Visit Architectural Heritage by the Bull Ring Entrance, stand number SR36 (01386 584414; www.architectural-heritage.co.uk). 3. Hamish Mackie is looking forward to this, his 10th year exhibiting at RHS Chelsea. His stand (RHW292) is being designed and built by Bowles & Wyer and sponsored by Knight Frank. Sculptures
National Trust Image/David Sellman
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being exhibited include his new Fallow Deer, Grouse and Fossils (07971 028098; www.hamishmackie.com). 4. The image ( facing page) shows a wonderful example of an Alitex Thomas Messenger greenhouse. Utilising powder-coated aluminium, designed to replicate wood, but with little or no maintenance, Alitex is able to create a beautiful-looking greenhouse providing a highly effective growing environment for plants. Alitex is a family business, which has been manufacturing glasshouses for more than 67 years. See its striking greenhouses for yourself at Chelsea Flower Show, where Alitex has been exhibiting for 59 years. On the stand this year will be handsome examples of a Traditional lean-to and a National Trust Scotney greenhouse. Visit stand 334, on Main Avenue (01730 826900; www.alitex. co.uk). 5. David Harber has received numerous accolades from RHS Chelsea in the past, including Best Trade Stand in Show. This year’s stand will showcase some of Mr Harber’s most celebrated pieces, alongside a spectacular new design launch, and will be positioned opposite the Savills and David Harber Garden. Visit stand PW273, on Main Avenue (01235 859300; www.davidharber.co.uk). 6. Crown Pavilions designs
and builds some of the world’s finest garden rooms and luxury gazebos, the classic and contemporary collections offering beautiful garden buildings, fully insulated for year-round enjoyment. Go to stand WA54 or, alternatively, visit the showroom at Longacres Garden Centre in Bagshot, Surrey (01491 612820; www.crownpavilions.com). 7. World leader in classic roses Peter Beales Roses will be exhibiting its extensive collection within the Grand Pavilion. With more than 800 roses featured, the exhibit is designed to allow visitors to walk through the breath-taking display, taking in the array of colours and exquisite perfumes, as well as showcasing the 2019 introduction, Liverpool Hope. Stand number GPC168 (01953 454707; www.classicroses.co.uk). 8. RHS-award-winning wire sculptor Rupert Till will be celebrating his 25th year exhibiting new sculptures in copper, bronze and steel wire at the Chelsea Flower Show 2019. Mr Till will be showcasing these 4ft-high boxing hares (above) along with some new work. Stand number RGB8 (07921 771284; www.ruperttill.com). The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from May 21 to 25, 2019. For further details and tickets, visit www.rhs.org.uk/Chelsea
Brimming with brilliant ideas Morton Hall Gardens, Worcestershire The home of Mr and Mrs René Olivieri
This ambitious restoration successfully fuses 18thcentury landscape ideas with a modern aesthetic, finds Jacky Hobbs Photographs by Clive Nichols
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orton HaLL is perched on top of the arden sandstone escarpment in Worcestershire, looking out over the Vale of Evesham and across to the dark shadow of the Welsh mountains, framed by the familiar forms of the Malvern and Clee Hills. It’s a fitting prospect for the lateGeorgian house that was acquired by rené and anne olivieri in 2007. ‘the views from the hilltop were breathtaking,’ recalls Mrs olivieri, ‘and it had an enchanting spring meadow framed by ancient trees.’ the latter was not, however, visible from the house because it had been completely enclosed by towering Edwardian laurel hedges, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere. the formal garden areas were rather small and heavily infested with bindweed. In order to complement the house, which had had an extension added in the early 19th century, any new garden would need to be on a similar scale and would have to deliver real impact. the olivieris also determined that the design should fuse 18thcentury landscape ideas, arts-and-Crafts The primulas, including Primula pulverulenta, P. japanica Postford White and P. japonica Apple Blossom, in the pond are chosen to lend a succession of colour
Country Life, May 15, 2019 65
garden style and postmodern elements. They found the ideal partner in designer and writer Charles Chesshire, ‘a great plantsman and creator of powerful landscapes,’ says Mrs Olivieri. Together, they devised a series of garden rooms that leads from bulb-strewn meadows and woodlands to languid formal lawns and sumptuous borders to a productive and ornamental kitchen garden. A decade on, Mr Chesshire’s work has settled in and Mrs Olivieri and head gardener Harry Green delight in refining the plantings and colour schemes, as well as creating new garden features. There are now more than 1,000 varieties of plants at Morton Hall and, although each area of the garden is subtly concealed from the next with gates, tiered plantings and carefully sited sculpture acting as ‘palate cleansers’, there is a sense of connectivity and harmony created through landscape elements, colour schemes and planting styles. From the clean-cut, paved expanse of the raised East Terrace, it would seem little has changed since the late 18th century. The bowling-green lawn is pinned at its far edges by vast specimen trees. Giant box balls alleviate the geometry of lawn, paving and grave and topiarised box clouds nestle under the eaves of an ancient listed chestnut, softening the hall’s formal façade. From the East Terrace, a tunnel in an inconspicuous laurel bower leads into Mr Chesshire’s New Garden, a grassy glade set with graceful shrub roses. These include Rosa Nevada, R. Alba Maxima and R. villosa Right: A loose planting of Paeonia lactiflora Krinkled White with Iris Annabel Jane is offset by neatly clipped box spheres in the Impressionist South Garden underneath a spreading chestnut tree
pomifera, arching beneath a canopy of Cornus kousa Norman Hadden and White Fountain, together with a collection of Japanese cherries, amelanchiers and silver birches. Beyond a seam of Viburnum tinus, the parkland meadow gleams with buttercups in early summer. Hundreds of thousands of bulbs lie dormant under the soil waiting to produce months of colour. The meadow year begins with snowdrops, followed by narcissi, anemones, primulas and snake’shead fritillaries. Work continues to further embroider this magic carpet with new plantings of crocus, camassia and allium. ‘It’s surprising how few bulbs we upturn or disturb,’ says Mrs Olivieri, whose new plantings reach towards a simple white sandstone monopteros.
Each area is subtly concealed from the next, yet there is a sense of connectivity and harmony There’s a thought-through sensitivity in the way such contemporary elements have been introduced. In the woodland gardens, the Japanese Stroll Garden and Rockery look as if they’ve been here for many years. These were, in fact, created by Mr Chesshire, who has cleverly softened their theatricality. His Japanese garden contains some traditional elements, but sidesteps the typical vocabulary of clipped trees and raked paths that would look out of place in this setting. From the Japanese tea house, a path wanders through lush ferns and alongside two pools that are connected by a small waterfall.
Left: The Rockery steps, with Campanula latiloba Hidcote Amethyst and Highcliffe Variety. Right: The bearded Iris Dusky Challenger 66 Country Life, May 15, 2019
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Left to right: The feathery, Whistler-esque colours of bearded Iris Monet’s Blue, Rosa Old Blush China and Clematis Royalty www.countrylife.co.uk
Country Life, May 15, 2019 67
The banks are busy with candelabra primulas —an exception to the otherwise restrained colour scheme—and Japanese ensata irises, which are mirrored in the water. The candelabras beside the upper pond flower in succession, beginning with the magenta Primula pulverulenta, followed by snowy P. japonica Postford White and the pink P. japonica Apple Blossom. These, says Mr Green, are in striking contrast to the golden P. bulleyana in the lower pool. None of these primulas hybridise, a deliberate choice to retain purity of colour. Inspired by the dramatic mass planting at Hidcote, swathes of planting rather than individual groups are found throughout the gardens. Any colourful interlopers are systematically removed. Mr Green pulls up errant purple foxgloves, leaving the white digitalis to harmonise with the silver birches and tree peonies. This tranquil scene hides a strict regimen that includes pond maintenance, rigorous weeding, careful pruning of the interiors and canopies of Japanese acers and the continuous thinning of rampant bamboos to create translucent veils—all of which are essential to maintaining the graceful, weeping architecture of the garden. Some of the remaining laurels have been sculpted into a lofty dome that opens out 68 Country Life, May 15, 2019
unexpectedly into the lower basin of the woodland Rockery Garden. Here, more than 100 tons of Welsh rock have been placed so they look as if the resulting riverbed of rock, stone and gravel had been laid down millennia ago.
In the Kitchen Garden, colours echo the path of the sun. Rose pinks and soft blues rise in the east Like a river, waves of intense-blue Campanula latiloba Hidcote Amethyst and Highcliffe Variety sweep over the stones crested by pure white digitalis. The impression of this ancient riverbed is heightened with plantings of large ferns in the banks. ‘Gardening the “river” is challenging,’ agrees Mrs Olivieri. ‘It’s a simultaneous battle with both damp and desiccation.’ Emerging from the shade of the Rockery and through a wisteria-clad oak arbour brings the visitor to three formal gardens close to the house. The South Garden is Impressionist, with sumptuous herbaceous and rose borders and a colour scheme in soft
The richly planted herbaceous border in the Expressionist walled Kitchen Garden
pastels. A gate in an old brick wall opens onto the Expressionist Kitchen Garden, with its hot colour scheme and bold combinations of edibles and ornamentals. The West Garden is deliberately restrained, with mounded Mediterranean planting softening the back of the house. In the wide borders of the South Garden, Iris germanica, old-fashioned and English roses and herbaceous peonies are effortlessly woven together. There’s Rosa Old Blush China and R. Falstaff, Iris Annabel Jane and Swingtown, as well as Paeonia The Nymph and P. Krinkled White mixed with clematis, alliums, veronicas and nepetas. Look closely and it becomes apparent that this billowing is created not by Nature, but by a painstaking combination of pruning and training on homemade hazel structures. The hydromechanics of the South Garden fountain are similarly fine-tuned, so the water falls like a beaded veil into the basin below. In the Kitchen Garden, colours echo the path of the sun. Rose pinks and soft blues rise in the east. The Midday Borders burn with fiery reds, oranges and yellows and, at the western end, colours fade to dusky hues. At the heart of the sun, the central www.countrylife.co.uk
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An inspired planting of Primula bulleyana with Digitalis purpurea Alba and silver birches below the Japanese tea house
parterre is divided into four beds of edible and companion plants connected by wroughtiron arbours that are smothered with roses and orientalis-type clematis. Like scenes in a play, each room has its part to play in creating the whole. The West Garden lies at the back of the house, with its farmhouse-like appearance, in stark contrast to the formal elegance of the main façade. Organically shaped borders, crazy paving and soft aromatic plantings create a Mediterranean-courtyard atmosphere punctuated by tall spikes of German irises including Monet’s Blue and Dusky Challenger, from which one can only stand and stare, drawn back to that magnificent view of the Welsh mountains. The Morton Hall gardens are open to groups for guided tours followed by lunch or afternoon tea, from April to September, by appointment, as well as to the public for the NGS Open Day on August 31. Proceeds from the non-NGS visits are raising funds for the redevelopment of the RSC’s costume department. To book a group visit, telephone 01386 791820 or email morton.garden@mhcom.co.uk. Visit www.mortonhallgardens.co.uk 70 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Hidden beneath the buttercups in the meadow are hundreds of thousands of bulbs, providing months of colour from snowdrops through to narcissi, anemones and fritillaries www.countrylife.co.uk
MAY SPRINGTIME OFFERS
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Gardens
Ortollo, Italian marble, £36,000, William Peers (01288 321988; www.williampeers.com)
Spirit, slate, £11,900, James Parker Sculpture (07729 705257; www.jamesparkersculpture.co.uk)
Torso I, bronze, by Brian Alabaster, £8,950, Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden (01306 627269; www.hannahpescharsculpture.com)
The shape of things to come
Nut, English oak, £40,000, Alison Crowther (www.alisoncrowther.com)
Young Monarch, £9,000, driftwood on a stainless-steel armature, James Doran Webb (www.jamesdoranwebb.com)
Enliven your environs with stylish sculptures, says Amelia Thorpe
Jacqui Hurst; Clive Nichols
Boxing Hares, bronze wire, £22,000, Rupert Till (07921 771284; www.ruperttill.com)
Ammonite Jurassic Cracked, bronze, £25,000, Hamish Mackie (01608 737859; www.hamishmackie.com)
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Finback seat, bronze resin, by Ben Barrell, £9,360, The Sculpture Park (01428 605453; www.thesculpturepark.com)
Smithsonian pyramid, Welsh slate, £12,000, Howard Bowcott (01766 771450; www.howardbowcott.co.uk)
Torus, mirror-polished stainless steel, £32,292, David Harber (01235 859300; www.davidharber.co.uk)
www.countrylife.co.uk
A rash purchase Avington Park, Hampshire The home of Sarah and Charlie Bullen
Superbly set in the valley of the River Itchen, this spreading house narrowly escaped demolition in the 1950s. It has a complex and remarkable history, as John Goodall finds Photographs by Will Pryce
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vington Park in Hampshire has a rare ability to beguile strangers. When the writer William Cobbett passed through in november 11, 1825, for example, he marvelled at the house, trees, birds and wildlife perfectly reflected in the neighbouring lake. it was ‘certainly one of the very prettiest places in the county,’ he thought. Something of the same reaction characterised another more recent, and more 74 Country Life, May 15, 2019
important, chance encounter with the house. in 1953, audrey Hickson, the wife of Lt-Col John Hickson MC, a serving officer in the northamptonshire regiment, laid down a deposit on a cottage just outside Winchester. riding out from the city one day to show one of her daughters the new prospective family home, she stumbled across avington—a spreading country house in the valley of the river itchen—and fell in love with it at first sight.
