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56 Articles

Make mine a millipede

SOME of Britain’s most endangered wildlife, including 900 invertebrates—200 of which are rare—have found a haven in the derelict landscape of the South Wales valleys, which were once peppered with vast heaps of coal. Despite this, the sites are unprotected. The mining industry thrived in this area for more than 100 years, but, in the 20th century, when it collapsed, jobs were lost and the land left to run wild. Very little was known about life on these spoil tips until recently, when the National Museum of Wales hosted a 12-month traineeship for entomologist Liam Olds to study the habitat. More specifically, Mr Olds, who published his findings last month, found more than 90 species of bee on a small sample of one of these brownfield sites. Vulnerable butterflies such as grayling…

Make mine a millipede

More than just daffodils

A YEAR in advance of the 250th anniversary of William Wordsworth’s birth, the Wordsworth Trust is hard at work re-creating the 1800s at Dove Cottage, Cumbria (above), to the tune of £6.2 million and with fresh thinking in the mix. As Wordsworth was a radical English poet (for the time) and an early environmentalist, his deep connection with the natural world is paramount to the ethos of ‘Reimagining Wordsworth’. The orchard that he and his sister, Dorothy, maintained at Grasmere—which the poet called ‘the loveliest spot that man hath ever found’—is set to be re-created, as well as new trails in the woods and a sensory garden with a moss hut, similar to the one in which the siblings found sanctuary. The Trust hopes to inspire intellectual, emotional and spiritual appreciation,…

More than just daffodils

Ewe need to see this

WELSH sheep-farming communities and their connection to the landscape are celebrated in a new exhibition at the Ceredigion Museum, which features works on loan from Tate, including three Henry Moore drawings (left), together with pieces by Welsh artists and from the museum’s collection. One series of works, by Miranda Whall, tells a story of the upland mountains from the perspective of a sheep. This is the first time the two institutions have teamed up, made possible by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund, the first UK-wide funding scheme that helps smaller museums to borrow from national collections. ‘We are developing plans to borrow artefacts from the British Museum and National Museum of Wales in 2020,’ explains Alice Briggs of the Ceredigion Museum. ‘Sheep’ runs from April 6 to June 29, and…

Ewe need to see this

Office workers At an annual cost of £700 million to the NHS, sitting down for more than six hours a day causes one in nine deaths, amounting to tens of thousands a year, according to new research Spontaneous oenophiles Majestic is set to close 200 of its stores to focus entirely on its online subscription company Naked Wines and will rebrand as such Hoverflies Britain could soon lose some of its pollinating insects, with a knock-on effect on crop growth, as a third of our hoverflies and wild bees are in decline, say scientists…

Where Scrooge met Long John Silver

A HISTORIC 12th-century church in the centre of Gloucester—St Mary de Crypt—has reopened following a two-year restoration project. Formerly in a state of serious disrepair and with a dwindling congregation, the Grade-I listed church was in danger of being declared redundant until a fund-raising campaign generated £2.1 million —including a £1.36 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund—to restore fully the 900-year-old building and its adjacent Tudor schoolhouse. The buildings have fascinating literary links to both Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson; James ‘Jemmy’ Wood, the notoriously mean Gloucester banker who provided the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, is buried in the church and the school was attended by Stevenson’s friend William Ernest Henley, who lost a leg to tuberculosis and became the inspiration for Long John Silver…

Where Scrooge met Long John Silver

MAY 1 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the 1st Duke of Wellington. Most commonly known as the celebrated military leader who crushed Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, the Duke also served as Prime Minister twice, becoming one of the key figures in 19th-century Britain, not to mention inspiration for many a pub name and the eponymous gumboots. Born Arthur Wellesley in Ireland in 1769 and educated at Eton, he joined the army thanks to a need to make ends meet and quickly climbed the ranks, serving in the Netherlands and India. However, it was his success during the Napoleonic Wars that cemented his reputation. On his return to England, Wellington swiftly entered politics, where he became an influential member of the Tory party. Among his political achievements were reforms…

A NEW exhibition at Hardman’s House, Liverpool, offers insights into the working practices of a mid-century professional photographer. Behind the slender-columned porch of his Georgian home at 59, Rodney Street, Edward Chambré Hardman and his wife, Margaret, a capable photographer in her own right, maintained a portrait-photography studio for 40 years between 1949 and 1988. After his death, the property was passed to the National Trust, its features and decor unchanged since the 1950s and the studio and equipment Chambré Hardman used to take and process his pictures all intact. The vast collection of images on display illuminates Chambré Hardman’s interest in landscape photography, for which he had a superb compositional eye (as revealed in September in Wales (Corn Stooks), above). The exhibition focuses on a recent chance darkroom discovery of a…

On the slug trail

THIS spring, the RHS is asking for help to find out more about what the slugs in our gardens are getting up to. Specifically, the charity is keen to know more about yellow and green cellar slugs. It seems that the population of yellow cellar slugs (pictured) has been dwindling since the green cellar slug arrived in the UK from Eastern Europe, but more information is required to find out whether the green invader is responsible. As slugs are nocturnal, the RHS is asking people to head outside after dark in search of these two species and to record their findings on a dedicated webpage, which features details of what to look out for (www.rhs.org.uk/ science/help-our-research/slug). ‘Slugs are a valuable part of the garden ecosystem and understanding the prevalence of some species…

