Country Life property pages 4th Jan 23

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CHARTERED FORESTRYSURVEYORS, VALUERS &AGENTS

What’s on in London

COUNTRY LIFE rounds up the best things to do in the capital in 2023

January

Art

London Art Fair brings together more than 100 galleries showcasing contemporary artworks from the early 20th century to today. January 18–22 at the Business Design Centre, 52, Upper Street, N1 (www.londonartfair.co.uk)

Opera

The Irish National Opera’s run of Least Like the Other: Searching for Rosemary Kennedy

(facing page) is a thought-provoking work about the older sister of former President John F. Kennedy. January 15–19 at The Linbury Theatre, 35–36, Bow Street, WC2 (www.irishnationalopera.ie) Music

The Piccadilly Sinfonietta will tackle Vivaldi’s Four Seasons by Candlelight and other timeless classics, January 28, at St James’ Church, 197, Piccadilly, W1 (www.sjp.org.uk)

February Theatre

The Globe Theatre (21, Globe Walk, SE1) and Sam Wanamaker Playhouse (21, New Globe Walk, SE1) will both stage performances

of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, to mark the 400th anniversary of the printing of the Elizabethan playwright’s First Folio. February 9–April 16 (www.shakespearesglobe.com)

Theatre

Oklahoma! makes its West End debut at Wyndham’s Theatre, Charing Cross Road, WC2, on February 16 (www.officiallondontheatre.com)

Music

On February 15, Randy Newman (facing page, top), the American singer-songwriter, composer and pianist, best known for the Toy Story soundtrack, takes over the London Palladium, 8, Argyll Street, W1, with his An Evening with Randy Newman (https://lwtheatres.co.uk)

Sport

Rugby union’s 2023 Guinness Six Nations kicks off with England vs Scotland on February 4 at Twickenham Stadium (www. twickenhamstadium.com)

Exhibition

‘Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance’ is the first major UK exhibition to explore the Renaissance artist’s overwhelming talent. It arrives at the V&A Museum, Cromwell Road, SW7, from Florence, Italy, on February 11 (www.vam.ac.uk)

March

Ballet

Cinderella celebrates its 75th anniversary with a new production at the Royal Opera House, Bow Street, WC2, March 27–May 3 (www.roh.org.uk)

Event

Catch Sir Ranulph Fiennes (facing page), arguably Britain’s most successful living explorer, talking about his record-breaking feats and adventures on March 30 at Richmond Theatre, 1, Little Green, TW9 (www.atgtickets.com)

April Gardens

If all goes to plan, visitors to the Hampton Court Palace Annual Tulip Festival (facing page) will be able to inspect 120,000 tulip plants in bloom and a further 60 rare varieties, inspired by Mary II’s 17th-century collection. Exact dates to be confirmed (www.hrp.org.uk)

Art

Tate Britain, Millbank, SW1, is set to stage ‘The Rossettis’—an immersive exhibition of spoken poetry, paintings and more, as well as the first retrospective of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. April 6–September 24 (www.tate.org.uk)

Art

‘Hilma Af Klint & Piet Mondrian’ will explore the relationship between abstract art and the natural world when it opens at Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1, on April 20 (www.tate.org.uk)

Music

Elton John’s (above right) rescheduled Farewell Tour finally takes to the O2 Arena stage, April 2–17 (www.theo2.co.uk)

Exhibition

‘Crown to Couture’ will fill the apartments of Kensington Palace with exquisite 18th-century Court dress alongside 21st-century red-carpet couture. April–October (www.hrp.org.uk)

Music

‘The Music of Bond’ performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra promises to transport you to double-0 heaven. For one night only, April 4, at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gore, SW7 (www.royalalberthall.com)

May Gardens

Chelsea Flower Show returns to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, SW3, May 23–27, with the promise of more glorious gardens. Tickets are available to book now (www.rhs.org.uk)

Art

Fans of the Sir John Soane’s Museum will enjoy ‘Eye of the Collector’, an exhibition spanning thousands of years with items presented as if they were in a collector’s home. May 17–20 at Two Temple Place, WC2 (www.twotempleplace.org)

Gardens

Chelsea in Bloom, London’s largest freeto-attend festival of flowers, takes place from May 23–28 (www.chelseainbloom.co.uk)

June Exhibition

‘DIVA’ will explore the concept of the diva and how it has been subverted and, at other times, embraced by performers across opera, the stage, music and family. Opening June 24 at the V&A Museum (www.vam.ac.uk)

Art

The Royal Academy’s long-standing Summer Exhibition (it first took place in 1769) returns to the fray, June 13–August 20 (www. royalacademy.org.uk)

LONDON LIFE

Editor Rosie Paterson

Editor-in-chief Mark Hedges

Sub-editors Octavia Pollock, Stuart Martel

Art Heather Clark, Emma Earnshaw, Ben Harris, Dean Usher

Pictures Lucy Ford, Emily Anderson

Advertising Katie Ruocco 07929 364909

Email firstname.surname@futurenet.com

January 4, 2023 | Country Life | 21

Architecture

Each summer, the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2, commissions an architect who has not previously built in the UK to design a temporary pavilion for the lawn in front of the gallery. The result and exhibition spaces are open to the public between June and October (www.serpentinegalleries.org)

July Dance

Strictly Come Dancing’s Anton du Beke and Giovanni Pernice will take to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane stage for one night only, July 25, with their ‘Him & Me’ show (www.thelane.co.uk)

Music

This year’s annual British Summertime concert series rocks into Hyde Park on July 1 and features legendary headliners Take That, Pink and Billy Joel (www.bst-hydepark.com)

Sport

The London Diamond League welcomes the world’s sports stars to the biggest one-day athletics event of the year, July 23 at the London Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, E20 (www.britishathletics.org.uk)

August

The Royal Family Midsummer is the best time to see Buckingham Palace (below), open for 10 weeks every year. Until October 2 (www.rct.uk)

September

Motoring

See some of the rarest cars in existence today at Concours of Elegance,

September 1–3 at Hampton Court Palace (www.concours ofelegance.co.uk)