at the time, avington was passing through a difficult period. the building had been requisitioned by the Pay Corps during the Second World War, which had treated the fabric relatively well and even renewed the roof (although the lead was replaced with copper). in 1951, however, after the death of an owner, the contents of the house had been sold off, the estate broken up and the building itself purchased by a developer, who began to strip the interior of fittings. www.countrylife.co.uk
Fig 1: The brick wings to either side of the central portico of Avington Park were doubled in width to enlarge the 1720s house Even in this sad state, however, and with the shutters closed up, Mrs Hickson bought the property. The liabilities involved meant it cost even less than the cottage and it came with its drive and lawns. She then wrote to her husband in Burma. The gist of her letter was simple but direct: ‘I have just bought a house. It doesn’t have five bedrooms, but 50. I think you should probably come home.’ www.countrylife.co.uk
Avington is first documented in 961, when it was given to the monastery of St Peter and Paul at Winchester. It remained an ecclesiastical estate until the Reformation, when it was granted in 1545 to Edmund Clerke of Micheldever, a Clerk of the Privy Seal, and his wife, Margaret, for a substantial payment of £406. The earliest parts of the house are conventionally attributed
to Edmund, who died in 1586, but it might equally be of medieval origin. Indeed, nothing is very clear about its architectural development until about 1700 and, even then, it is open to contrary interpretation. In 1664, the property was purchased by George Rodney Brydges, the son of a noted Somerset Cavalier. George cut a figure in the Restoration Court and, in 1677, married Country Life, May 15, 2019 75
one of its notorious characters, Lady Anna Maria Brudenell. She was famously widowed in 1668, when her lover, the Duke of Buckingham, killed her first husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury, in a duel. It is not clear what brought about her marriage to George, but, afterwards, Lady Anna Maria purchased him a position close to Charles II as a Groom of the Bedchamber for £4,500. Soon afterwards, in 1682, the King was invited down to Winchester for his favourite pastime of racing. The visit was an enormous success and, possibly inspired by Louis XIV’s example at Versailles, he determined to re-plan the city with a palace on the former site of Winchester castle (Country Life, March 3, 2005). Work under the direction of Christopher Wren was pressed forward with remarkable speed, but the King died in 1685, just as the main block was completed. Thereafter, the project languished. For the two years or so that Winchester anticipated the residence of the Court, property in and around the city was in the highest demand. Moreover, several 19th-century authorities assert that, during the building works, George entertained the King at Avington. If that is true, it is possible that he began work to a new house at this time. Certainly, 76 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Fig 2 above: The entrance hall. The pair of columns and the ceiling decoration perhaps date to the 1880s. Fig 3 below: The superb, but unattributed saloon-ceiling decoration
www.countrylife.co.uk
Fig 4: The saloon, with its magnificent pier glasses and plaster decoration, is presumably the creation of the last Duke of Chandos one element of the building long associated with this putative rebuilding is the splendid entrance portico of the house (Fig 1). Confusingly, however, the portico is today integral with the early-18th-century fabric (the bowed arches of the windows of the main façade, for example, clearly do not belong to the 1680s), so it must either have been recycled within the present structure or actually be of slightly later date. In either case, the most likely patron of the core of the present house was George’s son, yet another George. He succeeded his father—who died of gangrene from an ingrown toenail—in 1714 and served as MP for Winchester for the following 37 years. In that time, he was a dutiful supporter of the administration and had the means and incentive to build. George was also the godfather and guardian of the future Admiral Rodney, who spent some of his childhood here. www.countrylife.co.uk
Probably soon after 1714, therefore, the heart of the present house came into being: a central portico (recycled or new) creating an imposing entrance to a hall range that was bookended by cross wings. Straggling out to the rear of this compact formal composition were service buildings smartly detailed in brick. On May 13, 1751, George was ‘found drowned in the canal of his gardens at Avington… supposed by accident, being 72 and paralytic’. Among other bequests, he left £800 towards the St John’s Hospital in Winchester, where his portrait, now in Winchester Guildhall, formerly hung. The bulk of his estate passed by entail to a distant cousin, the 2nd Duke of Chandos. George’s wife may, however, have remained in occupation of the house until her death in 1763 and, thereafter, the property seems to have been associated with the Duke’s son, Lord Carnarvon, and his wife, Margaret.
She died in 1768 after planning a new church beside the house (Fig 7). Her monument, which faces that of George Brydges and his wife across the chancel, notes that the church was ‘built from the Ground, by her Order, at her Expense, tho’ it pleased God to remover her to a better World, a few Months before it was begun’. The widowed 3rd Duke remarried and, in 1771, acceded to his father’s title. According to Sir Egerton Brydges in Topographical Miscellanies (1792), the Duke ‘made Avington his principal seat… continuing through his life to improve the house and particularly the grounds’. The latter work, including the creation of the lake beside the house, was overseen by James Darley and John Cox, for which they received £4,000 in 1787. It is possible that the superb iron bridge close to the house was erected as part of these improvements; if so, it is a remarkably early structure of its kind (Fig 6). Country Life, May 15, 2019 77
To increase the size of the formal apartments of the house, the Duke doubled the depth of the wings and probably added the sculpture over the portico (reputedly from Canons, the fabled home of the 1st Duke of Chandos, demolished in 1747). According to Brydges, he also extended the house to the rear with a library. This work was interrupted, however, when he died in 1789. In its unfinished state, Avington then passed through his 16-year-old daughter to Earl Temple, heir of Stowe, by marriage in 1796. This match promised to unite Avington (and the great maternal plantation fortune) with the Stowe inheritance.
I have just bought a house. It doesn’t have five bedrooms, but 50. I think you should probably come home
Fig 5 above: One end of the spacious conservatory. Fig 6 below: The iron bridge over the Itchen. It is a remarkably early structure of its kind, but impossible to date closely
78 Country Life, May 15, 2019
The state of Avington is described soon after the match in E. W. Brayley and J. Britton’s The Beauties of England and Wales (1805): ‘The present mansion is mostly of brick; and though not yet completed, has been greatly improved since it came into the possession of Earl Temple; it having been previously dismantled, by the late Duke, for the purpose of adding two wings… Several of the apartments are fitted up with great elegance, and are enriched by a choice collection of paintings, entirely of his Lordship’s forming… [many] from the Orleans and Besborough collections.’ Today, the sophistication of the completed decoration is suggested by two superb interiors: the saloon (Fig 4) and the Pompeiian library. Nothing is securely known about who painted these schemes (Fig 3) or which Duke commissioned them. The Italianate saloon paintings are on canvas and perhaps by Vincenzo Valdrè. In 1813, Earl Temple succeeded his father to the Stowe estate and, in 1822, secured the title of Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. He was now well established as an unpopular figure, grossly fat, grasping and selfinterested. He was also a spendthrift. Stowe was shut up in 1827 as an economy and the Duchess moved to Avington, which she loved. The Duke went abroad in a yacht designed on a sufficiently grand scale to accommodate both his physical bulk and his extravagant needs. The intention of these travels was to reduce his expenditure, but he was yet further in debt when he returned in 1830. His arrival coincided with the agricultural unrest of the Swing Riots and, according www.countrylife.co.uk
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Fig 7: The parish church is one of the most complete 18th-century interiors of its kind
to Lord Ellenborough’s diary, the Duke ‘went down to Avington, sent for his yacht’s guns, six of them, and all his yacht’s men & other sailors; put his house in a state of defence with 40 well-armed people, & got together 150 more—farmers, labourers, gamekeepers, &c. Thinking his house might be injured by a siege he advanced and met the rioters, read the Riot Act & charged at once’. In this distinctly unglorious fight, he seized 31 rioters. The couple subsequently returned to Stowe, where the Duchess died in 1836 (her body was returned to Avington for burial) and the Duke, by now gout-ridden and virtually immobile, died in 1839. Their son, who inherited his father’s financial irresponsibility, was declared bankrupt in 1847 and Avington was sold with its contents to Sir John Shelley, the brother of the poet. It is likely Sir John added the final touches to the house as it is known today, including the conservatory (Fig 5) and the decoration of the Red Drawing Room (Fig 8), with its painted figures of French and English historical figures. He might also have executed the paintings in the entrance hall (Fig 2), a decorative scheme of uncertain date, but certainly augmented in the late 19th century. The house, which descended in the Shelley family until 1951, was well known for its fine collections and appeared in Country Life in 1922. Four years later, the magazine also illustrated the hydro-electric plant installed at Avington. This state-of-the-art technology provided three villages with light, as well as power for cooking, heating and ice storage in the house itself. 80 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Fig 8: The Red Drawing Room. One specific inspiration for its painted decoration may have been the Bal Costumé of 1842; Queen Victoria’s costume as Queen Philippa of Hainault for the occasion closely resembles that of the figure of the Empress Matilda Despite this investment, the estate began to be sold off piecemeal in the 1920s and, after the death of Sir John Shelley-Rolls in 1951, was entirely broken up, with the house and a small parcel of land passing to Lt-Col and Mrs Hickson. They initiated a complete turnaround in the fortunes of Avington. Their aim was to make the property pay for itself and the first wedding took place here in the 1960s. In addition, a series of apartments was created within the building to generate income. One of these, which directly connects with the principal interiors, is now occupied by the Hicksons’ daughter, Sarah Bullen, who has now assumed responsibility for the property. This arrangement allows
the house to be used on a grand scale when necessary and also to operate concurrently as a venue and a private residence. No less important have been the interrelated responsibilities of repair, maintenance and preserving the integrity of the setting. Some of the most recent landmarks in this work have been the purchase of the lake in 2006 and the restoration of the urns along the parapets with the help of a generous grant from the Country Houses Foundation (now the Historic Houses Foundation) in 2015. Almost absurdly rash as Mrs Hickson’s purchase was in 1953, it is surely now impossible to regret. For further information, telephone 01962 779260 or visit www.avingtonpark.co.uk www.countrylife.co.uk
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Like a bat out of hell
Getty; MYN/Paul van Hoof; Top-Pics TBK/Alamy Stock Photo; Naturepl.com
The flitting silhouette of a bat against a dusky sky is one of summer’s great joys, yet these comical-looking creatures are inherently mysterious to us. Marianne Taylor extols their virtues unset, but before nightfall, the first bat appears against the fast-darkening summer sky. You think it’s a small bird at first, but your second glance catches its thrumming flutter and on-a-sixpence turns that no bird could manage. Following its zig-zag path is a challenge as it dips into the shadows, but soon it reappears, skimming along walls and treetops, back and forth, a tiny dancing silhouette that comes and goes, finally lost against the sky as the last traces of light fade away. Bat-watching on a warm and balmy evening is one of summer’s great joys for many of us, but bats themselves are inherently mysterious, even alien. Their sensory experience could hardly be more different from our own. Not only can they fly, but they can ‘see’ in darkness, their world given shape by sound that we cannot hear. Viewed close up, as might be possible if you discover one clinging to a ceiling or wall in your home, a bat looks almost comically bizarre. Resembling a footless and neckless little ball of fur—the pipistrelles, our smallest bats, weigh barely 10g and comfortably fit in an adult’s palm. The wings are membranes strung between hugely elongated, spindly fingertips. The compressed, whorled snout and complex, delicate ear folds are all part of the bat’s
high-tech sensory equipment, allowing it to hunt with extraordinary skill in darkness. Using sonar—detecting the reflected echoes of a stream of sounds—allows the flying bat to navigate a three-dimensional sound map of static objects to dodge and tiny, moving objects to target and capture. The furrows on its face help it to direct the sounds it makes. A bat that flies into a room darts about at alarming speed, but sonar and aerial agility keep it (and you) safe from collision —and it will soon find its way out again.
We would have no tequila without bats to pollinate Mexican agave plants No other mammals on Earth have evolved the power of flight and this has allowed bats to colonise places out of reach of their landbound cousins (until humans and boats came along, that is). New Zealand’s only native land mammals are bats and the same goes for many other remote islands. Worldwide, there are more than 1,300 species (only rodents are more diverse) and they occur widely on all continents except Antarctica. Their ways of life are no less varied. Some are long-distance migrants, others commute many miles each day. Most of them—including all the British species —catch night-flying insects. Elsewhere in the world, there are bats that attack larger prey—some scoop up fish, some bring down birds—and others are vegetarian, plucking fruits from trees or hovering like hummingbirds to drink nectar from flowers with their extraordinarily long, brushtipped tongues. Then, there are the notorious ‘vampire’ bats, which bite sleeping animals and drink their flowing blood. The importance of bats in ecology and economics alike is difficult to overstate. In the Tropics,
Left: Alone among mammals, bats have conquered the air. Below left: Brown long-eared bats are frequently found in buildings. Facing page: The greater mouse-eared bat is all but lost to our shores, with only one lone male left
Bats in the belfry In Britain, many bat species are rare and all are seriously declining. The problems they face include a crash in numbers of flying insects and losses of traditional roost sites. As a result, they’re strictly protected—you can’t harm them, remove them from a roost or block off their access. If you make a planning application, the local authority may request a preliminary bat survey and a further, more extensive study if evidence of their presense is found. Bats roosting in the open roof spaces of churches can cause significant problems. The congregation may be bombarded with droppings and the urine can stain and corrode marble and fabrics. Cleaning up under a bat roost is a chore for volunteers—the droppings are dry and relatively inoffensive, but copious and dusty. Although the need to protect bats and preserve their access to roosts is paramount, the problem for such churches isn’t going unaddressed. The Bats and Churches Partnership is an organisation formed by Natural England, the Church of England, Historic England, the Bat Conservation Trust and the Churches Conservation Trust. In 2018, it secured National Lottery funding of £3.8 million for a five-year project to research the impact of bat roosts on churches and to devise ways of mitigating problems without contravening bat-protection laws.
www.countrylife.co.uk
g and nectar-feeding bats are vital ersers and pollinators for hundreds of wild and cultivated plants—for we would have no tequila without llinate Mexican agave plants. Each ing bat can consume up to 1,000 -sized insects an hour and their on to the USA’s economy as cropollers has been calculated at about (£755 million) a year.