On the slug trail

IT’S estimated that more than a million animals are killed on our roads each year and many more suffer fatal accidents, crawling away to die. That figure doesn’t include birds. The carnage does, however, indicate the current success or lack of road sense of certain species. When I was a boy, hedgehogs dominated roadkill. There were 50 times as many as there are today and their habit of curling into a ball when they sensed danger was a Darwinian flaw when it came to crossing our ever-busier roads. We hardly ever see one dead today. In contrast, the numbers of dead badgers and deer have increased rapidly. Pheasants have no road sense, especially the males at this time of year—with other things on their mind, they would rather stand and fight each…

EVERYWHERE, buds have been swelling in the sunshine this week. In London, I fancy that the spring blossom has never been better, although this may be an illusion brought on by the double role it plays this year. Not only do the magnolia and cherry herald better weather, but they offer reassuring proof that life goes on despite Westminster’s gridlock. Inspired by the weather, we have been trying to get our tiny garden in order. In previous years, the children were keen to help with this task, but their gardening enthusiasm seems to have waned. When, for example, through accidental neglect, a whole tray of germinating sweet peas withered, they seemed less interested in what might be done than vigorously attributing blame for the disaster. Meanwhile, through the generosity of a cousin,…

Town & Country Notebook

Quiz of the week 1) ‘En passant’ is a move in which board game? 2) Reed, marsh, sedge and grasshopper are varieties of which bird? 3) Naxos, Santorini and Mykonos are all part of which Greek island group? 4) Which sugar is found in milk? 5) How many vertices does a cube have? Time to buy Personalised vintage map house print, from £49, Atlas & I (020–8944 2123; www. atlas-and-i.com) Regular peony support, £80, Muntons Traditional Plant Supports (01285 706511; www.muntons.net) Organic herbal teas, from £2.19, Heath & Heather (www.heathand heather.co.uk) Riddle me this What has a mouth, but never eats, has a bed, but never sleeps? A novel note ‘…how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature…

Town & Country Notebook

100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE April 5, 1919

IT fell to the Grand National to be the first of our great sporting festivals to have a jubilant renewal after the war. And nothing could have been more appropriate than the presence of two of those who played a most prominent part in bringing the war to that successful issue without which there would have been no more sport and no more festivity in England. Admiral Beatty chose the date of the meeting to receive the Freedom of the City of Liverpool; and even our Ambassador in Paris contrived to be for this one day in the county which loves him so well. It would be difficult to imagine a great city more completely given over to one single-hearted resolution, namely, that of getting to Aintree. There was a…

100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE April 5, 1919

Five things you (probably) didn’t know about… Woodcock

• In the UK,we have an estimated breeding population of 55,000 male woodcock, but the total number rises as high as 1.5 million in the winter as birds migrate to our isles, some from as far as Siberia. • The pin feather is a sought -after tool for artist and is said to have been used to paint the gold stripe down the side of Rolls-Royces. • Woodcock can carry their young in flight, often between their thighs, but there have been sightings of birds holding them with their feet, tucked against their breast or even supported by their long beak. • The GWCT runs woodcock Watch,a project that monitors their movements with GPS tagging. It has witnessed birds migrating incredible distances of more than 4,000 miles and found that the average migration…

Room 101 Q My god-daughter has got the hump with me for cancelling a visit—with plenty of notice—due to works on the train line meaning an eight-hour round trip with no prospect of a Sunday roast. I have had no word from her about this or the presents I sent her children. Should I put her into Room 101? S. B., Hampshire A Oh do, please, for heaven’s sake—and all our sakes! (So unreasonable appears her reaction that I do wonder if you can be telling me the whole truth.) The rising generation’s eagerness to take offence has reached crisis-level. It must, must be slapped down. Everyone—apart from the Transport Minister, who has his own driver—knows that Sunday rail travel is an inexcusable insult. You gave her notice. By sending presents to her…

Prosecco and Lambrusco

Some wine styles get too popular for their own good. Producers more interested in cost than quality muscle in and the original virtue of the style can be drowned in a sea of mediocrity. This happened in the 1960s and 1970s with Liebfraumilch in Germany and at the same time with Lambrusco in north-central Italy. The extraordinary Prosecco boom is a more recent phenomenon. Why you should be drinking them All is not lost. Prosecco, made with care and limited yields from good hillside vineyards, needn’t be insipid and sugary. Savoury, dry Lambrusco is a delight, ripe for revival. Unlike Prosecco—essentially, a refreshing aperitif—dry Lambrusco can be drunk with a range of dishes, especially salami, prosciutto and pizza. What to buy Prosecco Treviso Spumante Brut (£12.95; www.leaandsandeman. co.uk) from Luca Follador is fresh and…

