Magzbox com country life 23 september 2015 by nordicsalex

COUNTRY LIFE SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

EVERY WEEK

Hedgerow wines: the good, the bad and the hangover

The splendid Sussex spaniel Unbeatable classics–Roberts Radios, Kenwood Mixers and Russell Hobbs kettles

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COUNTRY LIFE VOL CCIX NO 39, SEPTEMBER 23, 2015

Miss Danielle Evans Danielle, aged 23, is the youngest daughter of Mrs Melissa Evans of Woodborough Mill Farm, Pensford, Somerset. Educated at Wellsway School, Keynsham, Danielle is an event rider and has represented Great Britain in six consecutive European Championships. Photographed by John Millar

Contents September 23, 2015 Jeremy Hackettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Muffin seems to be explaining all the secrets of life as a beloved Sussex spaniel to her puppy, Harry (page 60)

Sussex spaniel, photographed by John Millar

John Millar; Douglas Fennell; Photographieundmehr/ Dreamstime; Jake Eastham

Long-lasting appliances

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The finish is better than modern products, as is the engineeringâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Decades on and still working, page 54

This week

Every week

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The Chairman of the Royal Ballet School chooses an enigmatic portrait by VelĂĄzquez

Spending cuts threaten local museums

3DULVK &KXUFK 7UHDVXUHV John Goodall investigates the ornate Gothic interior of the Church of Our Lady, Egmanton, Nottinghamshire

Headgerow tipples

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;In Dorset, anyone who doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sloe gin is considered â&#x20AC;&#x153;a bit oddâ&#x20AC;?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Autumnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bounty, page 68

*URZQ RXW RI WKH VRLO Clive Aslet describes the context and story of the creation of the Arts-and-Crafts Stoneywell Cottage, Leicestershire

9LVXDO 7UHDVXUH *ODVWRQEXU\ 7RU LQ PLVW 7KH ODG\ RI WKH ODNH Jacky Hobbs visits Il Biviere in Sicily, the garden created by Principessa Maria Carla Borghese

7KH ODERXU RI ORYH They may only travel slowly, but David Profumo discovers that snails have an altogether racier mating ritual

Cover story :KDW WKLV ROG WKLQJ" Anna Tyzack talks to the owners of vintage appliances that were certainly built to last

Cover story 7KH VSDQLHO WLPH IRUJRW Driven-grouse day

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Grouse speed through the line like small russet missilesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; The moor, the merrier, page 70

Devoted and diligent, the Sussex spaniel has languished on the vulnerable breeds list, says Katy Birchall

6RPHWKLQJ WR ZULWH KRPH DERXW The life of a writer-in-residence is never dullâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Emma Hughes finds out what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like to put pen to paper far from home

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1RWHERRN /HWWHUV $JURPHQHV 0\ :HHN Joe Gibbs goes in seach of Nessie

,Q 7KH *DUGHQ Robert Clark falls in love with lavender

.LWFKHQ *DUGHQ &RRN 3URSHUW\ 0DUNHW Back to school in Hampshire with Penny Churchill

3URSHUW\ 1HZV Itchen or Test? Tessa Waugh finds the perfect fishing property

([KLELWLRQ Catherine Milner enjoys a show celebrating David Hockneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s early work

3HUIRUPLQJ $UWV Dance is everywhere if you look for it, urges Barbara Newman

%RRNV Gothic for the Steam Age

From rosehip infusion to sweet-chestnut brandy, forager John Wright has tried them all

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Huon Mallalieu assesses a charming Lowry and a couple of Grimshaws

Adrian Dangar joins a party of guns on a wet and wild drivengrouse day in North Yorkshire

$ EXQFK RI Ă&#x20AC;YHV Lucy Higginson explores the roots of Fives, an ancient game that tests the brain and is enjoying increased popularity

%ULGJH DQG &URVVZRUG &ODVVLĂ&#x20AC;HG $GYHUWLVHPHQWV 6SHFWDWRU Lucy Baring has a dry September

7RWWHULQJ E\ *HQWO\ 22 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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Down on the prairie N

OT even horticulture is immune to follies and fads of political correctness. Witness the method for re-creating prairie and similar habitats that has ever more public gardens and landscapes in its thrall. This approach is not the same as the lovingly calculated and managed evocations of prairie produced by our most gifted garden-makers. Nor does it resemble our admirable wildflower meadows: it deploys natives of North America, South Africa and the Mediterranean rather than Britain. Seeds of species that cohabit in such regions are sown on vast expanses of bare earth. The big idea is to let Nature do the rest: no feeding, watering, weeding, deadheading or dividing, just spontaneous plenitude self-regulated by principles older than Adam. The claims made for such installations are of a kind that delights progressive but ill-considered opinion. They are lauded for being attractive to insects—but they don’t attract nearly so many as various ornamental shrubs or a traditional herbaceous border. They’re said to have minimal impact on the environment—but who is to

tell what invasive escapes may be spawned by their uncut seedheads? And if low impact is really landscaping’s summum bonum, what’s wrong with the most minimal option of all: native British flora? Although billed as ‘natural plant communities’, their constituents are, of course, exotic and merely a small, toughest-only sampling of what grows together back on their home soil. Low- or no-maintenance they may be, but they’re no less artificial than a parterre de broderie. Nor do they favour biodiversity, as is claimed. Compared with most good gardens, their plant range is sadly limited. There are instances where they diminish biodiversity and understanding of it. For example, some botanic gardens have vogueishly devoted large areas to these floristic follies—areas that would be better filled with more varied and significant collections of plants that are conventionally and thus sustainably cared for and more lucidly displayed and communicated to the public. It has been suggested that this new approach is how gardening will need to be as our climate grows ‘hotter and drier’. However, prairie flora would be no better

suited to such changed conditions than hundreds of other plants that we’ve been growing for years—rather worse suited, in fact. And if this were truly the future of gardening, most of us would simply give up: these installations look like wasteland for much of the year and that isn’t going to change with the climate. The operative word here is ‘gardening’. Evangelists of this new approach proclaim the end of maintenance as if that were good news, but cultivation and its attendant arts, sciences and crafts are gardening. We should be training more gardeners and raising more plants, not espousing an ideology that consigns them to the skip. The great majority understands this; the challenge is to convince fad-prone funders, planners and managers. Do that, and this new approach will be seen for what it is: just another style, and one that can be glorious at the right time and place. As for the exuberant claims, we’ll remember those as a curious moment in our long garden history when a few who doubtless meant well imagined that this style could supplant the thing that so many of us do, and love doing, best.

PPA Specialist Consumer Magazine of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Innovation of the Year 2014/15 Editor Mark Hedges Editor’s PA Rosie Paterson 84428 Telephone numbers are prefixed by 020–314 Emails are name.surname@timeinc.com Editorial Enquiries 84444 Subscription Enquiries 0330 333 4555 DeputyEditor/Travel Editor Rupert Uloth 84431 Managing Editor Kate Green 84441 Architectural Editor John Goodall 84439 Gardens Editor Kathryn Bradley-Hole 84433 Fine Arts & Books Editor Mary Miers 84438 Property Editor Arabella Youens 84432 Features Editors Paula Lester and Flora Howard 84446 Deputy Features Editor Katy Birchall 84436 Luxury Editor Hetty Chidwick 84430

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Country Life, September 23, 2015 23

Town & Country

Edited by Kate Green

Crisis in regional museums Some of our regional museums are facing a struggle for survival. Clive Aslet reports on a very mixed picture in the run-up to the Comprehensive Spending Review

Bob and Roberta Smith; RDImages/Epics/Getty Images; Ian Leonard/Alamy

NE of the great legacies that Britain enjoys from earlier generations of philanthropy is the number and range of its local museums, as described by Giles Waterfield (COUNTRY LIFE, August 12, 2015). Their variety, quality and sheer abundance is astonishing, and yet, in these trying times for the public finances, Britain is in danger of losing part of this heritage. Museums that rely on the support of local authorities are particularly vulnerable: Arts spending is discretionary, healthcare and education are not. However well-disposed councillors may be towards their local museums, therefore, they may be forced to cut budgets already stressed by the reduction in Arts Council grants. Indeed, a survey by the Museums Association has revealed that there’s hardly a local museum in the country that hasn’t been affected by cuts— and some of the consequences have been severe. ‘I would be astonished if there weren’t closures,’ declares David Fleming, who is both director of National Museums, Liverpool and president of the Museums Association. Janita Bagshawe, Head of Royal Pavilion and Museums for Brighton and Hove City Council, is equally fatalistic: ‘When you lose them, they will have gone. What are future generations going to think of the betrayal 24 Country Life, September 23, 2015

of the former philanthropists’ good intentions?’ One consequence at Brighton and Hove is that the Royal Pavilion now can only offer residents discounted entry (£5.75 instead of £11.50). That may work for an internationally famous landmark, but it’s a more difficult option for cities such as Sheffield, where Kim Streets is having to take an additional 40% out of a budget that has already been squeezed by more than 30% over the past few years. ‘There’s no fat left to cut,’ she declares. Although income is being generated from as many new sources as possible, the speed and severity of the cuts have ‘left gaps too big to fill’. There will be fewer specialist staff and exhibitions. At present, it isn’t planned to reduce the opening hours of the museums, because this would diminish the takings from the shops and cafes. Southampton City Art Gallery, however, has done just that. Although

Enraged by the Goverment’s downgrading of art in schools, Patrick Brill began the Art is Your Human Right campaign under his pseudonym Bob and Roberta Smith. The results are the subject of a show at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow E17 from October 16 to January 31, 2016 (www.wmgallery. org.uk)

still free, the gallery closes at 3pm on Monday to Friday and at 5pm on Saturday and doesn’t open on Sundays. The curator Tim Craven’s job is now half-time. Ironically, there is still money from bequest funds to make acquisitions, but, in the dayto-day running of the museum, in his words, ‘the cracks just get wider’. And yet, however louring the financial skies, local-museum directors remain a stoical lot; perhaps their reluctance to complain has served them badly. As Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, observes: ‘Most of the noise comes from the national museums; most of the pain is being felt in regional museums.’ There is a difficulty here—regional museums cannot speak with one voice. Museums are likely to fare better in richer, more visited parts of the country, but they are just as important, if not arguably more so, in depressed areas, where, to quote Mary Rose Gunn, Chief Executive of the Bulldog Trust, the museum www.countrylife.co.uk

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could well be ‘one of the last public spaces left’. Many museums look to a future outside the local authority straitjacket by becoming independent charitable trusts. Financially, this offers a tax advantage, although they’re still likely to be largely reliant on the local authority for funds, at least in the short term, but an important difference is that trusts are by boards of trustees rather than local-government committees. Some museums have found common ground with universities, which may have their own museums, thus, in Manchester, Maria Balshaw is both director of the Whitworth, winner of this year’s Art Fund Prize, and of Manchester City Galleries. Universities make attractive partners: since the advent of student tuition fees, they have become a relatively affluent division of the public sector. ‘University partnership is vital for research curatorship in the future at this time of cutbacks in regional museums,’ says Prof Ann Sumner, head of the Public Art Project at the University of Leeds, although not all museums have universities with which they can join hands. The Blitz spirit being shown by museum professionals reflects their knowledge that the whole of the Arts establishment is suffering in the same way. Increasingly, directors are finding ingenious ways to cut their cloth more economically. There is scope for using more volunteers, particularly retired people with skills in, for example, marketing or IT. www.countrylife.co.uk

Lack of funds has already forced Southampton City Art Gallery to close at 3pm from Monday to Friday

It could be argued that this kind of creativity brings social rewards. No amount of volunteering, however, can replace the specialist knowledge of, for example, an Egyptologist. Not everything is going the wrong way. The William Morris Gallery at Walthamstow, E17, is an example of an award-winning project triumphantly supported, against the mood of the times, by a local authority. Indeed, the plight in which museums now find themselves is particularly sad given the recognition that landmark museums help the cause of regeneration. A pioneer, in this respect, were the National Museums in Liverpool, which now constitute a lynchpin of the Merseyside economy. In recent years, similar hopes have been raised by the BALTIC Centre on the River Tyne, The Hepworth Wakefield and Turner Contemporary in Margate. The Heritage Lottery Fund has also helped raised the profile of museums. To risk the closure of regional museums at a time when the Government has prioritised initiatives such as the Northern Powerhouse seems terminally short-sighted.

No longer blighting Blighty T

HE landscape of four beauty spots in the British countryside will be significantly changing with the removal of the electricity pylons currently running through them, the National Grid has announced. In an effort to minimise the visual impact of the power lines, a total of 45 pylons will be replaced with underground cables in prioritised locations in the AONB near Winterbourne Abbas, Dorset, and in the New Forest National Park, the Peak District National Park and the Snowdonia National Park. These areas triumphed in gaining the funding from the National Grid—which will be contributing £500 million for the project—from an original shortlist of 12 areas. Other sites on the shortlist will remain under consideration for future work. Rosie Paterson

Good week for Dark reading Michael Wood, the chief judge for the Man Booker Prize, has admitted that the six shortlisted novels this year are all ‘pretty grim’ Global Apollo Programme Sir David Attenborough has given his backing to the 10-year project to develop clean energy technology

Bad week for The BBC The Countryside Alliance has accused the corporation of allowing wildlife presenter Chris Packham to abuse his position to promote an animal-rights agenda Rural-crime victims A new survey from the National Rural Crime Network reports that crime in rural parts of England and Wales has cost more than £800 million in the past year Marine life Populations of marine species have declined by 49% since 1970, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London

Dream properties COUNTRY LIFE has partnered exclusively with OnTheMarket.com to launch a new online UK property search. ‘The property market has always been one of our key priorities, both in our weekly magazine and online,’ enthuses Jean Christie, COUNTRY LIFE’s Publishing Director. ‘We work closely with highend agents to provide a unique environment that attracts a discerning and high-net-worth audience, which has the money to invest in beautiful houses.’ To browse hundreds of properties, visit www.countrylife.co.uk

An evening with Alan Titchmarsh The National Gardens Scheme (NGS) is launching its Annual Lecture at the Royal Geographical Society with a talk by gardener and broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh on Tuesday, October 27 at 7pm. Tickets cost £20 and all proceeds go to the NGS. Doors open at 6pm and drinks are available before the lecture at 7pm.To order, visit www. ngs.org.uk/lecture and quote CLNGS15. ➢ Country Life, September 23, 2015 25

Town & Country Can you read the handwriting on the wall?

A new vision to answer Nature’s call T

WO reports launched this month call for the Government to put restoration of the natural environment at the heart of plans for future management of the UK’s farmland, rivers, lakes and wetlands. The Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of 46 voluntary organisations, has set out a clear vision in Farming Fit for the Future and Water Matters, asking for longterm planning of farming policies and practice, investment of public money into healthy soil, biodiversity and food storage and effective regulation, as well as better enforcement of penalties to protect land and water from pollution. Welcoming the Government’s commitment to a 25-year plan to restore biodiversity, the publications highlight declining wildlife—freshwater species have plummeted by 76% over the past 30 years—and the huge cost of pollution: it’s estimated that the cost of soil degradation in England and Wales is £1.2 billion each year. Addressing the issues set out in the reports, Defra Secretary Liz Truss emphasises: ‘We have

Better than fiction: Peny-ghent in the Yorkshire Dales

a huge opportunity to use data and technology to empower people and communities… We have made advances in securing a cleaner, healthier natural environment, but we are only part of the way there.’ She continues: ‘[The environment] is core to our country’s identity; it is core to people’s everyday life, their health, to our economy. And the countries that are successful in the future are going to be those with thriving environments where people want to live and work and be close to nature.’ Applauding the progress of schemes such as the National Pollinator Strategy, the Thames Tideway Tunnel and the capital grants of the new Countryside Stewardship scheme, she also points out the hope of engaging the public in such issues: ‘I think sometimes things can appear technical and distant. What I want is to make them real and clear about how people can get involved in improving their own environment.’ For more information on the reports, visit www.wcl.org.uk Katy Birchall

ROM spidery notes to elaborate, flamboyant flourishes, the handwriting of a host of British artists is to come under close scrutiny. Using the Tate and Zooniverse’s new online transcription tool, Deciphering AnnoTate, the the code: can London art galyou make light lery—which holds the national work of Francis Bacon’s collection of penmanship? British art from 1500 to the present day, along with international modern and contemporary art— is inviting online audiences to decipher the hands of such artistic luminaries as Dame Barbara Hepworth, Walter Sickert and Francis Bacon from their letters, diaries and sketchbooks. Featuring more than 17,000 handwritten documents from the Tate Archive, AnnoTate allows visitors to log on and type up anything from Duncan Grant’s letters to Vanessa Bell to the notes in Donald Rodney’s sketchbooks. Once the resulting texts have been verified by the Tate’s archivists, the official transcripts will be published on the Tate’s website, alongside the original materials, which were recently digitised thanks to a grant of £2 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Paula Lester

North Yorkshire’s wonder restored

NE of the most unusual monuments at Castle Howard, North Yorkshire, has been restored after 18 months of work. The Pyramid (right), designed in 1728 by Nicholas Hawksmoor, has been returned to its original condition by the Ebor Stone Company in a £135,000 project funded by Historic England and the Country Houses Foundation. ‘The Pyramid has remained largely untouched since its construction and, over the years, has gone from white to black,’ explains the Hon Nicholas Howard. Built by the 3rd Earl of Carlisle in memory of his ancestor Lord William Howard, the monument contains a colossal bust of the latter. Tours are planned for 2016 (01653 648333; www.castlehoward.co.uk) Geoff Heath-Taylor

26 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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Country Mouse

Scottish foxhunting law to be reviewed

Rugby for all

HE law relating to foxhunting in Scotland could be tightened following a Government review of the Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which seeks to assess the legislation’s effectiveness in protecting foxes, as well as other wild mammals, such as deer, hare and otters. The Scottish Countryside Alliance (SCA) will be liaising with the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee (RACCE) during the process to highlight what they believe to be the already tight operational protocols with which Scottish gamekeepers and foxhound packs comply. During the 13 years the Act has been in force, there have been more than 200 people charged with deliberately hunting wild mammals with dogs—although not all were associated with registered packs—resulting in a 54% conviction rate.

‘This is, by any terms, robust,’ says SCA director Jamie Stewart, who hopes that there will be no changes to the law following the review. ‘Scotland has led the way on legislating for the protection of wild mammals while maintaining an understanding of the necessity to control pest species for the protection of farmed, domestic and other wild animals. The use of dogs to flush foxes from cover to be shot is an essential part of this control. This review of legislation is simply part of the ongoing work commitment of the Scottish Government.’ Julie Harding

On the right track

HE mixed fortune of Britain’s railway heritage is examined in the National Railway Museum York’s ‘Destination Stations’ exhibition (September 25 to Back in the summer of ’69: Prosser’s York station, 1969 January 24, 2016, www.nrm.org.uk). It includes material from the archives of Network Rail and architects’ models of Waterloo International and King’s Cross as well as images of lost gems such as Cannon Street station, once a striking component of the Thames waterfront. Opened in 1866, it survived the Blitz only to be demolished in 1958 and all that remains are the two triumphal Wren-styled towers. Also featured is Francis Thompson’s Derby station, the first complete railway complex when it opened in 1840, whose demolition was completed as recently as 1985. The exhibition offers context for many often criticised developments. King’s Cross’s ugly, recently demolished forecourt apron was added in the 1970s to replace wooden structures and offer more space for travellers. The show also reflects on how survivors from the golden age, such as Newcastle Central—where Thomas Prosser’s monumental portico recently had an £8 million makeover— are now part of efforts to bring the glamour back to rail travel. Jack Watkins

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Robert Harding World Imagery/Alamy Stock Photo; The estate of Francis Bacon/Photography by Tate, 2015; Nicholas Howard; H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images; National Railway Museum

HE Rugby World Cup embraces so much that is good about sport. The opening ceremony at Twickenham was a reminder of the game’s extraordinary origins when Webb Ellis reputedly first picked up the ball and ran with it. After the representatives from each nation had reinforced the wonderful diversity of the participants, we were treated to the excitement of the opening match between Fiji and England. We all sang the fan’s unofficial anthem, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and pints of beer, burgers and cigars were the staple diet (well, you wouldn’t expect polenta and sun-dried tomatoes, would you?). Strangers became friends as we acknowledged a special, shared experience. But are we doing enough for future generations? Anecdotal accounts from school rugby show that injuries are increasing. No longer is it the odd broken nose or twisted finger, but clean bone breaks and neck damage. A talented 18-year-old son of a friend told me he gave up because he was advised to eat much more to increase his body weight by 50%. If he didn’t, he would be pummelled by those who had. Someone needs the originality and drive of a young Webb Ellis to adapt and nurture this magical game so that it isn’t only played by professional man mountains. RU

Town Mouse Missing: one friend

HAT’S happened to Olu? He was the cheery Nigerian whose ever-smiling features were to be seen behind the guichet in Pimlico Tube station. A few weeks ago, the ticket office was closed; they’ve now tiled over the place where the window used to be. As a family, we’re worried for an old friend who knew all our names after having helped the children with their first Oyster cards. I can see the logic of reducing the number of ticket offices now that barriers are automated and there are still a couple of members of staff to help, but a thread of human contact has been broken. I’m not one of the moaners who can’t find a good word to say about London Transport. On the contrary, I’m amazed—awed—by the frequency of the trains, which, on our line, come every minute. As most of them are full, if not crammed, it makes me wonder how many more people London can absorb. William, back from a summer internship in New York, says that the Subway there isn’t nearly so efficient. London will soon have Crossrail adding to the wonders of mass transit, but does the drive for performance have to be at the expense of friendly faces, such as Olu? Bring back the Pimlico One! CA Country Life, September 23, 2015 27

Town & Country Notebook Quiz of the week

The nature of things Amelanchier

1) On its launch in 1998, what was the edge inscription on the £2 coin? 2) In which country sport would you use a waggler? 3) In Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, what is the name of the dog owned by Bill Sikes? 4) What is the correct term for a scientist who studies insects? 5) From which country does caboc cheese originate??