Female bats, particular, form ing social bonds h one another most small land mammals, bats gent and long-lived. Females, in r, form lasting social bonds with er. They become pregnant in spring, mated the previous autumn and e sperm through their long winter on, and gather in single-sex maters to give birth in summer. bout October and humid— d sometimes
er horsebat (left, olophus umeum) with nose-leaf’. s and
Bats o In the Br have 18 of bat, fr belong t (the hors Vesperti of page, • Daube Myotis Feeds m throughout the British Isles, especially southern areas
Getty; Dietmar Nill/Nature PL; Alex Hyde/NaturePL
• Alcathoe bat (Myotis alcathoe) Little-known—found at sites in northern and southern England from 2010 • Bechstein’s bat (Myotis bechsteinii) Large-eared, pale-faced. Very rare. A few sites in southern England and southern Wales • Brandt’s bat (Myotis brandtii) Very like the whiskered bat. Rare. Occurs sparsely throughout England and Wales • Greater mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis) Large. Extinct in Britain, except for a lone male at a roost in southern England (since 2002) • Natterer’s bat (Myotis nattereri) Broad-winged, pale-faced. Quite common throughout the British Isles, except in northern Scotland 84 Country Life, May 15, 2019
’s pipistre
(Pipistrellus
Larger than other pipistrelles. Very scarce, but quite widespread • Soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus) Very small. Common throughout the British Isles • Leisler’s bat (Nyctalus leisleri) Similar to noctule. Rare, but may be found throughout the British Isles • Common pipistrelle (below, Pipistrellus pipistrellus) Very small. Common throughout the
underground, as regular easy access to the outside world isn’t required. Maternity roosts are more exposed and varied; the bats using them may switch roosts from night to night. Females carry their newborns with them on hunting forays, the hairless pup clutching its mother’s belly fur as she flies. Once they’re larger and fully furred, their mothers leave them alone in the roost and the youngsters are flying and hunting on their own by six weeks old. Males sleep by themselves elsewhere, but come to the females’ roosts to mate in late summer. When bats capture your imagination, as they surely will, you may want to invest in a bat detector. These gadgets capture their ultrasonic voices and help you work out which species are present. Some bats will roost in boxes, which you can buy or build—for the latter, you can find instructions on the Bat Conservation Trust’s website (www.bats.org.uk). Fix several boxes about 16ft up a tree trunk, facing in different directions to allow for daily temperature variation. To keep your garden bat-friendly, cut out pesticides and cultivate native trees and shrubs to attract insects. Marianne Taylor is the author of ‘Bats: An Illustrated Guide to All Species’ (£28, Ivy Press) • Lesser hors (right, Rhinolo hipposideros) Small, with fles leaf’. Quite rare south-west En and western Ire • Common no (Nyctalus noc Largest British long-winged w powerful flight. Common in En and Wales • Barbastelle stella barbast Very dark, larg with squashed rare. Found sp southern and c • Whiskered b Dark, shaggy-furred. Common. Found throughout England, Wales, Ireland and southern Scotland • Brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auratus) Extremely large ears. Common throughout he British Isles. Often roosts in buildings • Grey long-eared bat (Plecotus austriacus) Almost identical to brown long-eared bat. Very rare. A few sites in coastal southern England
www.countrylife.co.uk
n t io ip cr er bs f f Su O
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Let there be light Jay Griffiths bathes in the warm glow of the earlymorning sun and delights in the cool calm of twilight– all the while reflecting on how light dances with and enhances our landscape
Preceding pages: John Finney/Getty
I
f you sleep out in the hills, everything seems huddled close to you in the night, heavy with nearness. At dawn, however, light gives largeness, space and breath. Silvers and chalks lift to greys, then ivories. Early light gives more than light—it gives colours and tints. It gives definition, marking contours and valleys. At dawn, as Alice Oswald writes, the thistle becomes ‘certain of its spikes’. In the dawning of the year, the sun has more authority and landscapes grow luminescent, the green of the horse chestnut lifting its leaves like the very skirts of spring. Bluebells are luminous and beech leaves viridescent for every speck of light as chlorophyll takes light and makes the music of life, sung in the green and growing season. Preceding pages: God’s torchlight over the Lake District. Above: Oilseed rape glows in defiance of the glowering light
88 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Light changes everything. All the world plays call and response with the sun, heliotropes the emblem of this turning love. Morning glories and daisies open and close with the light that opens an entire landscape and closes it, revealing and hiding. All light’s effects are dependent on time. Many people know that urge to photograph a landscape or a tree over the varied light of different seasons, reflecting its altering moods, the white light of spring equinox or the gold of autumn, as Richard Powers, in The Overstory, narrates this motif over generations. Light dances with landscape: shafts of sunlight cartwheeling through branches, the play of light dappling a woodland clearing. Light has its special-effects department: the shimmering Aurora Borealis, the illumination of a rainbow, the flash of lightning, the sudden refulgence of a sun dog or the haunting light of a brocken spectre. Just
naming them lights up the landscape of the mind—light is how we think. An unclouded radiant noon can be exhilarating, yet, at full glare, it can also be the deadening glare of Albert Camus’s L’Étranger. Noon light represents logiclight in absolute clarity, an exactness of light and thought. Light sits flat on things at midday, leaving nothing to the imagination, no penumbra, no uncertainty. Is noon the least-prayed hour? The lustre of summer light delights us and, in the summertime, the living is easy: act gladly in the summer’s warm and generous light as the days lengthen, stretching and languorous, filling us with a sense of plenty, right up to the brim of solstice as the sun stands in its fullness beaming ‘the top of the day to you’ and the top of the year, a Samson in his full strength. Samson means ‘man of the sun’ and in Handel’s oratorio of the same name, www.countrylife.co.uk
Above: Nick Brundle/Getty
he compares his blindness to an eclipse: ‘Total eclipse! No sun, no moon!/All dark amidst the blaze of noon!’ In the Pyrenees in 1999, I experienced the solar eclipse, feeling the visceral terror of this unnatural dark. The birds were silenced; no crickets chirped. The cold, in seconds, chilled my spirit. I felt the fearful vulnerability of being a prey creature in the dark, powerless. Once a matter of physical survival, light and power are tightly linked as a matter of mind. Humanity, exerting its power over Nature, can disregard an eclipse at the flick of a switch, can spread an urban skyglow across the land, out-shining natural moon with the glare of artificial brightness, colonising the night. Darkness, like quietness, is fragile and easily disturbed and light pollution is hard to mitigate. There’s more. Post ‘Enlightenment’ modernity privileges certain kinds of light. Minds www.countrylife.co.uk
that are intelligent are bright and those less so are dim. We praise the brilliance, clarity and lucidity of ideas and disdain foggy or hazy thinking or a lacklustre (literally, lightlacking) spirit. The words murky, dingy or gloomy carry a stigma of lightlessness.
Light changes everything. The world plays call and response with the sun There’s a kind of light pollution applied to the mind. Noon-thinking is simple binary: ‘shade versus sun’ is a black-or-white argument. However, it was not ever thus. ‘The owl of Minerva begins to fly only at dusk,’ wrote Hegel: wisdom comes at the end of the day with the enigmatic and suggestive time of evening.
Twilight-thinking has other values. There’s mystery in the penumbra, prayer in the hour of Vespers, love in the trysts of twilight. In The Last of the Light, Peter Davidson notes how the ‘blue hour’ is ‘beloved of nineteenth-century French writers and painters’. Twilight’s names—the dimpsy, the gloaming, the cockshut hour—are as atmospheric as ‘noon’ is not and twilight invites the penumbra-mind, seeking the dusky nuance of shades of grey. It is ‘tranquillity shot through with sorrow,’ according to Victor Hugo. Different modalities of light evoke different modalities of mind and twilight wonders and questions things, unsure and estranged from the solar certainty of noon. Virgil is said to have ‘discovered evening’ as Keats rediscovered autumn, creating the atmosphere of the turning points of the day and year. Autumn feeds us with its honeyCountry Life, May 15, 2019 89
Top: Sunlight clings to the mist over the Tipperary mountains in Ireland. Below: Fishermen at Sea (1796) by J. M. W. Turner
land, water and air with ethereal translucence. His work is painting, but its effect is music, creating troubling chords from the music of the mind. He paints the poignant stillness where pain and hope meet, like an inheld breath until light and water and air are one with the viewer, breathtaken in an evaporation of the self.
Tomasz Skoczen/Getty; Asar Studios/Alamy
It’s a kind of heaven to walk high in the hills, beneath you only clouds
light, the nut-brown months, the auburn light of harvest time, full and heavy with plenty. ‘The tawniness is indistinct,’ wrote Richard Jefferies, ‘it haunts the sunshine, and is not to be fixed.’ In this season of mists, light has a love affair with water, not only in lakes and rivers and seas, but the tiniest dewdrop on grass or gossamer or steam rising from cold, wet rock. Mist makes a theatre of the landscape, picking out a mountaintop for a few seconds,
90 Country Life, May 15, 2019
then letting fall the curtain. A crow in the mist, heard once, but unseen, suddenly hops into view, then is invisible again. If mist asks questions, clouds state. They impose. It’s a kind of heaven to walk high in the hills, beneath you only clouds, but, more often, we stand with Walt Whitman, underneath the ‘ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading’. The contemporary painter Richard Whadcock paints the effects of light on
Caspar David Friedrich portrays this pellucid veiled world in, for example, The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, seeking the imperceptible. Turner’s light is resonant and in his chiaroscuro Fishermen at Sea, the full moon turns night to day for a brilliant second, before the black clouds turn the skies dark again. On Plynlimon once, I stood alone at midnight and there was nothing for miles except me and the full moon, which had risen at ‘throo leet’, at sunset, and would set when the sun rose in the beautiful symmetry of the skies. This is the light Debussy knew in Clair de Lune, the light that lets the poetry through. Lorca writes: ‘When the moon sails out/ with a hundred faces all the same,/the coins www.countrylife.co.uk
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Matt Anderson/Getty; Bridgeman
made of silver/break out in sobs in the pocket.’ His is a weeping moon symbolising death or grief, but for him—as for many poets—the lunar sensibility is a peripheral vision that seeks interior light, intuitive, metaphoric and lyric. ‘A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world,’ according to Wilde. Sunlight in winter is an exact treasure, the diadem light, and, in the brief brilliance of sun, frost jewels the land. At winter solstice, daylight is at its narrowest, the tightened and anxious shortest of days. Although winter lightlessness affects moods negatively in seasonal affective disorder, there is also a polar opposite in the richness of a different kind of thinking. This is the storytellers’ season, telling the winter’s tale by firelight in the dark months, the time of the year’s dreams: a necessary dark. ‘A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness,’ wrote Jean Genet. In winter, sleep, perchance to dream. In the deep turning time, dreams create light that emanates from within, the invisible but ungainsayable light that breaks into the dawn of significance. Inlit with insight, Roethke writes: ‘In a dark time, the eye begins to see.’ So the mind’s light is crescent, first learning from a lucent world, then shadowing it faithfully. Top: The Quiraing on the Isle of Skye, bathed in shards of golden light. Right: The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818) by Caspar David Friedrich
92 Country Life, May 15, 2019
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unCh in a Paris restaurant led interior designer Guy Goodfellow to an unexpected find in a shop window across the road. ‘I spotted a beautiful brass-and-copper Moroccan fireplace and mirror, designed in 1960 by the American designer Tony Duquette for a Parisian apartment,’ he recalls. he called home to check the measurements: ‘They fitted so perfectly that I had to buy them.’ The two were soon installed as the central feature of a cosy sitting area, a side ‘wing’ of the large drawing room of the early-Victorian house in Chelsea that he shares with his partner, gardener and florist James Anderson. ‘The main room is light and airy, but this corner has a change of tempo,’ he says. ‘It’s designed as a dramatically dark and comfortable area for watching TV or for after-dinner conversations into the small hours.’ The walls—and cabinet with pop-up TV screen—were painted in Olive Colour by Little Greene (0845 880 5855; www. littlegreene.com), chosen to work with the metal fireplace. ‘We fell in love with the distinctive matte finish of the paint and the staggering depth of colour.’ The sofa is upholstered in green velvet, to reduce its visual impact on the space. Brass nailing and gold piping add a touch of glamour, echoing that of the decorative fireplace, and the bolster-cushion arms pick up on the Ottoman-meets-Moroccan inspiration behind the design of the room. Guy’s love of textiles is evident in the mid-20th-century uzbek ikat fabric used for the blind and the handwoven cushions on the sofa. The stools are upholstered in Fez, from the Guy Goodfellow Collection, woven to a design inspired by traditional Moroccan embroidery. Paris wall lamps from Robert Kime (020– 7831 6066; www.robertkime.com) cast a warm glow and uplighters in the hearth are reflected by the metal fireplace. ‘The mood is intoxicating at night.’ Amelia Thorpe Guy Goodfellow (020–7349 0728; www. guygoodfellow.com)
94 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Interiors
Green-marble centre table, £30,000, Rose Uniacke (020–7730 7050; www.roseuniacke.com)
Large Fig cushion in Cypress, £98, Fanny Shorter (07890 920136; www.fannyshorter.com)
The Argo upholstered dining chair, £9,000, Soane Britain (020–7730 6400; www.soane.co.uk)
Going green Athena side table, £179, Swoon (020– 3319 6332; www.swooneditions.com)
Furniture and accessories in verdant hues, selected by Amelia Thorpe
Palmeral Daley lampshade, £140, House of Hackney (020–7739 3273; www.houseofhackney.com)
Garth Hacker; Andrew Smart
Pacos throw in Moss, £275, OKA (03330 042042; www.oka.com)
Royere armchair in distressed walnut, £1,542, Julian Chichester (020–7622 2928; www.julianchichester.com)
96 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Gourd Vase table lamp in Crackled Apple Green glaze, £468, with 19in Carlisle laminated cream-silk shade, £178, Vaughan (020– 7349 4600; www.vaughandesigns.com)
Paw-foot table lamp in brass with handmade silk shade, £1,356, Charles Edwards (020–7736 8490; www.charlesedwards.com)
Manette bedstead in green velvet, from £1,995 for a double, Soho Home (020–3819 8199; www.sohohome.com)
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Regency house. Family home.
The period English house is one of life’s loveliest prizes. But updating one for modern family life without compromising its architectural integrity can be tricky.
Our fitted joinery and kitchens make beautiful homes of lovely houses for you, your family and for generations to come.
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CCORDING to bartending folklore, it’s 100 years since Count Camillo Negroni walked into Caffè Casoni, Florence, and asked for a stronger version of his usual tipple, an Americano. The barman obliged by adding gin (rather than the normal soda water) to vermouth and Campari—and a classic cocktail was born. The true provenance of the Negroni may be lost in a haze of botanicals (as the late chef and author Anthony Bourdain observed of his ‘perfect drink’, it will ‘hit you like a freight train after four or five’), but, since its creation in 1919, it’s become the second-most requested cocktail in the English-speaking world. Nick Williamson of Campari UK confirms a ‘real resurgence’ is under way, with UK sales of Campari up by 37% last year, compared with 2017. This summer, the company will mark the centenary of Count Camillo’s concoction with a launch party for Negroni Week (June 24–30), at which 100 variations of the cocktail will be served.
