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PPA MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR 2019

EVERY WEEK | JANUARY 29, 2020

Ash to ashes

Is this the great tree’s last stand?

Don McCullin’s landscape photography Vizslas: dogs with va-va-voom

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HARROGATE, YORKSHIRE

L

oftus Hill is a wonderful Grade II listed private home with outstanding interiors, beautifully situated in the middle of a mature estate. The setting is exceptionally private, but conveniently only seven miles from Harrogate with its good commuter links to London and Edinburgh.

6 B E D R O O M S | 6 B AT H R O O M S | 6 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S 2 C O T TA G E S | T I T H E B A R N | T E N N I S C O U R T | W O O D L A N D & F O R M A L G A R D E N S | A P P R O X . 4 2 .6 8 A C R E S K N A R E S B O R O U G H 3 M I L E S | YO R K 2 2 M I L E S ( L O N D O N K I N G S C R O S S 1 H O U R 5 0 M I N S )

Knight Frank London & Harrogate edward.welton@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1114 daniel.rigg@knightfrank.com 01423 535 373 Ref: HAR080228

knightfrank.co.uk

T H E N AT I O N A L AG E N T S LO C A L S R E C O M M E N D

HAMPSHIRE HAWKLEY

7

4

ACRES 5.58

5

An exceptional and well restored Listed Grade II period village house with an excellent cottage, beautiful garden and grounds and southerly views to The Hangers, protected in the South Downs National Park.

PRICE ON APPLICATION

jackson-stops.co.uk

Please contact

WINCHESTER OFFICE

PROPERTY EXPERTS SINCE 1910

01962 844299

winchester@jackson-stops.co.uk

WELLS, SOMERSET

A

pproached via a long drive, this elegant Georgian country house overlooks superb landscaped grounds with a lake and a small waterfall. The property is surrounded by the beautiful countryside of the Mendip Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

5 B E D R O O M S | 4 B AT H R O O M S | 5 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S C O A C H H O U S E /A N N E X E | T E N N I S C O U R T | L A K E | W O O D L A N D & PA S T U R E | A P P R O X . 1 3 . 1 9 A C R E S | E P C E W E L L S 1 . 5 M I L E S | G L A S T O N B U R Y 8 M I L E S | C A S T L E C A R Y 1 4 M I L E S ( L O N D O N PA D D I N G T O N 9 0 M I N S )

Guide price ÂŁ2,500,000 Knight Frank London & Bristol james.mckillop@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1528 james.toogood@knightfrank.com 01173 171 991 Ref: BRS190338

knightfrank.co.uk

Stunning Queen Anne Manor House Hinwick, Bedfordshire Bedford Train Station: 14.6 miles (London St Pancras from 47 minutes), Central London: 68 miles Grade I listed Hinwick House has been beautifully renovated and restored for modern living. The estate consists of the main house, further Victorian wing and numerous outbuildings. 4 reception rooms, 2 kitchens, 12 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 4 flats, licensed function rooms, stables/tack room, 3 cottages, outbuildings, formal gardens including a Georgian walled garden, orchard, paddock, mature parkland, 2 lakes and woodland.

About 37 acres | Guide ÂŁ8.5 million

Hugh Maconochie Savills London Country Department 020 3925 1066 hmaconochie @savills.com

Crispin Holborow Savills London Country Department 020 3925 1524 cholborow@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Somerset, Ston Easton

A magnificent Grade I listed country house with exceptional decorative interiors and beautiful Grade II listed Humphry Repton gardens Bath: 11 miles, Bristol: 13 miles, Wells: 7 miles, Bristol international airport: 12 miles 7 Reception rooms | 20 Bedroom suites, domestic offices, extensive lower ground floor Grade II listed gardeners cottage with 3 bedroom suites | Grade II* listed coach house | Lodge cottage Further outbuildings | Grade II listed gardens arranged around the River Norr In all about 28.4 acres

60 Offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

James Mackenzie Country Department | 020 3642 4591

/struttandparker

Andrew Cronan Country Department | 020 3642 4591

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

property showcase

Welshpool, Powys

£545,000 guide price

Woodhouse Eaves, Leicestershire

£1,295,000

Sand Hutton, North Yorkshire

£1,000,000 offers in excess of

A modern four bedroom house featuring open views, located in an elevated position in the parkland setting of Llanerchydol Hall.

Contact: Shrewsbury office 01743 534852

A remodelled detached family home situated in an award-winning development in one of Charnwood Forest’s most desirable villages.

Contact: Melton Mowbray 01664 518924

Substantial, luxurious and beautifully appointed family house in an enviable village location near York.

Contact: York office 01904 595677

Aboyne, Aberdeenshire

Ledbury, Herefordshire

Elmley Castle, Worcestershire

£500,000 offers over

£385,000 guide price

£759,000 guide price

A charming detached traditional property in the heart of Royal Deeside. Uninterrupted views and approximately 4.3 acres in total.

Contact: Aberdeen office 01224 939808

A charming and well-presented three bedroom cottage with large garden situated in a quiet rural village location.

Contact: Ledbury office 01531 577983

A beautifully presented detached four/five bedroom house with a wood burning stove, set in a quiet village location.

Contact: Broadway office 01386 324931

Llandrindod Wells, Powys

Bellerby, North Yorkshire

Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

£400,000 offers over

A stunning Edwardian seven bed house, set in private gardens on the edge of Lakeside Park. Near town centre, golf and bowls clubs.

Contact: Llandrindod Wells 01597 469995

£410,000 guide price

Bramley, a beautifully presented four bedroom detached family house with garage, parking and rear gardens in a quiet cul-de-sac.

Contact: Leyburn office 01969 738984

£1,199,950

An impressive and modern eight bedroom family house with indoor pool complex. Set in over 3 acres of garden and grounds.

Contact: Lincoln office 01522 397789

To view these and the fi est selection of premium proper ies, search See www.onthemarket.com/newandexclusive. Agents specify exclusivity. Agents’ Mutual Limited – A company limited by guarantee. Company No: 8381458.

Registered Office: PO Box 450, 155-157 High Street, Aldershot GU11 9FZ, England.

All these properties appeared exclusively with us 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.

Dorstone, Herefordshire

£425,000

Coniston Cold, North Yorkshire

£499,500

Carlisle, Cumbria

£375,000 guide price

A beautiful three bed family home with countryside views, situated in a sought-after cul-de-sac in the village of Dorstone.

Contact: Hay-on-Wye office 01497 557981

Lowlands Farm is a Grade II listed stunning detached five bedroom residence situated in the sought-after village of Coniston Cold.

Contact: Skipton office 01756 317973

Charming light-filled period detached property, originally an 1800s farmhouse of grand proportions enjoying some period features.

Contact: Penrith office 01768 257978

Sydling St Nicholas, Dorset

Haughton, Staffordshire

Chippenham, Wiltshire

£1,500,000 guide price

£750,000

£1,650,000 guide price

A fine 18th Century Grade II* listed house with classic country charm, set in the heart of one of Dorset’s prettiest villages.

Contact: Sherborne office 01935 590900

Highly individual spacious property occupying a stunning plot in a tranquil location with grounds extending to approx. 3.3 acres.

Contact: Stafford office 01785 292858

A unique four bedroom Grade II listed property with a wealth of history surrounded by fields and the Bybrook.

Contact: Bath office 01225 288677

Oxspring, South Yorkshire

Exeter, Devon

Wakes Colne, Essex

£895,000 offers in region of

Occupying a superb position with spectacular views, this substantial detached home is in an idyllic yet commutable position.

Contact: Penistone office 01226 417787

£800,000 guide price

Detached period property surrounded by enchanting grounds of approx. 18.1 acres, set in a rural position just 4 miles from Exeter.

Contact: Exeter office 01392 976715

£895,000 offers in excess of

A beautifully presented Grade II listed four bedroom detached thatched cottage, set in an acre and a half of gardens.

Contact: Maldon office 01621 467922

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Explore the exceptional

MARGARET GREEN

End of the Day

oil on canvassed board

49 x 31 cms

1925Ð2003

191 ∕4 x 121 ∕4 ins

A gilt framed landscape leans against the wall, a pair of ladies shoes beneath.

End of the Day could be viewed as a tribute to the painterly partnership Margaret enjoyed with Lionel Bulmer (1919–1992). The artists were seldom seen apart. They married shortly before Lionel’s death but Margaret never managed to paint again.