Prosecco and Lambrusco

Letters to the Editor

Letter of the week What a scream AVERSION of The Scream by Edvard Munch is being displayed at the British Museum with his inscription: ‘I felt the great scream throughout nature.’ Nature is indeed awe-inspiring, whether in the form of a magnificent sunset or just finding a special pebble. Inspired by The Pebbles on the Beach by Clarence Ellis—an extract of which appeared in COUNTRY LIFE (August 29, 2018) —I found this ovoid pebble, which cried out at me at Durdle Door, Dorset. Anna Cornell, Surrey The bare cheek of it MY attention was drawn to the correspondent commenting on wedding outfits (Letters, March 27). Perhaps the illustration of a red hat was rather unfortunate, as I was brought up to believe the maxim ‘Red hat, no drawers’! Brian Grindall, Isle of Arran On your bike ONE of…

Letters to the Editor

Let the train take the strain

IF you say ‘railway’ in Britain, people think ‘passenger’. No one seems to care about freight, although we rightly moan about heavy lorries on our roads, winding their way through villages and market towns, clogging up motorways and poisoning the air. You’d have thought that governments of all colours would recognise the huge advantages of getting more and more of our traffic onto rail. After all, that’s what has happened in other European countries, but, in the UK, it’s been a struggle even to attract ministers’ attention. ‘Governments have positively hampered the growth of rail freight’ The four big rail-freight companies have had to recover from the loss of their coal contracts and the downturn in British steel production with precious little public interest. Coal was their lifeblood and, when we began to…

Let the train take the strain

Is free museum admission sustainable?

ATHENA has long been impressed by the generosity with which the British share their cultural treasures. The UK’s national museums, subsidised by taxpayers, make available their treasures for free to citizens of the world. The most recently released visitor figures indicate what spectacular numbers take advantage of this arrangement: in 2018, the three most visited (all in London)—Tate Modern, the British Museum, the National Gallery—received a staggering 17,432,945 visitors. However, perhaps it’s time to slaughter —or, for vegans, ‘retire’—the sacred cow of free admission. The idea that admittance without charge to national museums was a bedrock of British cultural policy is the product of a past era in which there was a great degree of State intervention and subsidy to those museums, not to mention relatively low expectations of the ‘visitor…

Is free museum admission sustainable?

The way we were

1903 A farmhand rides his horses to water at a lake with a backdrop of mountains. No location was recorded for this archive photograph—do any of our readers recognise the scene? The COUNTRY LIFE Picture Library contains 120 years’ worth of photography and articles from the world’s leading architectural and gardens experts. Many are available to license or purchase in print form from £28 plus VAT. Please email enquiries to clpicturelibrary @ti-media.com…

The way we were

‘This is a fabulous moment’

I TURNED out to be an oddball,’ says the economist Dieter Helm. We’re in his rooms at New College, Oxford, a comfortable interior with little on the walls except a guide to apple varieties. He’s explaining how he got here, from the Essex marshes where his grandfather farmed and his father had arrived as a prisoner of war. ‘My father’s view was that the war had ruined his life,’ recalls Prof Helm. ‘He had to start again from scratch, in a country that hated Germans. We had no books in the house beyond car magazines and a German-English dictionary, but he saved everything and got an education for his children. I went to a minor prep school and public school, which I loathed, and somehow I decided to go to Oxford.…

‘This is a fabulous moment’

High on a hill lived a lonely laird

IN direst January, the lovelorn laird from the west threw in the towel and fled south. Prowling the streets of Ullapool with a salmon landing net and a bouquet of wilting chrysanthemums hadn’t landed our friend a lady to share the lonely bothy where he and his mum hang out. The average age of the three Tinder respondents in his Highland orbit is 83 and none is rich. For a man still in his early forties, to shack up with any of them would have been reckless, so it was swipe left and head for London. He called me from there with an update. Thanks to a new dating app, affairs had got rather zingy. He had met a nice Tajik NHS bowel specialist from Uzbekistan. His medic worked night shifts in…

High on a hill lived a lonely laird

Comtesse d’Haussonville by Ingres

LOUISE DE BROGLIE, COUNTESS D’HAUSSONVILLE (1818–82), was a daughter of the long-established Broglie dynasty, her father a statesman, a diplomat and a member of the French Academy. She was a granddaughter of Madame de Staël, a formidable writer and saloniste. The Countess’s husband, a diplomat and writer, was also an academician. She was outspokenly liberal and independent and would later write novels, essays and biographies—of Byron, among others. By the 1840s, having achieved fame as a portraitist, Ingres was devoted to the higher, but less lucrative art of history painting. This portrait was one of only two he accepted at the time. It was a second attempt. The Countess had found the long sessions wearisome, complaining that nine days had been taken to paint one hand, and then she became pregnant…