The count’s cocktail Sharp and complex, the bittersweet Italian digestif Amaro is enjoying a new-found popularity on British shores, says Flora Watkins
That first sip is not particularly pleasant. But man, it grows on you It has taken a long time for British tastebuds to catch up with the count’s. The bitter kick of a Negroni’s key ingredient, Amaro (usually in the form of Campari), has long been enjoyed as a digestif in Italy. Here, however, it hasn’t been to everyone’s taste—blame our unsophisticated palates and those 1970s ‘Luton Airport’ adverts with Lorraine Chase and her Campari and lemonade. ‘In Italy, wherever you go, there will be the local Amaro,’ says Alessandro Palazzi, head barman at Dukes hotel in St James’s (‘Shaken, not stirred’, December 12/19, 2018). ‘They’re mainly drunk after dinner, on ice or straight, to help the digestion. My uncle drank it as a corretto—an espresso with 10ml of Amaro.’ When Mr Palazzi arrived in London in 1975, the only Amaro he encountered was the odd bottle of Fernet-Branca in an Italian restaurant. ‘When I took over, I introduced an Amaro called Cynar, made with artichoke,’ he recalls. ‘Nobody ever touched it. Now, we go through one bottle every two weeks and Aperol is as famous as Pimm’s.’ Aperol—Campari’s slightly sweeter, orangehued sibling—has enjoyed an even steeper rise in sales: up 56% in the UK last year. Mr Williamson, who has overseen Aperol Spritz (Aperol, Prosecco and soda, with a slice of orange) ousting Pimm’s as the go-to drink for many when the sun comes out, attributes this success to ‘a broader trend for bitter tastes and flavours; dark chocolate, kale, espresso’. 98 Country Life, May 15, 2019
For Ian Hart of Sacred Spirits distillers of Highgate, London N6, the new popularity of Amaro ‘makes perfect sense, after the rise of gin, vermouth and cocktail culture’. Mr Hart began working on his own Amaro ‘initially, to produce the missing element in a Negroni’ (he already produced a gin and a spiced English vermouth made with English wine). In the quest to make ‘something that was red, bitter and had complex herbaceous and spice elements’, Mr Hart incorporated oris root, Peruvian ginger and a number of other distillates, together with the gentian root that gives Amaro its characteristic bitterness. The distinctive colour of his Rosehip Cup— ‘we decided that, rather than giving it an unconvincing Italian name, we’d give it an English name’—is achieved with grape skins. Mr Palazzi uses Rosehip Cup, as well as Sacred Gin and Sacred English Spiced Vermouth, to make the London Negroni at Dukes. Mr Hart also produces a bottled Negroni. ‘It ages very well in bottles, it matures and softens,’ he divulges. ‘Mark Hix has it on his menu—he calls it the Full English Negroni.’ With his summery Rosehip Spritz, he aims
Rosehip Spritz (above) • 2 parts Sacred Spirit Rosehip Cup • 3 parts sparkling wine (Nyetimber is best) • 1 part soda • Serve in a large wine glass with ice and a slice of orange (020–8340 0992; www.sacredgin.com) to provide the weddings market with an English alternative to an Aperol Spritz. Although Mr Williamson concedes ‘more Aperol is drunk in the summer than winter’, he sees it as ‘a great start to your evening, whatever the weather’. Food writer Valentina Harris serves Campari soda at her Christmas drinks parties as the vibrant red colour ‘makes everything look festive’. That glorious colour is extremely Instagram-friendly, which helps drive its popularity with millennials. If you’re yet to be converted, now is the time to give it a try. Just keep Bourdain in mind. ‘That first sip is confusing and not particularly pleasant,’ he said of the Negroni. ‘But man, it grows on you.’ Cin cin. www.countrylife.co.uk
Kitchen garden cookNew potatoes
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More ways with new potatoes
Light and fresh flavours can be comforting, as in this week’s main recipe, which gives the humble potato salad a stylish makeover
New potatoes with pimento olives and salsa (below) Roast new potatoes—as in the main recipe—with a couple of sprigs of rosemary and use the back of a fork to squash them down. Sprinkle with Parmesan and chopped pimento-stuffed olives. Season well and bake in a hot oven for about 10 minutes to melt the cheese. Serve with a tomato salsa.
Melanie Johnson
Lobster and new-potato salad Cut a cooked lobster into chunks. Make a dressing using three tablespoons of mayonnaise, one tablespoon of ketchup, the juice of half a lemon, a splash of Worcestershire sauce and seasoning. Add 400g of boiled new potatoes, halved to the same size as the lobster pieces, and toss with the dressing. Add a couple of tablespoons of chopped chives and mix well before dividing between two plates. Serve on a bed of gem lettuce leaves as a light lunch. Chicken, new-potato, asparagus and lemon tray bake In an oven tray, mix eight chicken thighs with 750g new potatoes and enough olive oil to coat them. Add three rosemary sprigs, the juice of a lemon and season generously. Roast in a moderately hot oven for 35 minutes. As the chicken is cooking, blanch a bunch of asparagus and refresh in cold water to retain the colour. Remove the tray from the oven and stir in the asparagus, tossing everything gently together. Grate Parmesan over it and divide between four plates. Pour the tray juices over the chicken. 100 Country Life, May 15, 2019
by Melanie Johnson
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Warm new-potato salad with salmon, tzatziki, feta and pomegranate Serves 4 Ingredients For the potato salad 1kg baby new potatoes 3tbspn hemp (or olive) oil 75g garden peas 75g soy beans Half a cucumber Fresh mint sprigs 1 avocado, sliced For the tzatziki Half a cucumber 500ml Greek yoghurt 2 cloves garlic, crushed 3tbspn chopped mint Juice of half a lemon For the salmon 500g salmon fillet 2 spring onions, chopped 100g feta cheese, crumbled 75g pomegranate seeds
Method Preheat your oven to 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4. Put the potatoes onto a baking sheet and toss in the oil to coat them fully, then roast for about 40 minutes or until tender. Add the salmon fillets to the hot tray of potatoes 25 minutes before they’re due to come out of the oven. Boil the peas and soy beans according to the packet instructions, drain and set them aside until you’re ready to assemble the potato salad. Peel the half cucumber into ribbons with a vegetable peeler and set aside. To prepare the tzatziki, cut the second half cucumber in half again, lengthways. Scoop out the seeds and slice it very thinly. Put it into a colander, sprinkle with a little salt and set aside. In a bowl, mix together the yoghurt, garlic, mint, lemon juice and some seasoning. Pat any excess water from the cucumber slices and add them to the tzatziki mixture. Taste for balance, adjust, then cover and refrigerate. Once the potatoes are lightly browned and tender and the salmon is cooked with a golden crust, remove the tray from the oven. Season everything. Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl. Scatter in the peas and soy beans, placing sprigs of mint among them, together with the ribbons of cucumber. Next, arrange the slices of avocado and, finally, spoon the tzatziki over everything. Put the salmon fillet on a serving plate and scatter with the spring onions, feta and pomegranate seeds. Serve immediately, with extra tzatziki on the side.
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Property market
Penny Churchill
A knight’s tale This Herefordshire wooded valley where the Knights Templar trained before the Crusades is now home to a fairy-tale manor and estate
The perfect sporting and farming estate: 1,468-acre Dinmore Manor at Hope under Dinmore, north Herefordshire. Excess £28m
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HE launch onto the open market of the spectacular 1,468-acre Dinmore Manor estate at Hope under Dinmore, near Leominster, north Herefordshire— through Savills (020–7016 3780) at a guide price of ‘excess £28 million’—shines a discreet spotlight on one of the west of England’s most secretive and most beautiful residential, sporting and farming estates. Having purchased Dinmore from the Murray family in 1999, its present owner has ‘left no flagstone unturned’ in restoring and extending the historic manor house, 102 Country Life, May 15, 2019
acquiring 600 acres of additional land and two further properties, establishing an award-winning Limousin cattle-breeding unit and setting up a world-class showjumping operation based on the finest European sport-horse bloodlines. In addition to expertly managed farming and woodland enterprises, it incorporates an exciting high-bird shoot and a portfolio of 19 impeccably renovated estate houses and cottages, the majority of which are let on assured shorthold tenancies. Fairy-tale Dinmore Manor, listed Grade II, stands on high ground in a remote wooded
valley, halfway between Hereford and Leominster, and was surrounded by the Royal Forest of Marden in the Saxon and earlyNorman periods. In 1189, Dinmore was inaugurated as a Commandery of the Knights Templar and, following their suppression in 1320, of the Knights Hospitaller. Its role was not only to serve as a training centre for knights engaging in the early Crusades, but also to provide shelter and sanctuary to travellers and pilgrims undertaking the hazardous journey to the Holy Land. www.countrylife.co.uk
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Property market
Dinmore’s Cloisters still boast stained-glass windows on the back wall, which attractively colour the columns in the afternoon
Little remains of the original 12th-century chapel at Dinmore, apart from a few pieces of walling: the rest of the chapel, now listed Grade II*, was rebuilt and slightly enlarged in about 1370. The oak roof and the interior of the chapel have remained practically untouched since then, although the stained-glass windows were painted, from 1884 onwards, by the Rev Harris Fleming St John, who also added the porch. Over the centuries, the Hospitallers of Dinmore received many gifts of land and goods and, at the Dissolution in 1540, owned lands and Church property in Herefordshire, Shropshire, Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire and Glamorgan. After 1540, the manor reverted to the Crown and was granted to Sir Thomas Palmer, who unwisely sided with Dudley in backing Lady Jane Grey’s claim to the throne and was tried and beheaded in 1553 by order of Queen Mary. In 1559, Elizabeth I gave Dinmore to John Wolrych from Shropshire, whose descendants lived there until 1739, when the estate was sold to Richmond Fleming of Sibdon Castle, Shropshire. The Fleming family, in its various guises, held Dinmore until 1927, when it was sold to Richard Hollins Murray. Interestingly, some of the newest additions to the manor house are the magnificent Cloisters and Music Room, which were 104 Country Life, May 15, 2019
added by the Murray family in 1936. The earliest parts of the manor house were built in the late 16th century. Although only built in the early 19th century, the south entrance contains much original 14th-century stonework and the grand hall contains an early-Jacobean mantelpiece and panelling of the same period. Two early-16th-century fireplaces, which came to light during alterations, have been restored to their original condition. The lower buildings to the west of the original house probably date from the early 18th century.
Palmer unwisely sided with Dudley in backing Lady Jane Grey A private driveway of more than a mile leads past a gate lodge through open parkland, across streams and through woodland, before passing through ornate automatic gates to the front of the manor house. A grand entrance hall leads to a newly created cantilevered staircase and the impressive main reception rooms. These include an elegant drawing room with an 18th-century
veined-marble fireplace from Berkeley Castle, an intimate green panelled sitting room and the main dining room, which stretches along the southern façade of the manor and boasts a fine Georgian fireplace of 1765. A highlight of the interior is the wonderful Music Room, with its two staircases— one leading to the Cloisters overlooking the garden and a second leading up one of the turrets to a secret sixth bedroom. The first floor houses the sumptuous master suite and four more bedroom suites, with a further suite built into the trusses of the roof on the second floor. The compact formal gardens were laid out in the 1920s. To the north of the manor, they are predominantly laid to lawn, with formal box hedging and topiary divided by flagstone walkways. The west of the garden is bounded by the exquisite cloisters, in front of which a series of lily ponds cascades down towards the ha-ha at the foot of the garden. Across the county border in Gloucestershire, Knight Frank’s Cirencester office (01285 886688) is handling the sale of the late Mark Vestey’s charming Foxcote Manor at Foxcote, in the heart of the Cotswolds, 6½ miles from Cheltenham and 13½ miles from Stow-on-the-Wold. The agents quote a guide price of £8m for the compact, 59-acre estate, with its Grade II-listed, 17th-century www.countrylife.co.uk
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Property market manor house, delightful gardens and outstanding equestrian facilities, which include a main 13-box American-barn yard, plus additional stabling, barns, an outdoor school, paddocks and an immaculate, fullsize polo ground. Foxcote Manor and its grounds occupy the south side of a low valley formed by a tributary stream of the River Coln. In the medieval period, the manor was part of the Bishop of Worcester’s Withington estate and, by 1507, had been acquired by the college of Westbury-on-Trym. After the Dissolution, the Crown sold Foxcote with the college’s other lands to Sir Ralph Sadler, after which it passed through several families until, in 1919, Foxcote Manor farm was acquired by Emma Abell. In 1973, the Abells, who had added glebe land bought from the rector in 1921 and the former glebe Thorndale Farm in 1932, sold the Foxcote estate to the Hon Mark Vestey, brother of Lord Vestey of Stowell Park. Mr Vestey further enlarged Foxcote with the acquisition of two local farms and parts of Withington Manor farm and, by 1998, owned some 1,000 acres in the parish. He also extended the manor house, adding a flanking gable wing on the south side of the house to match that on the north side, which had been added by the Abells in about 1920. Other additions included a north bay
106 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Above and below: Formerly owned by the late Mark Vestey, 59-acre Foxcote Manor sits in the heart of the Cotswolds in Foxcote, Gloucestershire. £8m
window, a south loggia and a Classical porch in 1997–98. Sometime after 1980, when farming operations were centred on Thorndale Farm, Foxcote’s splendid 18th-century barn was cleverly converted into a billiard room, squash court and famous party barn, using windows from a demolished service wing
at Stowell Park. In all, Foxcote Manor offers more than 10,650sq ft of family-friendly living space on three floors and includes three main reception rooms, a kitchen/ breakfast room, a garden hall, master and guest suites, five further bedrooms, three further bathrooms and an adjoining twobedroom annexe.
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Properties of the week
Theblueyonder Holly Kirkwood explores some remarkable properties situated near beautiful bluebell woods
Devon, £650,000 Sympathetically renovated in 2015, Mill Cottage is a charming three-bedroom period property located in the pretty village of Woodleigh. Beautifully presented, it’s wonderful for entertaining and the sitting room has a fine inglenook fireplace. The owners can enjoy bluebell walks through the Avon valley woods, which are lovely all year round, but at their very best when the bluebells are in bloom. Marchand Petit (01548 857588) 108 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Dorset, £1.6 million Formerly a small dairy farm, Little Hartgrove Farm has been developed into a wonderful family property, with four generous bedrooms. Outside, there’s a games room and self-contained flat; equestrian facilities include a stable block, manège, four fields and a paddock. The property has its own little woodland, but serious bluebell hunters are advised to trot three short miles to Duncliffe Wood, one of the largest native woodlands in Dorset, which is famed for its aromatic carpets of flowers. Symonds and Sampson (01258 474268) www.countrylife.co.uk
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Properties of the week
Northumberland, £850,000 Middleshield is a Georgian Grade II*listed property just outside the market town of Hexham. Built of ashlar stone, it extends over three floors and features Yorkshire sash windows, pretty window seats and an original front door. Just a short drive away is Allen Banks and Staward Gorge, a Victorian wilderness created in the 19th century and now owned by the National Trust. The gardens are at their best in springtime, when the bottom of the gorge is carpeted in bluebells and wild garlic. Finest Properties (01434 622234)
Northamptonshire, £1.3 million Tylecote House is a substantial Victorian property that was built to impress, with a number of well-presented dual-aspect reception rooms and seven spacious bedrooms spread over two floors, including a grand master suite. Located in the village of Roade, the house is well placed for access to Milton Keynes, but even more so for the wonders of Coton Manor Garden, home to one of the most spectacular bluebell woods in England. Michael Graham (01327 350022)
Wiltshire, £485,000 Overlooking Stibb Green in the village of Burbage, 18th-century Bramble Cottage has been recently refurbished to present pleasing contemporary interiors, with three bedrooms upstairs and a set of cosy reception rooms downstairs. The cottage is four miles from the magnificent 2,750-acre Savernake Forest, an ancient hunting ground that’s home to some of the country’s oldest oak trees, as well as an impressive annual bluebell display. Carter Jonas (01672 514916)
Essex, £725,000 In the sought-after village of Elmdon, six miles from Saffron Walden, charming four-bedroom White Cottage features exposed beams throughout and a large inglenook fireplace with woodburner in the sitting room. Beautifully extended and renovated, there’s a large garden with a terrace and just outside the village can be found extensive swathes of woodland, including Howe Wood, which are packed with bluebells every year. Audley End station, with trains to London Liverpool Street, is six miles away. Cheffins (01799 523656)
110 Country Life, May 15, 2019
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Exhibition Henry Moore’s Helmet Heads at the Wallace Collection
Arms and the man Susan Jenkins admires an exhibition that explores Henry Moore’s intimate relationship with the armour in the Wallace Collection and the impact this had on his ideas and work
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his impressive exhibition, curated in collaboration with the henry Moore Foundation, explores the sculptor’s fascination with armour through the ‘helmet head’ series he created between 1950 and 1975. it brings together, for the first time, all seven of his ‘helmet head’ bronzes, alongside an illuminating selection of historic armour from the Wallace Collection and an exceptional Greek helmet in the Corinthian style dating from about 659bc, on loan from the Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins. Additional material includes examples of his associated sketches and sculptures in plaster, lead and bronze.