The Studio, Lord’s Wood, Marlow, Bucks SL7 2QS Tel: +44 (0)1628 486565 www.messums.com E:info@messums.com New Gallery Opening Spring 2020: 12 Bury Street, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6AB

18 – 24 March 2020

Duke of York Square, King’s Road, London SW3 4LY theopenar tfair.com theopenar tfair

An inspiring destination for collectors and designers in the hear t of Chelsea

COUNTRY LIFE VOL CCXIV NO 5, JANUARY 29, 2020

Miss Emily McVeigh Emily is the middle daughter of Mr and Mrs David McVeigh of Kenton Hall, Debenham, Suffolk. Educated at Framlingham College, Suffolk, she is responsible for transforming Kenton Hall into a wedding venue and establishing a luxury glamping site and cookery school there. Emily is the former chairwoman of the Under 30s Farmers Club in Whitehall, London SW1.

Photographed by Chris Ridley

Alamy

Contents January 29, 2020

Fly-fishing through the wardrobe: will the salmon season on the River Tweed open on Saturday with the Narnia-style scenes of 2019?

This week 32 Judith Weir’s favourite painting The Master of The Queen’s Music picks a saintly portrait

An ash tree in Derbyshire (Alex Hyde/ Nature Picture Library)

Cover stories 34 The tree of life fights on Our beloved ash is facing tough times. Mark Griffiths celebrates this historic, irrepressible tree

40 A worthy man and a good patriot Roger White unravels the story of the building—and rebuilding —of Herringston in Dorset, known for a spectacular early17th-century plaster ceiling 46 It’s coming home Owain Jones is buoyant about England’s chances in the Six Nations rugby, as he assesses all the teams’ prospects

48 Shadow in the landscape Sir Don McCullin is known for his powerful images from the front line, but his landscapes are equally stirring. Mary Miers visits him in his Somerset home

58 Interiors A Queen Anne townhouse and why motoring giant Bentley is leading the way in interior design

54 The golden touch Katy Birchall falls for the russetgold Hungarian vizsla, the charming velcro dog of royalty with outstanding sporting ability

62 Luxury New vodka and Scottish chocolate, the scented history of Penhaligon’s and Jenny Seagrove’s favourite things

20 Country Life, January 29, 2020

74 A Veneto affair Two fair gardens, Giardino Giusti in Verona and Villa Fracanzan Piovene, near Vicenza, in Italy are alike in more than dignity, reveals Jenny Condie 82 How could things go so right?

Michael Billington finds a Mischief Theatre show to admire 88 Kitchen garden cook Melanie Johnson unleashes a burst of flavour in a gloomy month with pomegranates

Every week 22 Town & Country 26 Notebook 28 Letters 29 Agromenes 30 Athena 68 Property market 72 Property comment 80 In the garden 84 Art market 86 Exhibition 89 Bridge and crossword 90 Classified advertisements 94 Spectator 94 Tottering-by-Gently

COUNTRY LIFE

The perfect start to the New Year.

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The first farewell S

O it comes to pass at last: at 11pm this Friday, Britain will leave the European Union after 47 years of membership. Some will celebrate; others will weep. What everyone agrees, however, is that it will be a momentous night.

How events will play out from that moment forward is anybody’s guess. Nevertheless, there is a great deal that needs to be done urgently at home if we are to bring the rancour and division that Brexit has generated under control. We have fallen into the way of dogmatic argument—over climate change, food, the environment, HS2—and it’s preventing sensible consensus.

We need the Government to act decisively, but sensitively to the needs of the moment.

If those who favoured remaining in the EU now generally accept the decision, by a small majority, to leave, then it’s important that their concerns are properly acknowledged.

The British people never had one view on this subject and never will. Neither opinion

represented more than 40% of the electorate.

Without that recognition, not only does the future stability of the Union hang in the balance, but so, too, does the claim of our political system to represent the UK as a whole.

We must make manifest those national characteristics for which we are admired– fairness and decency No less urgent is the need for honesty in public discourse about the responsibilities we inherit from our period of European membership. Britain’s prosperity and openness over this period have brought many people from across the EU to our shores.

It has also sent many Britons abroad. For all

those involved in that two-way traffic, this must be a worrying time. If there was ever a moment when we must make manifest those national characteristics for which we are admired—fairness and decency—then now, surely, is it.

Although this change will profit some, it threatens others with economic uncertainty and—in some cases—outright loss, for how long we know not. The plight of such individuals and communities should not be swept under the carpet, but confronted and addressed by the State.

As for the moment of departure itself, for those who welcome it and have fought long for it, the fact of our exit from the EU should be satisfaction enough without triumphalism.

There remains a great deal to fight for and the final settlement of countless issues is in the balance. To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, we have not yet witnessed the end, nor yet even the beginning of the end, but, at last, the end of the beginning of Brexit.

PPA Magazine Brand of the Year 2019 PPA Front Cover of the Year 2018 British Society of Magazine Editors Scoop of the Year 2015/16 PPA Specialist Consumer Magazine of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Innovation of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Columnist of the Year (Special Interest) 2016 Editor Mark Hedges Editor’s PA/Travel Rosie Paterson 555062 Editorial Assistant Phoebe Bath 555046 Telephone numbers are prefixed by 01252 Emails are name.surname@ti-media.com Editorial enquiries 555046 DeputyEditor Kate Green 555063 Managing & Features Editor Paula Lester 555068 Architectural Editor John Goodall 555064 Gardens Editor Tiffany Daneff 555067 Fine Arts & Books Editor Mary Miers 555066 ExecutiveEditorandInteriorsGilesKime555083 DeputyFeaturesEditorVictoriaMarston 555079 Acting News & Property Editor James Fisher 555089 Luxury Editor Hetty Lintell 555071

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Country Life, January 29, 2020 21

Town & Country

Edited by James Fisher

T

HE devil is in the detail’ is the response from countryside groups to the proposed Agriculture Bill. The Bill, which was reintroduced to Parliament on January 16, promises to ‘unleash the potential of the farming sector for decades to come’.

The reaction from groups such as the NFU, CLA, Rare Breeds Survival Trust and CPRE has been positive, with praise for the Bill’s focus on the environment, the soil and financial protections for farmers. There is concern, however, on a lack of specifics, especially during the transition period that begins on January 31.

Mark Bridgeman, president of the CLA, says: ‘The Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) is a oncein-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape

The Agriculture Bill has been broadly welcomed, but the Government must listen to farmers, not only to ‘green’ campaigners

The Agriculture Bill at a glance • Current system of direct payments to be replaced by targeted payments that reward ‘public goods’, such as better air and water quality, higher animal-welfare standards, improved access to the countryside or measures to reduce flooding • Direct payments will be phased out during an ‘agricultural transition period’ that will last seven years • Agricultural policy will be devolved • Defra will invest in supporting farmers to improve productivity and will monitor, evaluate and report on financial-assistance schemes, allowing for scrutiny on how well the schemes work 22 Country Life, January 29, 2020

farming policy and further prove the environmental credentials of the farming community.’ He warns, however, that ‘removing direct payments before the new schemes are ready will put otherwise viable businesses at risk unnecessarily’.

The Bill is “one of the most significant pieces of legislation for farmers in England for more than 70 years” The president of the NFU, Minette Batters, was also encouraged, stating that ‘it’s one of the most significant pieces of legislation for farmers in England for more than 70 years’.

She continues: ‘With the right policy framework in place, we can build on this to lead the world in the production of climate-friendly food and realise our ambitions to reach net zero by 2040.’

However, Mrs Batters also strikes a note of caution. She warns that ‘with our future relationship with the EU, our largest export market for agri-food products, still unclear, the Government must ensure farmers

remain sufficiently supported to weather any economic storms ahead’.

Although the Bill undoubtedly places the environment front and centre, there is concern about what this might mean to farmers themselves. Jamie Blackett, Galloway farmer and COUNTRY LIFE contributor, worries that some policies the Government might see as ‘environmentally friendly’ may not line up with the experience of those on the ground. ‘I want to farm in as green a way as possible, and I very much see myself as a conservationist, as well as a farmer,’ he says, ‘but there are big arguments over the interpretation of what “green” is.

‘We have divergent opinions from those who work in the green industry, whether that’s on biodiversity or habitat management,’ he continues.

‘One only need look at heather management in the uplands to see what I mean—there’s ample science to support both sides, so who is the Government going to listen to? The strapline is “public money for public goods”, but it has to be understood that that is what the Common Agricultural Policy was all about. Food was seen as a public good… and there is now some debate in Whitehall about whether it is a public good or not in the “time of plenty” that we live in.

‘The battles over Brexit are only just beginning for the countryside.’ www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy; Getty

Farming’s future

For all the latest news, visit countrylife.co.uk

Plug in at the pub

Good week for Central-London landmarks Tourist coaches will be prevented from parking with idling engines

by Westminster Council, which will replace spaces with cycle racks and electric-car charging points

R

URAL post offices are shutting, tea shops struggling and ubs seem fewer and far ween, but the countryside might receive a boost from an unlikely source—electric vehicles or, rather, the necessity to charge them.