100 years ago in

COUNTRY LIFE September 25, 1915

ERE, in a Surrey garden, the herbaceous border looks brighter at the close of summer than at any other time of year. It is an easy matter to have a garden bright with the flowers of early autumn, there are so many from which to chose. Shades of blue and mauve take the lead in the garden now. These colours are as plentiful in autumn as yellow flowers in spring, and the quiet beauty of blue and mauve flowers is in perfect harmony with the tints of autumn foliage.

Words of the week

Bruxism (noun) The habit of grinding one’s teeth

Barmecide (noun) Insincere benefactor

Whiffle (noun) An unimportant person; someone more pretentious than significant 1) ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ 2) Fishing 3) Bull's-eye 4) An entomologist 5) Scotland

28 Country Life, September 23, 2015

dited by Katy Birchall

OR many years, Amelanchier in various forms has been a favourite small tree among garden makers. It’s that coveted thing: a tree that is effortlessly beautiful in at least three of the four seasons and also benefits wildlife. Numerous species hail from North America, where their popular names often focus on the summer fruits (serviceberry, sugarplum, chuckley pear). Just as the new leaves unfurl in spring in all their coppery softness, they’re joined by constellations of white-star flowers, each one five-petalled like a wild rose and foraged by bees. Indeed, amelanchiers are part of the rose family and, if their flowers bear slight resemblance to apple blossom, another relative, the red-to-purple fruits of high summer are also vaguely like miniature (very miniature) apples, with shrivelled sepals at the base of each. They’re edible and quite palatable but the birds love them, so they quickly disappear. Summer’s foliage is a pleasing, soft, matte green, but now is the time it turns ablaze, taking on brilliant carmine, rust and neon-orange tints that even the most leaden of autumn days fails to stifle.

Nursery-trained multi-stemmed specimens of A. x lamarckii (illustrated) and A. canadensis have sculptural qualities, valuable in winter. Neutral to slightly acid soils suit Amelanchier and it really thrives in heavy clay. KBH Illustration by Bill Donohoe

Time to buy

Dog-and-bone cushion in blue, £34.95, Victoria Eggs (020–7704 2840; www. victoriaeggs.co.uk)

Five-pair polka-dot sock gift box, £150, Harrys of London (020–3696 7878; www.harrys oflondon.com)

Checked-jacket pheasant wall plaque, £55, Victoria Burnett Designs (01380 848463; www. victoriaburnettdesigns. co.uk)

the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’ Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

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Unmissable events

ery demonstrations and workshops (www.alde burghfoodanddrink.co.uk)

Exhibition Until October 4 ‘Remembering Heligan: A Botanical Exhibition’, The Lost Gardens of Heligan, Pentewan, St Austell, Cornwall. Botanical artist Mally Francis and her students exhibit paintings and drawings focusing on the plants and species of the garden from 100 years ago. Admission to exhibition only is free; garden admission from £8, free for children under five (01726 845100; www.heligan.com)

Until October 3 Seafood Festival, The General Tarleton, Ferrensby, North Yorkshire. Enjoy this country inn’s special menu of locally smoked fish, lobsters, langoustines, clams, mussels, halibut and more (01423 340284; www. generaltarleton.co.uk)

Flower exhibition September 25–27 Ikebana flower-arranging exhibition, RHS Garden Rosemoor, Great Torrington, Devon. Chelsea Flower Show gold-medalwinner Ichiyo School of Ikebana will be exhibiting the ancient art of Japanese flower arranging (0845 265 8072; www.rhs.org. uk/rosemoor)

Food festival September 26–27 Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival, Snape Maltings, Snape, near Saxmundham, Suffolk. More than 90 food and drink producers from Suffolk are exhibiting this year and nationally renowned chefs and food writers will be hosting cook-

I was brought up on the classic British wine-trade preferences— white Burgundy and red Bordeaux, with vintage Port and early-landed cognac to follow if you had stamina. I was also lucky to have a winemerchant father who would open bottles of premier cru ChassagneMontrachet at quite regular intervals.

Art festival September 26–27 Made in the Cotswolds, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. Celebrating the work more than 20 artists in the Cotswolds—many studios will also be open to visitors (www.madeinthecotswolds. org)

High Beeches, High Beeches Lane, Handcross, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH17 6HQ. September 27, 1pm–5pm. £7, children free. High Beeches is one of the best woodland gardens in the south of England, where an outstanding collection of rare trees and shrubs has been built up over more than a century. In addition to its botanical and plant-history interest, it can be enjoyed for its idyllic landscape of meadows and woodland—the perfect place to wander on an early-autumn afternoon. There will be some foliage colour and, if you’re lucky, the magical deep-blue willow gentians will still be in flower. For more details, visit www.ngs.org.uk

Truly scrumptious

An elegant white Burgundy is the perfect accompaniment to any meal, says Harry Eyres

Britain’s specially

UCKING into a good steak The Princess Royal as protected produce has is a pure carnivorous pleasits president, markets itself ure—and, according to meat as ‘aspirational but not elitist’. Scotch Beef eaters north of the border, a Scotch To earn the right to serve Beef fillet or rib-eye is a cut above the rest. Scotch Beef, restaurants are initially inspected This gloriously flavoursome piece of beef and subsequently revisited to check they are generally comes from breeds such as the keeping records of the meat that passes hardy Galloway, the flop-haired Highland, through their kitchens. the Shorthorn and the Aberdeen Angus. Scotland’s Michelin-starred restaurants It has been awarded the coveted Protected are members, but so too are smaller estabGeographical Indication status, which means lishments committed to local sourcing and that the meat must come from cattle reared, serving well-prepared fresh food for everyslaughtered and dressed in Scotland using day occasions. Ellie Hughes natural and humane production methods. Illustration by Fiona Osbaldstone Not to be confused with the more generically termed ‘Scottish beef’, which can refer to any beef produced in Scotland, Scotch Beef’s traceability and unique assurance makes it unique among its rivals. Such is the high esteem in which the meat is held, it even has its own club. The Scotch Beef Club, which

Why you should be drinking it White Burgundy from the Côte de Beaune, and from Chablis further north and the Côte Chalonnaise and the Maçonnais further south, all made from the Chardonnay grape, has the perfect combination of buttery richness and lemony bite. Perfect, that is, for accompanying food such as fish in traditional French sauces or poulet à l’estragon. White Burgundy at its best has the body to be an ideal food wine and enough subtlety and intricacy of flavour to satisfy the most discerning connoisseur. Country Life Picture Library; Bokeh Photographic; Mally Francis; imageBROKER/Alamy Stock Photo

Talk September 24 ‘John Betjeman Saving Churches’, Churchill Room, Goodenough College, London WC1. Talks and discussion with the Churches Conservation Trust and the National Churches Trust about the contribution Betjeman made to celebrating and saving churches (www. betjemansociety.com)

Literary festival September 24–28 Write on Kew, Kew Gardens, Richmond, Surrey. Kew Gardens is launching its first literary festival, hosting more than 80 events and plenty of well-known faces. Speakers include Margaret Atwood, Louis de Bernières, Bill Bryson, Richard E. Grant, Andrew Marr, Raymond Blanc and Sandi Toksvig (020–8332 5655; www.kew.org)

What to drink this week Affordable white Burgundy

What to drink White Burgundy’s misfortune is that there isn’t enough to go round. The top wines are made in tiny quantities from intricately subdivided plots. Here, you need expert advice and Berry Bros is lucky to have its Burgundy guru, Jasper Morris, sur place. He has selected a superb, toasty, pineapple-ripe, long and elegant Chassagne-Montrachet 2012 from Domaine Jean-Claude Bachelet (£29.95; www.bbr.com) and a beautifully floral, subtle Puligny-Montrachet 2013 (£29.95; www.bbr.com) from Domaine Jean-Louis Chavy for Berry’s Regional Reserve own-label range. The year of 2014 turned out to be an exceptional white Burgundy vintage and the Lay & Wheeler range of 2014 Chablis is enticing: Chablis 1er cru Lys 2014 from Domaine Long-Depaquit (right, £78 for 6 in bond; www.laywheeler.com) is wonderfully intense, pure and long. Country Life, September 23, 2015 29

Letters to the Editor Letter of the week

No trumpet-blowing for COUNTRY LIFE

OR many years, we have enjoyed the challenge of the Quiz of the Week. The delight of getting most of, if not all, the questions correct is most satisfying. In the September 9 number, the second question asked ‘Which musical instrument has the highest register in the brass family?’. The answer proffered was the trumpet. We beg to differ. The highest register brass instrument is the soprano or E-flat cornet. The more commonly used B-flat cornet is pitched in the same manner as the trumpet, but the soprano cornet is pitched one fourth higher. (Our source is The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music.) Today, the soprano cornet is little heard outside brass ensembles and brass bands. A particular feature piece, which displays the technical skill as well as the virtuosity of the player, is for the soprano-cornet soloist to play the Last Post over a band performing a piece of music called Sunset. My wife and I look forward to finding other errors, although, as it has taken 20 years to find the first, to find a second, we believe will be unlikely. Peter and Katrina Cheese, Cambridgeshire

The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne

Have you seen this tree? Beware

URING a recent windy spell of weather, our neighbour had a tree fall onto the road leading to the hamlet where we live and farm. My son, driving to check the stock the next morning, had to quickly remove this fallen tree to enable himself and our neighbours to go about their daily duties. Four days later, my son was covered in a most aggressive and what has now turned out to be long-lasting skin allergy. After emailing photos to a friend who studied at Kew Gardens, we were told it was poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix, above) and not native to this country. Apparently, it must have been planted in Victorian times. Should your readers have such a tree, please beware when handling it. Visit www.poison-ivy.org/poison-sumac to find out more. Jean Harvey, Devon

Mark Hedges

Labour versus farming?

Y amusement over the Labour party’s shambolic attempts to elect a new leader in recent weeks (‘Can this unlikely leader save the Labour party?’, September 16) has, following the announcement of Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet, turned to concern and anger. The appointment of a vegan, Kerry McCarthy, as Defra Minister could almost be seen as a statement of war against the rural community, farmers in particular. Over the years, our farmers have not been very vocal or active against the legislation they have had to cope with, as, of course, they don’t have the voting clout that their French compatriots enjoy. So far, the British agricultural leaders have seemed so well versed in political correctness that even this appointment has failed to stir them into a scathing protest. If this vegan—who is against badger culling, shooting sports and livestock farming —is allowed to voice her views from an official platform without vigorous protest and action from all sections of the rural community, we can say goodbye to the reassurance that food production, which helped to sustain us during two World Wars, has any relevance in a Labour-controlled Government—were it to be elected. James Bell, Powys

The jury’s still out on Austen and Castle Ashby

READ Robert Clark’s article about the ‘real’ Mansfield Park (September 2) with interest and a raised eyebrow. If Jane Austen wanted her readers to recognise that the Bertram family estate was based on Castle Ashby (begun in 1574), then why does she have one character describe it as ‘a spacious modern-built house’? Austen could easily have seen illustrations of Castle Ashby in Vitruvius Britannicus, but it could be implied that Mansfield Park doesn’t appear in any such ‘collection of engravings of gentlemen’s seats in the kingdom’, although it may ‘deserve to’. Dr Clark is perfectly right to suggest that Mansfield Park deals with slavery and Evangelicalism, but it does so rather more straightforwardly than he suggests. To any reasonably attentive reader of 1814, the references would have been obvious. Today, we miss the significance of a lot of what Austen actually wrote. So why does Austen want to know whether Northamptonshire is a ‘Country of Hedgerows’? Because she was contemplating writing a novel about parliamentary enclosure. In the event, Mansfield Park only brushes on the subject, mentioning a hedge that has to be repaired, an indication that either local people have been taking firewood or it has been deliberately broken as a form of protest against enclosure.

And the novel dealing with enclosure? Emma, printed at the very end of 1815, which fairly bristles with references to parish boundaries, rural poverty and, of course, hedges. Dr Helena Kelly, Oxford, author of Reading Jane (to be published by Icon Books)

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30 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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A barrel of laughs WAS pleased to see The Black Horse at Byworth figure in the Britain’s Best Pubs feature (July 29). Many years ago, I was having a beer there when the barrel ran out. The landlord, a splendid chap, went down to the cellar to change it and, when he had done the necessary, drew me off a glass of beer and sought my views on it. I gave my opinion that the new barrel was completely up to scratch and asked what he thought. ‘Me? Drink beer?’ he said. ‘I never touch the stuff!’ Peter Reeve, Hampshire

Flighty high-flyers

AVID ALDRICH is concerned about a lack of butterflies on Exmoor (Letters, August 26). How strange—859ft is no height to a butterfly. Apparently, some of them can manage more than 1,600ft (COUNTRY L IFE, November 14, 2012). Perhaps butterflies have chosen to visit Warwickshire as opposed to Somerset. In this and in previous years, I have had a large number of butterflies on my purple and white buddlejas, with lots of bees, especially bumblebees, on my other insect-friendly plants. Perhaps the butterflies are planning a visit to Somerset on their migration route? Doug Hall, Warwickshire

COUNTRY LIFE

SEPTEMBER 30 $XWXPQ FRORXU DQ XQOLNHO\ FKHI EHVW QHZ EXLOGLQJV WKH EHDXW\ RI EDUN FRRNLQJ ZLWK EODFNEHUULHV DQG 6LU 0D[ +DVWLQJV· IDYRXULWH WKLQJV Make someone’s week, every week, with a COUNTRY LIFE subscription 0844 848 0848

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Labour must not ignore the countryside

VEGAN Shadow Defra Minister does not bode well for Labour’s interest in the farming industry or for the English countryside, formed as it is by centuries of husbandry. Of course, Labour has done something like it before. Hilary Benn was a vegetarian, but at least he was also a big hitter, well capable of dealing with the complexities of the Common Agricultural Policy. Kerry McCarthy is quite another matter. A relative newcomer to Parliament, she’s a solicitor and sits for the entirely urban constituency of Bristol East. Where Mr Benn was a serious contributor to the thinking of the Labour party, Miss McCarthy has, so far, been distinguished largely by protest. Vice President of the League Against Cruel Sports, she’s a dedicated opponent of hunting, shooting and the badger cull. Where he has impressed with his cool and careful consideration of issues, she is seen as happier in protest and campaigning mode. The appointment is certainly an odd one, even from her agitprop leader. Jeremy Corbyn was brought up in the countryside and spent his childhood roaming the fields and woods of Shropshire. His parents were not, however, typical country people. They had met at a London meeting for supporters of Spain’s republicans in the fight against Franco and continued as Left-wing peace campaigners. Nonetheless, he went to a private prep school before going to Adams’ Grammar School, where he got two Es at A level. Only one year of academic study followed, because he left the North London Polytechnic without completing the course. Otherwise, Mr Corbyn’s whole life has been political and urban. A trades-union organiser, Labour activist and MP for Islington North, he’s never run a business or worked in the private sector. Nor, indeed, does he appear to have any real interest in rural England.

It is undeniable that Labour’s concern with the countryside was already pretty exiguous. The recent House of Lords debate on the desperate plight of the dairy industry attracted not one single Labour backbench speaker! Mr Corbyn’s appointment of an entirely unsuitable Shadow Minister distances his party even further from the countryside, not least because she, like him, has never shown any sign of understanding of rural life. Country people cannot, therefore, have much confidence that she will produce an adequate agricultural policy nor provide the informed opposition to this Government that is needed. And this is seriously important because Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition has a real constitutional role. Our system works on the basis of a government and a government in waiting. That gives stability and encourages responsibility on both sides. It has served us well over the past 20 years, during which both Labour and Conservative governments have been able to assure foreign investors that they safe to put their money here in the UK. er partisan, Ministers could say that, even if they lost the election, the other major party shared their attitude to investment and people need not fear punitive taxation, nationalisation or rent control. This is one thing for which we can thank Tony Blair. The election of Mr Corbyn has altered all that. Saying he’ll never win an election is not sufficient to give confidence to investors unfamiliar with the details of British politics. The risk profile of UK plc has fundamentally changed. It is, therefore, not only country people who have reason to be concerned, it’s the whole nation that should worry. For the first time for a quarter of a century, we have an Opposition that, with good reason, frightens our friends.

The appointment of Kerry McCarthy is an odd one, even from her agitprop leader

‘

Follow @agromenes on Twitter

Country Life, September 23, 2015 31

My week

Joe Gibbs

Believe in your monster

ISTENING to the soft effervescence of waves through the pebbles of Dores beach, at the northern end of Loch Ness last week, it was easy to envy my friend Steve Feltham. He was in reflective mood, serene and relaxed— necessary qualities, perhaps, in a man who had devoted nearly 25 years to waiting for the Loch Ness Monster to appear.

No, he wasn’t quitting. Yes, he thought it could be a catfish

‘

Illustration: Clare Mackie

It seemed not to mat jot that Nessie hadn’t oblig — there was still time. He n’t giving up his vigil, contrary to the conclusion the world’s press had jumped to a few weeks back. In fact, you felt that, if the monster had torpedoed from the dark depths that balmy evening, Steve would have experienced a profound sense of anti-climax. It would have meant the end of a quest that had come to mean more to him than the object itself. He squinted up the loch as he spoke, his hands moving independently of his thoughts as he modelled the little clay monsters that he sells to make a living, each stuck to a Loch Ness pebble. From his vantage point, through powerful binoculars, you can see the new Beauly to Denny power lines that cross the Great Glen on giant pylons 25 miles away. Fort Augustus, at the other end of the loch, however, is hidden by the Earth’s curvature.

teve’s fascination began in childhood, when his father, a former policeman, took the family to Loch Ness for holidays. By his mid-twenties, the obsession had got the better of him. He gave up his job selling burglar alarms to pensioners in Dorset and headed north.

Pssssssssst— what are we looking for?

In a video diary made for the BBC, he exhorted others to follow their dreams, however quixotic. Many did and have since made pilgrimages to thank him. One, Graham Holliday, author of Eating Viet Nam, included a chapter on how the programme had led him to sampling the culinary delights of South-East Asia.

teve describes his life as staying in one place and waiting for the unexpected—which, by now, must include the monster— to come to him. And the unexpected duly obliged a few weeks ago with an early-morning call from the Sky News satellite truck. ‘We’re on the A9. How do we find you?’ the crew asked. Unbeknownst to Steve, a local reporter had given the BBC a story which claimed, on his behalf, sure and certain knowledge that the monster was a Wels catfish. The Times had run a follow-up, interpreting this revelation as meaning that he would now give up his quartercentury quest. That news had flashed around the world and here was Sky wanting to get him on camera. Even Classic FM had him on its news and William Hill had lengthened the odds of the monster being spotted in 2015 from 100–1 to 250–1.