Comtesse d’Haussonville by Ingres

Magical Minsmere under threat

MY piece about Otmoor and the threat to lovely countryside between Oxford and Cambridge drew an amazing response (Walking life, December 12, 2018)—thank you and I hope someone’s listening! That countryside is vulnerable because it’s not designated, but that’s not the case far to the east, where the Suffolk Coast & Heaths AONB is threatened by massive infrastructure projects that make my battles of the 1980s seem like skirmishes. Like me, you may know there are plans for a third nuclear power station at Sizewell, but I hadn’t appreciated how much more this rare heathland coast is being asked to take (William Kendall’s My Week, February 20). ‘The peace and silence feel suddenly fragile, ephemeral’ In fact, it’s more accurate to speak of Size-well C and D, because there are two proposed reactors,…

Magical Minsmere under threat

The tale of the little pigs

THEY’RE livestock,’ says Sarah Sladen firmly of her endearing, multi-coloured collection of Kunekunes that are grunting winsomely up at us in the hope of food, ‘and we’re working hard to promote them as meat pigs.’ She has her British Kunekune Pig Society (BKKPS) committee member’s hat on, highlighting the dilemma faced by some keepers of these hairy little pigs from New Zealand. The Kunekune—‘fat and round’ in Maori —is shorter in the leg and more compact than any British pig breed; it weighs up to 240lb, compared with up to 700lb for a Tamworth boar. They convert into tasty hams and sausages, but are also cuddly and comical and produce adorable, titchy piglets. This is why, points out the BKKPS, many animals graze their way into old age instead of making it…

The tale of the little pigs

Keeping Kunekunes

The BKKPS recommends about five pigs per acre and warns that they have a tendency to run to fat, especially they are if fed a lot of concentrates. ‘They’re kind to land and they won’t root if they’ve got enough good grazing,’ advises Mr Kersley. ‘I’ve found that it’s when the grass is lacking that they go underground. If you watch them closely, you can prevent ground disturbance by upping the concentrates.’ Miss Lindop suggests that the Kunekune’s arrival here was a timely precursor to the rise in enthusiasm for food provenance and the meat of grass-reared livestock. ‘I could see the writing on the wall about where it [meat-eating] was going,’ she says. ‘A smallholder’s pet is essentially a pet that’s useful and provides food and those who are selling…

Bathing in beauty

IN 1871, the city architect of Bath, Maj Charles Edward Davis, was worried about a leak from the King’s Bath. Next to the Pump Room, this was the largest of the four public baths in the city and visitors had been soaking themselves in its hot, malodorous waters since the early Middle Ages. With semicircular recesses in which they could rest and overlooked by a statue of Bath’s mythical founder, King Bladud, it formed part of a magnificently eclectic architectural ensemble; a drawing of 1675 shows a fanciful pavilion in the centre and a strapwork balcony on which spectators could lean to survey the men and women below—bathing was then mixed and naked. Victorian Bath was more demure, but failing. Although it continued to advertise the curative properties of its waters—good…

Bathing in beauty

A tough nut to crack

GATHERING nuts in May on a cold and frosty morning was ever a nonsensical notion to inflict on country children. Wrong month, wrong weather, wrong season—even most townsfolk know that nuts are gathered in the autumn. Wrong bush, too. The falsehood is believed to have arisen as the nursery rhyme, passed verbally down the generations since the medieval period or earlier, misquoted the pagan ritual of gathering knots or bunches of white hawthorn blossom, also known as May blossom, to greet approaching summer and to protect the home and occupants against lightning, evil spells and illness. ‘The Druids divided Ireland into three parts ruled by the Sun, the plough and the hazel’ The husked fruits of Corylus avellana had their own legend. Irish and Welsh druids regarded the hazel as a source…

A tough nut to crack

A hazel by another name

Witch hazel, the emollient used to soothe skin conditions, owes nothing at all to sorcery or to the nut. Witch began life as the Old English wice, meaning pliable, and hazel recorded a similarity between Corylus avellana leaves and those of the North American bush Hamamelidaceae, observed by European settlers. This bush held medicinal properties valued by native Americans, who boiled its stems and used the decoction to treat swellings, inflammation and tumours. Utilised by settlers, it was commercialised medically in the late 19th century. The plant produces glossy black seeds that can be projected up to 30ft when the seed capsule splits and is known as the snapping hazel. Its flowering habit is favoured for brightening winter borders.…

The greatest lottery of them all

1839 Aptly, considering the famously random nature of the contest, the first race with ‘National’ status was won by a horse called Lottery, at 5–1, over a course that included a stone wall, a ploughed field and two hurdles to finish. Lottery was described by Turf correspondent Druid as ‘a very peculiarly made horse’ and his winning time of 14 minutes, 53 seconds is the slowest ever (Mr Frisk’s 8 minutes, 47 seconds in 1990 is the fastest), but he could also jump ‘as if from a springboard’. The winning jockey, Jem Mason, was the inspiration for G. J. Whyte-Melville’s horse-dealer character Mr Varnish and another, Capt Martin Becher, was immortalised by the eponymous brook into which he slipped from his horse Conrad, afterwards declaring that water without whisky tasted foul. 1849 Animal-welfare campaigners…

The greatest lottery of them all

2019: what’s the story?