Marston’s, the brewer and pub chain, started installing rapid-charging stations in 2018 and it’s hoped other companies will follow suit. About 80 miles of charge can be added in 20–30 minutes at the stations and, in theory, electric-vehicle owners will spend the charging time shopping or eating, thus stimulating other businesses nearby. Marston’s has partnered with Engenie, which manufactures the charging points, to place 400 chargers at the company’s 200 sites. Ian Johnston, CEO of Engenie, told The Times: ‘We think rapid charging will mean people sit down, check their emails or have a meal. Other pub chains are looking at it now. They understand where this market is heading.’

Electric vehicles made up only 1.6% of the car market in 2019, but Marston’s Andy Kershaw notes: ‘We have seen a noticeable increase in demand. We hope to add our 100th site this year.’

Hair dye Scientists have proven what we does turn ir grey own has d that n 73 million mes worldde have een the how about ur Royal Family

Stuck in a paper jam T

HE future of the Stonehenge Tunnel appears to be no closer to being resolved, as the Treasury and ministers battle over whether the project should go ahead. The Treasury believes the £2 billion project doesn’t represent value for money, but Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is committed to its construction. The tunnel aims to remove the notorious bottleneck on the A303, described as ‘the world’s most scenic traffic jam’. Sajid Javid, the Chancellor, told the Financial Times he wouldn’t comment on rumours, before adding: ‘Wait until my national infrastructure strategy, which will be published alongside the Budget.’

The Government’s first budget will take place on March 11.

COUNTRY LIFE We have achieved our 10th successive ABC increase. In the future, it will probably be easier to tell you when we haven’t accomplished this feat

Bad week for Sunningdale The Surrey town’s golf club spent £475,000 in legal fees to remove a member who was accused of dodging membership fees. The club was unsuccessful HS2 A leaked report suggests that the true cost of the high-speed railway has almost doubled, to £106bn Unmarried couples The Church of England declares that sex is only for married heterosexual couples and everyone else should abstain. Henry VIII founded the Church of England Greggs The bakery is universally adored, except by Piers Morgan and, now, Cornwall. The only Greggs in the county was closed after a backlash from locals over the selling of pasties

What is life in the countryside without endless fundraisers to repair the village hall? Yet, for some, they may no longer be necessary, as the Government revealed that 21 projects across the countryside have been awarded £1.2 million for repairs and refurbishments. The announcement was made last week to kick off the third edition of Village Halls Week, a campaign to celebrate our beloved rural community spaces, such as in Hambleden, Buckinghamshire (above) www.countrylife.co.uk

Rainy d George attacked Braintre removin windscreen wipers

Country Life, January 29, 2020 23

Town & Country

For the chop?

A

Return of the snowdrop

B

ELIEVE it or not, the days are getting longer and the darkness of December is firmly in the rear-view mirror. For further evidence of spring’s soft approach, look down, not up—sure enough, the first snowdrops will soon be staring right back at you. Across Britain, these hardy plants are pushing through and bringing sleeping gardens back to life. Galanthus, the milk flower, is here.

T a time when emphasis should be on eating red meat that is traceable, the decline of small, local abattoirs is a worry. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare, which is producing a report on the subject this spring, has received many submissions from farmers concerned by the ‘black hole’ in parts of the country that means live animals must be transported an unacceptable distance for slaughter and even prompts odd cases of illegal on-farm killing.

According to the Sustainable Food Trust (SFT), which is campaigning to save local abattoirs, problems include bureaucracy, infrastructure and waste-disposal costs and the plummeting value of hides—20 years ago, cattle hides made £45 and sheepskins £6.50; now, it’s only £1 for hides and nothing for skins. The SFT is calling for emergency funding for small abattoirs, support for by-product and related industries, such as tanning, clearer labelling for consumers and market fairness. It says: ‘Food production must not be seen in narrow terms; the entire chain must be included if we are to create solutions that will result in low food miles, high welfare and ecological benefits.’

‘It would be more economical for us to close,’ says Callum Edge, seventh-generation owner of an abattoir in the Wirral, ‘but we want to stay open for the integrity and traceability of the meat we sell and for the benefit of local farmers.’

Christopher Price of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust adds: ‘We have lots of willing farmers who want to keep native breeds and lots of willing consumers... but we need the infrastructure that allows us to kill and process them.’ KG

All white on the night: where to see snowdrops The NGS Snowdrop Festival runs from February 1–28, with 105 gardens scheduled to take part. For a full list of participating gardens, visit ngs.org.uk/ snowdrops or download the NGS app. The National Trust offers many Galanthus displays; visit www.nationaltrust. org.uk/features/placesto-see-snowdrops Further north, the Scottish Snowdrop Festival runs until March 11 (www.visit scotland. com)

Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire Last year, 120,000 snowdrops were planted in memory of the late Lady Rothschild to create an exceptional display (www.waddesdon.org.uk)

Painswick Rococo Garden, Gloucestershire Bring your boots and enjoy a winter walk through more than five million snowdrops (www. rococogarden.org.uk)

Welford Park, Berkshire (above) The home of The Great British Bake Off will be replacing the white marquee with scores of white petals (www. welfordpark.co.uk)

Knowle Hill Farm, Kent This two-acre garden on the North Downs offers spectacular views, as well as snowdrops (www.ngs.org.uk)

72, Church Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire Snowdrops in urbe, this private garden is open to visitors on February 23 (www.ngs.org.uk)

Gelli Uchaf, Carmarthenshire Trees and shrubs are underplanted with thousands of snowdrops in this organic garden. Open by arrangement (www. ngs.org.uk)

After The ‘alarmingly humanoid’ face of a lamb at the centre of the Ghent Altarpiece has surprised art historians and shocked Before social media. The central panel of Jan van Eyck’s The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb was recently restored, leading to the unexpected discovery. On Twitter, art historian Shannon Stirone said: ‘I have mixed feelings about this iconic creature turning into something that looks like it’s about to tell you that you left the fridge door open’ www.countrylife.co.uk

Country Mouse The quick brown fox

T

Swimming for a new status

R

ESIDENTS of the West Yorkshire town of Ilkley have discovered that Yorkshire Water has been dumping untreated sewage into the River Wharfe (above). The river is popular with swimmers and fishermen in the summer so, rather than staying out of the water, locals are fighting back by demanding the spot be designated a bathing area, which would force the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water to clean it up. If the designation is granted, the Wharfe would be the first river in the UK to be given the status, potentially paving the way for other inland waterways across the country to combat the dumping of sewage. At the moment, only 14% of rivers in Britain are rated as Good under the EU Water Framework Directive.

Becky Malby, who helped set up the Ilkley Clean River campaign, told The Guardian: ‘What we uncovered here is happening all over the country. We are using our application for bathing-water status as a vehicle for us to generate enough support from both the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water to put in the development that is needed to make sure we have a clean river.’

A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water says: ‘We continue to have a constructive relationship with the Ilkley Clean River group and support its application to achieve bathing-water designation for the River Wharfe.’ The Environment Agency notes: ‘Although water quality has improved dramatically over the past decade, we acknowledge there is much more to do.’

Reasons to raise a glass (or two)

I

T’S only three days until the end of Dry January and the good news is that those lusting for that first pint or glass of wine this year will be a little more spoilt for choice than before. That’s because, for the first time in a decade, the number of pubs in the UK has risen. We had 315 more watering holes in 2019 than in the previous year, says the Office for National Statistics, pushing the total number up to 39,130. Cheers to that. www.countrylife.co.uk

IGER, the labrador, definitely not a lazy dog, takes her responsibilities very seriously. She is accountable for keeping the squirrels from digging up the bulbs in Rachel’s delightful garden, but, most of all, for defending the space from foxes. Tiger is, to say the least, obsessive about this role, but in Barnes in London, this is no bad thing: the place is crawling with the vulpine hordes.

The foxes walk with the strut and style of a triumphant matador along the tops of the wooden fences that divide the gardens. Bold in broad daylight, they are brazen by dusk, seeking squatter’s rights in and under the sheds unless Tiger, hackles rising, explodes out of the kitchen door.

It becomes worse at this time of year, the vulpine mating season. Everywhere stinks of their cheap perfume and the yelping and screaming at night sounds like a teenage rave that has got completely out of hand.

As a countryman, I have to admit that Barnes’s foxes look in excellent condition—they are living very well. Sunday night is fiesta night, as all the bins are put out for collection and, by the morning, the streets are strewn with debris. I do worry that all this is getting out of control, but my concern is nothing compared with Tiger’s. MH

Town Mouse

L

A fresh approach to hot drinks

AST weekend, I was relaxing at home when one of the children walked up to me cradling a cup of hot chocolate. They held it ostentatiously, as if to underline the fact that they had successfully undertaken a new and challenging task. Indeed, they are not encouraged to make hot drinks unsupervised and hot chocolate is not a staple of their diet. Conscious of both facts, the child proudly offered me a sip. The drink, they explained, was a leftover Christmas treat and they had been saving it up. They virtuously added that they had also tidied up the kitchen after making it.