All images reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation; Photo John Hedgecoe, 1967; Image courtesy Waddington Custot, London
They have a purity of metal and a strength Moore (1898–1986) made his decision to become a sculptor during his schooldays in Leeds, but, on turning 18, he signed up for the Army and served as a machine-gunner and bayonet instructor in the First World War, when he would have worn one of the new MK1 Brodie helmets, an example of which is on display. While studying and teaching at the Royal College of Art in London after the war, his interest in armour led him to spend many hours drawing the pieces in the Wallace Collection. ‘The helmets in the medieval armour section… have always fascinated me,’ he told an art critic. ‘They have a purity of metal and a strength, outwardly; yet within, they convey an enclosedness, a quality of protection. These are the things i want to capture in my own variations on the theme.’ 112 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Above: Moore with Helmet Head No.2 in 1967. Left: Helmet Head: Interior/Exterior Forms, made the same year as Helmet Heads No.1 and No.2 (1950), shows him experimenting with the interplay between the helmet opening and the interior form
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The Henry Moore Foundation: acquired 1987; The Henry Moore Foundation: gift of Irina Moore 1977
The ‘eye’ prints, such as Wild Eye, suggest an observant sentinel
Moore’s sketchbooks are full of drawings inspired by armour, but, according to Tobias Capwell, Arms and Armour expert at the Wallace Collection and co-curator of the exhibition, he wasn’t interested in making figurative drawings and, instead, immediately produced abstract ideas. This makes identification difficult, but Mr Capwell has selected some historic pieces from the Wallace Collection that he is certain had a strong influence on the sculptor. They include a 15th-century north Italian bascinet or barbuta with a rounded skull and a set of south German head-tofoot field armour dating from about 1505. Moore interpreted the latter as female armour and sketched it three times on one sheet of head and shoulders studies in 1950–51, from which the bronze sculpture Helmet Head and Shoulders (1952) derives. The first sculpture alluding to the theme, The Helmet Right: The Helmet (1939–40) Above right: Helmet Head No.6, made and cast in bronze in 1975 www.countrylife.co.uk
(1939–40), is prefigured in Drawing for Metal Sculpture: Heads (1939), where it can be spotted in the centre of the bottom row. Dating from 1939–40, it was one of the last works Moore made before the outbreak of the Second World War and served as a prelude to the ‘Helmet Head’ series itself, which he continued to develop until 1981. The piece shows him beginning to explore the relationship between the helmet and its interior content, which Moore described as the ‘internal/external’ concept, ‘the idea of a form within a form. This idea of protection, of shelter within armour… may have some psychological thing behind it, the mother-and-child idea perhaps’. The first of the series, Helmet Head No.1, made in 1950 and cast in bronze in 1960, has two prominent lugs on the brow of the helmet and is reminiscent of the First World War German ‘coalscuttle’ helmet, an example of which is on show. Throughout the series, Moore consistently cast the interior and exterior forms separately, exploring the question of what to place
within the helmet form. He created five different internal figures that could be placed inside any of the helmet heads, three of which, cast in lead in 1950, are on display. In the case of Helmet Head No.1, he selected a menacing, triangular cone-like figure, but, for Helmet Head No.2, created in 1950 and cast in bronze in 1955, he settled on a figure that gives the appearance of eyes peering out of the upper opening. The ‘Helmet Head’ series was a vehicle for Moore to experiment and explore his ideas of forms that seemed outwardly strong, but, in fact, expressed inward vulnerability. No doubt they were influenced by his engagement in both World Wars (he was gassed in the First World War and created his famous drawings of Londoners in the Blitz as a war artist in the Second World War). As the series developed, the sculptures no longer evoked the shape of the historic helmets in the Wallace Collection. The final Helmet Heads—No.6 and No.7, both created in 1975 and cast in bronze in 1975 and 1981 respectively—bear little resemblance to the earlier forms. Their outer shells are much thicker and they are open in such a way as to reveal the interior walls of the external shell. They are more biomorphic and feel optimistic rather than sinister. The ‘Helmet Head’ theme played an important role in the development of Moore’s work. It continued to preoccupy him
and he explored it in other media, as can be seen in his portfolio of Surrealist prints, The Helmet Head Lithographs, published in 1975. He explained how these abstract prints, with a single staring eye, sprang from his dissatisfaction with some of the ‘Helmet Head’ drawings: ‘Whilst working on these new prints I surrounded the head fragments with frames or window openings to give them the suggestion of soldiers observing the enemy from concealed positions behind battlements.’ The exhibition breaks new ground for the Wallace Collection by juxtaposing historic armour with great works of 20th-century sculpture. It’s a must-see show for anyone seeking greater insight into Moore’s creative process and a more profound understanding of his work. ‘Henry Moore: The Helmet Heads’ is at The Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London, W1 until June 23 (www.wallace.collection.org; 020–7563 9500) Next week: Kelmscott House, Hammersmith
Other current exhibitions featuring Moore’s work include: • ‘Henry Moore: The Influences and Influenced’ at Connaught Brown, London W1, until June 15 (www.connaughtbrown. co.uk) • ‘Henry Moore Drawings: The Art of Seeing’ at Henry Moore Studios & Gardens,
Perry Green, Hertfordshire, until October 27 (www.henrymoore.org) • ‘Henry Moore at Houghton Hall: Nature and Inspiration’ at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, until September 29 (www. houghtonhall.com) Country Life, May 15, 2019 113
Exhibition Round up
Sculpture en plein air
The Henry Moore Foundation: acquired 1987
There’s no better place to appreciate sculpture made to be seen outdoors than in the British landscape, where parks and gardens have been transformed with permanent displays or temporary exhibitions. Mary Miers selects some of this summer’s best Henry Moore at Houghton Hall: Nature and Inspiration at Houghton Hall, Norfolk until September 29 (www. houghtonhall.com) shows some of Moore’s outdoor pieces in the setting of the great house built by Sir Robert Walpole, now the home of the Marquis of Cholmondeley. ‘Landscape is one of my great obsessions—as well as the figure,’ said Moore, who believed that his work looked best in natural light and open air. At Houghton Hall, his monumental pieces in bronze and fibreglass look superb against the Palladian architecture, allées of pleached limes and grand, sweeping rides of the deer park, as well as in the more intimate spaces of the formal gardens. Curated by Sebastiano Barassi of the Henry Moore Foundation and sponsored by Gagosian, the show includes, inside the house and South Wing, some of Moore’s smaller works, models, etchings, photographs and film to demonstrate his working development, use of materials and the inspiration he derived from natural objects such as pebbles, bone and flint. Visitors also have the opportunity to see sculpture from Lord Cholmondeley’s own contemporary collection sited in the grounds, including pieces by James Turrell, Richard Long and Rachel Whiteread. Art Unbound at Painswick Rococo Garden, Painswick, Gloucestershire, May 26– September 8 (www. rococogarden.org.uk) will feature contemporary sculpture in Britain’s only complete surviving Rococo garden, which has been rescued from ruin since 1984. The installation captures the fanciful spirit of the 1740s 114 Country Life, May 15, 2019
in wood and stone and structures in steel, ceramic and bronze resin—all for sale. There will also be a children’s trail and skills demonstrations.
Moore’s Large Reclining Figure, recast in fibreglass, at Houghton
garden, which includes secret parterres, long vistas and follies, as well as woodland. Works (all for sale) range from Tony Lattimer’s giant ceramics and Sophie Dickens’s bronze capuchin monkeys climbing trees to pieces by well-known and up-and-coming sculptors in stone, wood, wire and other media. Fresh Air Sculpture 2019 at The Old Rectory, Quenington, Gloucestershire, June 16–July 7 (www. freshairsculpture.com) is a biennial event showing and selling contemporary sculptural pieces and decorative arts in the rectory’s riverside garden and poolhouse-cum-craft gallery. More than 130 modern pieces, many of them created specifically for the garden, will feature a variety of materials, including ceramic, stone, willow and whitemarble resin. With prices ranging from £50 to £50,000, all of them will be for sale and there will also be drinks and locally produced foods for guests to enjoy. ‘Glass Glamour’, which features works in glass by 22 artists, can be seen by appointment in The Old Rectory, June 21–23.
Exploring Form at Greys Court near Henley, Oxfordshire, June 1–23 (www. oxfordsculptors.org) will feature more than 100 works by the Oxford Sculptors Group displayed in the grounds of this National Trust house and in the Cromwellian building that stands opposite it. Pieces on the theme of ‘nature both human and inanimate and the solidity of lightness of form’ will include works
Sculpture at Wisley 2019 at RHS Garden Wisley, Surrey, May 30–December 1 (www.rhs.org.uk/wisley) will be the first exhibition of its kind at an RHS garden. Curated by sculptor Susan Bacon, wife of the RHS President, large-scale works by six sculptors will be sited in the 240-acre garden to highlight the relationship between sculpture and the cultivated landscape. Ranging in date from the 1950s to the present, the sculptures will include Henry Moore’s Sheep Piece and works by Lynn Chadwick, Philip King and Henry Bruce. On June 10, RHS Garden Wisley will open its new Welcome Building, where works by Tracey Emin and Philip Haas will be among the first on show.
Some of the best places to see permanent displays of sculpture in the landscape • Chatsworth, near Bakewell, Derbyshire (www. chatsworth.org) • New Art Centre, Roche Court, East Winterslow, Salisbury, Wiltshire (www. sculpture.uk.com) • Jupiter Artland, Bonnington House near Edinburgh, West Lothian (www.jupiter artland.org) • Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire (www. ysp.org.uk) • Cass Sculpture Foundation, New Barn Hill,
Goodwood, West Sussex (www.sculpture.org.uk) • The Sculpture Park, Churt, Farnham, Surrey (www. thesculpturepark.com) • Kielder Art and Architecture, Northumberland (www.kielderartandarch itecture.com) • Grizedale Sculpture, Grizedale Forest, Hawkshead, Ambleside, Cumbria (www. grizedalesculpture.org) • Broomhill Sculpture Gardens, near Barnstaple, Devon (www.broomhillart. co.uk)
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Books
Passage to India British memsahibs were far more interesting than the stereotype image suggests, discovers Kate Hubbard Social history She-Merchants, Buccaneers & Gentlewomen Katie Hickman (Virago, £20)
Private collection/© Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images
R
OaMInG about with a good tent and a good arab, one might be happy for ever… Oh the pleasure of vagabondizing through India.’ so wrote the fearless Fanny Parkes, wife of a junior official in the east India Company (eIC), who roamed India in the 1820s and 1830s. her delight and enthusiasm, alongside trials, not to say horrors, are shared by many of those encountered in the pages of Katie hickman’s sprightly, highly readable account of British women in India. Drawing on letters, memoirs and diaries, some unpublished, the author sets out to give the lie to the stock image of the British memsahib: an ‘apathetic, indolent and pleasure-seeking’ individual, prone to every kind of snobbery and prejudice, rarely venturing beyond the safety of more-english-than-english enclaves. The reality was more complex and interesting. and surprising, too. Women didn’t just accompany their menfolk—eIC officials or, later, army officers—but also set themselves up as portrait painters, bakers, dressmakers, shopkeepers, teachers and traders. a few married Indian men: Biddy Timms, who had been a milliner to Princess augusta, a daughter of George III, married a Muslim in 1817 and lived in his zenana for 10 years. and they began travelling to India in the early 17th century. a Mrs hudson arrived in 1617, hoping to invest in the indigo trade (when this was prevented by the eIC, she went into cloth instead). The journey alone would have deterred many—a voyage of more than a year, during which, you were 116 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Sir Elijah and Lady Impey and Their Three Children by Zoffany
allowed up on deck a mere halfdozen times and where, on arrival at Madras, you were carried through the terrifying surf on the backs of ‘naked, slippery fishermen’. For these early travellers— immigrants rather than colonisers —India offered the chance of a better, or different, life, an opportunity for reinvention, a place in which dubious pasts could be erased and fortunes made. This
India offered the chance of a better, or different, life was as true for women as for men. Charlotte hickey, a London courtesan, sailed to India with William hickey, an eIC official, passed herself off as his wife and found herself received among the best society in Calcutta with no questions asked. By the 19th century, and the moral stiffening that came with it, India was not so much there to be plundered as improved. Those with a taste for travel could indulge it. some, such as Fanny and emily eden, sisters of the Governor-General, Lord
auckland, made the grandest of progresses around the country, with as many as 12,000 camp followers (the eden sisters did their best to ‘shake off’ Fanny Parkes who, blithely oblivious to social distinctions, was quite determined to join their camp). Others travelled simply and uncomfortably. soldiers’ wives, such as augusta Beecher, were expected to follow their husbands. Taking her four-week-old baby, augusta marched for three months, carried in a palanquin (a coffin-shaped box on poles), and loved every minute. ‘a stirring life and so happy!’ she wrote. The experiences of women during the Mutiny of 1857—the many whose husbands and children were mutilated and butchered before their eyes—make for harrowing reading. amy horne, 18, survived the siege and massacre at Cawnpore, unlike her mother and five siblings, thanks to being ‘rescued’ by a sowar (an Indian cavalryman), who then forced her to convert and kept her captive for 10 months. The book ends, somewhat arbitrarily, at the turn of the 20th century, some 50 years before independence. Occasionally, it feels hastily written, but it’s rich in detail and full of astonishing stories.