Exhibition ‘Gabrielle Chanel Fashion Manifesto’

will be the first UK exhibition dedicated to the French designer (above) when it opens on September 16 at the V&A Museum (www. vam.ac.uk)

Food and drink

Tom Kerridge and Matt Tebbutt’s Pub in the Park promises a weekend of live music, talks from renowned chefs and the finest street fare from some of the capital’s best-loved restaurants when it rolls into Chiswick House & Gardens, Burlington Lane, W4, September 1–3 (www.pubintheparkuk.com)

October

Food and drink

Your round. London Cocktail Week (left) returns to multiple venues throughout the city. Tickets will be available to purchase from April (www.londoncocktailweek.com)

Art

The Affordable Art Fair is now a worldwide phenomenon, appearing in 10 different cities. This autumn, it returns to Battersea Park, its inaugural 1999 venue, October 19–22 (www.affordableartfair.com)

November Art

‘Impressionists on Paper’ will feature works from Degas, Renoir, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec below), when it opens at the Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries at the Royal Academy, from November 25 (www.royal academy.org.uk)

December History

On December 7, the London Mithraeum, a restored Roman temple, discovered close to Bank in the City of London in the 1950s, will stay open until 8pm. It’s one of 12 ‘late nights’ across 2023 (www.londonmithraeum.com)

Additional research by AEW

LONDON LIFE

Alamy; Getty

On foot

City of a scandal

Georgian London wasn’t only rocked by the Industrial Revolution, but a series of scandalous affairs and liaisons at the very top echelons of society that regularly made headlines, discovers Carla Passino

Illustrated by Fred van Deelen

IT all started with a chunk of Parmesan. George Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, sent the cheese, together with seemingly innocent letters, to Lady Mary Anne Sturt, wife of his friend and fellow MP Charles Sturt. But concealed inside the envelopes were passionate love letters: ‘I can think of nothing else but you,’ wrote the Marquess when he feared she was ill. ‘I have never felt such a tremor as I do now!’ Unfortunately for him, Sturt chanced upon one of the hidden letters and sued Blandford. Only the vagaries of Georgian politics prevented awkward encounters between the two under the Gothic turrets of the Houses of Parliament: the Marquess had briefly stopped serving during his dalliance and, when he returned, Sturt lost his seat.

Blandford, however, was soon dogged by further ignominy. He was liberal with (borrowed) money, lavishing it on bizarre gardening experiments and rare books— on June 17, 1812, he bid £2,260 to secure a 1471 edition of Boccaccio’s Decameron. By the end of 1819, creditors were at his heel and he was forced to sell the contents of White Knights, his Berkshire home, including the prized tome.

Blandford’s loss was George, 2nd Earl Spencer’s gain—he bought the manuscript at less than half the original price. The Earl had been the runner up in the Decameron’s auction and, on the evening before the sale, had enjoyed dinner at the St Alban’s Tavern, off Pall Mall, with fellow bibliomaniacs. That event morphed into the Roxburghe Club, now the world’s oldest bibliophile society, whose members still meet for dinner on or around June 17. Sadly, they can no longer do so at the Tavern. Old St Alban’s Street was demolished in the early 19th century, to make way for Regent Street. A cavalcade of grand white buildings now rises where the tavern once hosted not only the Roxburghe members, but also the eponymous St Alban’s Tavern group of MPs—surely testament to the quality of the establishment’s cuisine and imbibing.

However, Earl Spencer’s London home is still very much standing, a triumphant wedding cake of a house, all columns and arches, lording it over Green Park. The building’s very origins were steeped in scandal: it was commissioned by John, 1st Earl Spencer, father of the bibliophile, soon after his secret marriage to Georgiana Poyntz. Their romance could have almost been the plot of a bodice-ripper novel: the rich, handsome, but frail lord falls for the lovely, clever maid who is well ‘below his station’. In 1755, the couple slipped upstairs during a crowded ball at Althorp and got married in secret by the local vicar with only their respective mothers as witnesses. Once the news became public, it was met with predictable disdain —Horace Walpole dismissed the bride as ‘a mere Miss Poyntz’.

There could have been no better way to bury the sneers, however, than with a building that moved Arthur Young to write: ‘I know not in England, a more beautiful piece of architecture’—Spencer House’s early neoClassical interiors and its whimsical Palm Room, featuring gilded palm trees, would entertain London’s beau monde for centuries to come. And however shocking the Spencer marriage might have seemed, it paled by comparison with the life of their daughters, particularly the eldest, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Dubbed ‘Empress of Fashion’—she was quite literally ranked by publications of the time at the top of the style scales—the Duchess shared her home and her husband with her best friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster.

The arrangement sparked extraordinary rumours, including that her son, the Marquess of Hartington, was actually Lady Elizabeth’s illegitimate child with the Duke. Georgiana later embarked on a string of affairs, the first of which required a strategic spell in France to birth an illegitimate child. But perhaps the impropriety that prompted the press to heap the most scorn on her was

that she meddled in politics—a 1784 print shows her in the arms of a common man, with the caption: ‘A certain Dutchess kissing old Swelter-in-Grease the Butcher for his Vote. O! Times! O! Manners! The Women wear Breeches, the Men Petticoats.’

Nonetheless, even Georgiana Devonshire was not a patch on Henrietta, Lady Grosvenor, wife of Richard, then 1st Baron Grosvenor. The leafy surroundings and genteel houses of Cavendish Square hardly seem the setting for a tawdry affair, but it was there that, during a soirée in 1769, the hostess, Camilla,

‘Earl Spencer’s London home is still very much standing, a triumphant wedding cake of a house, all columns and arches, lording it over Green Park’

On foot

Countess D’Onhoff, found Lady Grosvenor ‘lying upon her back…with her petticoats up’, enjoying the manly attentions of none other than George III’s brother, Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn. Eventually, Lord Grosvenor’s butler caught her and Cumberland in flagrante. The Baron sued the Duke and the press had a field day as the court proceedings revealed every lurid detail, from Lady Grosvenor’s ‘very much rumpled and loose’ hair after her outings, to Cumberland’s inadequate love prose and ludicrous disguises, not least when he and his manservant dressed like farmers but fooled no one, because ‘they could not talk much as farmers’. Despite this, Lady Grosvenor managed to prevent her husband from divorcing her. As for Cumberland, he continued to court controversy: after a sequence of mistresses, he married Anne, widow of commoner Christopher Horton, in 1771, prompting a furious George III to kick his wayward brother from the court.