Apart from the fact that it was surprisingly tepid, I dismissed the chocolate from my mind and decided to make a drink for myself. On arrival, the kitchen didn’t strike me as very tidy. That became a secondary concern, however, when the kettle wouldn’t switch on; it had been used to make the chocolate. Inside, murky water swilled around and the filament was covered in a black residue of burnt milk. No wonder the drink had been cold. Half an hour later, after industrious cleaning, the kettle was restored to action. The ban on making hot drinks unsupervised has been reinstated and will be strictly enforced. JG Country Life, January 29, 2020 25

Town & Country Notebook Quiz of the week 1) The Keirin and the Omnium are events in which Olympic sport?

2) Which Biblical figure is said to have died at the age of 969?

3) At 78%, the Earth’s atmosphere is largely composed of which gas?

4) With 26 awards, who holds the record for winning the most Oscars?

5) Translated literally, what is foie gras in English?

Riddle me this I can be cracked, played or told— what am I?

Edited by Victoria Marston

Oh, the agony!

Resident agony uncle Kit Hesketh-Harvey solves your dilemmas

Dipping a toe

Q

I can’t swim—not even a doggy paddle. This mightn’t sound like a very serious problem, but it’s a secret I’ve kept for years. I’m petrified of water and it’s something I desperately want to overcome, but fear I’ve left it too late in life. I can’t exactly join children’s swimming lessons… can I? D. S., Wiltshire

A

No, you probably can’t. Such a shame— learning to swim in mixed-age groups is so rarely anything but an innocent delight. However, this is a serious problem, as you are missing out on one of life’s fundamental pleasures, be it wild swimming in a silken tarn on a summer’s day, bodyboarding onto white sand or soothing the blistering heat of a Greek noon in a blue infinity pool.

I have a suggestion. Have you considered a budget cruising holiday? The sun deck will have showers. From there, take incremental steps: the jacuzzi, the plunge pool, the flume, a lilo at the shallow end of the pool. The overcrowding and bonhomie will mean that, even should you splash around in the children’s pool, no one will look at you askance.

Time to 100 years ago in

COUNTRY LIFE January 31, 1920

The tree sparrow

T

HE two species of sparrow have many points in common but the tree sparrow is more shy and retiring and seldom aggressively familiar or truculent, like the house sparrow. Both birds are found near human habitations, but the tree sparrow is of a peaceable and quiet disposition. His call note is less shrill than the house sparrow’s, and is frequently uttered on the wing. He does not exasperate your frayed nerves in the early morning by the continuous repetition of ear-splitting notes. I often think that the house sparrow does this out of pure cussedness, and ‘only does it to annoy because he knows it teases’.

I have sometimes flung every available thing at a house sparrow in order to silence him. This is only a waste of energy.—Miss.

E. L. Turner 1) Track cycling 2) Methuselah 3) Nitrogen 4) Walt Disney 5) Fat liver Riddle me this: A joke

26 Country Life, January 29, 2020

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Another log on the fire By Oliver Preston

The British wine trade In his final column, Harry Eyres celebrates the romance and splendour of our wine scene

Unmissable events Exhibition Until April 20 ‘The Art of the Brick’ (below), Great Northern Warehouse, Peter Street, Manchester. Nathan Sawaya’s extraordinary sculptures made from millions of Lego bricks—including an interpretation of the Mona Lisa —return to the UK. Adult tickets £14.50 (020–3773 8995; www. aotbmanchester.co.uk) Until March 15 ‘Saad Qureshi: Something About Paradise’, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, West Yorkshire. Exploration of paradise through three ‘monumental organic forms’ composed of landscapes and buildings, plus seven ornate wooden gates in the 18th-century chapel (01924 832631; www.ysp.org.uk)

Alamy

February 8–April 19 ‘Dissent and Displacement: A Modern Story’, New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, Leicestershire.

Major new show by artist Monica Petzal, celebrating storytelling and reflection in large-scale panels, inspired by the museum’s German Expressionist collections (0116– 225 4900; www.visitleicester.info) Half term February 15–23 Living with Nature, Hever Castle & Gardens, Edenbridge, Kent. Follow a nature www.countrylife.co.uk

trail to discover wildlife and animal tracks, watch a falconry display and enjoy workshops and face painting.

Standard admission applies (01732 865224; www.hevercastle.co.uk) Gardens February 2 Seedy Sunday, Brighton, Hove & Sussex Sixth Form College, Hove, East Sussex.

The UK’s biggest seed-swapping event includes talks from experts, refreshments and child/parent activities. 10.30am–4pm, adult entry £3 (www.seedysunday.org) Book now March 25 and April 3 Magnolia Tour, Borde Hill Garden, Haywards

Heath, West Sussex. Learn about the history of some 180 trees and shrubs, such as Magnolia sprengeri var. diva, the goddess magnolia. The Magnolia Gardiner Grove, planted two years ago with 48 specimens, will also be coming into bloom.

11am–12 noon, adult tickets £12, advance booking required (01444 450326; www.bordehill.co.uk) March 28–April 15 Rusalka, London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2. English National Opera presents Dvorák’s haunting tale of a love-struck water-nymph who chooses to become human.

Tickets from £10 (020–7845 9300; www.eno.org)

One of the pleasures of writing this column for the past five years has been appreciating and charting the constant evolution of the wine scene: realising that brilliant Pinot Noirs can be made in the Mosel valley, as well as in Burgundy, the Sonoma Coast and Central Otago; seeing a floral, Côte-Rôtie-esque style of Syrah emerging in Australia; Italy and Spain revealing more riches, including from lesser-known grape varieties such as Fiano, Aglianico, Godello and Mencia; and even southern England emerging as a seriously good producer of sparkling wine.

I celebrate the dedicated producers who battle the elements and pests to make this possible. However, I also want to celebrate, in the last of this run of columns, the unique and magnificent British wine trade, the importers, wholesalers and retailers who scour the wine world to bring its glories to our tables. The British, I think, are more romantic about wine than any other people (much more so than the French or Italians) and British wine merchants tend to be passionate, often very clever hedonists and obsessives.

The wine trade in Britain is—in part—seen as a gentlemanly calling, whereas, in France, it is rather different, as I remember from the looks on faces when I told French friends my father (one of those clever romantics) was un marchand de vin. Our wine trade, from the grandeur of the St James’s carriage outfits (Berry Bros & Rudd, Justerini & Brooks) to splendid regional merchants such as Tanners of Shrewsbury and D. Byrne of Clitheroe, to specialist importers such as Alpine Wines, to Waitrose and Majestic, is the most expert and open-minded there is. Let’s enjoy and make use of it while it continues to thrive.

Country Life, January 29, 2020 27

Letters to the Editor

A family affair

I

Let it grow

I

N your recent editorial ‘See the wood for the trees’ (Leader, January 8) you suggest ‘we should let existing hedgerows grow and plant more of them to complement modern farming’. Building on your welcome proposal, should we not nurture the extensive stock of tree saplings within existing hedgerows, to allow them to grow to maturity? With established root systems, the species within hedgerows (native and non-native) show a rate of growth within a single season that a newly planted sapling takes many years to match—all of which is lost when the hedgerow receives its annual trim. Perhaps a scheme for landowners could identify suitable trees at intervals within hedgerows and safeguard them during hedge cutting? The result would surely be the emergence, within a matter of years, of many semi-mature trees, with a high survival rate, minimal loss of agricultural land and at almost no cost to landowners or government.

Edward Platt, Suffolk

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

AM a guide at Haworth Parish Church, West Yorkshire, so was particularly interested in your article on Anne Brontë (January 15). However, the two eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, and their mother, Maria, were not buried in the graveyard, but rather in what is referred to as the ‘Brontë vault’ inside the church (below).

The remainder of the family—Patrick, Branwell, Aunt Elizabeth, Emily and Charlotte—are also buried there.

Anne is, indeed, buried at Scarborough, where she died. The vault itself is actually a grave of two adjoining shafts, each four coffins deep, with a wall down the middle.

It isn’t marked, but there are three memorials in the immediate vicinity.

The site was verified by the diocesan archaeologist a couple of years ago, due to the large number of queries received from visitors.

David Pearson, West Yorkshire

Y

ES, definitely ban the sale of horticultural peat, but we need to go further (Agromenes, January 15), or charging the public for plastic bags is absurd and hypocritical. Charge the customer for a paper bag, perhaps, but an outright ban in supermarkets of any plastics is essential. Supermarkets can well afford to make these changes.

Jane Nicholson, Gloucestershire

D

RIVING on the A35 near Poundbury in Dorset, I noticed this sign.

Does anyone know what it means?