32 Country Life, September 23, 2015

The whirlpool of an instant modern-media feeding frenzy could be quite bemusing to a chap living off network in a converted mobile-library van in the middle of nowhere. Happily, all the attention allowed him to put the record straight. No, he wasn’t quitting. Yes, he thought it could be a Wels catfish, but his friend from the Loch Ness Project across the water at Drumnadrochit believed it was a giant sturgeon with a serrated spine. Inside the van, Mao the cat snored loudly. Steve leant back in his seat in the space where the steering wheel used to be and pulled a couple of lagers from the fridge. The van wasn’t going anywhere and nor were its occupants.

ther than some vague tales of my great grandmother spotting the monster—she was far too terrifying ever to be doubted or contradicted—the most authentic sighting I have heard of comes from a monk in Fort Augustus Abbey. Father Gregory Brusey retailed what one must assume to be an unimpeachable account of seeing the head and neck for all of 20 seconds in 1972, in the company of an eminent organist from Westminster—although

he did spoil it a little by adding that they hadn’t drunk a drop of whisky that morning.

s the Bard says, ‘it is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves,’ but try telling that to a festival promoter in the closing days before his event. This year, I had eight separate weather sites open on my computer desktop. The Scandinavian site ‘yr’ was characteristically gloomy. The BBC and Met Office hummed and hawed. Only some talented people at ‘XC’ prophesied dryish, warmish calm and it was they, of course, whom I believed with the blind faith born of true self-delusion. Until the final night’s headliners came on stage, we were deliriously right, then, a great, dark cloud formed over the festival site. But an amazing thing happened. The big, black cloud parted in the centre and clear evening shone through above us. My wife’s great sculpture of an angel above the main stage blazed white against the departing storm. As Revelation has it: ‘Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up.’ Joe Gibbs lives at Belladrum in the Highlands and is the founder of the Tartan Heart Festival Next week: Kit Hesketh-Harvey www.countrylife.co.uk

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My favourite painting The Duchess of Wellington Portrait of a Man by Velázquez

The Duchess of Wellington is Chairman of the Royal Ballet School and a Fellow of Eton College

Apsley House, The Wellington Museum, London, UK/Historic England/Bridgeman Images; Chris Allerton/Country Life Picture Library

‘

This painting hangs in the Waterloo Gallery at Apsley House, surrounded by the grandeur of the great collection of paintings in their extravagant late-Georgian frames. The man’s identity and date are much discussed, but, for me, it isn’t necessary to know more than that he was intelligent. He looks out from the half shadows, dressed in black save the crisp, white sweep of his collar, still and watchful while the agonies of religion, the swagger of royal portraiture and the noise of Flemish taverns jostle for space in the great gallery. He fixes the viewer with his enigmatic stare; the observer observed

’ John McEwen comments on Portrait of a Man

T was said that the 1st Duke of Wellington’s superb collection of pictures and other artefacts, the greatest in modern times, was won at Vitoria in 1813. This was not entirely true, but certainly the majority of the pictures were, including this Velázquez. The defeat of Joseph Bonaparte’s French army on June 21 at the battle of Vitoria, 85 miles from the French border, ended the eldest brother of Napoleon’s brief and usurped reign as King of Spain. Bonaparte’s captured coach contained state papers, love letters, a silver chamber pot and more than 200 paintings, packed as rolled

34 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Portrait of a Man (possibly José Nieto), about 1635–45, by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660), 30in by 26in, The Wellington Collection, Apsley House, London

canvases in a trunk. The paintings, with others used as tarpaulins for the baggage train, were sent to London. The Duke noted they ‘were not thought of any value’, but, in London, they were estimated at a colossal £40,000. When the Duke discovered they had been stolen from the Spanish royal collection, he offered to return them to the restored King of Spain, Ferdinand VII, who, with equal grace, waived his right. Eighty-one of the paintings, not all from the Spanish royal collection, are now in the Wellington Collection, Apsley House, London W1, which has been extended, enlarged, redecorated

and sumptuously re-carpeted to mark the Waterloo bi-centenary. José Nieto, if he is the subject, was Queen Mariana of Austria’s chamberlain and appears in the background of Velázquez’s Las Meninas. Napoleon described Joseph Bonaparte (1768–1844) as ‘too good a man to be a king’. From happy New Jersey exile, the amiable, hedonistic—he had a teenage American mistress and the largest library and wine cellar in America—self-styled comte de Survilliers (Mr Bonaparte to the Americans) visited London in 1832 and was shown round Apsley House by his former enemy.

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Parish church treasures Living Gothic

A book of the series will be published in October

Photography by Paul Barker and text by John Goodall

HE modest medieval exterior of Egmanton doesn’t prepare the visitor for this interior, dominated by an organ (recently restored) and chancel screen. Above the screen is a rood loft in correct medieval form, with its crucifixion scene, candle beam and canopy of honour. These are the creation of the outstanding church architect Ninian Comper, who was commissioned to furnish the church in 1897 by the Anglo-Catholic 7th Duke of Newcastle. Comper wasn’t trying to re-create the medieval interior of the church. Instead, he drew on his knowledge of medieval furnishings across Europe to create a powerful and eclectic ensemble

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The Church of Our Lady, Egmanton, Nottinghamshire

appropriate to contemporary liturgical use. Comper was in his early thirties when he received the commission for Egmanton. He had already created an interior on this scale at St Wilfrid, Cantley in South Yorkshire, but he probably came to the Duke’s attention through G. F. Bodley, in whose office he had trained. Bodley, one of the outstanding figures of the Gothic Revival, had previously been employed by the Duke to create a new chapel at his seat of Clumber Park, although the two men fell out in 1890. When the Duke asked Comper to alter the chapel at Clumber—perhaps Bodley’s outstanding masterpiece—he refused and in turn fell out of favour.

Country Life, September 23, 2015 36

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Grown out of the soil Stoneywell Cottage, Leicestershire

A radical expression of the Arts-and-Crafts Movement has been restored and opened by the National Trust. Clive Aslet describes the context and story of its creation Photographs by Paul Barker

NE January evening in 1884, the 19-year-old Ernest Gimson waited on Leicester station. With him was his older brother Sydney and Clara Collet, a teacher who would become a formidable civil servant and champion of women’s education. William Morris had been invited to address the Leicester Secular Society, one of the prime movers of which had been Ernest’s father, Josiah Gimson; it was largely due to Josiah that a secular hall had been built (designed by the Queen Anne Revivalist W. Larner Sugden of Leek, it was the first of its kind in the world).

Stoneywell stands on “the veritable stumps of mountains... the crust of an earth that hissed and bubbled”

‘

Morris’s buoyancy wa sistible. ‘Two minutes after [Morr ain had come in, were at home wit and captured by his personality,’ remembered Sydney, in a typescript memoir published on the Leicester Secular Society’s website. ‘He greeted us as friends, and as though we were equals, at once and immediately we were “at home”.’ Morris’s title was ‘Art and Socialism’, although he changed the emphasis so that it became ‘really Art under Plutocracy’; perhaps he touched on the agony of an idealist being required to cater to the ‘swinish luxury of the rich,’ as the only people who could afford his work. It was not a good lecture: Morris read from a script, rather badly. But, afterwards, talk flowed at the Gimsons’ family home. After dinner, the party —Morris, Ernest and Sydney Gimson, their sister Sarah and Clara Collet— migrated to the smoking room, where some stayed until 2am. Ernest would become one of the standard bearers of Morris’s Artsand-Crafts Movement. Sydney, however, continued the family engineering business, from the Vulcan Works. In his spare ➢ Fig 1: Designed by Ernest Gimson for his brother, Stoneywell rises organically from the crag on which it was built. The original thatched roof was replaced after a fire in 1939

Country Life, September 23, 2015 39

time, following the Unitarian example of his mother, he lectured at Sunday School and gave evening classes and enthusiastically furthered the work of the Secular Society, inviting speakers such as George Bernard Shaw. In 1886, he married Jane Lovibond and the post-lecture entertainment transferred from his mother’s home to his own. About this time, Ernest entered the London office of J. D. Sedding, ‘freestyle’ architect of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, and other churches. When he was at home at weekends, however, he and his brother would continue their father’s tradition of walking out of the town for nine miles to picnic among the rocky volcanic outcrops of Charnwood Forest. At the end of the 1890s, Sydney and Jane felt that they could spend the summers at Charnwood. To this end, they asked Ernest to design them a house there. Ernest had by now taken a leading role in the Morris-inspired Art Workers’ Guild and Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. He had also left London, in an idealistic mission to reconnect with the pre-industrial traditions of the Cotswolds at Pinbury. There, he lived in an artistic community and revived the craft of decorative

40 Country Life, September 23, 2015

plasterwork, as it had existed before the Adam brothers. Stoneywell Cottage, as Sydney and Jane would call their holiday home, would become a defining statement of the radical Arts-and-Crafts Movement. Morris’s domestic ideal, Kelmscott Manor, seemed to grow ‘out of the soil’ and it is difficult to think that Ernest did not have these words in mind when he designed Stoneywell. It surges out of the living rock, parts of which burst into the interior in the form of steps, the walls built from stones, sometimes massive, found nearby (Fig 1). But the sum of an Arts-and-Crafts house is not only what it is made of, but how it is made. With Ernest based for at least some of the time in Gloucestershire, the all-important process of building the house was entrusted to the head mason, the young, ideologically impeccable Detmar Blow. As a young man, Blow had won an Architectural Association travelling studentship, which took him, among other places, to Abbeville in northern France, where he was introduced to John Ruskin while sketching the cathedral. On learning that Blow wanted to become an architect, the white-bearded

sage delivered his theory of the profession—which was that it should be avoided. Honest handwork was the thing. Physical labour not only dignified the individual who undertook it, but the involvement of men such as Blow would help to revive the old ways, which gave the builder a creative role in his craft—a tradition snuffed out by the tyranny of architects drawing plans that had to be followed in every detail. Accordingly, on his return to England, Blow apprenticed himself to a mason in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1896, having been with Morris when he died, he organised the obsequies, dressing in a farmer’s smock to drive the hay cart strewn with vine leaves on which the coffin was carried to Kelmscott churchyard. When Sir Lawrence Weaver published Stoneywell Cottage in the second series of Small Country Houses of Today, he described the outcrops on which it stands as ‘among the oldest in the world, the veritable stumps of mountains worn down by long ages of change, the crust of an earth that hissed and bubbled’. They were the inspiration and foundation of the house.

Fig 2 left: Steps from the kitchen to the living room: hewn from the living rock. Fig 3 above: The kitchen, originally the entrance to the house, with a huge monolith lintel over the fireplace. It was later used as a dining room

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Like Edward Prior’s Voewood in Norfolk or Ernest Barnsley’s Rodmarton in Gloucestershire, Stoneywell would be built as far as possible from materials found on site—indeed, it went further than either because the form of the building is dictated by the curving hump of rock beneath it, dictating seven changes of internal level. As the name suggests, the ground is stony and there is a well, from which water was drawn: there would be no piped water before the Second World War. ‘Cottage’ was a significant word in Arts-and-Crafts circles: it betokened lack of pretence and the honest toil of the anonymous craftsman, rather than the infected brainwork of the architect. Cottages had been making their way up in the world via the idyllic watercolours of Helen Allingham. Ernest Gimson built one for himself, The Leasowes at Sapperton, although the Arts-and-Crafts potter and furniture maker Alfred Powell always referred to it as a farm. The great raw stones of Stoneywell make a patchwork of the walls, which rear up, at the south-east end, into a massive chimneybreast, engraved by F. L. Griggs and given extra monumentality in photographs taken from www.countrylife.co.uk

a worm’s-eye view. Originally, a thatched roof gave the appearance of a huge, sleeping animal, as it curled around the flattened S-shape of the plan. Sadly, a fire destroyed this in 1939 and it was replaced in slate, the laying of which required considerable skill due to the flowing contours. The character of the original can be judged from Lea Cottage, a few steps down the lane, which Ernest built for his half-brother J. Mentor Gimson and which has recently been handsomely rethatched. Stoneywell’s guttering has (aptly, given its ownership by the National Trust) a frieze of oakleaves and acorns: an example of the sort of leadwork revived by Francis W. Troup. Inside, the ground floor is an organism of three cells: pantry, kitchen and sitting room. Incredibly for a middleclass turn-of-the-century house—and not very conveniently for any house— the only entrance is through the kitchen (Fig 3), by a heavily studded door recessed beneath a frowning brow of slate. The ‘cottage range’ cost £3, according to Blow’s estimate. Steps, some of them of living rock, lead up to the sitting room, angled at about 45˚ (Fig 2).

At the further end of the sitting room is the hearth contained in the chimneybreast outside: the lintel is of massive proportions. Beside the fireplace, an adult of average size can just about squeeze into the endearing inglenook, lit by a tiny window. Hewn out of the rock, the pantry so often floods that the last family owner kept a pair of Wellingtons on permanent duty outside it. All walls are white, all wood unpainted. The colour would have come from carefully chosen textiles and pottery. Described by Fiona MacCarthy in her Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry as a deeply solitary, ruminative man, Ernest, in his perennial loose tweeds and hobnailed boots, was not always comfortable to be with; at Sapperton, where Mrs Gimson taught country dancing, relations within the little community became strained. Stoneywell, however, suggests a different aspect of his personality: it is almost exuberant in the quirkiness of its forms and spaces—a barely shoulder-wide (second) staircase off the living room, peculiarly shaped doors (Fig 4), a triangular window, colossal boulders, a play room that can be reached by no obvious means ➢

Fig 4: Curious shapes, such as this bedroom door, emphasise that every detail of the house was handcrafted. The original thatched roof of the house was burnt off in 1939. The interior has been restored as it appeared in the 1950s

Country Life, September 23, 2015 41

other than jumping (there was originally a rope ladder), a bedroom floor that is at the same level as the ground outside (because of the rise, Fig 5) and an attic bedroom known as Olympus. This was a holiday home and children must have loved it. Sydney had wanted the house to be built on the altogether more reasonable site of the stables, erected a few years after the cottage was finished; Ernest—described engagingly as a ‘kindly wizard,’ by the village schoolmistress, quoted in the admirable Stoneywell guidebook—would not hear of anything so sensible. Although Sydney was an early motorist, he and Jane mostly used Stoneywell as a summer place. It did not have to be very winterproof (although the family might return for Christmas, accompanied by an abundant supply of stone hot-water bottles). The absence of amenities that were elsewhere becoming standard, such as electricity, which was not introduced until the 1930s, must have been part of the fun. Although Sydney’s patience may have been tried by the costs, which came out at almost 42 Country Life, September 23, 2015

“Cottage” was a significant word in Arts-and-Crafts circles: it betokened lack of pretence and honest toil

‘

twice the estimate, the ever-practical Weaver concluded that the £920 paid ‘a fair price for a like-sized building of the usual type’—and Stoneywell was far from the usual type. Sydney’s experience was at least better than Mentor’s at Lea Cottage. At one point, some of the masonry fell down, due to frost damage to the mortar (laid in winter); demolition was considered. Mentor clearly called in a second opinion, but this was dismissed by Ernest, in a letter imaginatively published by the Leicester Arts and Museums Service at www.gimson.leicester.gov.uk: ‘These cottages are not built at all in the usual way and it is sometimes

dangerous to ask the opinion of people not understanding your aims. I can see the average clerk of works or F.R.I.B.A. going round the building and condemning the whole of the timber because it is not seasoned and has the sap on it.’ Artsand-Crafts building was ever a journey that had to be undertaken in hope. Three years ago, Stoneywell was acquired by the National Trust, an organisation founded four years before it was built, and which, in its early days, was similarly infused by the spirit of Morris. Pragmatically—but perhaps rather quixotically—its 1950s interiors have been re-created as they were restored after the 1939 fire. Opened earlier this year, Stoneywell could never be described as the most practical of houses to show to the public—which, perhaps, given the uncompromising nature of the architecture and its delight in the quiddity of the site, is what Ernest and Sydney might have wished. To find out more about visting Stoneywell, visit www.national trust.org.uk/stoneywell or telephone 01530 248040

Fig 5: At the back, Stoneywell’s bedroom floor is still at ground level, creating a sense of playfulness that is also expressed in the many curiously shaped ingles and other spaces throughout the house

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In the garden Robert Clark

How not to fall in love with lavender?

Marianne Majerus/MMGI; Cultura Creative (RF)/Alamy

LIZABETH I carried posies of lavender and had it scattered before her, to fend off stenches and the plague. Queen Victoria preferred lavender jelly to mint with her roast mutton and, from about 1800 to the 1930s, no genteel lady went abroad without a flask of English lavender in her reticule. But then French fashions became the rage and, at the same time, plants at the largest English growers, in Mitcham, Surrey, succumbed to shab, a fungal disease. Until some 20 years ago, English lavender was in decline, with only the Norfolk Lavender farm at Heacham keeping the commercial flame alive. Today, you might think nearly all lavender oil comes from Provence, but, in fact, English lavender is resurgent, with multiple small producers. Often, they also run a gift shop and restaurant, which attract customers like bees to the flowers. English lavender’s resurgence is partly due to French production being in decline, but is also because so many of today’s perfumes are multinational chemical concoctions. Venerable perfume houses have been taken over, centuries of tradition turned into empty slogans. Even Grasse, that famed centre of the French perfume business, now has a slender relationship with the hills around it. It was this historical conjunction that found fertile soil in Richard Norris’s head nearly 20 years ago. He had trained as an accountant, but, in his heart, he wanted his own business and knew it had to do with

Long Barn Lavender in Hampshire, part of the English revival

plants. His damascene moment came when reading an article by Jamie Compton about the history of English lavender. He was smitten—and with what better plant, what richer history? Lavender is ancient, venerable, magical. It was prescribed by Dioscorides, the Greek surgeon whose De Materia Medica became the pharmaceutical bible for

Horticultural aide memoire No. 39: Ripen squashes As so many people are happy to grow pumpkins, squashes, gourds and whatnot nowadays, a word regarding their treatment at this critical juncture is appropriate. By now, things will be swelling nicely. If we want them to ripen properly and have an even finish, we need two things: a long spell of dry, mild weather with some sunshine, which no one can guarantee, and a bed of straw to intervene between the skin and Mother Earth, without which the slugs will have a feast. Cut away foliage that hangs over the fruit, to allow free movement of air and prevent it sticking. SCD

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1,500 years. Dioscorides knew it protects you from plague (but not why—fleas, the transmitter, abhor it) and that it helps wounds heal (lavender is antibacterial and antiseptic). The Romans put bunches between their sheets to guard against bedbugs and washed their clothes with it to repel moths and lice (whence its name, from lavare, to wash). Plant enough of it in your garden and you will have fewer snails, slugs and aphids, but bees and butterflies will come in swarms, drawn by the abundant nectar. How not to fall in love with lavender? Richard therefore bought the site of The Old Sheep Fair near Alresford in Hampshire and set about establishing Long Barn Lavender (www.longbarn.co.uk). He waxes lyrical on his subject, fascinated by lavender’s history and entirely in love with what he’s doing.