Fiction The Doll Factory Elizabeth Macneal (Picador, £12.99) There’s a tired tendency among debut novelists to try and reinvent the wheel. In a display of dazzling confidence, however, elizabeth Macneal has crafted a Gothic thriller that thunders along like a hansom cab whose horses have bolted. The year is 1850 and the Great exhibition is being constructed in hyde Park. For Iris Whittle, an aspiring artist, life is changing fast. In a plotline that could feel contrived but doesn’t, Louis Frost, an upcoming member of the Pre-raphaelites, asks her to become his muse and she accepts on the condition he teaches her to paint. The income she receives from Louis allows her to break free from her oppressive life as a shopgirl and, toying with a moralistic Victorian conception of the muse, the author turns the two into lovers. Iris’s ascent is set against the backdrop of a divided city— bohemian dinner parties and metropolitan splendour are undercut by ‘gaunt whores’, orphaned toothless tykes and ‘the smell of decay’. Teetering between the two Londons, Iris is so close to securing her place in society, but is entirely reliant upon Louis. as a threat to Iris’s contentment and the happy dreams of the readers, Miss Macneal creates an exquisite villain. silas, a collector and taxidermist, obsesses over Iris’s beauty after a chance meeting—she has a deformed collarbone and he’s perversely drawn to curious specimens. Maligned by his mother and rejected by society, ‘starey silas’ is a multidimensional monster. Initially, the author encourages us to pity him, then she makes us hate ourselves for doing so. so often in Gothic thrillers, it’s the girl who gets it in the end. In The Doll Factory’s terrifying denouement, that trope is thrillingly subverted. This elegantly written book puts its author among the best young British novelists. Patrick Galbraith www.countrylife.co.uk
Books History The Map of Knowledge Violet Moller (Picador, £20) The TruTh is rarely pure and never simple,’ as Algernon has it in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. For example, most of us have been brought up to believe that the primacy of the western world is the result of something like a linear relay race. First, we were heirs to the Ancient Greeks. Their ideas, ideals and innovations were taken up and enhanced by the Ancient romans, who passed these on to what became the renaissance. That led, among other things, to the discovery of the New World, to the Agricultural and then the Industrial revolution—and the rest, as they say, is history. In fact, as this book attests, much of what we have been, are and might yet become we owe to the Arabs. Through our ‘Dark Ages’—itself an impure ‘truth’, but broadly from the 5th to the
Alamy Stock Photo; John East/Twentieth Century Society
Architecture 100 Churches 100 Years Edited by Susannah Charlton, Elain Harwood and Clare Price Batsford and the Twentieth Century Society (£25)
The FAsCINATIoN of this book stems from the range of styles it covers, from traditional to modern, with many highly original and distinctive buildings of breathtaking quality along the way. Great architects, such as George Gilbert scott and Basil spence, are well represented, as are many for whom church architecture was a passion and, indeed, a calling. st saviour, eltham, London se9, by N. F. Cachemaille-Day, for example, or George Pace’s scargill Chapel at Kettlewell, North Yorkshire, are singular in every way, notably in the expressive shape of their roofs and myriad tiny windows. eric Gill’s interlocking pointed arches at st Peter the Apostle, Gorlestonon-sea in Norfolk have an aston118 Country Life, May 15, 2019
A Christian and a Muslim play chess, a game that came from the East
10th centuries—it was largely Islamic scholars, not western, who first assimilated and then built on the learning of Greece and rome (and India). In the polyglot ‘Islamic Golden Age’ (from, roughly, the 9th cen-
tury until the brutal sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258), knowledge of all kinds thrived as it has but rarely before or since. The subject is vast and, at the best of times, the question of
how manuscripts were ‘transmitted’—and then collated from often corrupt originals—is arcane. Violet Moller’s response is to concentrate on three seminal scholars—euclid (mathematics), Ptolemy (astronomy) and Galen (medicine)—and on how their works were first preserved and then elucidated in seven (of many) cities: six of the Islamic hegemony and, finally, ever the iconoclast, Venice. Along the way, she brings us many delights, such as the invention in about 840 by the brilliant yet practical Banu Musa brothers of something humble, but revolutionary: the crankshaft. Inevitably, there are omissions and infelicities, but, within a structure that is perforce constrained, the author’s prose runs smoothly and she wears her considerable learning lightly. Beautifully illustrated, bound and set, this is a concise, timely and important book—and popular history at its best. Ross Leckie
ishing purity of form, as do Giuseppi rinvolucri’s parabolic arches at our Lady star of the sea in Amlwch, Anglesey, both dating from the late 1930s. seely and Paget used flying arches to create a thrilling dynamism to their 1960 church in stevenage in hertfordshire. The concealed side lighting of the
Church after church springs out as a must-see altar in spence’s st oswald's, Coventry, creates a luminous glow. other churches pulsate with colour. The walls of glass in Gerard Goalen’s our Lady of Fatima in harlow, essex, completed in 1960, are a modern-day sainte-Chapelle. The Neo-Byzantine 1927 Catholic church at rochdale, Lancashire, inspired by Westminster Cathedral, has
Let there be light: Our Lady of Fatima in Harlow, Essex, glows
a superb apse mosaic by eric Newton in glowing gold and turquoise. This is a compulsive pageturner, thanks not only to the range of styles, but also to the superb photography by John east, who has photographed the interiors in warm, glowing light. his is a very disciplined approach. Looking straight down the aisle to the altar, he superbly conveys
the proportions and sense of space, but he varies this with diagonal shots, the angle favoured by the great Frederick evans when he took his superb series of cathedral interiors before the First World War. Church after church springs out as a must-see, the only question being how many of them will be open? Marcus Binney www.countrylife.co.uk
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Theatre
Michael Billington
Ibsen’s back in favour The new production of Rosmersholm illustrates the modern theatre’s rehabilitation of the once-reviled Norwegian playwright
T
HE other day, I received a mild shock. I was at Hampstead Theatre, reading the programme notes for Jude, when I found its writer, Howard Brenton, claiming that The Bacchae is the greatest play ever written and that only Shakespeare could rival Euripides. As the author myself of a book called The 101 Greatest Plays, I’m no stranger to extravagant claims. All the same, I was taken aback by the boldness of Mr Brenton’s assertions. Although I’m nervous of constructing league tables of dramatists, for me, the playwright who comes next in the hierarchy after Shakespeare is Henrik Ibsen.
Johan Persson
Ibsen’s plays still get to us because they’re flawless constructs filled with passion I feel this even more strongly having just seen Rosmersholm strikingly revived in the West End. Because Ibsen is always with us, we forget how fiercely he was reviled when his plays first appeared. A Doll’s House was described in 1889 as ‘unnatural, immoral and essentially undramatic’. Ghosts fared even worse in 1891, when the Daily Telegraph dubbed it ‘an open drain; a loathsome sore unbandaged; a dirty act done publicly’. Even Rosmersholm, which has today’s audiences rising to their feet in acclamation, led The Times to declare that Ibsen is ‘a provincial dramatist’ and the Mirror to suggest that his plays ‘must nauseate any properly constituted person’. 120 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Passion play: Rosmersholm (starring Hayley Atwell and Tom Burke) shows Ibsen’s works aren’t cold
Ibsen had his champions in George Bernard Shaw and William Archer, but, more often, he induced moral outrage in the myopic British press and was seen by many as box-office poison. The great Tyrone Guthrie, who directed Ibsen plays in the 1920s and 1930s, has a hilarious passage in A Life In The Theatre in which he accounts for Ibsen’s lack of popularity. ‘High thinking,’ writes Guthrie, ‘takes place in a world of dark-crimson serge tablecloths with chenille bobbles,
black horsehair sofas, wall brackets and huge intellectual women in rubbers.’ Warming to his theme, he suggests that Hilde Wangel in The Master Builder would be much more attractive ‘if only she provocatively waved a great feather fan or a bouquet of gardenias instead of clumping about, poor dear, with that alpenstock’. This is fascinating, because whenever I see The Master Builder, I’m struck by its powerful sexuality. Halvard Solness,
a celebrated architect trapped in a loveless marriage, is inspired and then destroyed by the 23-yearold Hilde. As he falls to his death, she hails him as ‘My Master Builder’ and I can’t think of any play that better demonstrates the dangerous appeal of a vibrant young woman to an older man. It’s well known that it was activated by the famous meeting, on holiday, between the frock-coated Ibsen with the 18-year-old Emilie Bardach. For all Dr Guthrie’s gibes, I’ve seen www.countrylife.co.uk
many productions in which the stage has positively crackled with sexual electricity. We often think of Ibsen’s plays as cold and austere: in fact, they’re full of passion. There’s a famous moment in A Doll’s House when Nora and Torvald return home from a party and the husband’s ardent desire is checked only by the arrival of an unwanted visitor. My conviction that Ibsen writes plays that are warm-blooded, perfectly constructed and, above all, relevant is confirmed by recent examples: Ian Rickson’s superb production of Rosmersholm (Duke of York’s until July 19) and Lucy Bailey’s gripping revival of Ghosts, which has just finished at the Royal and Derngate, Northampton. In both cases, I sensed a tension in the theatre that was almost palpable. As far as present-day relevance is concerned, one thing Ibsen constantly shows is the danger of being imprisoned by the past.
In Rosmersholm, that’s almost literally true as John Rosmer, a widowed pastor who has lost his faith, lives surrounded by looming portraits of his aristocratic ancestors. However, listening to Duncan Macmillan’s new version of the play, I was also struck by Ibsen’s wariness about dogmatic certainties and suspicion of political messiahs.
He shows the danger of being imprisoned by the past Rosmer, excellently played by Tom Burke, finds himself assailed on all sides. The right-wing Governor Kroll wants his support in an election based on morality and faith. A newspaper editor, Mortensgaard, craves his backing for the left and even talks, in Corbynesque terms, of the accumulation
of power ‘in the hands of few at the expense of the Many’. Ibsen, ever the mordant ironist, shows the flaws in both men: Kroll’s extremism is disowned by his family and Mortensgaard loses interest in Rosmer when he discovers his defection from the Church: as he says, our side has enough free-thinkers and atheists already. If the play poses a problem today, it lies in Rosmer’s relationship with Rebecca West, another fervent idealist, with whom he has lived on platonic terms since his wife’s death. However, as played by Mr Burke and the magnificent Hayley Atwell, I felt the relationship made total sense. As her passion burns with a hard, gem-like flame, his is more quiescent. If the pair can achieve true marriage, it’s only through a form of a love-sacrifice reminiscent of Tristan and Isolde: both characters turn out to be heartbroken romantics damaged by their pasts. The effect is emo-
tionally overwhelming. Ibsen’s plays still get to us because they’re flawless constructs filled with passion. In the Northampton Ghosts, given in a new version by Mike Poulton, Mrs Alving (played by Penny Downie) was a life-loving woman desperate to escape the past, as she showed in her delirious cry of ‘It’s quite a bonfire’ when the orphanage dedicated to her dissolute husband burned down. Her son (Pierro Niel-Mee), doomed by his syphilitic inheritance, displayed a similar hunger for happiness. Even Pastor Manders (James Wilby, Interview February 27), was no dry old stick, but a man of violent tendencies in his hatred of new ideas. Taken together, these two productions proved that Ibsen is still a potent theatrical force. With all due respect to Mr Brenton, I’d even go so far as to suggest that he gives Euripides a good run for his money.
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Art market
Huon Mallalieu
Indian summer The re-designated Olympia Auctions offers much of interest, as these works relating to the subcontinent demonstrate
Fig 1 left: The Blue Valley, one of three watercolours by Lt-Gen Henry Hancock. £1,560 for the set. Fig 2 above: Panorama of British forces advancing on Bareilly, in pen and ink, by Lt-Gen Henry Crealock. £11,700
F
IELD Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount and Commander-in-Chief of the army, whose efficiency gave rise to the expression ‘all Sir Garnet’, was also a snob, or more accurately, a double snob. Although from a distinguished Anglo-Irish family, his beginnings were impoverished, as his widowed mother and six siblings had only a major’s pension to support them. He had to leave school at 14 and could not afford to go to Sandhurst or to buy a commission, but he did eventually gain an ensignship and flourished in the army. This may have coloured his attitude to some of his colleagues. During the final operations of the Indian Mutiny, he served alongside the future Lt-Gen Henry Hope Crealock (1831–91) and, later, during the Zulu War, he also crossed paths with Crealock’s younger brother, Military Assistant to Lord Chelmsford, the commander responsible for the disastrous slaughter at Isandlwana. John North Crealock was first on the scene the day after that battle and his illustrated account appeared in the London press. Later, he lied in court, trying to shift the blame from his chief.