Netta Millar, by email

Young faithful

R

Contactus (photographs welcome)

Make that change

I saw the sign

Email: countrylife_letters@ti-media.com

Post: Letters to the Editor, COUNTRY LIFE Editorial, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Hampshire GU14 7BF (with a daytime telephone number, please) TI Media Limited reserves the right to edit and to reuse in any format or medium submissions to the letters page of COUNTRY LIFE N.B. If you wish to contact us about your subscription, including regarding changes of address, please ring Magazines Direct on 0330 333 1120

EADERS were no doubt amused

by Britain’s naughtiest dogs (October 23, 2019), but the antics of winner Pici might be offset by the heroics of Antipodean Jack Russell Wolfy, who stayed with his three-year-old mistress, Matilda, when the toddler got lost on her parents’ 910,000-acre beef-cattle property in western Australia recently.

Flash flooding cut the pair off and left them caked in thick red mud for 36 hours. Three helicopters were scrambled as police search parties and stockmen on horseback scoured the wild bush country. When a pilot saw Matilda, her faithful 10-month-old puppy was by her side. Wolfy’s devotion puts him in line for the RSPCA’s top animal-bravery award.

Bruce Stannard, New South Wales, Australia

COUNTRY LIFE, ISSN 0045-8856, is published weekly by TI Media Limited, 3rd Floor, 161, Marsh Wall, London, E14 9AP, United Kingdom. COUNTRY LIFE Subscriptions: For enquiries and orders, please email: help@magazinesdirect.com, alternatively from the UK call: 0330 333 1120, overseas call: + 44 330 333 1120 (Lines are open Monday–Saturday, 8am- 6pm GMT excluding Bank Holidays). One year full subscription rates: 1 Year (51) issues. UK £213.70; Europe/Eire € 380 (delivery 3–5 days); USA $460 (delivery 5–12 days); Rest of World £359 (delivery 5–7 days). Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to COUNTRY LIFE, Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named Air Business, c/o Liberty Express Distributions USA LLC, Suite 201, 153–63 Rockaway Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at TI Media Ltd, Rockwood House, 9–16, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 3DH. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. BACK NUMBERS Subject to availability, issues from the past three years are £6 a copy (£8 in the EU, £10 overseas): 01795 662976; www.mags-uk.com. Subscriptions queries: 0844 848 0848. If you have difficulty in obtaining COUNTRY LIFE from your newsagent, please contact us on 020–3148 3300. We regret we cannot be liable for the safe custody or return of any solicited or unsolicited material, whether typescripts, photographs, transparencies, artwork or computer discs. COUNTRY LIFE PICTURE LIBRARY: Articles and images published in this and previous issues are available, subject to copyright, from the COUNTRY LIFE Picture Library: 01252 555090/2/3. INDEX: The COUNTRY LIFE Cumulative Index, in PDF format and updated annually, which lists all articles on country houses and gardens published since 1897, is priced at £42.50 plus VAT and is available from Paula Fahey (clpicturelibrary@ti-media.com) Editorial Complaints We work hard to achieve the highest standards of editorial content and we are committed to complying with the Editors’ Code of Practice (https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/cop.html) as enforced by IPSO.If you have a complaint about our editorial content, you can email us at complaints@ti-media.com or write to Complaints Manager, TI Media Limited Legal Department, 3rd Floor, Marsh Wall, London E14 9AP. Please provide details of the material you are complaining about and explain your complaint by reference to the Editors’ Code. We will try to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and we aim to correct substantial errors as soon as possible.

28 Country Life, January 29, 2020

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Alamy; Getty

Letter of the week

Mark Hedges

Forever friends

W

E have also formed Art Friends Suffolk, with encouragement from our loyal members, who were disappointed with the closure of the Art Fund volunteer network (Letters, January 1).

I believe other counties are doing the same. Funds will be donated directly to galleries, museums and churches and we will again offer a stimulating programme for like-minded people.

Christine Cutler, Suffolk

Action stations

I

WAS delighted to see Oswestry railway station among the restorations of the decade (November 20, 2019), highlighting our wealth of fine Victorian stations. Another station was in danger of suffering closure: Gobowen station, on the Cardiff to Holyhead line.

It was saved by a girls’ school, Moreton Hall, which took over running it—it may still be doing so, as the station is open. One can see the double benefit of such a takeover: the girls gained experience of business and a convenience to the travelling public was saved.

Richard A. Hoffman, Cheshire

COUNTRY LIFE FEBRUARY 5

Do you recognise your county’s flag? Eminent figures reveal their early inspiration, images from the British Photography Awards, the battle to build the Athenaeum and stoves Make someone’s week, every week, with a COUNTRY LIFE subscription 0330 333 1120 www.countrylife.co.uk

I

The beef about vegan foods

T’S about time we called time on much of the propaganda from the anti-meat brigade. Of course, Agromenes has no quarrel with those who have an ethical issue with meat eating. They haven’t convinced me, but, as long as they understand the consequences to health and the environment, it’s their decision.

Sadly, many have been led astray by their own good intentions. They think that plant-based foods automatically safeguard the planet and always have a carbon footprint that’s very much less than meat and dairy products.

Actually, it’s often the opposite.

Take milk substitutes as an example. Almond milk has been one of the fastest-growing grocery categories, aided by the claim that its production demands considerably less water than the equivalent amount of real milk. However, this claim is, at best, wholly misleading: 80% of the world’s almonds come from California, a state renowned for water scarcity. The almond farms take 10% of the agricultural water: that’s more than one trillion gallons.

Almond production is so lucrative that farmers, having run out of conventional sources of water, dig down into the aquifer to bring up deep deposits of water that are simply not being replaced. These facts prove we shouldn’t bring products more than 5,000 miles from water-stressed California merely to avoid drinking milk that is produced locally, in countries where the rainfall is more than adequate.

It’s not only milk. Many of the meat substitutes that the plant-based food industry uses also turn out to be environmental disasters.

Take the avocado. Mexico has cut down a vast acreage of trees to open up land for the cultivation of this lucrative fruit, but, instead of the forest sequestrating carbon, the plantations that replace it emit carbon.

Even worse are the vegan products that come from the soya bean. No single crop has been responsible for as much deforestation as soya. Huge areas of forest have been cleared in order to grow it and, as a result, its carbon footprint is much more seriously damaging than real milk produced in the UK. The crop also uses a great deal of water, which becomes ever more scarce because the tree cover has gone. When that’s gone, the rain goes, too. Deforestation, intensive farming, water shortage—it’s very difficult to over-state the damage done by the cultivation of soya.

What, in that case, should we do, faced with the climate crisis, about our diets? Perhaps a good starting point is last week’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) report.

This called for clear labelling so we know when food production causes environmental damage. It also asked for a cut of 20% in the amount of meat we eat.

It did, however, remind us that British meat has one of the lowest carbon footprints in the world. If we care for the environment, therefore, we should always choose home-produced beef and lamb.

However, farmers cannot afford to keep to these high standards if, when we leave the EU, the UK market is flooded with meat from countries with lower environmental, safety and animal-welfare requirements. The CCC insisted that, in any future trade deal, the Government should ensure that imports meet those same high standards.

Farmers ought to welcome all this. It puts a premium on local sourcing, it recognises that agriculture is not the problem, but part of the solution and, above all, it insists that we should choose how to change our diet on the basis of science and not on prejudiced assumptions.

It’s not only milk.

Many meat substitutes the plant-based food industry uses turn out to be environmental disasters

Follow @agromenes on Twitter

Country Life, January 29, 2020 29

Athena Cultural Crusader

A

Lincoln’s Usher Gallery needs saving

THENA is aware that strenuous efforts are afoot to save Lincoln’s Usher Gallery from closure. It’s an outstanding provincial gallery, designed by Blomfield, and opened by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) in May 1927.

James Ward Usher was a remarkable man. Of humble birth, he set up as a watchmaker in the second half of the 19th century and died a very rich man.

He lived above his shop, never married and, when he died, left a bequest for the building of an art gallery to house his collection of watches and other treasures to his native city.

Following the upheaval that took place in local government early in the 1970s, the county council leased the gallery

from the city on a peppercorn rent and has continued to run it ever since.

In early 2019, a document on the future of the cultural services in Lincoln proposed that the gallery should be closed and its contents gathered into Lincoln’s neighbouring museum, known as The Collection. The Usher would then be transformed into a registry office and coroner’s court.

The Usher is sadly not alone among provincial galleries threatened with financial cuts The proposals caused uproar in the city and the county. One result was that a group formed to press the case for an independent trust to run the Usher.

Lincoln’s relatively new, but widely acclaimed, university has since indicated a wish for partnership involvement and active participation in any such trust.

It has been an additional spur to action that, in the event of closure, the acquisition grants made by national bodies to the Usher in the past might have to

be repaid. Also, that objects accepted in lieu of tax be reassigned to other provincial galleries. Such complications have helped make the county council realise that closure is a complex matter.