Not that the crenellated walls of St James’s Palace were strangers to spectacular fallings out: George I had banished George II, who, in turn, had thrown out Frederick, Prince of Wales, whom the King called ‘my halfwitted coxcomb’. Even so, the British were far more outraged by George II’s journeys to Hanover to tend to his German affairs (and the

considerable charms of his mistress Amalie von Wallmoden) than by the royal feuds. In his memoirs, John, Baron Hervey, recalls an advertisement pasted on St James’s gate: ‘Lost or strayed out of this house, a man who has left a wife and six children on the parish; whoever will give any tidings of him… shall receive four shillings and sixpence reward. N.B. This reward will not be increased, nobody judging him to deserve a Crown.’

tryst—with Elizabeth, Countess of Derby. Unhappily married to squat Edward Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, the Countess sought refuge in Dorset’s arms and must have done so less than discreetly because, by 1778, the papers started making thinly veiled allusions: ‘Stanley, look to your wife,’ printed The Morning Post. Then, Elizabeth made a move that sent shockwaves through Society—in 1779, she left her husband for her lover. For a while, everyone held their breath to see whether she’d end up marrying the Duke. But the Earl of Derby refused to divorce, Dorset grew bored and the town felt free to turn its collective back on her.

The title of the Georgian era’s most infamous rake, however, must go to John Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, ‘a keen collector of women’, according to Robert Sackville-West’s Inheritance: The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles His house at 38, Grosvenor Square—now clad in the whitewashed dignity of its Victorian front, but then a triumph of green bed furnishings, green drapes and plaster Venus—may have borne witness to his most scandalous

Elizabeth was forced to settle in Europe and only her husband’s ensuing fall from grace helped her return to London, according to Hannah Greig’s The Beau Monde. Derby had become enamoured of actress Elizabeth Farren who shrewdly resisted his advances. The press savaged him—a print shows the portly Earl on a horse behind Farren’s carriage, with the caption: ‘When I follow’d a lass that was forward & shy, Oh I stuck to her stuff but she would not comply.’ In the end, however, he had the last laugh: Lady Derby died, he married his actress and went down in history not for the scandals, but for having launched the horse race that still bears his name.

At home in scandalous London

Queen Anne’s Gate, £6.41 million

This development brings together the best of old and new—the Grade II-listed façade hides 27 apartments beautifully created by design house Linley with architects PDP London. This property has 2,022sq ft of accommodation, with three bedrooms. Beauchamp Estates (020–7722 4000; www.beauchamp.com)

Adams Row, £11.95 million

This 3,872sq ft Mayfair house is well suited to entertaining with the main reception room spanning the width of the property. The master bedroom has a terrace, plus there are three more bedrooms, a cinema room, gym and steam room. Harrods Estates (020–7409 9001; www.harrodsestates.com)

Upper Grosvenor Street, £2.999 million

Set on the third floor of this elegant building, Flat 21 enjoys fine views across the Mayfair rooftops. The 1,097sq ft accommodation includes two bedrooms, an airy reception room and a separate kitchen and dining room. Carter Jonas (020–7493 0676; www.carterjonas.co.uk)

‘The title of the Georgian era’s most infamous rake must go to the 3rd Duke of Dorset, “a keen collector of women”’

Seasonal suggestions

It’s your last chance to soak up some of the festive spirit: ‘Winter Light’ at the Southbank—an open-air exhibition featuring lightworks from global artists —is free to view until January 8 (www. southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/ festivals-series/winter-festival) and tickets are still available to the Royal Opera House’s The Nutcracker, with the last performance on January 14 (www.roh.org/tickets-and-events-thenutcracker-by-peter-wright-dates). Christmas aside, it’s your last chance to marvel at one of van Gogh’s masterpieces at ‘Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience’. Tickets to the exhibition space at 106, Commercial Street, E1, are available until January 15 (www. vangoghexpo.com). On January 29, members of the English Civil War Society will march down The Mall to mark the anniversary of Charles I’s beheading outside Banqueting House. The procession, which is free to watch, includes the laying of a wreath (www. thekingsarmy.org.uk/events-diary).

Here’s looking at the London brick trade

• The heart of the capital’s brick and tile industry originated in Brick Lane in the 15th century—although it was known as Whitechapel Lane at the time and wound its way through fields. Bricks and tiles were fired in a kiln at the lane’s north end, using local brick earth deposits

• By the 19th century, brickmaking had moved west, to where Notting Hill now sits. Pottery Lane—now one of London’s most desirable streets—was, back then, part of a notorious slum, nicknamed the ‘Potteries and Piggeries’, that was bookended by brickfields and high-quality clay deposits. If you journey to neighbour Walmer Road, you’ll find the area’s last remaining kiln

• When Prime Minister William Pitt tripled a pre-existing window tax in 1797, many homeowners bricked up their windows to avoid further payment. The tax was originally imposed to pay for the losses of the great recoinage of 1695 and raised six times before it was repealed in 1851. Plenty of London’s buildings from this period still have prominent bricked-up gaps

• London brick, or Fletton brick, has been in constant production since 1877. According to Forterra, a manufacturer of building products, it’s easily identifiable by an indentation in the top of the brick that ensures ‘quick and even heat distribution in the firing process and makes the brick easier to cut, handle and lay’

Honey & Spice Shop of the month

52, WARREN STREET, W1

JUST south of the piled-up buses on Euston Road at lunchtime, a healthy queue forms outside of Honey & Spice. People come from all over—‘doctors and nurses, office teams, tourists,’ says the co-owner, Itamar Srulovich—their necks craned towards takeaway slabs of pumpkin and filo pie and sticky wedges of cardamom-soaked baklava. Honey & Spice is a deli-cum-grocery shop where, after lunch, you can load a wire basket with dried Persian limes and pomegranate molasses, glass jars of smoky Urfa chilli and cellophane sacks of tahini cookies laced with preserved lemon.