Fig 3: Jacobite firing glass. £2,600 122 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Wolseley regarded him as ‘Chelmsford’s evil genius’ and, in a private letter, wrote that the brothers ‘are both snobs, and as they were not born gentlemen they cannot help it’. Surely a case of it takes one to know one. The brothers were both competent amateur artists and, at one point, Henry Hope left the army in an attempt to earn a living as a painter in Rome. In fact, he was more draughtsman than painter and albums of his hunting and shooting sketches turn up in country houses from time to time. One large group, including a couple of atmospheric pastels, was sold for £37,500 by Bonhams in Edinburgh (COUNTRY L IFE, June 8, 2016). Last month, in a picture sale at the re-designated Olympia Auctions (nŽ 25, Blythe Road) in west London, a 13in by 80in pen-and-ink panorama
by him (Fig 2) sold for £11,700 to South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) Collection—Low Parks Museum, South Lanarkshire, with the support of the Army Museums Ogilby Trust. It showed the situation of the British force under Sir Colin Campbell on May 5, 1858, as it advanced on Bareilly in what is now Uttar Pradesh, stronghold of Khan Bahadur Khan Rohilla, one of the last rebel leaders, who had dec-
lared himself Nawab and was later captured and hanged. In the extensive inscription, Crealock noted that he had represented himself going ahead ‘taking the order from General Mansfield, who is pointing out the direction of the spot to be fired on’. He has named officers, but not Wolseley. There were several other lots connected with British India, including three by a well-known amateur watercolourist, the Collector of Bihar, Sir Charles D’Oyly (1781–1845), of which the most expensive was a 43∕4in by 61∕4in river landscape at £1,170. Three watercolours of Mahabaleshwar (Fig 1), a hill station south of Bombay that served as the summer capital of the old Bombay province, by Lt-Gen Henry Francis Hancock (1834– 87) sold for £1,560 against an Fig 4: Etching from Cornelia Parker’s Fox Talbot’s Articles of Glass
www.countrylife.co.uk
upper estimate of £300. These were last on the market at Hall’s of Shrewsbury in 2009. Hancock became secretary to the Indian Public Works department and consultant engineer to the railways of Bombay. Olympia Auctions happily accepts the lower-value consignments no longer welcome at the West End salerooms. Probably the first thing that a collector of 18th-century British drinking glasses learns is to recognise the more common Jacobite motifs and mottos— roses and buds, ‘Audentior Ibo’ and so on—and then to spot fakes. I remember being gently warned off and educated by a dealer when I thought I had made a schoolboy discovery. However, other Jacobites might easily pass unnoticed, which was, after all, the point of them. A fortnight ago, Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury offered a thick-footed firing glass engraved ‘The Friendly Hunt’ (Fig 3), apparently associated with a Worcestershire Jacobite club founded in 1747. The hunt gave cover for its members to hold meetings around the county. At least five of these are known to specialists and one, perhaps this one—the catalogue was imprecise—was sold by Bonhams for £2,880 in 2008. This time, the price was £2,600. The 34th London Original Print Fair, which closed at the Royal Academy on April 28, appears to have gone satisfactorily and I can vouch for the busy-ness of the opening evening. Each year, Hallett Independent Art Insurance sponsors www.countrylife.co.uk
Fig 5 above: Tea Urn on Architectural Support II by Bronstein. Fig 6 above right: Design for Cake Basket and two muffineers en suite II by Bronstein a prize of £8,000 to be spent at the fair by the museum or gallery that has made the most convincing application as to how the award would enhance its collection. This year, it went to the Holburne Museum, Bath, which has often included contemporary pieces in historic displays to demonstrate continuity and is now actively building a contemporary collection in the same spirit. Its purchases from the Alan Cristea Gallery (now of Pall Mall) fitted the brief perfectly: two sets of Cornelia Parker’s 2017 polymer photogravure etchings, Fox Talbot’s Articles of Glass (Fig 4) and two of the Argentinian Pablo Bronstein’s Rococo-inspired hand-coloured etchings (Figs 5 and 6). Next week Napoleon’s fake news
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Reel Life
David Profumo
Make this year count Our correspondent on the International Year of the Salmon and why conserving the king of fish should be at the top of the rod squad’s agenda
Glyn Satterley
M
AY is traditionally the month for celebrating trout (cue seasonal article on the miracle of mayfly), but it seems more topical to me that 2019 has been designated the International Year of the Salmon. This initiative—which embraces the Northern Hemisphere, concerning both Atlantic and Pacific species—aims to heighten awareness about the freefall decline of wild salmon, plus their biological and economic value. A specially commissioned film has been designed to engage the scientific, political and local communities and promote the sharing of information and resources across the ‘salmosphere’—Alaska to Portugal—to ‘ensure we don’t lose the King of Fish forever’, in Sir David Attenborough’s words. The litany of problems afflicting our own Atlantic salmon is formidable and familiar: climate change, in-river predation, overfishing at sea, habitat degradation, the impact of open-cage fish farms with their lice infestations and escapee rap sheet. The drastic diminution of wild Salmo salar stocks seems to have multifactorial causes, and several bodies are urgently trying to help, but one thing is clear: the poor old salmon needs a break and the clock is running all the while. The situation seems disheartening, but some progress has been made. High-seas netting has been addressed ever since the pioneering Orri Vigfússon (‘The voices that speak up for Nature’, July 26, 2017) first began buying out Faroese and Greenland operations back in 1993. Smolt production has been maximised in many rivers, although returning percentages are dwindling. More funding is crucially needed for research into what happens during the marine phase of the salmon’s migratory cycle and sterling work is being done by 124 Country Life, May 15, 2019
The author on the Shin in summer, about to release the ‘river’s hero’ which is now itself in need of rescue
the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation, Atlantic Salmon Trust and Salmon & Trout Conservation, all of which are involved in this special year.
The salmon is an evolutionary miracle, worth saving for itself Why does any of this matter? Well, the rod squad has a vested interest, although the great majority of anglers now release Atlantics, whether it’s mandatory or not. The days are rightly gone when the hall floors of our sporting hotels would be paved each evening with silver corpses, although the rod-caught salmon is still of considerable economic value to local communities—it’s taken politicians long enough to acknowledge the fact. This fish—the epitome of grace, strength and determination—
has historically been a symbol in the popular imagination, powering upstream on its journey of love and death. It’s an evolutionary miracle, worth saving for itself. Fisheries Management Scotland recently invited salmonid devotees to submit brief explanations of what this fish means to them (visit www.fms.scot and look under Events) and Dr Jo Girvan—a fisheries scientist who is not an angler—concluded: ‘It is enough just to know they are there.’ Passion, science and luck may save the day. I gave it my best shot: ‘After thousands of miles at sea, he comes forging up from the dark tides toward the headwaters of his natal streams, flanks shimmering with a mauvish opalescence, the vigour of the deeps still upon him. He has navigated by starlight and gravity, and homed in with a miraculous sense of smell. You could never mistake him for some fish-farmed fake. ‘He’s a marvel, a mythic creature, a changeling from our
ancient past—starting life as a smudged tiddler, then disguising himself in his smolting jacket, running the gauntlet of the predators, nets and lice of the estuary, before disappearing (we still scarcely know where) and staging a glamorous return— the panache of the exile, mercurial, mysterious, muscular, an emblem of endurance. Glancing up the runs at dusk. A blade at the waterfall. The river’s hero. ‘Small wonder the glorious leaper has inspired so many centuries of lore and literature —the Salmon of Knowledge, the salmon which retrieves a lost ring, the tribute fish at the founding of London’s church. Alevin, parr, grilse, springer, greyback, baggot, rawner, kelt— he (and she, more often the survivor) goes under many names, slipping in and out of the phases of their hydraulic saga. Even those late-season, rusting individuals have their dignity and splendour and power—what Ted Hughes called their “epic poise”. ‘Once, they were so abundant in the Thames that Henry III’s polar bear from the Tower menagerie was swum each day on a chain to fish for his own supper. Now, their populations are fragile and embattled. It’s unthinkable the wild salmon should disappear on our watch. However, every sentence that begins “God forbid” describes something that is possible.’ Visit www.yearofthesalmon. org. Watch the Attenborough film at www.nasco.int/iys.html
David Profumo caught his first fish at the age of five and is still trying to get the hang of it. When he’s not travelling with rod and reel, he lives up a Perthshire glen with Pompey, a spaniel that only speaks dog Latin www.countrylife.co.uk
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TravelMini-break
Decommissioned luxury
S
Port of Leith, Edinburgh
et on the Firth of Forth, edinburgh’s Leith area has changed exponentially in the two-and-a-bit decades since Irvine Welsh’s self-medicated rogues littered these cobbled streets. A greater wave of gentrification would be hard to find. the port’s upturn was heralded with the arrival of HMY Britannia
in 1997, which has taken up residence as a royal museum. Now, the trust that maintains Britannia has invested in another vessel, Fingal, a former lighthouse servicing ship, which has undergone a £5 million refit to become a fivestar, floating hotel. Adam Hay-Nicholls
Where to eat
Oysters are the preferred pub snack and The Ship on The Shore has a fishy happy hour. Leith boasts two Michelin-starred restaurants—The Kitchin (0131–555 1755; www.thekitchin.com) and Martin Wishart (www.restaurantmartinwishart.co.uk; 0131– 553 3557)—both serving up seasonal Scottish produce with an imaginative French twist.
Shining a light on Scotland’s finest
Each of Fingal’s 23 cabins is named after a Stevenson lighthouse, which is illustrated by black-and-white photography. Wardrobes are trimmed in fine Scottish leather; Tunnock’s Teacakes and Noble Isle whisky-scented soaps are provided. The Princess Royal, who is patron of the Northern Lighthouse Board, served on Fingal and what had been her cabin is now an en-suite bathroom. The Scotch and Champagne selections in the Lighthouse Bar are superb and the £40 afternoon tea is a particular treat. Cabins from £300 (0131– 357 5000; www.fingal.co.uk).
What to do
• Araminta Campbell’s (www.aramintacampbell.co.uk) textile studio is mere yards from Fingal and her bed throws and cushions appear in the hotel. • Aboard Britannia, the clocks are stopped at 3:01pm. It was at this hour, on the afternoon of December 11, 1997, that The Queen stepped ashore for the final time and shed a tear. Now, 350,000 visitors pass through every year; tickets from £16.50. The State Dining Room can be hired for private events (0131–555 5566; www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk). 126 Country Life, May 15, 2019
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TravelThe great escape
An oasis of calm
O
CCupying the upper reaches of a towering skyscraper in Tokyo’s financial district, the Mandarin Oriental is long on spectacular views. On a clear morning, it’s possible to see the 12,388ft snow-capped peak of Mount Fuji, more than 60 miles away. in the evening, glittering city lights fill the floor-to-ceiling windows and make you feel as if you’re at the heart of the action. Even in the city that has impressed Michelin guide judges more than any other in recent years, having three separate starred restaurants in one hotel might seem a little greedy, although that’s hardly a concern if you’re a guest. There’s sushi and Cantoneseinspired fine dining, but the most eyecatching cuisine is at Tapas Molecular Bar. The hotel bar offers guests the chance to sip a cocktail (try the Tokyo g&T) beside a two-storey water feature or enjoy a dram of local whisky with a cigar from the wellstocked humidor. The spa provides a healthconscious way to unwind with a massage or a soak in a modern version of a traditional Japanese onsen (bathing suit optional) as you enjoy the views from the 38th floor. 128 Country Life, May 15, 2019
Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo The best thing about the hotel is the general feeling you get from being here: of being comfortable and cosseted. partly, that’s down to the rooms, which blend marble, wood and luxurious soft furnishings with spaciousness that’s hard to come by in a city of 13 million people. it’s also down to the staff. Those you see are unfailingly polite, but those you don’t might be even more impressive. The care with which rooms are tidied—effects carefully arranged, charger cords wound—as
While you’re there • If you’re lucky enough to secure one of the eight seats at the kitchen table in Molecular Tapas Bar, the 14-course tasting menu is a must. Chef Ngan Ping Chow invites gastronauts on a journey of discovery with dishes such as ‘spherified’ onion soup and deconstructed California roll with olive-oil ‘caviar’ • Explore the Nihonbashi neighbourhood on your doorstep with its traditional craft and food shops nestled among the glassand-concrete monuments to finance (www. nihonbashi-tokyo.jp/en/information_center)
well as the small gifts left behind mean your heart lifts every time you open the door. As Tokyo hosts the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Olympics, the city will thrum with yet more energy. Here, however, you sense an oasis of calm will prevail. Edwin Smith Rooms from 80,000JPY (about £545) per night (00 81 3 3270 8800; www.mandarin oriental.com/tokyo). The writer was sponsored by the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau, the Mitsui Fudosan Co and Suigian • Walk down the brightly coloured, noisy Takeshita Street, spiritual home of Harajuku girls and kawaii (that particularly Japanese cutesy aesthetic), before decompressing with a visit to the neighbouring design district, home to architectural masterpieces that house marquee stores for brands such as Prada and Comme des Garçons • Become acquainted with the calm contemplation of Shinto at a shrine such as Meiji Jingu. In spring and autumn, the changing colours of the tree-lined avenues make the shrines even more of a spectacle www.countrylife.co.uk
Bridge Andrew Robson
Crossword
T
A prize of £15 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Crossword No 4579, CounTry LIfe, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF, by Tuesday, May 21. UK entrants only.
he second hand normally plays low, but woe betide a defender who slips into ‘Second hand Plays Low Autopilot Mode’ or ShPLAM. here is one of my favourite second-hand plays high positions. North (entryless) ♣A J 10 3 2 east West ♣Q 9 8 ♣K 7 6 South ♣5 4 South has opened, say 2NT and North, entryless outside Clubs, has raised to 3NT. Declarer wins West’s opening lead and leads up a Club. West must rise with the King. Whether or not dummy’s Ace is played, declarer is now held to only one Club trick. Note, if West is in ShPLAM and plays low, east must duck dummy’s ten, restricting dummy to two Club tricks; if he beats the ten with the Queen, declarer can make four Club tricks on regaining the lead, via a second-round finesse of dummy’s Knave. Our first deal comes from the US Nationals in Las Vegas. The star was east, erez hendelman, and his second-hand play was particularly impressive as the lead was from dummy towards the closed hand. Dealer south north-south Vulnerable
J95 aJ43 9863 a9
74 985 aKJ2 KQ74 K82 N 10 7 2 W✢E Q 10 5 S J863
West Pass
2nT(2) Pass
north 2♣
East Pass
3nT
End
(1) Marginal opener. (2) Playing strong notrump, the notrump rebid shows 12–14 (or an upgraded 11).
West led a heart to the ten and Queen. At trick two, declarer led a Club towards dummy’s pictures, West ducking and dummy’s Queen winning. At trick three, he led a low Spade towards his hand—and this is where the brilliancy occurred. Say east plays a ShPLAM two of Spades. Declarer takes the deep finesse of the ten, West winning the Knave and, unable to play hearts from his side, having no better play than a Diamond. Declarer wins www.countrylife.co.uk
Dealer north East-West Vulnerable Q85 aJ96 9 a K J 10 3 J73 a 10 9 2 85 K32 N K742 a Q 10 8 5 W ✢ E 9752 Q S K64 Q 10 7 4 J63 864 south
a Q 10 6 3 KQ6 74 10 5 2 south 1♠(1)
the King, finesses the Queen of Spades and cashes the Ace, happily exposing the 3–3 split. he cashes the two long Spades and leads up a second Club. West wins the Ace and leads another Diamond, but declarer wins dummy’s Ace and cashes the promoted King of Clubs. Nine tricks and game made. however, east didn’t play low on the first Spade: he rose with an entry-killing King (key play). Now, declarer was well and truly stuffed. If he ducked, east could lead a second heart through the King, but if he won the Ace, he could never reach his long Spades. he drifted two down. You are east on our deal, also from the US Nationals. Will you be in ShPLAM?