Indeed, partly for this reason, there now seems to be a general acceptance that having an independent trust running the Usher is the best way forward.

As business plans are being drawn up for the new trust, Athena understands that the Arts Council and the Heritage Lottery Fund have been approached for funding. So, too, has the Art Fund and a number of private trusts and foundations. The intention is not only to save the Usher, which has been somewhat neglected in recent years, but to transform it into a vibrant gallery capable both of presenting its own treasures and hosting major exhibitions (as it has done in recent years in conjunction with The Collection).

The Usher is sadly not alone among provincial galleries presently threatened with financial cuts by hard-pressed councils. Nor, despite the energetic response of its supporters, is its future yet secure. Athena wishes the campaign well, however, and hopes she will soon see the Usher Gallery renewed and thriving.

The way we were Photographs from the COUNTRY LIFE archive

1920s

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30 Country Life, January 29, 2020

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Country Life Picture Library; Fred van Deelen

Not published Watched over by his trusty border collie, a young shepherd tends to orphaned lambs above majestic Windermere, Cumbria.

Aluminium made beautiful Conservatories | Orangeries | Atriums | Greenhouses www.marstonandlanginger.com

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My favourite painting Judith Weir St John the Evangelist by Simone Martini

Judith Weir is Master of The Queen’s Music

I visit the wonderful Barber Institute in Birmingham whenever I can, particularly haunted by this exquisitely decorated painting with a young, ginger-haired man screwing up his face, expressing disgust. And also fear, suggested by the whites of his eyes–such a vivid detail. It’s somehow a modern face, reminding me of one of my students. I rarely get round to reading the captions in galleries, so it was years before I realised that this young fellow is St John the Evangelist and the disgusting, terrifying thing he has just seen is Jesus’s Crucifixion

St John the Evangelist, 1320, 16½in by 12in, by Simone Martini (about 1284–1344), Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham

IMONE MARTINI was witness to the golden age of Siena before the Black Death in 1348, when the city, centre of its Republic since the 12th century, had a population of 50,000—the same as today.

Siena prospered because it lay on the Via Francigena, a principal pilgrimage and trade route between Rome and Northern Europe.

Duccio (di Buoninsegna) (1255/60– 1315/18), who stands in historic importance to the Sienese School as Giotto (1266/67– 1337) does to the Florentine, may have been Simone’s teacher. No documentary evidence exists, but both show the humane

32 Country Life, January 29, 2020

influence spread by St Francis and St Dominic and their charitable orders of friars and monks. Simone benefited from Siena’s trade-route position through his particular debt to French art, especially illuminated books and ivory carving, his painting noted for refined colour and elegant line.

His biography is largely derived from payment details. He married into the Memmo family of painters, had no children and earned his success largely through prestigious private commissions. The value of his house placed him in the top 14% of Sienese homeowners.

The last years of Simone’s life were spent at Avignon in France, from 1309 to 1376 the seat of the Papacy, where he may have died. Five works survive from the Avignon years, including this panel, once probably part of a folding triptych of the Crucifixion, the grieving St John counterpart to the grieving Virgin at either end of the arms of the cross. Closed, the panels formed a box painted in imitation of black marble. When they were opened, the sacred, yet remarkably empathetic interpretation of grief presented a revelatory contrast to the sombre exterior.

www.countrylife.co.uk

Bridgeman Images; Ben Ealovega

S

John McEwen comments on St John the Evangelist

Cavendish Stone

e : info @ c avendishstone.c om w : w w w.c avendishstone. c om t : +4 4 ( 0 )1 7 4 7 8 4 2 2 1 4

The tree of life fights on Mark Griffiths celebrates the historic, handsome and irrepressible native ash

E

IGHT years ago, it was rare to hear unqualified praise for our native ash tree, Fraxinus excelsior. Yes, it was handsome, but it seeded itself around with a promiscuity that made sycamore seem restrained. The resulting weeds, as its seedlings were usually declared, grew swiftly into sturdy saplings that required eradication in its root sense: cutting them down merely produced a miniature wood pasture.

And that was our problem with ash—its irrepressible vitality. There were so many ash trees—according to surveys in 2013 and 2015, more than 126 million trees of F. excelsior and 1.3 billion saplings and seedlings in UK woodlands of 1.2 acres and larger. For other UK sites, wild and cultivated, the estimated total was between 27 and 60 million ash trees and up to 400 million saplings and seedlings. Their legions advanced with allconquering vigour, sometimes overwhelming rarer and less assertive species or colonising places disdained by more decorous trees.

Also against them was their lifespan— seldom more than 300 years for examples that had never been lopped, ‘maidens’, as arboriculturists term them. Alongside our ancient yews and oaks, even the oldest of these maids seemed coltish and ineligible for the honours awarded to true arboreal Methuselahs.

There were older ash trees in the UK, anything between 600 and 1,000 years of age, but mishaps, rather than natural longevity, had secured their survival. Far from maidens, they were battle-scarred veterans, antique amputees with powers of regrowth to make willows weep with envy. Fraxinus excelsior could be felled by gales, seared and riven by lightning, decapitated and dismembered for pollards and coppices, slashed and laid for hedgerows—and still spring back. It’s no wonder that Britons once saw its sap as the life force in liquid form or that we came to think of ash as invincible.

That view changed in 2012 with the confirmation on English trees of ash dieback, a lethal disease caused by the fungal pathogen Hymenoscyphus fraxineus (syn. Chalara fraxinea). Now there are worries that a beetle, the emerald ash borer, may compound the damage, although this pest has yet to reach our shores. It is not simply that loss, or the threat of it, has lent enchantment to something that once seemed commonplace and unkillable.

Its plight has led us to give ash a second look, to examine it closely, and to discover, as Virgil

says in Eclogue VII, that it’s the fairest tree in the woods, Fraxinus in silvis pulcherrima.

If unhindered and uninjured, it will attain majestic stature, yet retain a lightness of crown and litheness of limb, like the idealised trees in Claude’s classical landscapes.

Nature’s most significant exception to this is the mutation Fraxinus excelsior Pendula, in which the branches grow downwards in cascades and curtains. This cultivar may have been in D. H. Lawrence’s mind in 1909, when he began his poem Discord in Childhood: ‘Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips.’ That said, Pendula was more usually met with marvelling delight, and in the parks of grandees and connoisseurs.. From the late 18th century onwards, the weeping ash was regarded as one of Britain’s most desirable trees.

Several early acquisitions flourish to this day, among them the broad-crowned, domelike example at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland, and the tall, sinuouslimbed specimen at Chatsworth House. The latter was already about 50 years old in 1830, when the 6th Duke of Devonshire bought it in Derby and had its eight tons transported to his seat 28 miles away, taking 18 hours and necessitating the dismantling of Chatsworth’s gates.

If injured or obstructed, Fraxinus excelsior presents a very different picture. Its remarkable powers of recovery produce living sculptures as glorious as they’re grotesque, with stems defiantly ascending from boles that are obese, knotty and sometimes hollow or pierced clean through. Denizens of ancient wood pasture and the results of pollarding and coppicing, many such trees testify to ash timber’s erstwhile economic importance.

As John Evelyn, quoting Horace, wrote in the 17th century: ‘Hydra-like, a groundcut Ash—“By havock, wounds, and blows,/ More lively and luxuriant grows”.’

Others among these strange ash sculptures are responses to obstacles—a boulder or a stone wall that the tree has surmounted and surrounded with molten-seeming wood tissue. Most of these are to be found in deep country, but London boasts one famous example, in the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church. Its bole has steadily enlarged to embrace the many headstones that were stacked around it in the mid 1860s, when railway construction brought an end to this immemorial burial ground. The stacking was supervised by a young architect who later turned poet and novelist: Thomas Hardy.

A Protean tree, then, our native ash, but all its manifestations have features in common: gunmetal-grey bark; buds as black as lamb’s

No tree features more often in British place names than Fraxinus excelsior

Unhindered by threats, the ash tree attains a majestic stature, echoing the idealised trees in Claude’s classical landscapes

Country Life, January 29, 2020 35

hooves; inflorescences that seem inconspicuous compared with those of other members of the olive family, such as lilac and jasmine, but which, seen close-up, possess the exquisite intricacy of a lichen or coral; a lustrous plumage of pinnate leaves.

Finally, there’s the fruit, flat, oblong and hanging in festoons all winter until ready to hitch a ride to new ground on the March winds. The technical term for it is samara, a word originally used by Roman authors such as Pliny and Columella for an elm’s fruit, which, like ash’s, consists of a seed enveloped in a papery wing. Altogether more familiar is our vernacular term for them, which was long-established by the mid 16th century when the botanist William Turner explained it: fruits of Fraxinus excelsior are ‘Called in Inglishe ashe keyes because they hang in bunches after the manner of keyes’.