Only seven favourites have won since 1950, but tiny, magnificent Tiger Roll, at the head of this year’s betting, could be the first back-to-back winner since Rummy. The nine year old, trained in Ireland by Gordon Elliott, is a dream horse, a four-time winner at the Cheltenham Festival, including a hugely impressive run in the cross-country race last month. Others to appeal include Philip Kirby’s charge Blaklion, which fell at the first last time and deserves more luck; Rathvinden, from the mighty Willie Mullins stable; and Anibale Fly, fourth in 2018 and runner-up in the Cheltenham Gold Cup under a superb ride from Barry Geraghty. Ultragold, twice a winner over these fences, could give trainer Colin Tizzard a good day and Vieux Lion Rouge, from David Pipe’s yard, knows his way…

Like a fish needs a bicycle

I HAD already admired the Picasso, the Louise Bourgeois spider, the antlered ceiling and the wrought-neon chandeliers and was now in the Flying Stag bar, beneath a cast of Georgina Ballantine’s record salmon, waiting for the River Dee Damsels to arrive. When the Fife Arms Hotel in Braemar reopened during the winter, it was hailed as the hottest Highland venue for decades. The brainchild of renowned art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth and managed by charismatic Federica Bertolini, formerly of Hotel Tresanton, it’s as stylish and splendid a hostelry as I have ever seen in Scotland. The decor is like a collision between Tate Modern and the old Annabel’s nightclub: an eclectic fusion of damask, oak and tartan with taxidermy, Wemyss Ware and a bespoke tweed carpet that’s the same pattern as…

Like a fish needs a bicycle

A house of many colours

EDWARD BULMER breathes new life into houses with a sympathy that is rooted in a deep understanding of their past. ‘What I’m able to offer is a skill, not only a decorative style,’ Edward explains. ‘I can see where details are missing, I can unravel a mishmash of periods—it’s more akin to an architect’s approach.’ It’s a slow game that can last for years and, sometimes, decades—he’s been overseeing the redecoration of White’s in St James’s for the past 10 years, is called into work at Chevening in Kent every five years and has been involved with Goodwood since the early 2000s. Old houses are in his DNA; in the 1960s, his father, Esmond Bulmer, bought a Georgian rectory in Herefordshire and restored it with the help of the decorator David Mlinaric.…

A house of many colours

Bedtime story Handcrafted in Yorkshire, the new range of Ultimate Comfort pocket sprung mattresses from the Wrought Iron & Brass Bed Co are made from horsetail, cotton and Peruvian white alpaca for superb comfort and support. Prices from £1,499 for a double mattress (01485 542516; www.wroughtironandbrassbed.co.uk) Sitting pretty The Caxton dining chair combines classic elegance with comfort. It costs £940, plus 3m fabric, from David Seyfried (020–7823 3848; www.davidseyfried.com) Double act The Calendar three-tiered side table can double as a trolley, thanks to its brass casters. Made of bleached oak with faux bamboo legs, the table costs £1,440, from Julian Chichester (020–7622 2928; www. julianchichester.com) Fresh look Ideal for injecting some verdant colour into any room, the Floretta Paisley cushion in Citrine costs £95 from William Yeoward (020–7349 7828; www. williamyeoward.com) Floor focus Known for eye-catching stair runners, Roger…

London’s calling

Arabella Youens LONDON has a long history of making: clocks in Clerkenwell, silk in Spitalfields, suits in Savile Row and, in particular, furniture. In the 18th century, the capital was famed for the work of the ‘big three’ English furniture makers: Hepplewhite, Sheraton and Chippendale. However, it was in the 19th century that the trade expanded rapidly and output increased nearly four-fold, chiefly to furnish vast swathes of new housing being rapidly constructed around the city. The capital’s furniture trade was dominated by small workshops clustered around the retail ‘hub’ of Tottenham Court Road and then, as it grew, in the East End, which provided easy access to timber arriving in the East India and West India docks. This trade continued until the 1960s, when manufacturing in the city went into steep…

London’s calling

Simply the best

DURING London Design Week, leading interior designers, garden designers, builders and interiors specialists gathered at Drummonds’ King’s Road showroom to celebrate the publication of COUNTRY LIFE’s new Top 100 list (March 6). Guests were welcomed by Drummonds’ creative director James Lentaigne and COUNTRY LIFE’s Interiors Editor Giles Kime, who explained the reason why the list was launched three years ago: ‘Our aim was to identify professionals with a demonstrable track record in working on large country-house projects, who could help our readers turn their dreams into reality.’…

Simply the best

The art of the hearth

Winner Architect Conor K. Lynch created a pen-and-ink drawing of a chimneypiece that celebrated hunting, with a depiction of a hunting scene in the niche, huntsmen on the legs crossing their whips and horses’ heads in profile on either side. In the pediment is a relief bust of Diana, goddess of the hunt. Judges praised the design for the way in which it artfully integrates key emblems associated with the sport in a way that is coherent and entirely natural. The execution of the pen-and-ink drawing was also admired, for the delicacy of its detail and the way in which watercolour was employed to bring the design to life. conorklynch@gmail.com Runner-up Illustrator George Fox created this multifunctional chimneypiece inspired by William Heath Robinson, which comes to life with the help of augmented reality. www.georgefox.net Runner-up North Yorkshire-based artist Caroline…