The husband-and-wife team behind the shop, Mr Srulovich and Sarit Packer, are chefs and authors and launched the food store after the runaway success of their first restaurant, Honey & Co. ‘By that stage, our first cookbook was out and we always had people asking where to get the ingredients from,’ says Mr Srulovich. Today, the fastest-selling product is the mini chocolate and hazelnut babkas. Jo Rodgers

Illustration by Polly Crossman; Alamy; Geograph; James Merrell

A green space

CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN was founded in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London, as a place to train apprentices in the use of medicinal plants. The captivating walled garden, in between King’s Road and the River Thames, continues to focus on education to this day—with displays and beds of medicinal, edible and otherwise useful plants allowed to take centre stage.

The great and the good

Events to mark the garden’s 350th anniversary start on January 22, with a ‘Heralding Spring’ festival that will include tours, plant sales and a walking trail around the spring plants. Galanthophiles will appreciate the more than 100 varieties of snowdrops (including rare cultivars such as Galanthus elwesii ‘Grumpy’ and G. elwesii ‘Kite’), but there are other treats in store too—not least the ever-flowering Rosa x odorata ‘Bengal Crimson’ and the beautifully scented Daphne bholua ‘Jacqueline Postill’. Natasha Goodfellow is the author of ‘A London Floral’ and ‘A Cotswold Garden Companion’ (www.finchpublishing.co.uk)

Psst... pass it on

THE Lanesborough Club & Spa—the cathedral-like, subterranean space beneath the hotel of the same name on Hyde Park Corner—has a new spa partner, Royal Fern. The Signature treatment is more massage than facial, using strong massage strokes and a microcurrent tool to sculpt and define the face and release any tension (www.lanesboroughcluband spa.com/the-club-spa)

London curiosities

BRANCH OUT

AMATURE cedar of Lebanon invariably defines the term ‘impact tree’ and this giant, in the grounds of Forty Hall, a Jacobean house in Enfield, EN2, is no exception. Graceful, yet monumental, it was planted in the early 18th century, making it one of the oldest surviving examples in Britain. Jack Watkins

MY PLATE OF VIEW

Bocca di Lupo, 12, Archer Street, W1

Something old, something new, is the theme of the first column of 2023. The new part is the year, of course. The old, to be honest with you, isn’t really that old—except in London restaurant terms, where 15 years is a lifetime (Athena, December 7, 2022). Bocca di Lupo opened its doors on Archer Street in 2008 to immediate success, in spite of the financial crisis. Founders Jacob Kenedy and Victor Hugo had met at Moro, Exmouth Market’s Spain-meets-NorthAfrica tapas restaurant, and wanted to bring the same mould-breaking spirit to Soho—the opposite of candles in Chianti bottles, as A. A. Gill noted.

‘Bocca di Lupo is proof of how far Italian food, our expectations and palates have come in a generation,’ he wrote back then. A new generation has up-andcome since he visited, so does it still deserve its place in the pantheon?

Si, in a word. Early on a dreich Tuesday evening, it’s so buzzy that the only seats we can get are at the marble kitchen counter—a way of eating that’s now so ubiquitous it’s easy to forget Bocca di Lupo pioneered it in London. Dog owners get their own special section near the window. Then, as now, the menu is laid out like a wine list, with the region of Italy that each dish hails from specified. Everything comes in two sizes, to encourage experimentation. What Gill felt were ‘toy portions brought at random to share’ are extremely generous by today’s small-plates standards. At about £15 each, Piedmontese tajarin pasta with egg yolk, lemon and Parmesan and a deeply savoury rigatoni Amatriciana are note perfect and incredibly good value. We get a truffled radish, celeriac, pomegranate and pecorino salad as a nod to January health kicks (in truffle season, the restaurant runs ‘BYOT’ nights, where you can bring in Alba’s finest to be shaved over your food) and profiteroles, filled with hazelnut and pistachio gelato, to offset it.

Whether you’re popping in for Prosecco and olives or booking for a blowout, Bocca di Lupo is still the business. In 15 years, it’s been imitated, occasionally equalled, but never bettered.

Emma Hughes

CHELSEA PHYSIC GARDEN, 66, ROYAL HOSPITAL ROAD, SW3

The people’s palace

It was named after royalty and hosted the world’s first live high-definition public television broadcast, but Alexandra Palace was nearly felled by fire and financial struggles. On the eve of its 150th birthday, Jack Watkins looks back at a London icon that defied all the odds

THERE are many more beautiful buildings in London, but few sit quite so spectacularly in the cityscape as the Alexandra Palace. To reach its spot at the top of a 300ft hill, guidebooks suggest walking from Alexandra Park station (the attraction was once served by its own branch line), which enables the visitor to admire the extensive prospects of the capital below. But an alternative approach is from the Muswell Hill side, starting at the bottom of the hill. Climbing the slope through the trees, you get an arresting view of the building itself. It’s quite a montage. The long, terraced frontage has the massiveness of a national museum and a gabled central arch with a large circular window is akin to a cathedral. The round-headed openings above the colonnade are reminiscent

of a Roman aqueduct. Corner towers in the spirit of a country pile are offset by a cloudpiercing, space-age television transmitter.

The Ally Pally is 150 years old this year, but, although that nickname attests to the affection in which it is held (Gracie Fields, who performed there in 1928, is thought to have coined it, although no one is sure), it has had a troubled history. Owen Jones, instrumental in the relocation of the Crystal Palace to Sydenham Hill in south London after the end of the Hyde Park Great Exhibition, had floated the idea of an equivalent ‘Palace of the People’ for north London in about 1858. A company was formed with a view to establishing the palace in a parkland setting and the 250-acre park, on former farmland between Wood Green and Muswell Hill, opened in 1863. It was named Alexandra Park, after Princess Alexandra

of Denmark, who had recently married Edward, Prince of Wales. A racetrack, at the bottom of the southern slope, followed five years later. Finance issues delayed the building of the Palace itself, which finally opened in 1873. Designed by Alfred Meeson in an Italianate style, with a huge central dome, it incorporated materials salvaged from Francis Fowkes’s International Exhibition building in Kensington, demolished in 1864. But the Palace had barely been open a fortnight before it burnt down. Nevertheless, the large visitor numbers that had marked the opening days encouraged an immediate rebuild, this time by Meeson’s partner John Johnson, which was completed within two years. Incorporated within the new building were the gable ends of the original Great Hall, which survived the fire, their yellow- and red-brick decorative patterns