Our focus on the present plight of Fraxinus in Nature has sparked interest in its past role in supernature. No other native could match it for mystical powers and lore. An ash leaf with an even number of leaflets was luckier than a four-leaved clover. Pocket one at morning and you’d meet your future spouse by evening. If that failed, his or her name could always be divined by means of various counting games that used ash leaves with odd numbers of leaflets. Feeling imprisoned by misfortune or melancholy? Free yourself by carrying a bunch of ash keys. Afflicted by warts or graver deformities? Banish them by wishing them on an old ash with a bulgy and burred bole, but straight and energetic shoots, in short, a tree with a proven talent for recovering. The annals of British country life swarm with such notions; several deserve more detailed telling.

When a baby, humbly born in deepest Devon, was found to have an abdominal rupture, his father sought a traditional cure. He split the trunk of an ash tree, producing a cleft that he kept wide open by wedging blocks of oak in it. Next, at sunrise, he and his wife passed the baby through the cleft three times from east to west. To finish the ritual, he removed the oak spacers and tightly bandaged the ash trunk. The idea was that, as the tree healed, so would the infant’s rupture. Asked why he’d followed this procedure, the father replied: ‘Why, all folk do it.’ Asked if he thought it would do any good, he remarked: ‘Well, as much good as sloppin’ water over’n in church.’

The questioner was scholar Cecil Torr, who recorded this exchange in Small Talk at Wreyland, his series of reminiscences of life on Dartmoor. The episode seems to belong to an era before Christianity’s sway, let alone medical science’s, but, as Torr says, this child An ash overwhelms a boulder in the Yorkshire Dales, photographed by Archie Miles, author of Ash, a book sponsored by The Woodland Trust and the Ash Project, Kent www.countrylife.co.uk

Archie Miles; Alamy; Shutterstock

was born in November 1902. Here, 50 years after the founding of Great Ormond Street Hospital, was the survival of a ceremony that, only a century or two earlier, had been performed across rural England. Of all our native trees, none exercised its ancient magic longer than Fraxinus excelsior, or more widely.

In a letter from 1776, Gilbert White describes another widespread superstition.

Shrews were said to creep over livestock, causing pain and infirmity. These troubles, it was believed, could be salved by stroking the affected beasts with twigs cut from a shrewash. To make such a tree, one bored a hole in an ash trunk and sealed a live shrew into it. In Selborne in Hampshire, White reports, a much-used shrew-ash grew on Church land until recently, when a parson felled it ‘regardless of the remonstrances of the bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy’.

Snakes, too, were supposed to be ashaverse. Here’s John Gerard in 1597 relaying Pliny the Elder in the 1st century ad: ‘If a fire and a serpent be set within the circle of the boughes [that is, under the ash tree’s canopy], the serpent will sooner runne into the fire than into the boughes.’ In the 19th century, the ashplant, a walking stick made from a Fraxinus sapling, became a must-have for smart gentlemen. The reasons for choosing ash seem obvious enough: the saplings are slim, strong, springy, and their taproots are often curved, providing a readymade handle.

In reality, the choice was nothing like as www.countrylife.co.uk

The placing of the headstones around the ash tree in St Pancras Old Church graveyard, London NW1, was overseen by a young Thomas Hardy, then working as an architect

rational. The origins of this oh-so urban fashion item lay in the centuries-old country custom of carrying ash sticks to ward off adders and to bludgeon any that remained undeterred.

Another group of beliefs was inspired by ash wood’s capacity for burning when still green and sappy. At midwinter, young branches were bundled into faggots tied with bands of willow or hazel and set to smoulder in the hearth, at first to repel pagan demons; later, as

a Christmas rite. To smooth this transition, it was claimed that the Virgin Mary washed and clothed the baby Jesus by the light of an ash-wood fire. In case that didn’t ensure the appeal of these fasciate Yule logs, it was deemed one’s Christian duty to drink a toast to the Holy Family each time one of the bands combusted.

A further attraction was the boiling sap that bubbled from burning ash branches, which was collected, cooled and drunk Country Life, January 29, 2020 37

as a preventative against malign spirits and maladies. In Scotland and the North of England especially, the wise women who acted as midwives would go about their business with green ash twigs so as to prepare this elixir and spoon-feed it to the newborn.

Apart from the Roman snake-repellent, these superstitions appear to have been homegrown or to have arrived with settlers or invaders from northern Europe, Scandinavia especially. This suggests that at least some of these beliefs were the seedlings of Askr Yggdrasill (‘The Ash Yggdrasil’), the great, world-encompassing tree of Norse mythology. Britain was not short of Nordic incomers and Yggdrasil echoes in such aspects of our ash lore as the magic potency of the number nine and Fraxinus-like Norman church carvings of the tree of life.

Couple this sacred status with ash wood’s long standing as one of our most useful materials and it’s hardly surprising that no tree should feature more often in British place names than Fraxinus excelsior. If one bears in mind early and cognate equivalents of the word ash (askr in Old Norse, ask in Old High German, aesc in Old English, assch, ashe, aish and esche in Middle English, esch in Scottish), hundreds of them leap off the map, from Esher to Ashby de la Zouch to Askham Bryan.

Dieback is no fate for Yggdrasil, the tree of life Ash trees were once a prominent feature of all places so-named, one, indeed, that was considered worth advertising. Eight years ago, as ash dieback began to spread, it was feared that their successors would succumb without exception. The authorities proposed a preventative cull amounting to wholesale extermination. In the issue of December 12, 2012, Country Life objected, arguing that to destroy all ash trees, infected or not, was not only wanton vandalism, but also the one sure way of losing any individuals that might prove to be diebackresistant. We weren’t alone in taking this view, which, happily, became policy.

Subsequently, numerous specimens that were exposed to the pathogen either failed to become infected or appeared able to cope with its ravages. Last year, genetic investigators announced encouraging early results that present the possibility of selecting races of immune ash trees. We must wish them every success and give them all the resources that they need: dieback is no fate for Yggdrasil, the tree of life.

A lone ash grows high on the limestone pavement of Malham, North Yorkshire

38 Country Life, January 29, 2020

G

LIMPSED from the road running south from Dorchester, Herringston looks like a delightful and symmetrical Regency Gothic house (Fig 1). In reality, however, the architectural roots of this remarkable building reach back to the Middle Ages. The place takes its name from the Heryng family, one Philip Heryng having acquired land here from the Abbot of Bindon in 1243. The first definite mention of a residence on the site occurs in 1336, when Edward III granted a descendant, Walter Heryng, exemption from various local obligations, as well as a licence to crenellate two houses at Winterborne (Herringston) and Langeton Heryng, a few miles apart to the west and north of Weymouth.

Battlements were the architectural mark of a noble or knightly dwelling Such royal licences were passports to medieval respectability. They identified the recipient as a person worthy to live in a house with battlements, the architectural mark of a noble or knightly dwelling. We know little more about Walter, however, beyond the fact that he was a prominent figure in the county, which he served as an MP. His house is likely to have shaped the form of the present building, but nothing is securely known about it. It probably took the classic medieval form of a courtyard house enclosed on three sides by a hall and two cross-ranges.

A lease of 1441 refers to a gatehouse, which closed this U-shaped plan to the north.

In the 15th century, Herringston came to the Filiol family, after which it was sold to John Williams, a wealthy Dorchester merchant, for £360 in 1513. The Williams have remained in possession ever since, making them one of the most durable of Dorset’s county families. John’s grandson, another John, enjoyed a particularly prosperous career, succeeding to the estate in 1569 and, among other appointments, being made sheriff of Dorset in 1582–83, before becoming an MP for the county in 1604 (after which he was knighted). He is described in John Hutchins’s The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (1774) as ‘a worthy man, and a good patriot; who by his buildings, and other ornaments, beautified this place [Herringston]’.

Sir John seems to have modernised the whole house, perhaps to coincide with his appointment as sheriff. His entrance Fig 1: The entrance front imposes symmetry and order on a complex house 40 Country Life, January 29, 2020

A worthy man and a good patriot Herringston, Dorset The home of Mr and Mrs Raymond Williams

The home of the Williams family for more than 500 years, this remarkable house preserves an outstanding decorative plaster ceiling.

Roger White considers its authorship and the history of the house Photographs by Paul Highnam

Fig 2 above: The entrance hall infills the site of a former courtyard. Fig 3 below: The mid-18th-century dining-room chimneypiece front to the north (now lost) is recorded in a watercolour of the 1790s by the south Dorset topographical artist John Upham.

It had three roughly equal gables and an asymmetrically placed front door carved with the date 1582. Better preserved is his south front with the hall, perhaps the re-worked medieval structure, and projecting great chamber cross-wing (Fig 4). A corresponding Upham watercolour shows this much as it appears today, with the exception of a Victorian wing and alterations to one end.