The art of the hearth

A passion for pattern

WHEN the staff at Charleston, the Sussex farmhouse that was the rural retreat of the Bloomsbury group, recently arranged a one-day workshop with printmaker Molly Mahon, it sold out within days. It’s the start of what Molly hopes will be a long relationship with the house. ‘It’s a dream come true for me. I’m obsessed with Charleston. Every time I go, I have this almost impossible-to-describe feeling of euphoria, bursting with excitement and filled with new ideas.’ It was in the middle of the First World War when, on Virginia Woolf’s recommendation, the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved into a dilapidated farmhouse in East Sussex. The artists transformed the house, covering the walls, shutters and door panels of the rooms in a riot of colour and established a meeting…

A passion for pattern

In a world of mass production, antique Oriental rugs are enjoying a resurgence in popularity, possibly because they’re such an effective and unique way to make a home more comfortable and interesting. ‘Old rugs, handmade with natural flower and vegetable dyes, have a lovely soft colour and patina that make them very easygoing in rooms—they’re not argumentative,’ says Roger Rose, director of James Barclay, an Oriental rug sales and restoration specialist that traces its roots back to Scotland, where it was founded 100 years ago. There’s also a certain romance associated with their provenance, an exoticism that perhaps attracted the Victorians to begin sourcing rugs from countries such as Persia, the Caucasus and Turkey in the first place, and an individuality accentuated by their handmade qualities. ‘People want something with character,…

Feathering the nest

STREAMING and diving overhead with their exuberant cries, swifts add a joyful, uplifting note to our summer soundtrack. When these extraordinary little birds arrive in early May, they will have just completed an epic, 6,000-mile journey across Africa, the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. The swift’s is a life lived entirely in the air, only coming into contact with solid matter when it’s time to nest. In fact, on leaving the nest, a young bird may not land for two or three years—they eat, drink, sleep, bathe and even mate on the wing. ‘Swifts are some of the best tenants you could wish for. They’re only here for 12 weeks and leave no mess’ Swifts are in serious trouble in the UK. Between 1995 and 2015, the population of these birds nesting in the…

Feathering the nest

AS proprietor of Alfred Enderby, the traditionally smoked fish business he acquired in 2016, the appositely named Patrick Salmon’s working day starts at Grimsby fish market long before dawn. ‘I’m after the best fresh haddock money can buy,’ he affirms, jabbing his fingers like a stingray in the gloaming. ‘That means pink gills, bright eyes and firm flesh along the spine. For some merchants, smoking is the last resort for wet fish they don’t sell, but not for Alfred Enderby.’ There are few markets offering greater catches of haddock than Grimsby, yet the availability of a truly wild and sustainable quarry from cold Icelandic waters depends on recent weather at sea. Given favourable conditions, 20 or so 50kg (110lb) boxes or kits of fish will be bought and transported the short…

Currying favour

A RUTTED, bare, baked-earth track lined with hawthorn and soft-pink dog roses leads to a Hertfordshire field that contains Britain’s largest crop of lentils. Overlooked by Arbury Banks Scheduled Monument, the site is sufficiently isolated that it feels like a rural idyll, despite its close proximity to bustling Letchworth Garden City, Hitchin and Stevenage. The fledgling, wispy, vetch-like lentil plants that were sown here only a month before have yet to gather momentum and properly cover the loamy clay soil that looks parched after a raft of endlessly hot days. ‘It won’t be long before they bulk out and look more dense,’ confirms Josiah Meldrum of Hodmedod, a company he co-founded in 2012, with food-systems specialist Nick Saltmarsh and farmer William Hudson, to supply British-grown beans and pulses to the masses. ‘I…

Currying favour

Kitchen garden cook Cucumber

‘The delicious, fresh flavours of spring are finally upon us, as can be tasted in this satisfying salad’ More ways with cucumber Hummus-and-cucumber bagels ( below ) Toast seeded bagel halves and spread one half with hummus and the other with beetroot hummus. Arrange slices of cucumber, fresh basil leaves, radish slices and healthy sprouting beans over the top and drizzle with olive oil and apple-cider vinegar. Chilled cucumber soup Gently fry a small onion in butter until softened. Add two peeled, cored and chopped cucumbers and cook for a few minutes to combine the flavours. Pour in enough vegetable stock to cover and simmer gently for about five minutes. Tip into a blender with a couple of tablespoons of chopped chives, a squeeze of lemon, seasoning and 100ml natural yoghurt. Process and then stir…