He’s the first to admit it’s against Nature that English lavender should be so special. Lavender isn’t a native of these islands. It is native to southern Europe, the Middle East, Persia, parts of Africa and Asia, thriving on alkaline, fast-draining hillsides. It needs grazing by goats to stop it getting woody (gardeners please note: cut it back to about 8in every year and it will last decades). Until the 1920s, it wasn’t cultivated in France, the perfumiers of Grasse relying on cueillette sauvage of Lavandula stoechas, by peasants whose back-breaking labour produced a valuable cash supplement to see them through the winter months. However, haphazard collection made for variable quality, whereas English lavender, grown commercially, was a fine, consistent product worth as much as six times the French price, hence the oxymoron ‘English’ lavender. Over the years, the English produced cultivars of Lavandula angustifolia that would make the most compact and floriferous plants and be best able to tolerate our colds and damps. Lavandula Hidcote, cultivated in the 1910s by Lawrence Johnston, is generally considered among the very best, alongside Munstead, Gertrude Jekyll’s favourite. Hidcote is now the plant of choice worldwide for garden use, due to its rich purple colour. Richard himself, however, leans towards Lavandula x intermedia, which has a cleaner and more uplifting scent, and especially recommends the cultivar Grosso, which flowers long and abundantly, produces a superb scent beloved by bees and is easily pruned to a compact form. Dr Robert Clark is editor of The Literary Encyclopedia, a Senior Fellow at the University of East Anglia and a specialist in early19th-century novels, the rise of the English novel and Jane Austen Next week: Apples

Country Life, September 23, 2015 43

Visual treasures View towards Glastonbury Tor from Walton Hill at dawn on the Somerset Levels Photograph by Guy Edwardes

Swirling, ethereal and achingly beautiful in the way that it softly envelops the landscape, mist is one of the benefits of our damp climate. As magical and surreal as it appears, mist is a cloud-like aggregation of tiny water droplets suspended in the atmosphere at—or near—the Earth’s surface. Enchantingly and eerily capable of descending at any time, it is most frequently seen lying in valleys after chill, clear nights and is a sure sign of autumn’s arrival. PL Guy Edwardes/2020VISION/ naturepl.com

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The lady of the lake Il Giardino del Biviere, Villa Borghese, Sicily

The Sicilian garden created by Principessa Maria Carla Borghese over half a century is a sculptural composition of rare quality and finesse created in strange circumstances, finds Jacky Hobbs Photographs by Clive Nichols

46 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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NLAND from Sicilyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s east coast, at Lentini, amid unpromising terrain, a remarkable villa garden flourishes, steeped in unusual history and resplendently clothed in exotic, intriguing plants. The gardener is equally extraordinary: Principessa Maria Carla Borghese, now in her eighties, planted this now mature, verdant oasis over the past half-century, in the remains of an old port at the head of the former Lake Biviere. Legend has it that the 3,000-acre lake, once the largest in Sicily, was created by Hercules (and named Lacuus Erculeus), as a gift to Ceres, goddess of the harvest. Its waters facilitated centuries of agricultural prosperity and extensive fish hatcheries, which supported large fishing communities. A stone-walled www.countrylife.co.uk

Facing page: The terrace planted with assorted cacti, succulents and the grapefruit Citrus paradisi Marsh Seedless. Clockwise from top: Two of the large cacti, Cereus spachianus (left) and Cephalocereus polylophus; Principessa Maria Carla Borghese; and an old photo showing the villa at the head of the lake, which, legend has it, was created by Hercules

port and a grand villa were built at the lakeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head, latterly known as Il Biviere. The area prospered until the 1930s when, to combat malaria, the rivers feeding the lake were diverted, forcing the lake and supporting communities to be drained of all life. With their livelihood cut off, the farmers, fishermen, reed-cutters and their families abandoned their land and villages, leaving homesteads to crumble beside the parched, deserted lakebed. The unfortunate fiefdom belonged to the Borghese family and remained abandoned and overgrown until the mid 1960s, when

Principessa Maria Carla and her husband, Principe Scipione, moved from Rome, with four small children, to occupy the faded villa. The surrounding estate was to be converted to commercial citrus groves, the house fixed up, dusted down and filled with family. With her husband frequently away on business and with no other distraction than her children, Principessa Maria Carla determined to create a garden in the bony bed of the former lake. She had rudimentary knowledge of plants, no practical experience and a few reluctant farmhands to provide help. â&#x17E;˘ Country Life, September 23, 2015 47

Through reading, she decided to connect the villa with the garden, creating ‘a profound symbiosis between the palazzo and the park; each would be incomplete without the other’. She has achieved this to delightful and, sometimes, surprising effect. Principessa Maria Carla explains: ‘Most garden restorations refer back to the garden roots, rediscover a lost Eden, but at Il Biviere, there was no garden to respect, simply an old quayside at the head of the dry lake, so I used that as my inspiration.’ Out of decay and desolation, rocks and dust, she set about creating a spectacular garden where the lake had once lapped. ‘There was a mean row of cypresses beside the ancient chapel, a trio of straggly false pepper trees by the entrance’ and an ungainly vine, thinly disguising a concreteand-iron pergola, obliterated the main villa 48 Country Life, September 23, 2015

The stone jetties of the ancient port begged to be planted

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façade. However, the structural architecture of the redundant port informed and dictated the garden’s design, which incorporates the raised stone jetties, terracotta-tiled quayside terraces and broad, stone-set staircases that lead to the ‘sunken’ garden. ‘The two long, stone jetties of the ancient port begged to be planted,’ Principessa Maria Carla enthuses. Planting was slow and purposeful, with some specimens purchased, others gifted by friends. All were small, full of promise, in need of nurture and most have flourished and realised their potential across two-score years.

The Principessa has an eye for the rare and unusual. Her first plant, bought from a nursery in Acireale, near Catania in 1967, was ‘dark green with fleshy leaves set in a rosette, which an unknown painter had edged in white with imaginative little smudges’. It was put into the newly soil-filled East Jetty and later identified for her by a botanist friend as Agave victoriae-reginae. The main terrace and villa façade were planted with four grapefruit trees, Citrus x paradisi Marsh Seedless, as a nod to the citrus-producing estate close by. The variety is famed for its heavenly scented blossom and delicious golden fruits, which the Principessa plucks daily for breakfast. Pot-grown cacti of varying origins and proportions were placed equidistant in four stone-rimmed planting holes, so as to run up the villa walls, behind the grapefruit terrace. ➢ www.countrylife.co.uk

Facing page: The exotic gardens include orange-flowered Aloe striata, prickly pear Opuntia vulgaris and red-flowered Callistemon coccineus. Clockwise from right: Il Biviereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own grapefruit variety, Citrus x paradisi Marsh Seedless; fragrant blossom of the Marsh Seedless grapefruit; and a view across the lower terrace with its swimming pool and palms

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Country Life, September 23, 2015 49

Clockwise from left: An old photo showing the quayside before the lake was drained; the chapel of St Andrew with Dasylirion longissimus on the left; a view out across the former lakebed with Agave ferox and pampas grasses in the foreground; and an ancient anchor that was retrieved from the former lakebed

50 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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The effect is more Arizona than Sicily and these textured, towering cacti are now part of the architecture; the ribbed, goldenspined Cephalocereus polylophus from Mexico reaches the first-floor windows and Pachypodium giganteum, from southwest Africa, often referred to as ‘large foot’, remains more grounded. Within the old harbour, the surviving 5ftwide stone jetties were planted with exotics, ‘succulent plants with strange shapes, their soil topped with river stones gathered in baskets by the children’. Many of the young plants perished in their first winter, so she made individual cloches from wine flagons—demijohns for larger specimens—successfully seeing them through their inaugural winter. Once established, a cacophony of specimens survived and now flourishes, including Agave ferox, from Argentina, Myrtillocactus www.countrylife.co.uk

geometrizans (blue myrtle) from Mexico and Opuntia santarita from Arizona. Beyond a rose-clad arch, in the former bed of the lake, lies a lush and exotic sunken garden and a turquoise swimming pool. An old anchor retrieved from the drained lake and a flat-bottomed reed-cutting boat are poignant reminders of its former life. Jacaranda trees, lush palms, aloes, yucca, euphorbias, scented jasmine and fragrant roses bloom in the lake’s basin. In making this unique garden, the charming Principessa has brought a different sort of life and bloom to the long ago thriving and, prior to her arrival, derelict location. Il Giardino del Biviere, Villa Borghese, Lentini, Sicily 96016, Italy (www.ilgiardino delbiviere.it). Jacky Hobbs travelled to Il Biviere with Susan Worner Tours (01423 326300; www.susanwornertours.com) Country Life, September 23, 2015 51

The labour of love Garden snails travel at about 50 yards in an hour, but, as David Profumo reports, they are notoriously promiscuous hermaphrodites that enjoy a protracted mating ritual

Tim Gainey/GAP Photos

TERRESTRIAL mollusc trailing loathly slime, yet crowned with a shell of logarithmic perfection, the common or garden snail is detested by gardeners, but has inspired centuries of human fascination. All snails evolved from the sea and Helix aspersa is one of 80,000 species that have established themselves everywhere from the Atlantic trenches to the Himalayan peaks. It belongs to the class Gastropoda, signifying ‘belly foot’: the body is soft, unsegmented and greyish, its pimply shagreened skin coated in mucus. The head sports two pairs of retractable horns—its vision via one set of conning towers is dim, but the powers of touch and smell are acute. A dark mantle shields the cavity containing its lungs and heart (the blood is faintly blue) and malacologists reckon that, although it possesses no definable brain, the linked ganglia of a snail allow it to make simple decisions. Globular, horny and pale brown with gingerbread tints, the garden snail’s shell is a conical tube coiled into a protective spiral, usually comprising five dextral (clockwise) whorls. This spectacular secretion—an integral part of the animal—enjoys continuous growth from the egg stage onward, offering a waterproof refuge into which the creature can withdraw entirely—re-emerging by forcing blood into its powerful foot. Locomotion is achieved by a rhythmic series of muscular contractions, at a proverbially slow rate: snails can ‘gallop’ 50 yards an hour and the adhesive slime allows its ventral foot to proceed upside down or across razor-sharp surfaces. There is a pronounced homing instinct and Aspersa is largely nocturnal, thus minimising desiccation and predatory perils such as hedgehogs, ants and the thrush’s anvil. They require humidity and, when the ground-level climate becomes unfavourable, snails enter dormant phases (both overwintering and aestivation), their shell’s aperture sealed with a plug of hardened mucus.

Enthusiastic herbivores, they inhabit woodlands, parks and gardens and have a fondness for limestone (which promotes shell building). Devastating pests in citrus groves, they also browse on cereal crops, vegetables, precious dahlias and hostas. Some gardeners recommend coffee grounds and copper tree bands as deterrents. The snail’s long, necessarily loopy digestive tract is fed from a mouth equipped with a chain-like rasping tongue (the ‘radula’) that has 15,000 recurved teeth—a lot of dentition for one kitchen garden.

When it comes to sex, we’re looking at Fifty Shades of Snail

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When it comes to sex, we’re looking at Fifty Shades of Snail. A notably promiscuous hermaphrodite with extraordinarily complex genitalia, Aspersa initiates foreplay with some lubricious nibbling and then both partners align their common reproductive openings (located just behind the head). During courtship, they discharge a hypodermic ‘love dart’—a hollow telum amoris with four longtitudinal blades—into their paramour, to stimulate fertilisation. The penis is everted by blood pressure (causing the horns simultaneously to droop) and mating may continue for 12 hours while a spermatophore is transferred into each opposing vagina. A fortnight later, clutches of several dozen eggs are laid, enrobed in albumin and resembling microscopic mistletoe berries. The young emerge complete with a miniature shell (the ‘protoconch’) and there is no metamorphic stage: each is born with a house for life. Snail meat has been eaten since the Stone Age and heliculture was probably an early

example of animal domestication. Thousands of tons are now consumed annually across Europe, farmed in escargotières or gathered wild. For the classic dish à la Bourguignonne (tackled with obstetrical-style forceps), the Aspersa is sometimes served up in the shell of its larger cousin Helix pomatia, offering a more capacious vehicle for garlic butter. These days, many a gastropod features in some fancy gastro-pub recipe, but it was once working men’s food—Newcastle’s glass-blowers ate snails to strengthen their lungs and, in the West Country, they were sold under the ghastly sobriquet of ‘wall fish’. Victorian dairymen surreptitiously whisked them into milk to impart a creamier texture and folk remedies included cures for scrofula, consumption and warts. From Aristotle to Günter Grass, the world according to old Belly Foot has long intrigued writers and thinkers, who have seen it variously as an emblem of determination, independence, fragility or solitude— Thom Gunn’s exquisite poem Considering The Snail has its subject’s ‘thin trail of broken white’ reproduced in the track of his own words on the page and Ted Hughes admired them: ‘Slimed as eels, wrinkled as whales/And cold/As dogs’ noses.’ Its tumescent horns and association with the lunar cycle have made the snail a fertility symbol and its habit of withdrawing and reappearing was once a resurrection motif. Artistically, its shelly spiral has inspired everything from childrens’ cartoonish sketches to the architecture of pagodas and the late, large gouaches découpées of Matisse. The novelist Patricia Highsmith, who wrote two Grand Guignol stories about snails, carried them as pets in her handbag. Now, that is a far cry from Heston’s convoluted porridge. Leaving a trail: Helix aspersa has 15,000 teeth, the ability to make simple decisions and fires a ‘love dart’ during courtship

What, this old thing? Vintage and retro-looking household appliances are not only stylish, but were built to last. Anna Tyzack talks to those for whom the old models will always be best Photographs by John Millar

Image courtesy of The Advertising Archives

OME 60 years since the domestic-appliance revolution of the 1950s, an astonishing number of the mixers, hostess trolleys, cookers and kettles bought at the time are still going strong. These devices transformed the life of a housewife in the 1950s and 1960s, giving home comforts after Second World War rationing. Built by skilled engineers, using premium materials left over from the conflict, these sought-after designs observed the Modernist industrial design ideal of ‘form follows function’. Many were awarded a black-andwhite triangular label by the Council of Industrial Design to show they represented the best of British design. ‘They don’t look terribly old-fashioned, particularly now everyone is trying to make things look “retro”,’ says Steven Braggs of the online guide Retrowow. ‘The finish is better than modern products as is the engineering.’ Although housewives were keen to have the latest fashionable appliances in their kitchens—which were being refitted with acres of wipe-clean Formica—durability and reliability were also key. Jack and Jan Konynenburg from Chippenham, Wiltshire, have a Revo Princess Cooker dating from 1950 and, although it takes longer to heat up than a modern model, they still regularly rely on it to prepare dinner parties. ‘These things were made with huge care— they were built to last,’ they say. The Konynenburgs are so passionate about 20th-century design that they opted for an English Rose kitchen—made from aero-grade aluminium, which was used to produce the nose cones of Spitfires during the Second World War— bought on eBay for £600. The original 1950s ‘fitted’ kitchen, with a choice of sink units, cabinets and corner units,

56 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Preceding pages and above: Mixing it up: Michael Stratton started his business restoring vintage Kenwood Mixers after finding one at a car-boot sale. Left: An old advert for the multi-functional Kenwood Chef—a classic model can now sell for more than it would have originally cost in real terms

These things were made with huge care–they were built to last

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the multitude of bright colour the English Rose units came i those sleek Formica surfaces made it an instant hit with housewives tired of their drab prewar kitchens. In London, Sally Cadbury prefers to style her hair with the Carmen rollers she bought in the early 1970s. ‘All the copies are useless—they don’t seem to have decent teeth,’ contends Mrs Cadbury, who also treasures a Frister & Rossmann sewing machine—a birthday present from her husband—plus her 1970s Elna ironing press. After smashing the porcelain bowl supplied with her sparkling new Kenwood Mixer in 1958, Catherine Shipley from Devon was devastated when she had

to pay £5 (the equivalent of £107.75 now) for a metal replacement. It was money well spent, however, as Mrs Shipley, now 90, still uses the machine—an A700D— to make cakes and scones. ‘It’s never once been repaired,’ her daughter Jan Mckinnel says. ‘To her, it’s as good as new.’ These loyal appliances have become treasured heirlooms. Rosemary Butler listens to The Archers in her Bishop Auckland home on her grandmother’s green Roberts RT1 Radio, bought in 1959 for £34 3s. ‘My radio is part of family life—I remember Granny having it beside her bed,’ recalls Mrs Butler. ‘For as long as I’ve known it, the carbon rod has been taped together and there’s a piece of polystyrene holding the battery in, but it still works better than other radios.’ Monica Kenny of West Kensington, London, cherishes her 1960s hand whisk, egg flip and egg slice bought by her mother-in-law in Gamages, a department store on High Holborn, for her late husband Anthony’s first flat. ‘I’ve never had any need to replace them because they’re www.countrylife.co.uk

beautifully made—I’d feel quite sad if I had to now,’ she admits. Fellow Londoner Susie King feels similar devotion to the potato masher and heavy 1950s rabbit-shaped jelly mould she inherited from her mother. ‘They remind me of my early childhood in France— I would never make a jelly in any other shape.’ The growing demand for restored appliances is boosting the new trade of ‘retrofurbishing’. Andy Triplow of Vintage & Architectural restores and www.countrylife.co.uk

sells antique radiators—he recently repaired the heavy Victorian radiators in Anmer Hall, the Norfolk residence of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge— and Michael Stratton runs a business dedicated to retro Kenwood Mixers in Portsmouth. ‘I bought one for £5 at a car-boot sale, restored it and, when it sold quickly on eBay, I realised I’d found a niche,’ he reveals. Having got to grips with the inner workings of more than 200 vintage Kenwood Chefs, Mr Stratton is convinced

Jack and Jan Konynenburg’s passion for 20thcentury design is apparent in their kitchen, which features units made from aero-grade aluminium used for Spitfire nose cones in the Second World War

they are superior to newer models. ‘They’re solid British engineering, with quiet motors and more attachments than you get these days,’ he says. ‘Plus you can repair them, which is almost impossible to do with the new ones.’ Last year, a Which? survey showed we’re prepared to spend about 30% of a machine’s original cost on a repair. With classics such as the Kenwood Chef, however, which can now sell for more than its original purchase price, it can be worth breaking this rule. Once ➢

Country Life, September 23, 2015 57

Golden oldies: Sally Cadbury swears by her 1970s Carmen rollers and Frister & Rossmann sewing machine

58 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Mr Stratton has restored and re-sprayed an A700D mixer and upgraded its motor, he sells it for £269.99. That’s not to say that all old appliances are worth repairing, however, as the parts are often obsolete. ‘The only hope is to get hold of an identical machine and use its parts,’ says Sharon Scanlon of Bath Domestic Appliances, which specialises in repairing older machines. ‘We’ve got an appliance graveyard at the back of the shop and will supply old parts if we can, but fitting them can be expensive.’ The Teasmade is the appliance most likely to be in mint condition. In the 1960s, about two million households— including John and Norma Major— owned these alarm clock-kettle ‘luxury’ appliances, yet a remarkable number never made it out of their boxes. ‘They www.countrylife.co.uk

Above: The Hoover Junior was a reliable option for those on a budget in the 1950s. Right: The Goblin Teasmade was a popular wedding gift in the 1960s— although many never made it out of the box

Five classics

Price then £10 15s, plus £2 2s for tools

• Kenwood Chef A700 (1950) As well as mixing at three different speeds, it could mince meat, grind coffee and knead dough

Price now About £35

Price then £19 10s 10d Price now About £45 from eBay • Goblin Teasmade D21 (1954) At a preset time, the kettle boiled the water, which then bubbled up through a tube into the teapot and an alarm rang to alert you that tea was ready to be poured Price then £16 14s 9d for the De Luxe model Price now From £25 to £75, depending on condition • Hoover Junior 1334 (1958) The Junior combined the best features of Hoover’s Deluxe and Popular ranges at an affordable price

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Image courtesy of The Advertising Archives; Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans; Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

were given as wedding gifts and never used,’ admits Sheridan Parsons, a trainee archivist from Wiltshire, who has collected more than 200 Teasmades and founded www.teasmade.info. Miss Parsons concedes there’s little point to the alarm-clock function, given that you’re woken 10 minutes earlier by the sound of hissing steam, but this doesn’t, she insists, detract from the experience of waking up to a pot of tea. ‘There’s no denying that they’re noisy,’ she smiles, ‘but it’s all part of the charm of using a vintage appliance.’