LONDON

modelled on the great museums of Kensington. The Great Hall, which seated 12,000, could accommodate an orchestra and a choir of 2,000 performers. It had the largest Henry Willis pipe organ in the country. There was a Concert Hall, and a theatre seating 3,000, modelled on and similar in size to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The array of entertainments staged in the Palace or park was wide ranging, from dramas, pantomimes, opera and ballet to bazaars, flower and dog shows. In 1880, the park’s lake was illuminated for a Venetian-style fête, with the Alexandra Palace choir performing as singing gondoliers. In 1905, a Nelson Ball featured a full-sized replica of Nelson’s Column being manoeuvred into the Great Hall.

Above: The design for Alexandra Palace.

Right: The building reopens in May 1875

Unfortunately, given its scale, the Palace often faced financial troubles and even closed for two years in 1889. A small part of the park to the north of the building was sold off for housing. However, an Act of Parliament in 1900 placed the entire site in public ownership to safeguard its future as a ‘place of public resort and recreation’. After requisitioning in the First World War (during which it served as a barracks, then as a home for Belgian refugees and finally as an internment camp), it was refurbished. In 1935, the BBC, attracted by the elevated location, leased the East Wing and erected an aerial on the south-east tower. The world’s first live high-definition public television broadcast was made from the BBC studios at the Ally Pally on November 2, 1936.

Muffin the Mule, the first dedicated children’s television programme, went out live from here in 1946 and the studios would be a test bed for technological experiments in broadcasting for decades.

A further parliamentary act in 1967 established the charity that runs the site today.

There was another serious fire in 1980 that required the closure of the building for eight years, yet, unlike Crystal Palace, Ally Pally has endured. Awarded Grade II-listed status in 1997, a charity spokesperson admits that ‘although everything we do here is in accordance with its listed status, the challenge of bringing a place built for Victorian recreation into the 21st century is an ongoing task’.

Alongside a restored Palm Court and an ice rink, the venue now has ‘London’s oldest new theatre’, after the reopening of the original theatre, which had retained much of its original décor and stage machinery, at a cost of £10 million, in 2018. ‘The restoration of the theatre, with its “arrested décor”, and the East

Wing has transformed what we can offer visitors and how many people can enjoy the Ally Pally,’ says the spokesperson. ‘It has brought back to life an area of the Palace that had remained behind closed doors for 80 years. We can now offer theatre, comedy, filming, sports and corporate events.’

Handel and Elgar may have been standard fare in Victorian times, but the list of artists who have performed here in recent decades, whether in the various halls or in the park, reads like a directory of international giants of the rock and pop worlds. In 2022, as part of the BBC’s 100th-anniversary celebrations, Ally Pally hosted Later… with Jools Holland, the BBC’s prestigious contemporary music show. Mr Holland’s sense of history and love of Britain’s music heritage, of which he is, in any case, a part, made him the ideal person to convey the atmosphere of this remarkable venue which has defied innumerable setbacks to celebrate its 150th birthday. Visit www.alexandrapalace.com for more information and details of upcoming events

‘Alongside a restored Palm Court and ice rink, it now has “London’s oldest new theatre”’

Clockwise from top left: A young boy leads the way on Brass Band Day at Alexandra Palace in 1937; painters renovate the building in 1933; regular BBC television broadcasts resume at Alexandra Palace after the Second World War; the aftermath of the fire in 1980

What part of London is home for you?

I’ve lived off Cleaver Square in Kennington for the past 15 years. Much of Georgian Kennington is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall estate and, luckily, it escaped the wrecking balls of the 1960s. Cleaver Square is one of London’s finest, hosting up to 10 games of boules a night in summer on the green. I’m an émigré from Chelsea and was lucky enough to grow up opposite the houseboats on Chelsea Embankment. It was quite an edgy place to be in the 1970s; I thought becoming a King’s Road Punk was one of the Seven Ages of Man. The King’s Road is now about as edgy as Esher.

Where are your favourite places to eat and drink around the Old Bailey, Temple and Lincoln’s Inn Fields?

I would go to The Delaunay (55, Aldwych, WC2) for some 1910s Viennese elegance. Even if you simply pop in for tea, it comes on a silver tray in a silver teapot—at not much more than Starbucks. El Vino (47, Fleet Street, EC4), is a legendary wine bar surviving from the days when hard-drinking war correspondents and Rumpole-like barristers would crowd in at lunch—and match each other Port for Port, gin for gin. The other place on Fleet Street I go to is mainly for the name: The Amicable Society of Lazy Ballerinas (50, Fleet Street, EC4).

Do you believe London is a safer or more dangerous place in the time you’ve been working as a counter-terrorism KC?

Knife crime is London’s current blight. So many murder cases at the Old Bailey are knife related. Gun crime is also more prevalent. Both are gang related, but London has had gangs since Shakespeare’s day. In my field [terrorism], however, there has not been a major terrorist attack in London since the Fishmongers’ Hall incident in 2019, when two Cambridge undergraduates were murdered

THE CAPITAL ACCORDING TO...

BarnabyJameson

at an educational event. Readers may remember a chef from the Fishmongers’ Hall challenging the terrorist with a narwhal tusk.

Are there any incredible ‘off-limits’ places that only KCs, judges and barristers can see that you wish you could share with the general public?

All barristers must join an ‘Inn of Court’ before being called to the Bar. There are four Inns, all in London: Inner Temple (Crown Office Row, EC4), Middle Temple (Middle Temple Lane, EC4), Lincoln’s Inn (New Square, WC2) and Gray’s Inn (4, Field Court, WC1).

T he grounds and gardens of the Inns are open to the public, but the buildings are off limits to anyone who is not a member. I belong to Middle Temple, once owned by the Knights Templar and leased to earlymedieval guilds of barristers. It was built in the 1570s and is considered one of the finest Elizabethan buildings in the country, with a huge hammerbeam roof. In 1602, the first performance of Twelfth Night took place at Middle Temple Hall in front of Shakespeare himself. Some lawyers say it’s London’s answer to the dining hall at Hogwarts.