Kitchen garden cook Cucumber

A house for all seasons

THIS week’s COUNTRY LIFE sees the launch onto the market—at a guide price of £7.5 million through the country departments of Knight Frank (020–7861 1065) and Savills (020–7016 3820) —of one of Dorset’s most exquisite Tudor manors: Grade I-listed Athelhampton House near Puddletown, six miles from the county town of Dorchester and 11 miles from the coast at Ringstead Bay. Seeing Athelhampton House in all its early-spring glory, it’s hard to imagine that the historic stone house has risen more than once from the ashes of disaster, thanks to the efforts of an inspired and dedicated few. They include the Martyn family, who built the house in the late 15th and mid 16th centuries; the antiquarian Alfred Cart de Lafontaine, who restored it and created its magnificent formal gardens in the…

A house for all seasons

Miniature marvels

CRITERIA for the perfect downsize often include something that’s easy to lock up and leave, room to host the grandchildren, an easily managed garden and the ability to walk to a shop. The challenge, report many agents, is finding such a thing in the countryside. An alternative is to embrace the change of lifestyle afforded by moving into a city. Although the capital’s urban jungle doesn’t suit everyone, agents are reporting a rise of interest from those making a leap from a country house into smaller, often cathedral cities, which offer the best of both worlds —buzz and convenience with the easily accessible escape to countryside beyond. Best for… playing bridge Oxford Type ‘bridge clubs Oxford’ into Google and any doubts about being able to join a regular four will be swiftly assuaged…

Miniature marvels

Cambridge college views A three-bedroom house overlooking Trinity New Field. £950,000, Cheffins (01223 214214) Oxford lock-up-and-leave A three-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a new-build in north Oxford. It has parking and access to communal gardens. £995,000, Knight Frank (01865 986139) Hassle-free Bath This three-bedroom new-build terraced house comes with parking for two, a concierge, a tennis court and communal gardens. £1.15 million, Savills (07807 999369) Georgian gem in York A Grade II-listed town house within walking distance of the train station and the city centre, with four bedrooms and a west-facing garden. £720,000, Savills (01904 617820) Winchester city centre A stylish two-bedroom flat, which has a communal garden, overlooks Royal Winchester Golf Course. £875,000, Knight Frank (01962 657497)…

The great collector

WATER is the making of the garden,’ says Lord Heseltine. Half-a-dozen springs rise just north of Thenford. two of which coalesce and run from an agricultural reservoir to the village pond. From here, a stream emerges and runs through three medieval fish ponds on the southwestern edge of the Heseltines’ estate and into a three-acre lake—which has two islands —at the southern end of the park. On the Heseltines’ arrival, the fish ponds and the 18th-century lake were so silted up that their outlines were difficult to discern. Nevertheless, the new owners cleared them, installed some handsome bridges and then paused. A few years later, they decided to build a new lake further downstream, called the Banana Lake because of its shape. ‘Water in the garden offers you your own nature reserve,’…

The great collector

Absolutely minted

EVERYONE has a tricky space in the garden, perhaps where the previous owners used to burn everything, under a tree or in a damp area. This is where you should plant a few Moroccan mints. A few years ago, I did exactly that—half-a-dozen one-litre pots planted 3ft apart—and, every July, I wait for a sunny day to lie in the patch, all senses full of the scent of an English summer, insects flitting in the sun. It’s one of my happiest moments in the garden every year. I chose Moroccan mint because, if you grow only one variety, this is the one you should choose. The scent and flavour are as clean and crisp as an April morning; it’s the mint for mint sauce, mint tea and mojitos. It wakes early in…

Absolutely minted

The A–Z of Havana

THE end of the 20th century marked the peak of the last cigar boom. I remember being in Havana in 1999 and I exaggerate only mildly when I say that the cigar shops gave a good impression of having been ravaged by a plague of particularly energetic, cigar-smoking locusts. You needed to move swiftly and seek out unfashionable sizes— I was disproportionately excited to come across an entire box of Hoyo du Gourmets. The tides of time and trends have since washed back and forth: the great, late-20th-century cigar boom receded, but, in the past few years, we’ve witnessed a new one, driven by younger cigar experts and graduates of the excellent Master of Havanas, who bring a new level of enthusiasm and knowledge with them. I am biased, because Bolivar Jr…

The A–Z of Havana

Handsome is as handsome does Charles Rangeley-Wilson

AUDIS do age well, something that none of the other big makers, including BMW and Mercedes, have nailed quite so consistently over the years. Of course, many old Mercs and some Beemers look fantastic, almost without rival in the case of a 1955 SL. Rarely is an Audi as extraordinary as that. However, rarely are they ugly, either. You could pick almost any model, but something like a 1991 S2 still looks good today. Not drop-dead gorgeous, just timelessly handsome. Like Sean Connery. The original all-road is exactly the same—still classy some 20 years on. I’ve often wondered how Audi designers manage this, when other marques build cars that contrive to be both too futuristic when launched and absurdly out of date five minutes later. Of course, that’s because nothing dates like…