• Russell Hobbs K1 (right, 1956) This kettle was much safer than previous electric versions and a world first, due to an ingenious bimetallic strip that automatically knocked the switch off after it had come to the boil Price then £7 5s Price now In good condition, £50 and up to £100–£200 in their original boxes • Roberts RT1 (right, 1958) Roberts’s first transistor model, with a plywood box, covered in leather cloth in various designs, was mounted on a small, plastic turntable, which allowed the listener to rotate the receiver to pick up the best signal Price then £17 8s 9d Price now About £120

Country Life, September 23, 2015 59

Garda Tang; John Millar

The spaniel time forgot

EREMY HACKETT was walking down Bond Street recently when he noticed a lady staring. As she approached, he started preparing to confirm that, yes, he was Jeremy Hackett, founder and chairman of the renowned British fashion house Hackett London. However, the lady instead pointed excitedly to the dog by his side and enquired: ‘Is that Muffin?’ That wasn’t, Mr Hackett insists, the first time his Sussex spaniels, rather than him, have been recognised by strangers on the street. Muffin, like her predecessors Charley and Browney, has starred in several advertising campaigns—‘she’s a real poser’—and, last year, graced the company’s Christmas card bedecked in a bright-red scarf. ‘She’s very good at PR and is enchanting,’ he adds affectionately. Muffin might be an excellent ambassador for her breed, but she’s one of a dwindling number in the UK. Last year, just 67 Sussex spaniel puppies were registered with the Kennel Club, compared to some 34,000 labradors and 22,000 cocker spaniels. This wasn’t always the case. First described in The Sportsman’s Cabinet, published in 1803, as ‘the largest and strongest [of spaniels]… common in most parts of Sussex and… called Sussex Spaniels’, these well-built and hardy dogs—with their short, muscular legs, long, low body and large paws—were deemed the most capable of negotiating the county’s heavy clay soil and thick cover when hunting game. Throughout the 1800s, Augustus Elliot Fuller of Rose Hill, Brightling, an influential East Sussex landowner, championed the Sussex’s charms by working them on his estate; he showed them successfully and encouraged others to recognise their qualities. However, the breed declined so dramatically during the 20th century that, by the end of the Second World War, just eight Sussex spaniels remained in the UK—all owned by Joy Freer of Fourclovers Kennel, a woman who devoted 60 years of her life to breeding and promoting the breed. Despite their working background, Sussex spaniels largely survived as show dogs and it’s rare to see them in the field today. ‘They went out of fashion in terms of a working breed,’ explains Sheila Appleby, breeder and vice-president ➢ Above: Jeremy Hackett with Muffin and her puppy, Harry. Facing page: Sheila Appleby’s Lucy 60 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Devoted and diligent, the Sussex spaniel has long languished on the vulnerable breeds list. Katy Birchall talks to devotees who have remained loyal to the once-popular working dog

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Nick Ridley Photography; John Millar

of the Sussex Spaniel Association. ‘Cockers and springers have got faster and faster. The Sussex seems to miss out a bit, but they’ll work as well as any other dog. People just haven’t really heard of them.’ Like Mr Hackett—who encountered his first Sussex, Charley, when looking around Battersea Dogs & Cats Home during a lunch break—Mrs Appleby hadn’t heard of the breed until she came upon it by chance a few years ago. Having picked up a new English springer from kennels in Dorset, she asked the owner what ‘those funny little brown things’ were at the back. After waiting a year to get hold of one, she’s never looked back. ‘They’re so loyal, with such a good sense of humour,’ she enthuses. ‘They get an awful lot of attention when we’re out and about with them. People are always asking me what breed they are.’ Their rich golden-liver coat, broad face and muscular body, coupled with variety of expression and sombre hazel eyes under a furrowed brow— a look that transforms when they draw back their lips to expose their teeth, demonstrating a disarming grin—is difficult to resist. In 1859, J. H. Walsh, then editor of The Field, remarked that this ‘beautifully feathered’ dog had a look ‘of exceeding gravity and intelligence’ and in British Dogs, published

in 1888, Hugh Dalziel describes them as ‘sedate and thoughtful—almost dreamy in repose’. Good-looking they may be, but it’s loyalty and diligence that once gave the breed its edge. In the 1872 publication The Dog, author ‘Idstone’ was full of praise: ‘For the patient, genuine sportsman there is no better dog than the short legged, thick set and low spaniel, which ought to downcharge, to retrieve and swim well and cheerfully. The Sussex possessed all these accomplishments.’ And, in 1897, Rawdon B. Lee claimed that ‘as a worker, the Sussex spaniel is second to none. He is hardy, busy, reliable’.

When they draw back their lips to expose their teeth, Sussex spaniels demonstrate a disarming grin

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It is these virtues, along wit athletic ability, that attracte McGloon, K9 Unit Leader, Search and Rescue (SAR) of Josephine County in Oregon, USA, to the breed. The owner of four Sussex spaniels, all trained and certified in SAR, Mrs McGloon currently works three-year-

old Tollie, who was bred in England by Mrs Appleby. Tollie was certified earlier this year in man trailing, a discipline that requires a dog, once introduced to the scent belonging to a missing person, to follow the trail of that person without distraction. These dogs come to the aid of lost hikers, hunters, mushroom pickers and those missing from cities, often elderly Alzheimer’s sufferers. Sussex spaniels, Mrs McGloon asserts, are perfect for such demanding work as they’re so adept at searching in a variety of conditions, such as thick coastal rainforests, mountains and wide-open desert. ‘They’re much more manageable to handle in extreme, unforgiving terrain than a larger, more common breed such as a bloodhound,’ she explains. ‘As they were bred to work all day at a reasonable pace, they don’t tire like some and their tenacious attitude keeps them “on the hunt” for the duration. I have yet to find an environment they can’t negotiate.’ Not everyone, however, has the same faith in the breed. When Mrs McGloon was out searching for a downed pilot in the rugged mountains of northern California with her now-retired spaniel Beryl, a US Forest Service employee expressed his doubts about using a dog with such small stature, to which Mrs McGloon’s search partner politely

With short, muscular legs and large paws, Sussex spaniels are ideal for working on the county’s heavy clay soil

The secret world of the Sussex spaniel • There are estimated to be just 600 Sussex spaniels in the UK, with 67 puppies registered in 2014— making them rarer than giant pandas • Despite there being very few in the USA at the time, in 1884, the Sussex was among the first 10 breeds recognised by the American Kennel Club • Due to the county’s thick undergrowth, it’s thought that the Sussex is the only gundog to have been bred to ‘give tongue’ when working • Joy Freer’s Fourclovers Kennel was the only one to continue to breed the dog throughout the Second World War—by 1945, there were fewer than 10 left in the UK. Were it not for Mrs Freer’s lifelong dedication to the Sussex, the breed would almost certainly have become extinct • In 2009, a spaniel named Stump made history by becoming the first Sussex to win ‘best in show’ at the notable Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in America. At 10 years old, he was also the oldest dog ever to win the prize replied: ‘That brown dog could run you into the ground.’ Beryl demonstrated her skill on such rescue missions as the 2014 Oso landslide that devastated a small community north-east of Seattle. Alongside a team of dogs and handlers, she spent two days relentlessly searching through thick mud and debris for those who were missing. ‘I am just so passionate about the Sussex. They have incredible scenting abilities, a strong hunt drive and a willful determination to never give up,’ Mrs McGloon says firmly. It seems that the Sussex spaniel has a habit of generating devoted fans. Joy Freer declares that ‘once you’re bitten by the Sussex bug, there’s no known cure’ and Mrs Appleby says she ‘would never be without one’, despite, she laughs, their tendency to howl when wanting attention. This is a Sussex trait Mr Hackett was surprised to discover in Muffin. ‘My last two rarely barked or howled,’ www.countrylife.co.uk

he recalls, ‘but when I bring Muffin into work, she sometimes has this habit of suddenly throwing back her head and letting out a long, rather prehistoric-sounding howl.’ Noise pollution aside, Muffin is a welcome addition to his office as well as the shops, greeting customers with

Breeder Sheila Appleby (above) with Topaz and Lucy. She also bred Tollie (below), now a search-andrescue dog

that signature grin. She even accompanies Mr Hackett to restaurants—‘she has very good table manners’— where, fortunately, she refrains from howling and lies contentedly under the table at his feet. ‘She’s just adorable,’ he beams. ‘Everywhere I go, she’s always there at my heel.’

HE Royal Opera House has one and the Science Museum used to. Heathrow’s had two, but Gatwick has yet to follow suit. And not to be outdone by the BBC World Service, Radio 4 is on the lookout for one all of its own. Writers-in-residence are all over the place. Everywhere from Welsh Rugby’s governing body to the LondonHarrogate train line has one: a scaleddown laureate who agrees to transplant their writing life to a particular location for a fixed period. The idea is that they’ll sprinkle a little artistic magic, producing work inspired by their time there and casting the institution that’s engaged them in

Something to write home about From marauding mice to biscuits made from grasshoppers, the life of a writer-in-residence is never dull. Emma Hughes finds out what it’s like putting pen to paper far from home a different light. But, of course, that’s just the beginning of the story. When the management of The Savoy, once a favourite of Arnold Bennett and Noël Coward, decided to re-establish the job as a literary hitching post in 2002, they approached the writer Fay Weldon. Would she like to come and live there for three months? For her, the request was the answer to a prayer. ‘I was halfway through my novel Mantrapped and the ceiling of my new house had just collapsed,’ she remembers. Gathering up her drafts, she decamped to a suite overlooking the Thames and set to work.

As he was stretchered out, he pointed to the [Savoy] Grill and announced... “It was the food in there”

PHOTOSHOT/Getty Images; Nikolai Sorokin/Dreamstime.com; John Millar

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Life at the hotel, which hadn’t yet been given its multi-million-pound facelift, certainly wasn’t dull. ‘The windows did tend to stick a bit,’ Miss Weldon says fondly. ‘And I was having a meal with a film producer in my suite one day when a mouse ran across the floor.’ One day, the actor Richard Harris, who had moved in during his 70th year, fell gravely ill and was taken to hospital. As he was being stretchered out Could you turn down three months at The Savoy? For Fay Weldon, the invitation was the answer to a prayer

64 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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through the lobby, Miss Weldon remembers, he decided to exact revenge on the staff of the Savoy Grill, who would erect screens around him when he ate because they were so embarrassed by his scruffy clothes. ‘He sat bolt upright, pointed to the Grill and announced to some American tourists “It was the food in there”.’ The hotel’s association with Miss Weldon, who hosted a series of glamorous literary lunches and wine tastings during her time there, undoubtedly bolstered the Savoy’s profile, but, aside from the obvious draws of bed, board and, perhaps, a stipend (Kathy Lette, another Savoy alumna, once quipped that ransom notes are the only truly lucrative form of writing), what does an author actually get out of a residency?

Kathy Lette once quipped that ransom notes are the only truly lucrative form of writing

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For award-winning historical biographer Frances Wilson, who spent a year at Somerset House in 2010, the answer was an injection of the unexpected. She’d just finished How To Survive the Titanic, the story of the ship’s owner J. Bruce Ismay (who threw himself into a lifeboat with the women and children), and was looking for inspiration. ‘I’ve always thought it was a terribly romantic place, so I jumped at the chance when I saw the position advertised,’ she explains. However, things didn’t quite turn out as she’d imagined. ‘I’d thought I’d be in a little eyrie looking out over the river, but Somerset House is huge, and so much of it is subterranean. To get to my room, you had to go down into the basement and then down again, right underneath Waterloo Bridge. I used to call it Diagon Alley [after the twisty-turny wizards’ thoroughfare in the ‘Harry Potter’ books].’ Undaunted, Miss Wilson installed a piano next to her desk and ‘marinaded’ herself in the history of the ➢ Award-winning historical biographer Frances Wilson spent a year at Somerset House writing her life of Thomas De Quincey, to be published in 2016 www.countrylife.co.uk

Country Life, September 23, 2015 65

building. Soon, a new biography started to take shape: an account of the shadowy life of 19th-century essayist and opium addict Thomas De Quincey, due to be released in April 2016. The labyrinthine layout of Somerset House may end up influencing which subject she tackles next, too. ‘It got me thinking about writing something on Houdini,’ she laughs. Most writers-in-residence, Miss Wilson included, will lead workshops and give readings as well as working on their own projects. One or two, however, take a slightly less orthodox approach. Victoria Glass, for instance, fed people insects. But then again, her residency was at the Roald Dahl Museum. The whitewashed house in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire (which has ‘Flushbunkingly Gloriumptious’ daubed over the front door) was Dahl’s home for 36 years and its trustees are on a mission to broaden children’s literary and cultural horizons. Step forward Miss Glass, author of four playful cookery books (one features the ‘sneezecake’, a cross between a cheesecake and a cinnamon-dusted American snickerdoodle cookie) and a lifelong fan of Dahl’s work. ‘I queued up to get my copy of Matilda,’ she remembers. ‘And when I got the residency, I suddenly found myself teaching in a replica of Miss Honey’s classroom.’ Miss Glass spent six months leading food-writing workshops for children, in which participants would taste

eyebrow-raising things and then describe them. This is where her grasshopper-infused biscuits came in. ‘It’s not like you got a bit of leg or anything —I did grind them up first,’ she insists. Miss Glass’s charges also made their own Marvellous Medicine, inspired by George’s, and a variation on Mrs Twit’s worm spaghetti. Next month, she’ll publish a book called Deliciously Chocolatey, written during her time at the museum, full of child-friendly recipes and ingredients such as popping candy and homemade marshmallows. ‘The residency taught me to take the pomp out of things,’ she smiles. Writers-in-residence don’t actually have to reside within bricks and mortar. In 2012, the philosopher Julian Baggini was tasked with creativel ppraising the White Cliffs of , as part of the National Trust’s fundraising appeal to buy an iconic stretch of coastline. In some respects, Mr Baggini was an unlikely choice. Although he grew up in nearby Folkestone, he had always been, by his own admission, ‘a typical city person’, whose Trust membership had long since expired. But the prospect of wrestling with the paradox at the heart of the cliffs’ identity appealed to him. ‘On the one hand, they’re a fortress that keeps people out, but they’re also what greets people when they arrive in Britain for the first time by boat.’ Having set up a base camp at the South Foreland lighthouse, Mr Baggini

Most writersin-residence lead workshops. Victoria Glass fed people insects

Victoria Glass; Tim Stubbings

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Above: Julian Baggini had the windswept task of creatively reappraising the White Cliffs of Dover. Left: Victoria Glass fed insects to workshop attendees at the Roald Dahl Museum

spent a week conducting interviews to get a sense of what the cliffs meant to different people before producing an essay—or, more accurately, a call to action. He surprised himself by getting seriously fired up and producing a pull-no-punches treatise on the cliffs’ continuing importance. ‘Images of places can be incredibly powerful in shaping the popular consciousness,’ he insists. ‘Being a writerin-residence wasn’t just about showing how interesting I could be if you plonked me in a field.’

A valuable lesson More and more schools are joining forces with authors such as the novelist Tobias Hill, who became writer-inresidence at Eton in 2007. In his published diary of the experience, he admitted to being as ‘nervous as a boy on his first day of school’ when he arrived and of finding the beaks’ surnames terrifying. ‘Chipper, Daurge, OliphantCallum, Ripper, Scragg—even Molesworth would be scared of that lot,’ he wrote. Cheltenham Ladies’ College doesn’t just have writersin-residence, it’s had poets, artists, sculptors and composers on site at various points. Post-holders are expected to create original work during their time at the college, as well as teaching pupils.

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Kitchen garden cook Runner beans More ways with runner beans Autumn salad with ryebread croutons (below) Peel 385g butternut squash and drizzle olive oil over it in a bowl. Roast in a hot oven for 30 minutes or until tender. Five minutes before you take it out of the oven, scatter 40g mixed seeds, such as pumpkin, sunflower and sesame, over it. Allow to cool slightly. Arrange 115g baby spinach on a platter and place the squash on top. Add 180g sliced, cooked beetroot. Steam 200g green beans. In a saucepan, drizzle olive oil over them and add a crushed clove of garlic. Shake the pan with the lid on and then put the beans onto the spinach, too. Toast 3 slices of heavy rye bread and then cut into cubes. Add them to the garlicky pan, drizzle a little more olive oil in, add a crushed clove of garlic and again shake the pan with the lid on to mix the flavours around. Scatter the croutons and 2tbspn chia seeds over the salad. Drizzle olive oil and apple cider vinegar over it and serve.

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by Melanie Johnson

The last wave of summer vegetables has arrived in the kitchen garden and among them are deliciously sweet and crisp runner beans. I’m quite fussy about making sure only young and un-stringy beans make it to the table

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Lemon-and-rosemary leg of lamb with harissa beans Serves 4 Ingredients

Melanie Johnson

Asian runner-bean salad Steam 400g runner beans until almost tender yet still retaining a bite. Add 3 cloves of sliced garlic, 1 sliced red chilli and 25g butter. Gently toast 2tbspn sesame seeds in a frying pan and then add them to the beans. Pour 40ml soy sauce over the beans and mix everything together. Serve warm with salmon fillets that have been drizzled with honey before roasting. Hazelnut-pesto beans Stir pesto made by processing 180g toasted hazelnuts, 1 clove garlic, 100ml olive oil, a handful of fresh basil, 100g Parmesan, juice and zest of 1 lemon and seasoning into 400g cooked runner beans. www.countrylife.co.uk

2 lemons 5 sprigs fresh rosemary A handful fresh mint 30ml olive oil Seasoning 2kg leg of lamb 400g runner beans 6 red chillies 1tspn caraway seeds 1tspn coriander seeds 1tspn cumin seeds 4 cloves garlic 1 preserved lemon 1tbspn tomato paste 30ml olive oil

Method Cut the fresh lemons into small pieces and pulse into a paste in a food processor with the rosemary, olive oil and seasoning. Use the back of a spoon to spread it over the leg of lamb. Cover the meat and leave it to marinate in your fridge for at least three hours. Preheat your oven to 200˚C/400˚F/gas mark 6. Cook the leg of lamb in a roasting dish for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, or a little longer if you like it less pink. Cover with foil and leave to rest for about 15 minutes. To make the harissa, process the chillies, caraway, coriander and cumin seeds, cloves of garlic, preserved lemon, tomato paste and olive oil in a food processor until they make a coarse paste. Blanch the beans in boiling water until almost tender. Drain and then mix a few spoonfuls of the harissa. Serve the lamb with beans on the side and a dollop of sauce made by stirring harissa into Greek yoghurt.

200ml Greek yoghurt

Country Life, September 23, 2015 67

How to make berry good tipples

Emma McCall; Alamy; Corbis Images; Getty Images; Dreamstime.com

From rosehip infusion to crab-apple liqueur and sweet-chestnut brandy, forager John Wright has tried them all. Here, he separates the good, the bad and the ugly to save you from your own hedgerow hangover

VENTUALLY, one gets to the age when the beauty and scientific interest of hedgerows become less pressing considerations than the wholly more practical question ‘what booze can I make with that?’. I reached that stage quite a long time ago and have accumulated quite a few, really good, answers. Anyone in my part of Dorset who doesn’t make sloe gin is considered ‘a bit odd’, so let us begin with this standard tipple. Here, the country mouse has a clear advantage, as blackthorn is a common hedgerow tree in many parts of Britain, especially in the West Country. City mice will likely need to come to steal ours. Sloe gin has three ingredients but, seemingly, 2,000 ‘recipes’. You can add vanilla, almonds or juniper berries; you can wait until after the frosts or put them in the freezer for a day; you can prick them with a fork. But I bother not with such nonsense and just pick sloes when they’re ripe and put them

in a jar with sugar and gin. My ‘trick’ is to leave the sloes in the gin (or vodka) for at least six months. This allows the strong almond flavours in the pip to disperse, Amaretto-like, into the gin. Once decanted, the longer it’s left, the better the flavour. A one-litre Kilner jar will take about 280g of sloes, 140g of sugar, 600ml of gin or vodka and all the patience that you possess. However, there’s also ‘quick sloe gin’, otherwise known as épine. In truth, it contains no sloes at all, relying on the blackthorn leaves to provide the almond flavours. Strip off the leaves from the long side shoots, as these will have no spines or side branches. The ratios are 500ml leaves, 2.5 litres red wine (preferably elderberry or blackberry), 350ml brandy, 500g sugar and almost no patience at all. Fill one or two large Kilner jars with the ingredients, shake every day until the sugar has dissolved and leave for a minimum of three weeks. I told you it was quick!