What’s your preferred method for getting around London?

From Kennington, the 59 bus goes to Euston and t he 159 to Oxford Circus. The eccentric 360 snakes through Vauxhall and Pimlico to the Albert Hall. Those routes normally cover me. If it’s late, I admit to taking the odd Uber.

Barnaby Jameson’s first novel, ‘Codename: Madeleine’, is out now (Whitefox Publishing, £12.99)

‘Some say Middle Temple Hall is London’s answer to the dining hall at Hogwarts’

Rob Crossan speaks to one of the UK’s leading counter-terrorism barristers about eccentric bus routes and lazy ballerinas

Alamy

Top: Middle Temple Hall, built in the 1570s.

Above: The Delaunay restaurant, Aldwych

Property market

The 4,206-acre Goole estate in East Yorkshire, prime arable land that sparked intense competition when offered for sale in April. £44m average of 150,000 acres, there was intense competition for two prime arable estates, the 4,179-acre Coldham estate near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and the 4,206-acre Goole estate in East Yorkshire, which were offered for sale in April with a combined asking price of £87.5 million and sold for more than the guide to an existing institutional investor.’

SET against a backdrop of tight supply and increased demand from private and institutional investors alike, the value of English farmland soared in 2022 to levels last seen in 2016. Alex Lawson of Savills, who were joint agents with Bidwells in the disposal of the two most important farming estates sold in England this year, sets the scene: ‘With the supply of farmland offered for sale in 2022 the lowest in years at 120,000 acres, compared with a 10-year

The market for residential and sporting estates kicked off in March with the launch onto the market of the historic, 773-acre Hexton

Manor estate near the picturesque village of Hexton, five miles from Hitchen, Hertfordshire, and 40 miles from central London. Offered as a whole or in two lots, Lot 1, comprising the partially restored, 14,500sq ft, Grade II-listed manor house with six houses and cottages and a converted stable courtyard, set in 170 acres of formal and wild gardens, parkland and fishing lakes, sold in November to a European buyer, at a guide price of £10m through joint agents Knight Frank and Savills.

The clamour for English acres propelled prices to a six-year high in 2022 as investors vied to secure a limited supply of farmland for sale

Fields of gold

Penny Churchill

Left: Coldham Hall, a 4,179-acre arable estate in Cambridgeshire. £43.5m. Right: Hexton Manor, a 773-acre estate in Hertfordshire. £10m

Currently under offer at a guide price of £5m, Lot 2 comprises the remaining acreage of land, including productive farmland in the north of the estate and the steep wooded valleys to the south that are home to the prestigious Hexton pheasant and partridge shoot, said to be the finest in the northern Home Counties.

Farms and estates in Hampshire are always in short supply and invariably command a premium. Following the launch onto the market, in mid December 2021, of secluded Medstead Grange near Alton, a pristine country house built in 2015 with palatial equestrian facilities set in 152 acres of gardens, parkland and farmland, Will Matthews of Knight Frank clinched a sale to an overseas buyer in June 2022, at a guide price of £16m.

‘It was great to be a seller in 2022, not so great if you were trying to buy,’ says Matt Sudlow of Strutt & Parker, who cites the example of thriving, 508-acre West Farmhouse at Popham, near Micheldever, a much soughtafter part of Hampshire between Basingstoke and Winchester, which came to the market in April, sold in July and completed in September. The buyer was a private investor with farming experience, who paid more than the £7.25m guide price to secure the property, which he plans to farm in hand.

The situation was no less competitive in Oxfordshire, where Mr Sudlow found a buyer for the charming, 498-acre Warborough Farm at Letcombe Regis on the Berkshire Downs, three miles south-west of Wantage, which was relaunched in February following an aborted sale. The farm had everything a country family could wish for—an unlisted Georgian farmhouse, three cottages, modern and traditional farm buildings, stabling, paddocks, woodland, a family shoot and glorious views across the Vale of White

Horse—and was sold after 28 viewings to a lifestyle buyer who exchanged contracts in May and completed in June, at more than the £6.5m guide price.

Although few grand estates made it to the open market in 2022, September saw the launch in C OUNTRY L IFE , at a guide price of £16m, of one of Oxfordshire’s most perfectly situated, but least-known country houses. This was the timeless, Grade II-listed Woodleys at Wootton, three miles from Woodstock,

which sits at the heart of a historic, 230-acre, residential and farming estate on the edge of the Cotswolds AONB, 10 miles from Chipping Norton and 12 miles from Oxford. Will Matthews of Knight Frank reports a recent exchange of contracts on the estate owned by the Ponsonby family since 1881, the focal point of which is the imposing, late-Georgian house, which stands in a serene parkland setting looking south across its gardens towards the golden façade of Blenheim

Left: Medstead Grange, set in 152 acres in Hampshire. £16m. Right: Woodleys, at the heart of a 230-acre estate in Oxfordshire. £16m

Top: West Farmhouse in Hampshire. £7.25m. Above: Warborough Farm, Berkshire. £6.5m

Property market

Palace in the distance—an Arcadian vista little changed in more than 200 years.

Meanwhile, up in Northamptonshire, Mr Matthews found a UK buyer for the 276-acre Steane Park estate, which lies to the east of Farthinghoe village and west of the market town of Brackley, close to the county borders of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Launched on the market in March at a guide price of £9m, the estate centres on a lovely 16th-century stone manor house that was the home of Sir Thomas Crewe, Speaker of the House of Commons in the 17th century, and owned through the 1900s by the Norris brewing family of Brackley, who trained racehorses on Steane Park’s private gallops, a practice continued by the vendors, who bought the estate in 1989. During their tenure, the charming 10-bedroom house, with its cottages, stabling and extensive outbuildings, has been beautifully renovated throughout, with the addition of wonderful gardens that have been regularly opened to the public.

Over in East Anglia, Savills presided over the successful sale, for the first time in more than 100 years, of the multi-faceted, 1,776-acre Exning estate at Exning, two miles north of Newmarket on the Suffolk/Cambridgeshire border, which came to the market in early June at a guide price of £50 million following the death in 2021, at the age of 94, of its longterm sporting owner, Simon Gibson.