1♥
West Dbl(1)
DOWN 2 With hesitation, thus climbs London statue (4) 3 In poor health—not on green, perhaps (3, 6) 4 Forked out about two pounds, being wan (6) 5 Senior politician’s cupboard initially installed in church (7, 8) 7 Keen always to receive silver (5) 8 Asian team is even, somehow (10) 9 Compelled artist to carry one’s wine (7) 13 Indecision of ambassador, one in post (10) 16 Fast-moving vessel jolting a poet’s bed (9) 17 Ship’s attendant has a way with goulash, for example (7) 20 Stick poster in this place? (6) 22 In Brazilian port, extremely ancient relationship (5) 23 Device for securing new farm building (4)
4579
north
East
1♣
Pass
4♥
ACROSS 1 In which rockets may fly quickly round 2? (9) 6 Lift bundles of cornstalks, breaking ends off (5) 10 Driver, possibly, and where one may be employed (4, 4) 11 Person fishing shows great annoyance about lake (6) 12 One leaves Tiree region in organised racing (12) 14 Cruel emperor rejected on entertaining the Queen (4) 15 Irritating book about Irish and english Society (8) 18 Politician introducing surprisingly trite books (8) 19 Language Alexander Selkirk partly used? (4) 21 Blinkered, objected to following new weapon (6-6) 24 Newborn puppies, perhaps? Rubbish (6) 25 Abstinent, requiring warm drink, say—the whole lot (8) 26 Resentment gripping old emissary (5) 27 A bloke crossing river in a S. American state (9)
Casina
End
(1)Takeout, virtually guaranteeing at least four cards in both the unbid spades and Diamonds.
West, your partner, leads the Queen of Clubs. Sit up in your chair —clearly, that’s a singleton (partner would hardly lead top-of-a-doubleton in dummy’s suit). Declarer wins in dummy and calls for a low Diamond. You play second-hand low and… And you’ve blown it. You can never win the lead to give partner a Club ruff and declarer romps home. I insult you. You rise with the King of Diamonds and give partner a Club ruff. West now exits with a top Diamond. In dummy, declarer needs to find a way of reaching his hand to take the heart finesse. he tries the Queen of Spades in the hope West will naïvely win the Ace, creating an entry for declarer’s King. however, West is not your partner for nothing. he lets the Queen of Spades win the trick and now declarer is left having to hope the King of hearts falls under dummy’s Ace. It doesn’t and he’s one down.
NAME (pLease prInT In CapITaLs) ADDRESS Tel No TI MedIa LIMITed, pubLIsher of CounTry LIfe wILL CoLLeCT your personaL InforMaTIon soLeLy To proCess your CoMpeTITIon enTry and Then IT wILL be desTroyed
SOLUTION TO 4578 (Winner will be announced in two weeks’ time) ACROSS: 8, Neath; 9, Champions; 10, Oratorical; 11, Char; 12, No one; 13, Staysails; 14, Eddy; 16, Power; 17, Dish; 21, Reply-paid; 23, Often; 24, Alto; 25, Lukewarmly; 26, Directory; 27, Tithe. DOWN: 1, Announce; 2, Paranoid; 3, Theorem; 4, The cat’s whiskers; 5, Employer; 6, Pilchard; 7, End-all; 15, Yellowed; 16, Populate; 18, Intimate; 19, Honeydew; 20, Royalty; 22, Eclair. Winner of 4577 is Miss Fiona Boyle, London
Country Life, May 15, 2019 129
Stop and smell the roses What better way to while away the ever-lengthening days than by taking a stroll around someone else’s garden? From the works of the great Gertrude Jekyll to burgeoning borders, kitchen gardens and enchanting woodland walks, you’ll find that some of the country’s greatest jewels are nearer than you think
Hever Castle and Gardens
Hestercombe Gardens
Enjoy award-winning gardens set in 125 acres of glorious grounds. During May, the gardens at Hever Castle offer more than just a visual display—all senses are stimulated as wonderful scents waft in the air and spring breezes rustle the drooping heads of wisteria blooms. Hever in Bloom (June 25–30) showcases the gardens along with free garden tours.
Often referred to as the ‘jewel in Somerset’s crown’ and the ‘gateway to the Quantocks’, Hestercombe’s Formal Gardens, designed by Gertrude Jekyll and Sir Edwin Lutyens, are at their most colourful, sumptuous best. You’ll find your inner peace and tranquility as you meander through the lush Georgian Landscape Garden.
Kent (01732 865224; www.hevercastle.co.uk)
Somerset (01823 413923; www.hestercombe.com)
Hoveton Hall Estate
Rodmarton Manor
The gardens offer visitors an array of colour and interest throughout the seasons. May and June are glorious masses of spectacular colour from the rhododendrons and azaleas. July and August see the more formal herbaceous and kitchen gardens taking centre stage. Onsite is the fabulous Garden Kitchen Café, run by local chef Alex Firman.
Rodmarton Manor is one of the finest examples of an Arts-and-Crafts garden in the country. Designed at the beginning of the 20th century by Ernest Barnsley for the Biddulph family, the fourth generation of Biddulphs now live in the house and maintain the garden. Outstanding characteristics include a large walled garden and the magnificent herbaceous borders.
Norfolk (01603 784297; www.hovetonhallestate.co.uk)
Gloucestershire (01285 841442; www.rodmarton-manor.co.uk)
Ramster Hall Gardens
Castle Howard
Ramster Garden is an enchanting historic woodland garden, which bursts into terrific colour in the spring. Famous for its collection of rhododendrons and azaleas, more than 300 different varieties are on show for visitors. In May, the signature rhododendron Cynthia bursts out along the entrance drive and can be found throughout the 20-acre garden, some towering over 40ft high.
Castle Howard commands breathtaking views studded with statues, lakes and fountains. The grounds and gardens can be enjoyed in any number of ways— from a tranquil lakeside stroll, to a walk through enchanting woodland or quiet relaxation in the 18th-century walled garden. Visitors can join a guided tour and should leave enough time to visit the garden centre.
Surrey (01428 654167; www.ramsterevents.com)
North Yorkshire (01653 648333; www.castlehoward.co.uk)
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Leonardslee Lakes and Gardens
Houghton Lodge Gardens
The Grade I-listed gardens in the 240-acre estate feature outstanding displays of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, magnolias and bluebells. Plants were collected from all over the world from the early 1800s, with rare champion trees that are threatened in their natural habitat. The Grade II-listed mansion features classic afternoon tea and restaurant Interlude, renowned for its foraged tasting menu.
This is the UK’s best surviving example of an 18th-century cottage orné, idyllically set above the River Test. Enjoy formal and informal gardens, the 350ft herbaceous border and traditional kitchen garden. Enclosed by chalk cob walls, there are espaliers, an apple orchard, peonies and roses. Discover river walks, charming alpacas and topiary dragons, before refreshments in the tea room.
West Sussex (08718 733389; www.leonardsleegardens.co.uk)
Hampshire (01264 810502; www.houghtonlodge.co.uk)
Stonor Park
Bourton House Garden
Stonor Park dates back to medieval times. Today, these gardens are still nurtured by the same family that first laid them 550 years ago. Visitors love the serenity of the Renaissance ponds and fountains in the delightful 17th-century Italianate Pleasure Garden. Explore the striking borders of herbaceous perennials, which are inspired by a painting of the walled garden from 1686.
Bourton House Garden is an awardwinning three-acre garden offering imaginative topiary, magnificent wide herbaceous borders with unusual and exotic plants and water features including a raised Basket Pond from the Great Exhibition of 1851. The garden is particularly fine in summer and early autumn, when the use of tender and semi-hardy plants extends the flowering season.
Oxfordshire (01491 638587; www.stonor.com)
Gloucestershire (01386 700754; www.bourtonhouse.com)
Castle Hill
Peter Beales Display Garden
Castle Hill Gardens feature 50 acres of ravishing landscape, set against the beautiful 18th-century Palladian house. This is a garden for all seasons—throughout the summer and autumn, highlights in the Millennium Garden include a wondrous colourful display of herbaceous planting with lavender edges. Tea Room open April–October: bring this advert to receive a complimentary cream tea for two.
Located in rural Norfolk, there can be no better way to view roses than from within these beautiful two-acre display gardens. The imaginative planting schemes ensure that, whenever you choose to visit, you will find roses and plants to intrigue and inspire. There’s an extensive range of roses, companion plants and gardening products. The Rosarium restaurant offers a tempting menu throughout the day.
Devon (01598 760336; www.castlehilldevon.co.uk)
Norfolk (01953 454707; www.classicroses.co.uk)
Chenies Manor House
Haddon Hall
This 15th-century manor house was a great favourite of Elizabeth I and rumour has it that it’s haunted by the ghost of Henry VIII. The enchanting, award-winning gardens include a sunken, white, kitchen and physic garden, along with a full-size maze and labyrinth plus late-summer displays of dahlias. There are home-made teas, a shop and plants for sale. The annual plant fair, with 90 specialist stalls, is on July 14.
These gardens are a rare survival from the 16th century, composed of six Elizabethan terraces that cascade down to the River Wye, ancient walls clothed in fragrant climbing roses, lawns and borders designed by Arne Maynard, interlaced with walkways and punctuated by topiary. For 2019, head gardener Lindsay Berry will be delivering a series of workshops, talks and tours.
Buckinghamshire (01494 762888; www.cheniesmanorhouse.co.uk)
Derbyshire (01629 810911; www.haddonhall.co.uk)
A room of one’s own A place to escape, a place to reflect, a place to watch the world go by. Alternatively, a place to get down to work, away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. A shepherd’s hut is a tasteful and individualistic way to maximise your outdoor space and there are plenty of luxurious options to choose from
New Forest Hutmakers Prices from £13,500 (01425 656553; www.hut-makers.com)
Shropshire Shepherds Huts Prices from £4,950 (01694 720162; www.shropshireshepherdshutsandpods.co.uk)
Riverside Shepherd Huts Prices from £13,000 (01527 821848; www.riversideshepherdhuts.co.uk)
The Shepherd Hut Company Prices from £15,900 (01822 612720; www.shepherd-hut.co.uk)
White Peak Shepherd Huts Prices from £12,000 (07761 983312; www.whitepeakshepherdhuts.uk)
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Blackdown Shepherd Huts Prices from £17,950 (01460 929774; www.blackdownshepherdhuts.co.uk)
Shepherd’s Rest Huts Prices from £19,450 VAT not charged (07955 073544; www.shepherdsresthuts.co.uk)
Red Sky Shepherd Huts Prices from £16,500 (07870 223114; www.redskyshepherdshuts.co.uk)
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Plankbridge Shepherd Huts Prices from £19,000 (01300 348414; www.plankbridge.com)
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Ian Norrington specialises in beautifully handcrafted seal engraved signet rings and engraved cufflinks. He is a Liveryman of the prestigious Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. A detailed colour brochure with prices is available on request. A 15% reader discount is available.
London and the country Independent company acting solely and discreetly for purchasers. All enquiries to Francis Long. Call +44 (0) 1189 713210 francis.long@hanslips.com www.hanslips.com
Selling quality homes in Exeter & mid-Devon. +44(0) 1392 243 077 www.francislouis.co.uk
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134 Country Life, May 15 2019
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Rosa ‘EMILY BRONTË’ English Shrub Rose
Breeders of exquisite English Roses since 1961 SHROPSHIRE ENGLAND For your FREE ‘Handbook of Roses’ call 0800 111 4699
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Interiors
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Time Circles Garden And Landscape Stones Headstones And Memorials
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Interiors
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An Exquisite Memory Box is a beautiful piece of art where precious, personal and family memories will always be safe. More than this each individually hand crafted box is a true token of love symbolised in personal marquetry, celebrating a defining moment in life. Truly a wonderful gift to be cherished, admired and remembered by.
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Spectator
Jason Goodwin
Time and tide wait for no man
S
OMETIMES, you really need to go away to remember what it is you love so much about home. Standing, this week, on the shores of the Golden Horn in Istanbul, it came to me, quite out of the blue: an image of my younger self, in gumboots, stooped over the black ooze and whiskery rubble of the Thames foreshore, mudlarking. They’ve dredged many remarkable things out of the sea in Istanbul: triremes and ingots, ambergris and jewels, plus a complete imperial harbour or two, but they have to do with caissons and pumps what I used to do by the semi-diurnal miracle of the tide. It was only for a few years that I had that freedom of the Thames and I never found treasure. I found truck money, a Georgian penny, clay-pipe stems and, once, a pipe bowl fluted like a clamshell. I found buttons aplenty and always dreaded uncovering a severed hand or even a body draped around the pilings of the Mayflower at Rotherhithe, where such things did, occasionally, wash up.
Paris had elegance, with a tideless Seine, green and smooth, protected by locks, always at a perfect level with the quays and bridges, but London’s river sinks and lunges, like a dog on a chain, something a little wild, T. S. Eliot’s brown god breathing in the city’s heart. It’s only by going away that you realise how uncommon that is. Bosham, in Chichester Harbour, is famous for having the only church in the Bayeux Tapestry and a claim to one of England’s most enduring tales, of Canute taking his throne to the beach and enjoining the tides to obey his commands. In our school, where we didn’t dwell much on the folly of kings, we were taught that he meant to shut up the flatterers in his Court. On the way, of course, he demonstrated the immutability of natural laws and one of the most mutable glories of his northern empire: the constant revelation and concealment of the tidal shore. Tides around the British Isles are some of the fiercest in the
TOTTERING-BY-GENTLY
Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation
By Annie Tempest
world. In the Bristol Channel, they can rise and fall by almost 50ft, giving it the second largest tidal range in the world, pipped to the post by the Bay of Fundy in Canada. Much of the world is untouched by the tide, including Istanbul.
Canute meant to shut up the flatterers; on the way, he demonstrated the immutability of natural laws You might think that the water, drawn by the Moon, would surge across the surface of the globe in pursuit, but that’s not quite what happens. I was with an engineer when I made my remark on Britain’s tides and he explained how land
deflects and contains the movement of the water, so that the tiny, landlocked Mediterranean gets barely any tide at all and the northern and eastern Atlantic receive 50ft. In tidal zones, the water starts to move in a rotating pattern around a tideless central node called an amphidromic point. The further you are from that point, the bigger the tides. That is why we have rock pools to discover and mud flats and the galloping waters of Morecambe Bay. It’s the treachery of Kent’s Goodwin Sands and the reliability of the Severn Bore. Like weather and the seasons, it’s what makes our islands so gloriously changeable. Edward Ardizzone devoted one of his best stories to the tides. Tim and Ginger sit while the old boatman explains about the dangers of the cliffs, but only Tim really listens. Ginger inevitably slouches off, hands in pockets. ‘Poof,’ he says. ‘I know all about the silly old sea.’ No spoilers, but it doesn’t go well.
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