I discovered a long-lost jar of the stuff when clearing out a cupboard and decanted it after three years. It was still superb, so there’s hope for the forgetful. Endless other spirit infusions can be made from the hedgerow. Blackberry whisky needs to be decanted off after about six months, then left for at least two years. This allows the flavours to amalgamate gloriously into an entirely new flavour, which is neither whisky nor blackberry. Rosehips are notorious for the slightly dangerous hairs on the seeds, but your delicate insides are safe from their attentions if you make an infusion with the uncut hips. The resulting liqueur is mildly fruity with a touch of vanilla. Alone, it can be a little mawkish, but, in a cocktail with raspberry juice, lemonade, soda water and ice, it’s a splendid drink. Rosehips are terribly good for you—full of vitamin C—so

the more infusion you drink, the better. Also good for you is the berry of one of the most common of all British trees, the hawthorn. They’re called haws and go famously with gin as an infusion— fill a Kilner jar with haws before adding the sugar and gin. The medical virtues of the humble haw have escaped my memory, but I really don’t care. If you find any true crab apples in the hedgerow (and millions were planted in the new hedges of the 18th and 19th centuries), you can make one of my favourites. Fill a jar with crab apples, sprinkle sugar to one quarter of the way up and top up with vodka. Place some scrunched-up kitchen foil on top to keep the apples submerged, shake the jar once a day until the sugar has dissolved, then leave for a year. The result is a fruity apple liqueur, which is particularly good when mixed with a sharp, dry apple juice and ice. I’ve just decanted some and decided to juice the leftover apples. It looks like mud, but if you close your eyes, it’s terrific boozy stuff. Perhaps I should try straining it through a wine filter. Sweet chestnuts aren’t often thought of as a base for a drink, but a similar infusion of (painstakingly) peeled chestnuts in brandy is worth the effort and the one-year wait. The drink is decidedly chestnutty and

makes a great cocktail with ginger beer. And, of course, it leaves you with sweet chestnuts, brimming with booze, ready to put in a cake. Having suffered from drinking my own country wines and those of other proud wine-makers, I view them with suspicion. As only its parents can love an ugly baby, so will only its creator love a country wine, but there are exceptions. Top of the list, by a fair margin, is elderberry wine. Grape wines and country wines are quite different things, so direct comparisons are generally unhelpful. However, a well-made elderberry wine is almost indistinguishable from a reasonable red wine. Well, it is to my untutored palate, at least —the only way I can tell that a wine is red or white is by looking at it. Elderberries almost drip from the trees in late August and in September

The medicinal virtues of the humble haw have escaped my memory, but I really don’t care

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The homemade tipple season is upon us! Could this be the best time of year? You’ll never run out of fruity inspiration with sweet chestnuts, rosehips, haws, sloes and blackberries to choose from

and enough can be collected in a few minutes to make a standard demijohn of wine. The berries must be ‘forked off’ their sprays into a fermenting bucket, gently crushed and 4.5 litres of boiling water poured over the lot. Then, 1.4kg (medium) to 1.5kg (sweet) of white sugar is stirred in and the whole lot covered closely and left to cool. Aerate the brew with a clean whisk. A teaspoon of yeast nutrient may be added and a packet of red-wine yeast sprinkled on top. After five days in the bucket, strain carefully into a clean demijohn, fit an airlock and wait until the bubbling has slowed to one every 10 seconds or so—a few weeks, typically. Siphon into a fresh demijohn, complete with air lock, and leave for the wine to clear. Siphon into bottles. Leave for six months before opening any of them. There are many more sophisticated ways of making elderberry wine, but this is the simplest. Blackberry wine can be made in much the same way, but you need to like blackberries as much as I do—a lot—to enjoy this wine. There are several other autumnal country wines that can be made, but I’ve tried them all so that you don’t need to.

Taking grouse by storm Adrian Dangar joins a party of guns on a wet and wild driven-grouse day in North Yorkshire and sees them pit their wits against the king of game birds Photographs by Jake Eastham

TRADDLING the River Esk between the North York Moors and the grey North Sea at Whitby, Olly Foster’s Egton estate is a sporting paradise of rivers, woods and moorland that is home to an impressive variety of game, but the guests today have travelled from all over England for a crack at the king of game birds: the red grouse. Footsteps on the gravel fall silent as Olly briefs them in front of the quintessentially English manor house that he moved into with his wife and young family late last year. In soft rain and against a backdrop of sweeping lawns, tall green pines and burgundy copper beeches, the estate’s young owner welcomes

the team to Egton and reiterates the importance of safety on the moor. The excitement generated by a covey of grouse hurtling through a line of butts has been known to induce even the most experienced guns to throw caution to the wind and Olly is having none of that here. Ten minutes later, we arrive at a high purple plateau shaking violently beneath the lashing rain of a bitter north-easterly and low clouds of churning mist that are a world away from the lush green valley of Eskdale hundreds of feet below. Some might have been put off by such foul weather, but not this team of hardy Englishmen, who understand that the unseasonably wild conditions will produce the

We arrive at a high purple plateau shaking violently beneath the lashing rain

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most exciting and challenging of birds. ‘They’re going to be shifting today,’ observes Lord Rockley with a wry smile from inside thick tweeds built to turn the worst of British weather. The rain is hard at the guns’ backs as they hunker down in immaculate stone-built butts as the hazy grey mass of Wintergill forestry swirls in and out of sight to the east. Each man is scouring the purplegrey horizon in delicious anticipation of birds to come, but, in this light, entire coveys can burst out of nowhere. A lone trailblazing grouse takes everyone by surprise as it speeds unsaluted through the line; grips tighten on gunstocks and two birds tumble from the first large covey to sweep silently through. These grouse are being asked to face the teeth of strong winds and some slide sideways down the line, drawing fire from several guns along the way; one guest has imported a loader from his own Scottish moor, but the rest are shooting single guns with numb fingers and keeping up well with the pace. A line of small white dots appears in the distance and, as the busy white flags draw

closer, we can hear the anguished shouts of beaters as they try in vain to deter birds from flying back with the wind. When they’re two gunshots out, a fanfare of horn-blowing signals that it’s no longer safe to shoot in front of the butts and guests momentarily raise their guns skywards to confirm they have heard and understood the warning. ‘Very challenging’ is the summary of a drenched Andrew Orr when he arrives with his team of bedraggled beaters at the end of this drive. Described by his employer as ‘ambitious, keen, diligent and loyal’, Andrew was appointed head keeper by Olly’s father a decade ago, at just 21 years of age. For Andrew, and his underkeeper, Ross Webster, a handful of driven shoots such as this are the culmination of a year’s hard work in all weathers. ‘A south-westerly is best for this moor, but this is strong and out of the north-east,’ he says breathlessly. ‘We’ve put up a nice lot of grouse, but the guns are only seeing half of them.’ Unlike the low-ground pheasant keeper, who devotes a large part ➢

Grouse swing and speed through the line like small russet missiles

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of his year to rearing game, the grouse keeper’s duties are divided almost exclusively between habitat management and suppression of vermin and an important by-product of his work is a healthy population of rare upland birds, such as lapwing, curlew and golden plover. Egton clearly has an excellent head of grouse this year as, although only half the birds put up came forward, the guns have been busy—and effective— with some impressive shoot-to-kill ratios. Olly attributes the surplus to a good breeding stock left at the

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end of last season and an absence of freak hailstorms that annihilated broods elsewhere at higher altitudes. He also reveals that a large chunk of moorland hasn’t been shot since 2013, when a severe bout of Arctic weather scorched the landscape a dull yellow. ‘Heather on the low moor took until June this year to recuperate,’ he explains. ‘Luckily, we have good breeding stock, so it should come back next season, but I’m a conservationist and we won’t shoot there unless it’s fully recovered.’ As is the way with grouse, the balance is addressed during the following drives,

when, with the benefit of a near gale behind them, grouse swing and speed through the line like small russet missiles, testing the skill of guns squinting into driving rain in a way that no other game bird can match. Some big packs come forward, too; black swarms that engulf the line seconds after sweeping into sight, only to burst like shrapnel at the sound of gunfire. Travelling at this speed, birds killed in front threaten to knock down their assassins and those shot going away tumble up to 200 yards behind the line. Some of the guests have brought along

their own dogs and, at the end of each drive, shoot staff make sure they’re given space to enjoy working them in winds that tear clouds apart to let in shafts of bright light that dance fleetingly across the sward. Any birds not picked by the guns are gathered by the professionals, including former Egton head keeper and veteran of 65 unbroken shooting seasons, Bryan Nellist, spritely as a moor jock in his 80th year. The British resolve to beat the weather stiffens when Olly announces that we will be shooting through, but,

within minutes of his decision, leaden skies brighten, rain eases and the head of a small stone-walled valley shimmers into view, cutting a thick green slice out of purple moorland. Collars are left up against the wind, but, far below us, a spotlight of sunshine runs across the north face of Eskdale and the eye is drawn beyond green fields to the distant black smudge of Whitby Abbey, overlooking a choppy sea. After the fourth and final drive, the moorland reverberates with a cock grouse’s evocative and imperious command to ‘go back’ and, with the last

We can hear the anguished cry of beaters as they try in vain to deter birds from flying back with the wind

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bird picked, the guns repair to a remote stone farmstead lying in a sea of purple for a late and well-earned lunch. Olly’s wife, Laura, has cooked a wild salmon from the Fosters’ own beat of the Esk and her young boys rush out to greet their father like over-exuberant spaniels. As for the guns now basking in warm sunshine with a drink to hand, I doubt they will remember numb fingers, cold rain and damp clothes, but will only recall a day on which the elements combined with a bumper stock of grouse to produce the most superlative wild sport.

A bunch of fives Fives can trace its roots back centuries, doesn’t require an umpire, tests the brain and is enjoying continuing popularity, as Lucy Higginson explains

Courtesy of Shrewsbury School

IMPLE and ingenious, Eton Fives is at least 175 years old, although variations of the game can be traced back to the Middle Ages. An Eton Fives court famously replicates the bay on the wall of Eton Chapel where it was first played, right down to its buttresses, stone ledges and drain. This bay is replicated 16 times over at the Fives courts down the lane, still used regularly by pairs of boys. ‘It’s a cerebral game, which is all about using your loaf to hit the ball where your opponent isn’t and moving your feet,’ says Mark Williams, who was Master in Charge of Fives at Eton for 18 years. ‘It’s highly tactical and naturally develops ambidexterity because of the position of the buttress.’ As it requires only four players, a glove apiece and a hollow ball, it’s cheap, easy to pick up and, with matches lasting anything between 40 minutes and four hours, it’s a great option when the pitches are waterlogged. Eton Fives is played by some 40 or so schools nationwide, with a similar number playing Rugby Fives, which can also be played by singles and uses a slightly larger, ledge- and buttress-free court. The Rugby Fives Association website seems at pains to avoid using the E word, so is there much rivalry between the two forms, I ask its president, Bob Dolby. ‘Less and less,’ he assures me, ‘and representatives of the two games meet to discuss Fives each year.’ Another variant is Winchester Fives, with a ledge on just one wall, but Winchester and Rubgy Fives players happily swap between the two, says Mr Dolby. Common to all, however, is the absence of a referee. ‘The game is unique in this regard,’ says Mr Williams. ‘The players sort out disputes for themselves and, as such, it’s a training for life way beyond sport.’ Indeed, arguing the point can be as much fun as playing it, if Eton sixth former Barnaby Harrison is to be believed. ‘You know any argument is going to end up in a let, but you still argue, partly because it’s fun. The game is very underrated. It’s fastpaced if you play it at a decent standard and I find it exhilarating and much more exciting than tennis.’

High five: two lower-school students enjoy an Eton Fives taster session at Shrewsbury, one of a number of schools to introduce girls to the game

As any Fives court is pretty small, much of the physical workout is vertical, stretching and bending to reach the ball. ‘You can have a great game with someone in their late forties or fifties, because although we may be fitter, they might be more skilful,’ reflects fellow Etonian Oliver Rowse, who has played with success alongside his identical twin, Max. Oli was nevertheless relieved that a game against his former prep-school headmaster went his way, ‘although he’s demanding a rematch’. Fives has been carried round the globe by Old Etonians, Rugbeians and others as far afield as Darjeeling in India and Geelong in Australia. The Eton boarding house I call home has certainly hosted players from Switzerland and Malaysia, with a clutch of new Fives gloves sometimes a very apt thank-you gift. And a number of co-ed schools have introduced girls to the game, including leading Fives schools Highgate and Shrewsbury (Eton Fives) and Marlborough and Malvern (Rugby Fives). Not that Fives is entirely the preserve of the private sector. St Bartholomew’s School near Newbury, an academy of 1,650 children, installed three new courts in 2013. ‘Our present school was formed by the amalgamation of very old boys’ and girls’ schools and we have new buildings,’ explains Assistant Head Paul Turner. The old school had Fives courts, although he has no idea why, and it was decided to replace them on the new school site. ‘About 10% of each year group plays it and they love it,’ he says. ‘Some of our girls have been particularly successful at the National Schools Championships.’ This 10-day event, supported by Marsh, is the annual highlight, involving 11 categories and more than 1,000 players, but there are matches most weekends of the winter season for university players, under 21s, veterans and so on. For a game with ancient roots, Fives seems to tick a lot of today’s boxes, welcoming players of any sex and age and testing fitness, friendship and resilience. As Oli puts it: ‘You don’t mind taking a bit of criticism on a Fives court—but you learn how to get the best out of your partner, too.’

Property market

D SUGDEN of the country department at Savills has been scanning the horizon for signs of affluent City bankers returning to their traditional habitat among the woodlands, water meadows and chalk downs of Hampshire’s Candover Valley—so far, to little avail. However, unlike other counties of the South-East, where the slowdown in London is hampering the recovery at the upper end of the country-house market, Hampshire is fortunate in that it can rely on the perennial demand for good family houses within easy reach of the county’s outstanding schools and with good commuter links to London, where proud parents must beaver away to earn the fees.

Penny Churchill

Hampshire goes back to school Within 20 minutes of the county’s excellent schools, these properties could make you top of the class

There is a housing shortage around schools

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Savills (01962 834010) quote a guide price of £3.95 million for tranquil, 18th-century Northington Down (Fig 1), set in nine acres of formal gardens, grounds and paddocks on the western edge of the Candover Valley, five miles from the Georgian town of Alresford, eight miles from the cathedral city of Winchester and 13 miles from the high-speed railway hub of Basingstoke. Crucially, the house is perfectly located for some of England’s finest schools, among them the highachieving Winchester College (founded in 1382, and the oldest continuously operating school in the country), Twyford, Pilgrims’ and, for girls, St Swithun’s.

Once a farmstead on the Baring banking family’s Northington Grange estate, Northington Down has been substantially remodelled and refurbished by the current owners and comes with two tied cottages, a separate studio/office, and 7,000sq ft of magnificent period barns and former farm buildings with scope for redevelopment. The main house, surrounded by 2½ acres of formal gardens, has 6,275sq ft of accommodation on three floors, including three main reception rooms, a kitchen/-

Fig 1: Tranquil Northington Down is set in nine acres in the soughtafter Candover Valley. £3.95m

Fig 2: A mere half-mile from the gates of Bedales, Garden Hill at Steep comes with 52 acres. £4.5m

76 Country Life, September 23, 2015

breakfast room, a large master suite, five/six further bedrooms, two bathrooms and attics. The independently minded Bedales School was founded by J. H. Badley, in 1893, ‘as a humane alternative to the authoritarian regimes typical of the late-Victorian public schools’ and moved to a picturesque, 120-acre estate at Steep, near Petersfield, in 1900; its popular prep school, Dunhurst, was established five years later, in 1905. As Ed Cunningham of Knight Frank points out: ‘Historically, parents tend to put a child’s name down for a particular school and then carry out a search for a family house within a 20-minute school run. However, there is often a housing shortage around schools in genuinely rural areas and good properties close to the most popular prep and senior schools are likely to command a substantial premium.’ All of which probably makes the case for the £4.5m guide price quoted by the Winchester offices of Knight Frank (01962 850333) and JacksonStops & Staff (01962 844299) for idyllic Garden Hill (Fig 2) in the www.countrylife.co.uk

Find the best properties at countrylife.co.uk ancient east Hampshire village of Steep, which comes with some 52 acres of spectacular gardens, paddocks and woodland within the South Downs National Park, a mere halfmile from the school gates of Bedales. Built in about 1910 in the style of a Sussex farmhouse, Garden Hill stands on a ridge of high ground, facing south-east towards the South Downs and north-west to the wooded Hangers, celebrated by the poet Edward Thomas, who lived in the area. The immaculate main house, flanked by glorious gardens originally designed by the Edwardian architect and landscape designer Henry Inigo Triggs, has a manageable 4,485sq ft of accommodation, including three main reception rooms, garden and media rooms, a charming kitchen/breakfast room, six bedrooms and four bath/ shower rooms. Almost all the rooms take full advantage of the fabulous views, not only over the beautiful gardens and grounds, but to the distant horizon. State-of-the-art equestrian facilities with separate access include American barn stabling, a full-size manège, a cross-country course and 27.8 acres of pasture and paddocks. ‘Few country houses in Hampshire have been as exquisitely modernised and extended over the years as Forelands Farm (Fig 3) at Stratfield Saye, which stands, literally, on the Hampshire/Berkshire border, 10 miles from Reading station and within easy reach of first-class prep schools such as Cheam, Horris Hill, Ludgrove, Cothill and Elstree,’ says Michael Gatehouse of Savills in Newbury (01635 277700), who quotes a guide price of £2.25m.

Fig 3: ‘Exquisitely modernised and extended’ at Stratfield Saye, Forelands Farm also comes with an annexe, a studio and a cottage £2.25m

Fig 4: Briar Barn at Tangley is handy for Farleigh and mixes modern design with traditional features. £1.45m

Previously a pair of 17th-century farm cottages on the Duke of Wellington’s Stratfield Saye estate (COUNTRY LIFE, April 18 and 15, 2015) until the current owners bought the property in the early 1970s, Forelands Farm has been transformed into a delightful, five-bedroom family home, with an annexe, a studio, a three-bedroom cottage, a converted open-plan barn and traditional outbuildings, set in 2.6 acres of impeccable gardens, grounds and paddock.

Even more accessible for prospective parents of pupils at fashionable Farleigh prep school is the guide price of £1.45m quoted by Fin Hughes of Savills-Smiths Gore in Andover (01264 774900) for the impressively converted Briar Barn (Fig 4) in the rural hamlet of Tangley, five miles north of Andover, and nine miles from Farleigh. Mr Hughes expects the wellplanned five-bedroom house, which ‘effortlessly’ combines modern interior design with the beauty of a traditional 17th-century brick-and-flint building, to appeal to ‘the 70% of Savills buyers at more than £1 million who want to be within a 15-minute drive of both Farleigh and a commutable station such as Andover, as well as to the large group of downsizers who want to live close enough to Farleigh to watch their grandchildren playing sport on a Wednesday or a Saturday afternoon’.