Handsome is as handsome does Charles Rangeley-Wilson

Full of good things

ALTHOUGH a few changes to this year’s TEFAF fair at Maastricht have been controversial, such as the ejection of long-standing exhibitors in favour of prominent international contemporary galleries, others were immediately beneficial. Some exhibitors lost traditional spots, or were given smaller stands, but this allowed for more comfortable aisles and a better arrangement of refreshment areas. Spreading the private view over two days made it easier to view stands as well as to browse and sluice and I expect will have allowed more buyers to make up their minds on the spot. Two criticisms that should be rectified were the lighting columns in the aisles, which had a deadening effect on pictures hung nearby, and the busy black, white and grey carpet, which was widely disliked and actually disturbing to anyone with…

Full of good things

Pick of the week

The implement used to smash Leon Trotsky’s skull in 1940 is often described as an ice pick, which has made me wonder whether it was a mountaineer’s or a cocktail-maker’s accessory, but the former seemed unlikely in Mexico City and the latter in the refugee revolutionary’s study. The police report called it ‘a small pickaxe, of the type used by Boy Scouts’, which may or may not make things clear. As the assassin had hidden it in his trousers, it was perhaps a little smaller than the 12in by 11in mountaineer’s pick sold by Cheffins of Cambridge for £27,940 in early March. That one had a less violent, but very valuable, provenance: it had been used by Frank Debenham on Capt Scott’s doomed Terra Nova Antarctic Expedition of 1910–13. Debenham was…

Pick of the week

The French trickster

LOUIS-LÉOPOLD BOILLY (1761–1845) was a master tease. His paintings wink, flirt and flash their ankles. He is remembered, perhaps unfairly, as Boilly of the Boudoir, a painter of ribbons, garters and the loosest of dressing gowns. Now, an enlightening exhibition at the National Gallery seeks to tell a different story. Here we meet Boilly, flâneur avant la lettre. Seventy years before Charles Baudelaire called on artists to leave the studio and find the subjects of ‘modern life’ on the new boulevards, Boilly was out with his chalks. ‘He liked you to look, to spot his hidden games, to expect the unexpected’ Like the hem-clutching family in Boilly’s watercolour To Pass, You Pay (about 1803–04), the artist would have made his way across duckboards laid on muddy, horse-fouled streets. He, too, might have dodged…

The French trickster

When life was fun

Social history How Was It For You? Virginia Nicholson (Viking, £20) THINGS—having them and wanting them’ was how Peter York defined the spirit of the 1960s. When those of us who weren’t there think about them, we imagine an explosive sense of possibility —a feeling, as Philip Larkin put it in Annus Mirabilis, that ‘every life’ had become ‘a brilliant breaking of the bank, a quite unlosable game’. With the pill available on the NHS, London swinging and plenty of jobs to go around, inhibitions and impediments to success had gone the way of the dodo. Hadn’t they? As Virginia Nicholson’s absorbing and moving account of the decade shows, for half of the population, it was more complicated than that. There have been enough books written about the 1960s to fill the shelves of…

When life was fun

When the boot’s on the other foot

THERE are few better guides to the spirit of the age than productions of Shakespeare. I’ve lived through romantic, political and minimalist approaches and, at a time when all institutions are striving for sexual equality, it comes as no surprise to find the plays are being re-gendered. The latest example is the RSC’s The Taming of the Shrew, in which a boisterous female, Petruchia, woos, wins and overcomes a defiant bloke. Oddly enough, he’s called Katherine, but then this version offers us a matriarchal society in which women rule the roost to the extent of giving their sons the names of girls. Does it actually work? Up to a point, Lord Copper. Even with a problematic play such as this, there’s a life-enhancing quality about Shakespearean comedy that can never be crushed.…

When the boot’s on the other foot

The Taming of the Shrew ✸ ✸ ✸ Edmond de Bergerac ✸ ✸ ✸ The Bay at Nice ✸ ✸ ✸✸ What’s new Top Girls Revival of Caryl Churchill’s landmark play about the rise of women to positions of power. Until June 22, at the Lyttelton, SE1 (020-7452 3000) Kunene and the King John Kani and Sir Antony Sher star in the former’s play about an inter-racial relationship in modern South Africa. Until April 23, at the Swan Theatre, Stratfordupon-Avon (01789 331111) The Omission of the Family Coleman An absurdist Argentinian comedy about three generations of a dysfunctional family. Until April 25, at the Ustinov Studio, Bath (01225 448844) Book now Peter Gynt James McArdle stars in David Hare’s radical new version of Ibsen’s mighty poetic epic. From June 27, at the Olivier, SE1 (020-7452 3000) Last chance to see The Price Brilliant…

A better class of bodger

I’LL say this much,’ the chippy admitted, surveying our homemade bookshelves. ‘You’re a good bodger.’ Seldom have I been more pleased. A bodger, technically, is a skilled woodturner who works in the woods around High Wycombe, but it has come to mean someone who uses whatever comes to hand and makes something of it. If he was right, it’s because, over the years, I have learned that inertia is as powerful in construction as pegs or screws. My carpentry depends largely on heavy leaning and a few nails and it works. A big Modernist architect once confessed to me the terrible truth about his first housing scheme, on which he’d forgotten to provide any form of tie between the roof and the walls. Once he’d realised his error, he became hollow-eyed from…

A better class of bodger

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