Under his stewardship, Exning evolved into a dynamic country estate, with an impressive mix of farming, residential, equestrian, renewable and commercial assets, from the renowned Rossdales Equine Hospital, three stud farms, a DIY livery business and a 155-acre solar farm to the lettings of former aircraft hangars and retail property in Newmarket,

not to mention garages, sports pitches and telecom masts. However, racing was Gibson’s first love and, having inherited not only the estate and business acumen of his uncle, Lord Glanely, but also his famous racing colours, he saw success on the racecourse over the years with horses trained at James Fanshawe’s Pegasus stables in Newmarket. Exning sold as a whole in October to an institutional buyer.

Further north, in Norfolk’s Waveney Valley, Charlie Paton of Savills’s farms and estates team saw the launch onto the market in

March of the high-powered, 1,953-acre Gawdy Hall farming estate near Harleston, 12 miles from Diss and 19 miles from Norwich, at a guide price of £24.25m for the whole or in seven lots.

Although the original ‘big house’ on the estate was demolished in 1939, there remained the original 117-acre landscaped parkland, serpentine lake and ancillary buildings, including the former entrance building and the impressive coach house, which could provide an appropriate setting for a fine new country house, subject to planning. On the other hand, constant reinvestment in the land and buildings over the years has seen the now highly mechanised farm evolve from a payroll of 58 men working 1,050 acres in 1953, to three men working an acreage of almost twice that size today. ‘It was rare to find a ring-fenced, near 2,000-acre farming estate for sale in Norfolk with an extensive residential portfolio, a large block of ancient woodland—the setting for a former shoot— and the potential to create a new principal house in historic parkland,’ said Mr Paton. Gawdy Hall estate sold as a whole in September to a private individual.

Further north again, the top end of the rural property market has been a fruitful one this year for Andrew Black of Savills in York, who handled the successful sales of Grade I-listed Gilling Castle in North Yorkshire and Grade II*-listed Meldon Park in Northumberland, with Grade II*-listed Lartington Hall in Co Durham and Grade Ilisted The Nunnery over in Cumbria both currently under offer.

Known throughout ‘God’s Country’ as the former prep school to Ampleforth College, Gilling Castle failed to find a buyer when

Above left: Steane Park, Northamptonshire. £9m. Above right: Gawdy Hall estate, Norfolk. £24.25m. Below: Exning estate, Suffolk. £50m

Under Simon Gibson’s stewardship, Exning evolved into a dynamic country estate

Reflecting on the second half of 2022, our nettakeaway is that, while demand has tapered and available inventory is trending up,much of the situation at the high-end remains the same: therestillisnot sufficient inventory to meetdemand.

Our prediction forthe year ahead is that we will be moving forwardininches, not feet.Weare heading in the direction of a buyer’smarket,but we will notquitereach it.What we hope to see in 2023 is true market stabilization.

The general sentimentisthat thereis still strong demand forluxury listings, and builderscannotbuild fast enough, which is whywehaveyet to see adramatic reduction in prices. One of the most importantmetrics is overall demand vs supply,and at the luxury level, we simply do nothaveenough supply —orenough of the“right” supply —tomeetthe need.

In the Face of Instabilities, Luxury Real EstateViewedasa Smart, Stable Investment

At thevery topofthe market,buyersare notdependentonmortgages. Forthe most part, transactions continue to be handled in cash, so the recent rate hikes, which havesignificantly slowedthe home mortgage market,havenot impacted this segmentofconsumers.

Furthermore, savvy investorshaveseen the recent,major fluctuations in the stock market —acomponentthat has farmore impact on this tier of buyersthan mortgage rates— and theyrecognizethe advantages of putting their moneyintothe most stable of assetclasses, namely real estate.

MARKET,BUT CERTAINLYMORESO

By Mickey ALAM KHAN

Balance on the Horizon in 2023

In our opinion, 2020, 2021— and even the first half of 2022 —wereanomalies. The year ahead is most likely goingtolooklikewhat we saw in 2019,which wasamorebalanced market.The economyisstill, overall,moving down the rightpath.The economicstrength, coupledwithotherfactors, meansthat we may seea slowdown compared to the explosivetwo-and-a-half yearswejust experienced, butitwillbenowherenear whatwewitnessed in 2008 and 2009

Market to Market: Surprising Observations

Some surprises and keytakeawayswehave observed across our global network at the close of 2022 include:

•In Naples, Florida,the impact from Hurricane Ianhas been an impetus for manywealthyconsumerstoteardown their homes instead of making costly repairs. Our membersinFlorida aretrying to turn losses into positives —rebuild stronger and better structures.

•In Dallas, Texas,wesaw aslowdown earlier this year,but then agradual uptick in the fall. All-cash purchases havebeen atrend throughout big marketsinthe state, and our agents on the ground are still seeing luxury consumersresettle there from the East Coast and California. Texas remains aseller’smarket

•Overseas, in South Africa,for example, prices arenow 10% to 15% belowasking. The South African rand has slipped against astronger British pound and American dollar,which is fueling out-ofmarket sales.

•In Chicago,the number of days-on-market has increased among high-end homes, and therehavebeen pricereductions.

•In Hawaii,the story of lowinventory continues. International interest has notwaned.

In short, while situations certainly vary from one market to the next, we arenot seeing anyevidenceofthe bottom dropping out.

Return of the International Buyer and Little Black Books

An additional prediction for2023 is areturn to events andactivations. Black books and relationships will be in full swing next year Agents areclamoring formorein-person eventsand celebrations. Every happy momentand holiday will be leveraged as an opportunity to gather with clients and, in most cases, reconvene afteryearsof being apart.

We also predict that international sales will continue to rise next year.Visitation levels arestill significantly down from pre-pandemic numbers, but theyare rising. This is akey elementofthe luxury housing market to which notenough attention has been given. Coastal cities, such as NewYork and Miami, boomed because of sales to theinternational visitor.While the market all-but-disappeared due to COVID-19,its eventual return is akey elementofthe buying and selling of luxury residential real estate.