Out of bounds

UCH is the level of competition among prospective Farleigh parents for sensibly priced family houses within the required 15minute journey time from school and station, that some are tempted to stray across the north-west Hampshire border into Wiltshire, where they can expect to get more for their money, says Rob Wightman of Knight Frank in Hungerford, who is himself a Farleigh parent. Knight Frank (01488 682726) quote a guide price of £2.45m for pretty, Grade II-listed Lowerhouse Farm at Lower Chute, which sits in 11½ acres of pretty cottage garden and paddocks, just across the county border, yet still within six miles of Andover station. The house, which probably dates from Tudor times, was extended in 1983 and now has some 3,635sq ft of accommodation, including three southfacing reception rooms, six bedrooms and three bathrooms. Extensive equestrian facilities include a courtyard with stabling, stores and barns—one of which has planning consent to be www.countrylife.co.uk

converted to a two-bedroom cottage—plus three paddocks to the rear of the property, with three more paddocks and an outdoor manège to the south of the house. Country Life, September 23, 2015 77

Property news

Edited by Arabella Youens

Two rivers run through it

When it comes to the crunch, which of Hampshire’s great rivers does today’s buyer ideally want to live on? Tessa Waugh investigates

AMPSHIRE has no shortage of selling points, but if you enjoy fishing, you’ll struggle to better it within commuting distance of London. The county is highly regarded by fly fishermen and women, boasting two of the world’s greatest chalkstreams in the Itchen and the Test, which are famed internationally for their clear waters and numerous brown trout. If a Hampshire house with fishing is your idea of heaven, there are plenty of experts to point you in the right direction. Robin Gould of Prime Purchase (01962 795035) is a keen fisherman, with a clear understanding of what people are looking for, although, in his experience, demand often outweighs availability. ‘A house with fishing at the bottom of the garden is hard to find,’ he explains, ‘and a house with a meaningful stretch of river is even harder.’ Steven Moore of Savills (01962 841842) agrees: ‘Every year, we register hundreds of hopeful buyers, but, in reality, you’re looking at a good beat becoming available once every 3–5 years.’ Long stretches of the Test—such as the Longparish estate, which had about a mile and was sold by Savills in 2008 for well over the £9 million asking price—are very rare, but, he notes: ‘More than a mile is well beyond the reach of even a wealthy fisherman.’ Robin’s clients fall into two categories: ‘Keen anglers who dream of getting home from work, chucking their briefcase into a corner and wandering down onto a good stretch and those who

Clear-water revival: sixbedroom Bossington Mill, once home to Frederic Halford, has 800ft of singlebank fishing on the Test. £2.4 million through Strutt & Parker (01962 869999)

Need to know

Illustrations by Emma McCall

• England is home to 85% of the world’s chalkstreams

• The Houghton Club is one of the world’s oldest and most exclusive fishing clubs and owns rights to a long stretch of the Test near Stockbridge. No one really knows who the 25 members are, although The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Northumberland are thought to be among them • The River Itchen is recognised worldwide as one of the few remaining truly native browntrout habitats

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want a nice environment, view, amenity, high conservation status and therefore an unspoilt area that will remain so.’ In his experience, fishing-focused buyers tend to be middle-aged and above. ‘Fishing is a very democratic sport—there are more men, but only marginally so.’ Choosing one river over another isn’t easy. Robin explains: ‘The prime middle and upper fishing on the Itchen is owned by a handful of people and therefore has more prestige. The Test is let more commercially, but the fishing is of equal quality.’ Strutt & Parker’s George Burnand (01962 869999) grew up fishing on the Itchen and he agrees that, when it comes to the quality of the fishing, the Itchen and the Test are fairly equal. ‘The upper reaches of both rivers are

• Chalkstreams are famed for their crystalclear waters, which are due to the excellent filtering ability of chalk in the soil • The chalkstream habitat supports a range of endangered species, including water voles, otters and white-clawed crayfish

• Famous fisherman who have fished the Test include The Prince of Wales, Jeremy Paxman, Eric Clapton and former American Presidents George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter

more exclusive and offer a more natural fishing experience for the purist. In the lower stretches of the Test, some big, stocked fish are put in so it can be easier and, for some, more exciting.’ Steven notes: ‘The Itchen has less supplementary stocking, so there is more of a thrill attached to catching a fish there.’ Although stretches of these rivers come up for sale fairly infrequently, there are several on the market at the moment. Strutt & Parker are selling the sixbedroom, Georgian-fronted Bossington Mill with 800ft of single-bank fishing on the River Test with an asking price of £2.4 million. The mill has unbeatable fishing provenance as it was home in the late 1800s to Frederic Halford, ‘the high priest of the dry fly’, who developed the principles of fly fishing. Strutt & Parker also have the picturesque Oakley Farmhouse at Mottisfont on the Test, with five acres of gardens and 885ft of riverbank, which is on the market for £2.4 million. In addition, they’re selling a share of a 1,039-yard beat on the River Test at Greatbridge near Romsey (guide price £250,000), which has plenty to set piscatorial hearts pattering. Savills are selling Kingfisher Lodge (guide price £3.5 million), also at Brambridge, which boasts more than 2,000 yards of fishing on a prime beat of the Itchen. www.countrylife.co.uk

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Property news Hampshire houses

Hampshire, £1.75 million Heath Farmhouse, Petersfield Winkworth (01730 267274) Just one mile from the town’s high street lies this Grade II-listed farmhouse, which sits in four acres. There are five bedrooms, stables, a studio and outbuildings. The house faces south, with views over a paddock and the open countryside beyond.

Edge-of-village house Hampshire, £1.85 million Heathermoor, Hale Purlieu 6 bedrooms, swimming pool, 4½ acres Savills (01722 426820) Set within the New Forest National Park and on the edge of the village of Hale, this house dates from 1929 and has a mainly south-facing garden, which takes part in the National Gardens Scheme. The spacious kitchen/breakfast room has a playroom adjoining it and outside are a stableyard and three paddocks. Hampshire, £2.5 million Tile Barn Farm, Brockenhurst John D. Wood & Co (01590 677233) This pretty Grade II-listed farmhouse sits on the edge of Brockenhurst. It has six bedrooms, a range of outbuildings, an outdoor swimming pool and 6.3 acres of gardens and paddocks. Additionally, there is a home office and a games room.

Commute from Andover Hampshire/Wiltshire, £1.625 million Home Farm, Chute Cadley 6 bedrooms, 3 reception rooms, conservatory, 2.7 acres Knight Frank (01488 682726) This house has never been on the open market before—it was purchased from the Conholt estate by the current owners in 1958. It faces south-west and many of the main rooms enjoy lovely views over the countryside. There is scope for a tennis court or swimming pool on a levelled area in the garden. 80 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Hampshire, £995,000 Hirtwell, Liphook Knight Frank (01428 770560) In the heart of the South Downs National Park is this four-bedroom, Grade II-listed house. It stands in 1.489 acres and there is a terrace that makes the most of the lovely views over the countryside.

www.countrylife.co.uk

Exhibition ‘David Hockney, Early Drawings’ at Offer Waterman

Portrait of an artist as a young man Catherine Milner finds much to commend the early draughtsmanship of one of Britain’s best-known living artists

Left: Celia (1972): David Hockney drew his former flatmate and muse, the designer Celia Birtwell, many times. Below: The Luxor Hotel (1978): Hockney still never travels anywhere without a sketchbook (or an iPad)

David Hockney

AVID HOCKNEY is the ultimate poster boy. His pictures of Californian skies and turquoise pools adorn the walls of student cafes, station waiting rooms and doctor’s surgeries almost as often as Monet’s waterlilies. For those who find his works now rather hackneyed, this exhibition in the sleek new Mayfair premises of the Offer Waterman gallery is a salutary reminder of why he became so famous in the first place. Although best known for his paintings and hailed as a great colourist, it is in his simple line drawings that Mr Hockney’s peerless judgment of line and

in this exhibition are not awake either. Pictured in the bleak, Dralon-furnished bedrooms of the hotels Mr Hockney frequented on his travels around the USA, his friends and lovers are seen in varying degrees of slumber. Particularly tender is his portrait of the writer Jeff Goodman, which shows him sleeping in a tight cocoon of sheets with his head poking out from the top like the handle of a spindle of cotton. So, too, is the watercolour sketch (later turned into a painting) of one of the artist’s early big loves, Peter Schlesinger, seen fast asleep wearing just a T-shirt and tennis socks. There is another, a sketch of his art dealer John Kasmin conked out on the grass, which, through the perfectly judged lines of ribcage and nose, creates an image so immediate, it looks as if he is breathing. In most of the drawings, Mr Hockney focuses on the head and, in particular, the hair, leaving the rest of the figure to a few cursory lines. The sunburnt face of his boyfriend, Gregory Evans, pictured wearing his golf cap, is framed by the kind of laboriously worked frizz you

form is revealed. On show are examples from his very earliest work, from the lumpen-headed, Dubuffet-inspired figures he did immediately after leaving the Royal College of Art in 1962 to drawings of life in California, where he was lured by the surf, sun and promise of ‘beautiful boys’. ‘In 1964, they [the boys] used to look fantastic,’ he has said. ‘I mean, there was a very Californian look, quite distinctive. Nobody looked like that anywhere else. It was marvellous. It’s a warm climate. People don’t wear that many clothes.’ Quite apart from not wearing clothes, many of the subjects

82 Country Life, September 23, 2015

www.countrylife.co.uk

For sleepy Kas (1967): Often, Hockney’s friends, such as Kasmin, would find themselves the subject of close observation

see in Rembrandt’s portraits. In another, Mr Hockney relishes the tousled Byronic curls belonging to one of Mayfair’s most infamous and rude restaurateurs, Peter Langan. There are many pictures in crayon that the artist probably worked on far harder, but generally they lack the fluency of his monochrome pieces and are not as good.

There was a very distinctive Californian look... People don’t wear that many clothes

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Mr Hockney’s whole li be documented throug s sketches—there are literally thousands in his archive in California. ‘When David Hockney moved into his London flat in Powis Terrace, Notting Hill, in 1963, one of the first things he did was to paint in large capital letters a sign at the end of his bed which read “GET UP AND WORK IMMEDIATELY”,’ remembers his friend and biographer Christopher Sykes. ‘This says everything about him,’ continues Mr Sykes. ‘He is driven by a work ethic which www.countrylife.co.uk

started as soon as he could hold a pencil, when he drew on the linoleum floor in the kitchen of his parent’s home in Bradford and, paper being scarce at the time, scribbled all over the white paper margins round his brother’s comics.’ The artist is always doodling away at meals and buys jackets with extra big pockets to fit his sketch book, iPad or whatever he is using to draw on. The selection shown here, part loaned and partly for sale, is particularly well curated. Unfortunately, the Hockney estate has permitted only two of the pen drawings to be illustrated, so, to appreciate the full panoply of the 55 works, you will have to visit the exhibition. ‘In my opinion, Hockney is one of the greatest draughtsmen in the world—the power of his drawings is quite incredible,’ Mr Sykes says. Having already seen the show, I find it hard to disagree. ‘David Hockney, Early Drawings’ is at Offer Waterman, 17, St George Street, London W1, from September 25 to October 23 (020–7042 3233; www.waterman.co.uk) and also at the Paul Kasmin Gallery in New York, November 3 to December 1 (00 1 212 563 4474; www. paulkasmingallery.com)

Next week: ‘The Fabric of India’ at the V&A

Performing Arts

Edited by Jane Watkins

English National Ballet’s Lest We Forget—which includes Akram Khan’s Dust—is a trio of pieces made for the First World War centenary

Arnaud Stephenson; Tony Nandi; Richard Battye; Bill Cooper

FTEN considered the silent art, dance now finds itself cornered into making a lot of noise simply to be noticed. Because fashion, gossip, pop music, technology and food generate so much attention and media coverage, the performing arts must struggle to hold their own and, despite celebrity biographies and increasing TV exposure, the dismissive label ‘elitist’ still adheres to ballet and opera. As a result, every link to popular entertainment and established names helps these arts to survive. Opera North has just opened its autumn season with Kiss Me, Kate, Welsh National Opera is presenting Sweeney Todd and ENO will refresh Jonathan Miller’s hilarious staging of The Mikado, an enormous favorite for nearly 30 years. In ballet, the familiar titles carry their own attraction, so companies haven’t yet thrust musical routines by Bob Fosse or Michael Bennett into the repertory. The Royal Ballet begins its new season with MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, not only because the audience loves it, but also to mark the 50 years since its creation, during which his ballets helped define the 84 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Get moving Dance is no longer content to be the ‘silent art’ and is everywhere this autumn, says Barbara Newman Christopher Bruce’s Shift, performed by the Phoenix Dance Theatre, celebrates 1940s factory workers

troupe’s identity (until December 2, www.roh.org.uk). English National Ballet will take Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet on the road while also reviving Lest We Forget, a trio of commemorative pieces made for last year’s First World War centenary (www.ballet.org.uk). Although the three choreographers are well known to the dedicated dance public, Akram Khan’s involvement in the 2012 Olympics and Russell Maliphant’s contribution to Sylvie Guillem’s farewell tour introduced their talent to thousands more. David Bintley, the director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, once described his job as ‘making everything fit’ into ‘an artistic vision, an artistic path… which is a kind of summation of everything that you’ve learned and you believe in’. After 20 years in the job, he’s still following that path, combining his respect for ballet’s past with his devotion to its future. To entice inexperienced viewers, this weekend, the company will perform in the Bullring during Birmingham Weekender, a huge festival of free cultural events. To highlight the troupe’s history, the coming months will feature www.countrylife.co.uk

COUNTRY LIFE Box office ®

The COUNTRY LIFE box office can offer discounted tickets for theatre, ballet and opera productions as well as exhibitions and attractions for more details, visit http://boxoffice.countrylife.co.uk. This week, save up to 40% on dress and upper circle tickets for Monday, Wednesday and Thursday performances between September 30 and October 19 of ENO’s sparkling The Barber of Seville at http://countrylife.entstix.com/tickets/barber-of-seville)

a tour of Peter Wright’s elegant Swan Lake, plus revivals of Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, which launched the first Birmingham season 25 years ago, and Ashton’s beloved Enigma Variations. Mr Bintley’s latest work, The King Dances, pays homage to Louis XIV, whose passion for dance prompted him to found an academy expressly ‘to restore the art of dancing to its original perfection and to improve it as much as possible’ (www.brb.org.uk). With a shorter backstory and fewer of the familiar narrative pieces—by Petipa, MacMillan, Alexei Ratmansky and John Cranko —that far-flung ballet companies share, contemporary dance has a harder time making its case to a constantly distracted public. However, choreographers gain wider acceptance as they venture into disciplines that come equipped with their own loyal viewers. Incorporating dubstep, the syncopated electronic music that developed from reggae and grime, into his new barbarians, Hofesh Shechter may capture the crowd that’s already hooked on those musical styles. Moving into opera for the first time and bringing his company with him, by directing and choreographing the Royal Opera’s Orphée et Eurydice, he is displaying his muscular vocabulary to a non-dance audience while challenging himself (to October 3, www.roh.org.uk). As choreographers stretch their imagination and the boundaries blur between the Arts, dance becomes more visible and less daunting for newcomers. The annual Dance Umbrella festival, which aims to expand the local scene and showcase unfamiliar artists, opens this year on the roof of a Farringdon car park and pops into 12 different theatres over 2½ weeks from October 15 to 31. The programme includes four-stop tours around London both for 16 Singers, created expressly for babies to enjoy, and for Walking Stories, which supplies viewers with an mp3 player and headphones to absorb them into a parkland walking dance (www. danceumbrella.co.uk). www.countrylife.co.uk

People mover: on Saturday, Birmingham Royal Ballet will be at the Birmingham Weekender

Dance is a central part of the opera in Orphée et Eurydice

Sadler’s Wells doesn’t shy from experimentation either; no other producer schedules ballet, contemporary dance, hip-hop and performers as diverse as Paralympic athletes and Shaolin monks (www.sadlerswells.com). This season, the international fashion designer Hussein Chalayan will create his first theatrical work there in collaboration with the experienced dancemaker Damien Jalet (October 28–31), and Yabin Wang, the Chinese dance artist who appeared in the film House of Flying Daggers, will star in a stage piece devised by her and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (September 28–29).

Spreading its variety in all directions, choreographic invention travels clear across the country throughout the year. During its autumn tour, Phoenix Dance Theatre taps into reality with Christopher Bruce’s Shift, which studies 1940s factory workers through their production-line tasks (to December 2, w w w.phoenixdancetheatre. co.uk); for Rambert, Didy Veldman transforms Picasso’s The Three Dancers and its real-life inspiration into a drama shaped by Cubism (to November 28, www. rambert.org.uk). Celebrating her 50th birthday with Joss Arnott Dance, Dame

David Bintley’s The King Dances

Evelyn Glennie will perform her score for the world premiere of 5 | 0 (October 16–17) at DanceEast in Ipswich (www.danceeast. co.uk), where Kapa Haka Tale will mix Maori tribal footwork, weaponry and the rhythmic, weight-swinging performance art called Poi to honor the Rugby World Cup (November 1). You don’t have to look far to find dance everywhere.

Country Life, September 23, 2015 85

Books

Great Scott! A great Victorian architect has just received a brilliant new biography. John Goodall is impressed by this concise and beautifully illustrated account of Scott’s achievements

Paul Highnam/COUNTRY L IFE Picture Library; Glenbow, Calgary, Alberta; National Gallery, London, UK/De Agostini Picture Library/Bridgeman Images

Architecture Gothic for the Steam Age: An illustrated biography of George Gilbert Scott Gavin Stamp (Aurum Press, £30 *£27)

IR GILBERT SCOTT (1811–78) was arguably the outstanding architect of the Victorian Age. After being fired with enthusiasm by the writings of Pugin, he became a leading advocate of the Gothic Revival and—as the title of this book underlines—compellingly adapted this medieval idiom to the demands of 19th-century life. His capacity for intense industry ensured that the variety of his work was matched only by its breathtaking quantity. Besides restoring a host of great medieval churches, including most of our cathedrals, he was a prolific designer of new ecclesiastical buildings. He also built up an impressive body of other commissions including country houses, civic buildings and public monuments. In the capital alone, several remain familiar landmarks, such as the Albert Memorial (for which he was knighted), the Foreign Office and St Pancras Station. This short book offers a brilliant overview of Scott’s achievements. It begins with an introductory assessment of his posthumous reputation, which reached a nadir in the mid 20th century. There follows an illustrated narrative overview of the architect’s life and work. As Gavin Stamp explains, Scott was the son of a clergyman and began his career improbably enough as the designer of workhouses. Having jettisoned his unreliable partner, William Moffatt—partly at the insistence of his wife—his career flowered in the most extraordinaryway.Hechosethepersonnel of his large office with skill and

Lichfield is one of the many cathedrals restored by Sir Gilbert Scott

The variety of his work was matched only by its breathtaking quantity

‘

won the respect, loyalty ffection of his staff. The exte hich he oversaw their wor more than 800 buildings must remain uncertain, although—according to this analysis—he imposed upon it a remarkable stylistic coherence. The second, longer part of the book comprises a series of thematic picture essays, each with a single page of introduction, that address different spheres of Scott’s work. It includes treatments of his workhouses, his new cathedrals (he designed several for the Empire, not to mention the great Lutheran church dedicated to St Nicholas— the Nikolaikirche—in Hamburg), his churches, restoration projects, public buildings and monuments. This is not a catalogue of all the buildings Scott produced, but a study of the most important. The pictures, accompanied by discursive captions, are

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beautifully chosen. Beside many modern photographs, there are engravings and numerous early photographs. As a set, they vividly convey the interest of Scott’s designs. Included within the illustrations are some depressingly recent victims of demolition. Dr Stamp writes about his subject succinctly with authority, verve and clarity. Such we would expect from a regular contributor to the architectural pages of COUNTRY LIFE, yet he also does something that lifts this book far above the ordinary as a work of architectural history. A journalist and architectural critic, he doesn’t just want to tell the story of Scott, he wants to assess him for the present. Indeed, the whole book feels like a brilliant deposition of evidence in which a wide spectrum of opinions about Scott and his work are rehearsed. We hear the voice of his detractors and apologists (including Scott himself, who wrote vigorously in his own self-defence), glossed with incisive comments and correctives from the author. The result is that Dr Stamp has not just informed me of the fact that Scott was a great architect; he has me fully persuaded.

Fiction Trigger Mortis Anthony Horowitz (Orion, £18.99 *£16.99)

IF YOU’RE a successful novelist in your own right, you might think it a little infra dig to be invited to write an oeuvre in the style of someone else, keeping faith with their main character. Unless, of course, that other person is Ian Fleming and the character is Bond. Then again, you can expect quite a lot if you are controlling the Ian Fleming estate and even the most successful writers are delighted to be asked. Anthony Horowitz is the latest author to accept the challenge and the result is a crisply executed and deeply satisfying read on several levels. He sets it in 1957, eschewing the temptation to paint a metrosexual, more politically correct 21st-century 007, yet, he subtly addresses the attitudes of the modern reader. Our secret agent smokes a lot, yes, but he’s aware that cancer could be the long-term effect. He has a gay friend who chides him for his homophobia. He’s even quite nice to women after he’s slept with them. There is also a touching scene in which he spares the life of a young man. We meet Pussy Galore again, two weeks after our hero has concluded dealings with Goldfinger. In a rare insight into Bond’s humdrum domestic life, she’s living in his flat, much to M’s disapproval. The action is derived from an uncompleted Fleming television script about motor racing at the Nürburgring. SMERSH is involved, but the main baddie is a psychologically damaged Korean with a penchant for making victims choose their own grisly death from a pack of cards. The tension-filled opening sequence is there, the threat to world peace, the race to prevent central Manhattan being blown to smithereens, beautiful women and dodgy gangsters, but, somehow, Bond is more likeable. Daniel Craig would be hard pushed to describe this one as sexist and misogynistic. Mr Horowitz has introduced us to a more rounded hero, but one who won’t disappoint the traditionalists. Rupert Uloth www.countrylife.co.uk

COUNTRY LIFE Book club ®

To order any of the books reviewed or any other book in print, at discount prices* and with free p&p to UK addresses, telephone the COUNTRY LIFE Bookshop on 0843 060 0023 or visit www.countrylife.co.uk/bookshop. Or send a cheque/postal order to the COUNTRY LIFE Bookshop, PO Box 60, Helston TR13 0TP. For overseas readers, telephone 01326 569444 or email sales@sparkledirect.co.uk * See individual reviews for CL Bookshop price

Social history Red Jacky Colliss Harvey (Allen & Unwin, £16.99 *£14.99)

REDHEAD Jacky Colliss Harvey’s new book claims to be the first to explore ‘red hair and red-headedness’—a condition that includes 2% of the global population and literally turns heads: ‘Nothing captures the eye like red hair.’ The book begins by establishing how, from the earliest sweeping nomadic movements from Africa, red-headed groups slowly developed. Red hair (like blue eyes) requires a double recessive gene—in fact, in the case of red hair, generally two such genes, which accounts for the colour’s rarity. Although red hair often goes with pale skin, the author explains that it’s not always so. Take the Solomon Islands, where 5%–10% of the population has dark skin and ‘afros of the most striking shades… from a cinnamon ginger to peroxide yellow’. The more usual

Art Sybil Andrews Linocuts Hana Leaper (Lund Humphries, £35 *£31.50) THE 1920s and 1930s saw the art of the linocut lifted out of the classroom and into the print rooms of the world’s major museums. This revolution was largely due to four people: Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power, Claude Flight and Edward Bawden; it is purely coincidental that Andrews and Bawden were children of ironmongers. Andrews (1898–1992) had a tough early life, her father having decamped, but she was determined through hard work and a correspondence course to become an artist. A chance encounter with the older, architecttrained Power, while drawing in Bury St Edmunds, led to a close collaboration, later enhanced by her mastery of etching. www.countrylife.co.uk

Flame-haired beauty: Edgar Degas’s La Coiffure (1896)

milky skin is superb at synthesising vitamin D from sunlight, hence redheads’ survival in the Northern Hemisphere. Often referring to personal experience, the author is interesting on the health and physiological benefits red hair confers: a strong immune system, faster than usual production of adrenaline (giving rise to the classic fiery temper associated with redheads) and

When Iain Macnab founded the Grosvenor School in 1925, he appointed Andrews secretary and put Power and Flight on the staff to teach architecture and linocutting respectively. This trio was to exploit the possibilities of the linocut in the great late flowering of 1930s Vorticism collectively known today as the Grosvenor School. During the Second World War, Andrews worked for a shipbuilding firm in Southampton, where she met her future husband. After the war, they emigrated to Canada, where she continued to work and teach until the end of her life. Work was her credo, summed up in pithy sentences such as ‘before you can BE/ You must DO’ and ‘make a few lines do all the work’. Her 86 known linocuts, reproduced here in full colour, are accompanied by a taut and informative essay by Hana Leaper,

an abundance of pheromones, giving red-haired women associations of sensual allure. But there are downsides: an increased risk of melanoma and associated diseases, such as endometriosis and Parkinson’s disease. And it is with great feeling that Miss Colliss Harvey says that redheads need 20% more anaesthetic and are more sensitive to pain: ‘We all have horror stories of trips to the dentist

as children, when we weren’t given enough [anaesthetic].’ The second half of the book picks up pace with accounts of historic periods and artistic movements during which red hair was in fashion: Tudor, because of Henry and Elizabeth; during the 18th century when red hair powder enjoyed a brief craze; the Pre-Raphaelites; and the circle of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. A dazzling red-carpet roster of red-haired beauties follows, with nary a dull, retiring one among them. From Elizabeth I to Ellen Terry and onwards to fictional Agent Scully and Jessica Rabbit, these are no shrinking violets, but flaming Junes. No surprise, then, that red hair dye, in its many permutations of shades, is thought to be the Western world’s most popular. This wide-ranging study’s familiar tone—‘I did warn you this was complex’—is particular. Nevertheless, if you are a member of the 2% or know someone who is, it’s hard to resist. Philippa Stockley

The Giant Cable/The New Cable is one of 86 linocuts by Sybil Andrews

making this an essential reference work for all those interested in 20th-century printmaking. Coinciding with the publication of this complete catalogue is an exhibition, ‘Sybil Andrews— Linocuts’ at Osborne Samuel, 23a, Bruton Street, London W1 from September 24 to October 10

(w w w.osbornesamuel.com), which brings together all of the artist’s most famous linocuts. It will be a selling show, supplemented by additional works from private collections, and will include prints from all periods of Andrews’s career. Peyton Skipwith

Country Life, September 23, 2015 87

Art market

Huon Mallalieu

The darkest hour Furious flames light up ships’ silhouettes at the Bombardment of Algiers and a lonely tramp slumbers on a bench in 1960s Bloomsbury Square

HATEVER the BBC would have us believe, not all was bonking in Bloomsbury; despite rose- and cannabis-tinted nostalgia, not all swung in 1960s London; L. S. Lowry was not just a manufacturer of matchstick men. The three came together in a 18¾in by 233 ⁄8in lithograph sold for £8,848 at Lawrences of Crewkerne, Somerset, in mid July. Inscribed ‘Bloomsbury Square June 1967’, it shows a bundled itinerant on a bench. The awkward perspective of the bench and the lithographic charcoal-texture produce the impression of a snatched on-the-spot sketch (Fig 6). Lowry (1887–1976) often drew such marginalised down-and-outs, but, as he said: ‘I am not really interested in the human story behind these characters, only in what they have become and how their defeat and poverty have helped isolate them, to set them apart and give them the curious, often comical look, that interests me.’ He only made about 17 original lithographs, including this, 54 in an edition of 75, but care must be taken, as there are both reproductions and forgeries. This one passed muster and the price was more than twice the estimate. Another artist whose work is more varied than might be assumed is John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–93), most widely recognised as the painter of melancholy autumnal scenes of either the lanes around suburban Leeds or quaysides of British ports, generally under a full moon. In these, there is often a ghostly, insubstantial feel to his figures. However, he began as a painter of dead birds, fruit and blossom and also painted detailed and colourful interiors with his wife in their old house or garden, which are close to his contemporary Tissot. Then there are intense, hardedged landscapes, sometimes

Fig 1 above: The Bombardment of Algiers by Thomas Luny. £32,500. Fig 2 below: John Atkinson Grimshaw’s 1878 painting of Rouen by moonlight. £98,500 escorted his children’s governess home to Germany by way of Rouen. He painted several versions of Rouen—les lumières sur la Seine, pris du Pont de Pierre, the lights naturally including a full moon. The 20in by 30in example at Christie’s (Fig 2) was dated September 1878, placing it between Monet’s 1872 Impression, soleil levant (which named the -ism) and Van Gogh’s Starry Night Over the Rhone of 1888. It would be intriguing to see

in watercolour, which owe much to the Pre-Raphaelites. The first time I saw one of these I was convinced that it was painted over a photograph, but not so. In addition, there are canvases, usually from the later part of his career, when the melancholy becomes positively Whistlerian. A Christie’s sale on July 8 included two such works. Chronologically first was a product of his only known foreign excursion, when, in 1878, he

88 Country Life, September 23, 2015

Fig 3 below: Pale-green jade teapot carved in low relief. HK$5,920,000 (£495,546). Fig 4 right: Carved-jade Imperial seal. HK$2,440,000 (£204,245)

www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 5 above: Starboard Light by John Atkinson Grimshaw. £92,500. Fig 6 below: A 1967 L. S. Lowry lithograph. £8,848

a compare-and-contrast exercise of the three hanging together. That Grimshaw sold for £98,500, just pipping his 93 ⁄4in by 19½in Starboard Light at £92,500 (Fig 5). Painted in 1892, it was one of a group ‘that can be seen as the summation of the artist’s lifetime, exploring the varying effects of light,’ in the words of a catalogue note that almost exactly repeated the note for a very similar painting sold for £314,500 last December. I think I prefer this one, steely powderblue rather than grey and with a less detailed shoreline, and I am at a loss to understand the price difference. The notes also quote Whistler, Grimshaw’s friend and London neighbour: ‘I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlight pictures.’ Also included in this sale was a painting that had a contemporary resonance. The North African slave traders and pirates known as www.countrylife.co.uk

the Barbary corsairs terrorised coastal communities as far away as America, Iceland, Denmark and Britain, but their main victims were Spanish, Italian and French. Their activities were greatest during the 17th century, but continued well into the 19th, when the French invasion of Algiers put an end to them in 1830. Partly because the end of the Napoleonic Wars made it possible, and partly to show that the African trade was not the only concern of the anti-slavery movement, in 1816, a fleet under Lord Exmouth was dispatched with carte blanche to attack Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers should they not release captives and end their depredations. Only Algiers stood out, until a ferocious bombardment, in which the British were joined by a Dutch squadron of frigates, ended resistance. This was the peak of the distinguished career of Edward Pellew, later Viscount Exmouth, who, in later years, retired to Teignmouth

in Devon. Among his neighbours was the marine painter Thomas Luny (1759–1837), who painted several versions of The Bombardment of Algiers, including the 34½in by 51in canvas that sold for £32,500 at Christie’s (Fig 1). One of the higher prices in an early-June sale of Chinese ceramics and works of art at Bonhams was paid for perhaps the smallest lot, a spinach-green jade carving that measured 15/8in square and 27 ⁄8in high (Fig 4). The price of HK$2,440,000 (£204,245) was no surprise, as this was an Imperial seal of the Jiaqing Emperor (1796–1820). At that time, it was the custom to have sets of three seals for use in each pavilion within a palace complex, in this case, a favourite summer retreat. The five characters may be read as ‘Tranquil water and luxuriant trees in the garden’ and, elsewhere, the Emperor wrote of his pleasure in this place, where ‘sitting quietly for a few moments, Viewing the serene landscapes, anxiety dissipates. Entering a tranquil realm, Mind and body become one’. The seal is topped by a fiveclawed Imperial dragon, crouched over the flaming pearl of wisdom. Another fine piece of jade, this time very pale green, was an 18th- or 19th-century teapot carved in low relief with bats, prunus and sprays of chrysanthemum and a single-horned creature for the handle (Fig 3). This sold for HK$5,920,000 (£495,546).

Picks of the week

Not really picks, rather a question. What do people do with cigarette cases nowadays? At Lawrences of Crewkerne, an 1895 Birmingham silver case, with matching vesta case both enamelled with the P&O house flag, sold for £405 (above middle) and a turn-of-the-20th-century German case with a mildly risqué scene within soared to £1,264 (above). A charming 1899 ‘port light’ spirit lighter made £204 (top).

Next week Adopt an elephant at Esher Hall

Country Life, September 23, 2015 89

Crossword

Bridge Andrew Robson

A prize of £15 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Crossword No 4399, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU by Tuesday, September 30. UK entrants only.

DOWN 1. Filming small arachnid— seated on this? (8, 5) 2. Worker needs help swallowing cold stomach medicine (7) 3. Tense about operating after this evening? (7) 4. Huge US soldier looking over a set of books (5) 5. Outward appearance of water sport champion (7) 6. Destroy by overuse? Not in northern river (7) 8. Broadcasting from girl’s house before race (13) 10. Pouch old Republicans found in centre of bridge (7) 11. Invoiced again, say, for major construction project (7) 15. Through which we hear gull beaten up with hoe? (7) 16. Light boat a couple of Liberals found in store (7) 17. Elderly relative and girl in Andalusian city (7) 18. Trailblazer, one visiting seaside attraction (7) 21. Bird of prey mostly keen to cross lake (5)

ACROSS 1. It produces a report at the beginning of a race (8, 6) 7. Torn fabric thought highly of (9) 9. Asian fellow in old island (5) 10. They’re barely recognisable running in public places (9) 12. Woman with husband of Hibernian descent? (5) 13. Easy time without Russian currency? (7-4) 14. Taking care of number one, like customers at cafeteria? (4-7) 19. Inclement weather, say, as a rule? (5) 20. Terrible danger in one deeply fixed (9) 22. Musical work nobody bought in the end? (5) 23. Intelligence from Kew—old gen, unfortunately (9) 24. Don’t lose one’s temper— a skinhead wouldn’t do it (4, 4, 4, 2)

4399 1

ALWAYS enjoy my annual trip to Iceland in late January to play in the Reykjavik Bridge Festival. The atmosphere is very friendly; directors are there purely to ensure smooth running of the event, never to arbitrate on behavioral and ethical situations. Partner Zia Mahmood and I didn’t do so well in 2015, but I returned fresh—and also quaintly amused when landing back in Blighty that people were moaning about the cold. I didn’t hear much of that in the far colder Nordic country. My worst howler was in the Pairs—a full Top to Bottom swing on this deal. Dealer South North-South vulnerable 54 K 10 6 4 AK98 985 Q J987 N 52 AQ987 W✢E Q65432 7 S QJ73 10 6 2

South 1♠

2♠

4♠

9 11

10 12 13

19 21

West 2♥(1)

NAME (PLEASE PRINT IN CAPITALS) ADDRESS Tel No COUNTRY LIFE,

published by Time Inc. (UK) Ltd will collect your personal information to process your entry. Would you like to receive emails from COUNTRY LIFE and Time Inc. (UK) Ltd containing news, special offers and product and service information anda take part in our magazine research via email? If yes, please tick here. ❑ COUNTRY LIFE and Time Inc. (UK) Ltd would like to contact you by post or telephone to promote and ask your opinion on our magazines and services. Please tick here if you prefer not to hear from us. ❑ Time Inc. (UK) Ltd may occasionally pass your details to carefully selected organisations so they can contact you by tele phone or post with regards to promoting and researching their products and services. Please tick here if you prefer not to be contacted. ❑

SOLUTION TO 4398 (Winner will be announced in two weeks’ time) ACROSS: 1, Tastelessness; 8, Fair; 9, Pagination; 10, Hurtle; 11, Initiate; 12, Cenotaphs; 14, Raid; 15, Outs; 16, Halfpence; 20, Slap-bang; 21, Argent; 23, Safety lamp; 24, Oman; 25, Midlife crises. DOWN: 1, Traduce; 2, Strut; 3, Empyema; 4, English language; 5, Sunlit; 6, Extricate; 7, Shorted; 13, Outspread; 15, Oil palm; 17, Flapper; 18, Canvass; 19, Papyri; 22, Gloss. Winner of 4396 is Joan Stanton, Kew, Surrey.

90 Country Life, September 23, 2015

A732 94 52 J 10 9 8 3 10 8 5 KJ964 753 10 6 2 N J74 10 8 6 W✢E A742 K5 S

North East Pass(2) Pass

Pass

3♠

Dbl(3)

End

Q AKQJ8 AKQ93 Q6

Pass

(1) Not from any textbook, but non-vulnerable at Pairs, you can be frisky with decent suits, especially worthwhile when you bid is space-consuming. (2) Stymied. (3) The opponents have had an unconvincing auction (both hands limited) and I had an unexpected trump trick(s). Plus we were doing rather poorly and in need of a surge.

Dealer South North-South vulnerable

A K 10 6 3 2 J3 J 10 AK4

CASINA 2

the King, shedding his Club and merely conceded two Spades. Ten tricks and doubled game made. Have you seen the correct defence? I should have covered the Knave of Hearts with the Queen (key play). Declarer wins dummy’s King, but has no way back to his hand to lead up a second Heart. Indeed, even if declarer held the Queen of Diamonds, it would be no good for him to return to the Queen to lead up a second Heart, as I could win the Ace and exit with a Club to his King, then ruff a second Diamond (led to dummy to cash the King of Hearts) and cash a Club. Yes, declarer should have led the Knave of Hearts after just one top trump. Then, there’d be no winning defence. Our second Iceland deal (from the Teams) saw more torment for West (not me this time).

The tall West player (and columnist) started with a Club, not seeking Diamond ruffs because they would be with trump tricks. Declarer beat the Knave with the Ace and cashed the Ace of Spades, felling East’s Queen, then (dubiously) cashed the King, East discarding. He next led the Knave of Hearts and the key moment had arrived. At the table, West (feebly) rose with the Ace of Hearts, hoping his partner held King-Queen of Clubs. However, declarer won his ten of Clubs continuation with the King and led his second Heart to dummy’s ten (knowing from the bidding West had the Hearts). The finesse won and he now cashed

South

West

North

East

2♣(1)

Pass

2♦(2)

Pass

3♦

Pass

3♥(3)

Pass

2♥

4♦(4)

Pass Pass

3♣

4♥(5)

Pass End

(1) 23+ points or any game force. (2) Negative (or waiting bid). (3) Preference bid, not support. (4) Showing his five-five shape. (5) Poor red-suit cards so signs off.

Four Hearts is an easy make— losing just the Ace-King of Clubs. However, at one table, the contract was Six Hearts (auction withheld to protect the guilty). This slam appears completely hopeless, but the Irish West player elected to lead a low Spade. Oops! Declarer ran this to his bare Queen. He cashed the AceKing of Diamonds and ruffed a Diamond with dummy’s nine of Hearts. That all passed off peacefully, so he cashed the Ace of Spades, shedding a Club, drew trumps, cashed Diamonds and merely gave up one Club at the end. Twelve tricks and slam made. www.countrylife.co.uk

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Spectator

Lucy Baring

Giving up, giving in

E’RE giving up alcohol for September.’ This announcement came as a suprise when Lesley took another sip of wine at lunch on Sunday, August 30. And, full of the bonhomie that comes with having opened several bottles of Rioja to go with the roast lamb, I didn’t hesitate: ‘We’ll do that, too.’ Day One was a doddle, but it was followed by Day Two, on which a friend came to stay, having dropped her youngest child at boarding school about an hour away. I hadn’t seen her for five years, during which she had got divorced, remarried and moved from one German city to another. We had a lot to catch up on and she’d arranged her flight for the following day so that we could do so. Zam was away. She arrived at 7pm, about 15 minutes after I discovered we had no hot water. I motioned towards the kettle while discussing the opening and closing of valves with the plumber, but her look of dismay made me hang up immediately and reach

for the bottle opener. Considering she couldn’t even have a bath, it was the least I could do, although, when I explained this act of good manners and friendship to Zam the following day, he took a dim view and said I had to tag on an extra dry day in October. Now, we’ve settled into a perfectly acceptable routine of tonic water and ginger beer and it seems reassuringly easy, if dull. We went to supper with our fellow dryathletes, all patting ourselves on the back and agreeing that we hadn’t lost any weight, on account of the gallons of cordial being consumed, followed by chocolate. We admitted that we didn’t feel remotely chirpy in the mornings and that, on the contrary, we felt rather leaden and tired, and then we returned to how easy it all was and, whenever one of the children walked past, they exclaimed: ‘Oh my god, you’re not talking about not drinking again, are you?’ Our friends have taken this opportunity to raise money for Cancer Research on the basis

TOTTERING-BY-GENTLY

Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation

By Annie Tempest

that they’ve sponsored people to grow moustaches in the past and not drinking is far more difficult and tedious. Judging by how much they’ve raised, a large

This one-day 114-mile trip requires training and an expensive saddle

‘

number of people e with them. We haven’t ed for sponsorship becaus saving that for when I swim the Channel—which I won’t—and Zam is already asking for money because he’s cycling from London to Bath in a couple of weeks’ time. This one-day, 113-mile trip requires training and a very expensive saddle. He’s currently having a rest day because the saddle gets a bit painful despite his investment in a sort of padded Lycra swimming costume that prevents chafing—this was

greeted with wholly predictable horror by the rest of the family. Giving up booze couldn’t have come at a better time. But not, I read, for migrant moths, which are attracted to alcohol and tobacco. A month ago, we’d have been a magnet for every single one making its way from the Sahara, including the convolvulous hawk-moth, which is, apparently, particularly drawn to Nicotiana and red wine. ‘We’re letting the moths down,’ I say as I sip tonic with mint leaves. I had no idea that some females don’t have wings and that almost all the ones you see hovering about the lightbulbs are male, but that’s the sort of fact you come across when you read about red wine while not drinking it. We’re about to celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary. If anybody had told me I’d be doing this on ginger beer with a man in possession of a padded Lycra swimming costume, I would never have believed them. In fact, I might have cried. My, how the years have flown—unlike these September evenings.

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96 Country Life, September 23, 2015

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