Definition of Home ForeverChanged

And finally,ifthereisone permanentfactor that has changed within the last twoyears, it is that our viewofthe home has shifted from aplacetocrash to acenterofgravity That will notwaver as work-from-home setups continue to be part of everyday living and consumersput an added emphasis on in-home amenities forentertainment, wellness and gatherings.

Mickey ALAM KHAN is NewYork-based presidentofLuxury Portfolio International, the world’sleading network of independentluxury real estate brokerages. He is also founder of Luxury Daily.Instagram: @MickeyAlamKhan

Property market

last offered for sale in 2018. The historic country house, owned by the powerful Fairfax family for 400 years from 1489, was then relaunched on the market in June 2022 with 100-odd acres and a guide price of £3.75m. It sold to a corporate buyer with sheltered housing in mind.

Offered for sale for the first time since 1835, Meldon Park sits in 36 acres of historic wooded parkland overlooking an ancient deer park at the heart of the Cookson family’s 3,800-acre estate, six miles from the market town of Morpeth and 20 miles from Newcastleupon-Tyne. A guide price of £3.5m was quoted for the elegant Georgian house built for Isaac Cookson, the younger son of a successful Newcastle banker, by the prolific northern architect John Dobson, with internal alterations carried out in the 1930s by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Interestingly, it was bought by a buyer relocating from Scotland.

Way out west, the launch onto the market of the idyllic and wonderfully private 920acre Strete estate in the coveted South Hams area of the South Devon AONB, at a guide price of £11.5m through Savills, brought a flood of enquiries from far and wide and sold for ‘considerably more’ than the guide to a buyer with South-West connections. Located within easy reach of the sailing towns of Dartmouth and Salcombe, the estate, which overlooks the quaint coastal village of Strete, had been owned by successive generations of the same family and was in serious need of renovation, notably in the case of the principal house at Higher Fuge Farm, a fine Grade II*-listed Georgian farmhouse built in 1726. Also hidden within the estate are the beautiful and untouched Gara Valley and Strete Gate Beach, which were evacuated and used as a training ground for British and US forces on the run-up to

D-Day. The Gara Valley, which has never been repopulated, provides a valuable habitat for a huge variety of rare flora, fauna and over-wintering birds.

Meanwhile, down in deepest Herefordshire, Matt Sudlow of Strutt & Parker oversaw the launch in May, for the first time in more than 100 years, of the splendidly unspoilt Upleadon Court with its surrounding 201-acre arable and grassland farm, six miles north-west of Ledbury and 13 miles from the cathedral city of Hereford. A guide price of £4m was quoted for the farm with its imposing Georgian main house, the home of the owner, man and boy, who, with no family member to take it on, had finally decided to retire. Here again, fierce competition saw a sale concluded at ‘way over’ the asking price, leaving Mr Sudlow to find words of comfort for the disgruntled under-bidders. ‘I could have sold it 10 times over,’ he says, sadly.

Left: Gilling Castle, a historic country house in North Yorkshire. £3.75m. Right: Georgian Meldon Park in Northumberland. £3.5m

Left: Upleadon Court, a 201-acre farm in Herefordshire. £4m. Right: Strete, a private and idyllic 920-acre estate in Devon. £11.5m

Onestepahead

ALL property marketskickoff with abanginJanuary as new buyers andsellers enterthe fray and, this year,according to the experts, thoseconsidering an acquisitionin therarefied postcodesofprime central London (PCL)can expectstiff competition forthe best-in-show properties.

Thelatestresearch from Savillsfound that primeLondonstill represents an opportunityfor buyers keen to snap up arelative bargain, whichismotivatingpeopletoact; meanwhile, Knight Franksaysitsaw extraordinaryactivitylastyearacrossPCL in particular,where demandconsistently exceedssupply.

Allthese factors mean that thecanniest buyers areincreasingly usingproperty finding agencies to helpthemnavigatethe tricky processof sourcing andacquiring theirperfect home.Asone of thebestknownnames in thebusiness, AWSPrime Property hasbeendeliveringstand-out resultsfor clientsacrossPCL formorethan adecade. Even when mainstream markets arefaltering,prime London remains resilientand nobody knowsthisbetterthan AWSPrime Property,which specialises in finding andsecuringthe finestperiod homes across Kensington &Chelsea, NottingHill,Knightsbridge,Belgravia and

AbuyingagentcanhelppeopleseeoffthefiercecompetitionforprimecentralLondonhomes

Mayfair. London is recognisedacross the worldasa safe havenfor investment, thanks to itsreputationfor culture, heritage,and stability,but this also meansthat theverybestpropertiesatthe topend of themarketare highlysoughtafter

negotiation, acquisitionand anyrenovations required afterapurchase, andits unrivalled networkofcontactsmeans theagentsgain earlyaccesstothe finestand rarest properties in London.With75% of deals done off-market,itis this on-the-ground knowledgethatenables thecompany to locate theperfect primepropertyfor its clientsatthe best possible price.

‘InPrime CentralLondon,lackofstock is abig issueright now. Buyers need to be able to boosttheir chancesofsecuring apurchasebybeing fullyprepared,’ explains Alex Woodleigh-Smith, directoratAWS PrimeProperty. ‘Naturally,wedoalot of this legworkonour buyers’behalf, helping to leap-frogmanyother non-represented buyers,which givesusanadded advantage.’

Thecompany offers acompleteend-toendservice covering property search,

With decadesofexperienceasbuying agents,AWS PrimePropertyisdiscreetand professional.Accustomedtoworking with clientsthatare basedoverseasand have global portfolios—aswellaswiththeir family offices andwealthmanagers— AWS agents usetheir detailed knowledgeofevery single streetand square across PCLtosave clients time andmoney in theirsearch for apropertythatrepresentsnot only aterrific exampleofthe extraordinarybuilt heritage of this historic city,but also afantastic investment forthe future

Find outmoreatwww.awsprime.com Instagram:@aws_prime_property

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Workingwithanexperiencedbuyingagent is keytosecuringabest-in-class property at theright priceinthe competitiveprime centralLondonmarket

In primecentral London, lack of stock is an issue. Buyers need to be fullyprepared