If 1582 dates the rebuilding of the house, the most important interior—the Great Chamber—must belong to a slightly later phase of work; perhaps the rooms were fitted up in stages. This can be dated by the prominent inclusion into its spectacular decorative plasterwork ceiling of the Prince of Wales’s feathers and the initials CP, an explicit reference to a dignity enjoyed by the future Charles I from 1616 to 1625 (Fig 7).

It is possible that the decoration was installed very promptly after Charles’s creation as a prince, but Sir John died in 42 Country Life, January 29, 2020

September 1617, so perhaps it was commissioned by his heir, his grandson John (who married Jane Trenchard of Wolfeton, a nearby house with comparable plasterwork). Alternatively, it is possible that Sir John’s younger

son, who commissioned a magnificent tomb to his father in Dorchester, was involved on behalf of his young nephew.

The barrel-vaulted ceiling is decorated with a grid of broad bands, broken to create square fields in which are placed large emblematic beasts—phoenix, rhinoceros, elephant, fish, swan and so on. Sprays of fritillaries and other flowers occupy the L-shaped fields. Also incorporated are the royal arms and an angel holding a scroll with the letters GIED (for Gloria In Excelsis Deo). From the crown of the vault grow five pendants, the three main ones open and particularly large (Fig 6).

On the inner end wall, animals of all sorts are disposed around a Rococo cartouche (obviously mid 18th century in date) of the Williams arms. The opposite end of the room has a vast window and panelling elaborately carved with a miscellany of figures (‘quaint and rude’, according to the 1863 edition of Hutchins’s Dorset)—Hope, Sisera, St John, Geometry and Adam and Eve after the Fall among them. To either side of the window are carved pilasters, one left unfinished. www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 4: The rear elevation of the house. The recessed gable occupies the site of the former services; the gable to the right dates to 1899

The final decorative element in this ensemble is the chimneypiece (unfortunately painted black in the 19th century and described somewhat tactlessly by the 1972 first edition of the Dorset ‘Buildings of England’ as ‘Jacobean vulgarity at its most distressing’), with large demi-figures of Charity and Faith, plus a smaller one of Hope reclining with her anchor perched at the top under the vault. The latter is more or less identical with small reclining figures on the Great Chamber chimneypiece at Wolfeton.

The lintel, rather oddly, is carved with the lower half of an elaborate strapwork cartouche, exactly as at Wolfeton and also on the corresponding chimneypiece at Montacute.

There has been a good deal of speculation about who made this ceiling. Ever since the publication of a Country Life article

by Margaret Jourdain (March 2, 1940), much West Country plasterwork has been reflexively attributed to the Abbott family of Frithelstock in North Devon, and a link between the Abbotts and Herringston was posited on the basis of a supposed similarity with the Great Chamber ceiling of Forde House at Newton Abbot in Devon. More recently, however, doubts have been raised as to whether there was an Abbott family dynasty of plasterers at all.

Although the Forde and Herringston ceilings are both barrel-vaulted and share a similar layout, as well as common motifs, Claire Gapper has recently concluded that the motifs were derived from the same www.countrylife.co.uk

engraved sources, but executed by entirely different hands. That source is Edward Topsell’s The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (1607). The animals and birds in it are, admittedly, also found in the so-called Abbott sketchbook (once believed to be the pattern book used by the family), but, given that anyone could have acquired a copy of the Topsell book, that signifies nothing.

Dr Gapper suggests that a more relevant comparison with Herringston than Forde is the Great Chamber at Stockton House, Wiltshire (Country Life, January 24, 2018) where, in addition to common motifs from Topsell’s bestiary, the lavishly decorated ceiling has ribs that likewise share an unusual enrichment of pears, cherries, apricots (or plums) and an unidentified flower.

There is also much in common in terms of the swirling fruit- and flower-bearing stems that are used to fill the spaces between the panels. These are the work of ‘a plasterer of exceptional skill at hand-modelling in plaster’. Who he was may never be known, but, in Dr Gapper’s view, he was probably part of a local ‘school’ based in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire, rather than Devon.

This Great Chamber barrel vault was formerly not the only decorative plaster ceiling in the house. The double-height hall (Fig 5) also had a barrel vault, alas lost in the early19th-century remodelling, together with panelling described in 1803 as carved with grotesque figures. Until then, there was a double-height chapel in the north-west

corner of the house, immediately alongside the main entrance. With or without its barrel vault, the lofty hall no doubt struck a later John Williams (1660–1722) as insufficiently cosy or elegant, as it was probably he who created the panelled drawing room that adjoins it to the west, a pleasantly typical, if low-key, Georgian interior.

Far-reaching changes were made to the house during the long reign of Edward Wilmot Williams I (1765–1834), who inherited as a 10-year-old boy. His son, James, was born in 1798, which perhaps provided a prompt to create more up-to-date accommodation.

When he commissioned the two watercolours

by Upham, it was probably principally with a view to recording the exterior before he transformed it. His architect, beginning soon after 1803, was Thomas Leverton (1743– 1824), who is best known for exquisitely delicate neo-Classical interiors.

Quite how Leverton came to Herringston is a mystery, given that his external contribution was the remodelling of the north front in the mildest Gothic manner. This involved the complete removal of the 1580s north range and the infilling of the courtyard behind it with a new central block that has three floors of rectangular tripartite windows under a castellated parapet.

Framing this, and masking the ends of the east and west ranges, are two-storey gabled sections with tripartite windows. All is in finely jointed Portland ashlar, which has now acquired a fetching pink blush

Country Life, January 29, 2020 43

Fig 5 above: A view of the hall. Fig 6 below: Boys pillage an apple tree in the central pendant of the Great Chamber. Fig 7 facing page: The Great Chamber of 1616–25, with its superb plasterwork barrel-vaulted ceiling. The fireplace was darkened in the 19th century of lichen. It was at this time that the rubblestone south front was rendered to harmonise.

Taking the place of the courtyard was an entrance hall (Fig 2) linking the new, centrally placed front door with the main hall, flanked by a library and a small dining room. Alongside the hall a new main staircase was contrived—or perhaps adapted from a predecessor—leading by broad and easy stone flights to a spacious landing.

Here are twin arches, one looking down into the hall and closed off by a stone balustrade, the other opening into the Great Chamber.

They (and two others at the foot of the stairs) have the kind of fat mouldings found on the other side of Dorchester at Wolfeton House, which Anthony Wells-Cole has associated with the leading West Country mason-architect William Arnold.

There must always have been a lobby here and it must have been accessed by a substantial staircase of some kind, as is the case with the Great Chamber at Wolfeton. Whether this was more or less on the site of the present stairs will probably never be known. However, the balustrade that now prevents one from tumbling down into the hall is almost

44 Country Life, January 29, 2020

certainly Jacobean (similar balusters appear, for instance, on the Old School Room of Sherborne School, of 1606–08) and could have been reused from a vanished staircase.

The Leverton remodelling of the north side of the house fortunately left the Great Chamber unmolested, but provided Herringston with the sort of rooms that a Georgian

squire would have needed: a library, a small dining room adjacent to the kitchen and a large dining room at the furthest possible remove. None of these are architecturally ambitious, although the large dining room does have a handsome Palladian chimneypiece (Fig 3), typical of the mid 18th century (in fact, it was copied from a popular Inigo Jones design that was published by Isaac Ware in 1733), which must predate Leverton by a good many decades.

For a while in the 19th century, the house was let, but, in the 1860s, the family returned.

Edward Wilmot Williams II (1826–1913), who inherited in 1845, made the final major alterations in 1899, when he added the nursery wing and the Gothic porch on the north front. Successive 20th-century owners were distinguished soldiers; Maj-Gen Alick Williams (d.1994) took exception to the ‘Buildings of England’ description of the Great Chamber and declared that, henceforth, architectural historians were not to be admitted. Happily for Country Life readers, his son and daughter-in-law have now lifted this prohibition.

Acknowledgements: Claire Gapper www.countrylife.co.uk

England They’re World Cup finalists, so hot favourites, right? It would appear so.

England have their traditional rivals, Ireland and Wales, at their own ‘House of Pain’, Twickenham, and that bodes well. The most recent Six Nations after a World Cup led to a grand chelem in Paris. Eddie Jones’s men have raw power in abundance with Mako Vunipola, Maro Itoje and Manu Tuilagi boasting enough muscle to scare the bogeyman. What’s more, in George Ford and Jonathan Joseph, they also boast craftsmen capable of unpicking the wiliest of defences.

So they’re unstoppable? Not so fast. The common thinking is that scrum-half Ben Youngs is on the wane and that England are still flip-flopping between Ford and Owen Farrell at flyhalf. Then there’s the full-back, Elliot Daly, who has his doubters. And how much have England’s Saracens contingent be relegation cap? We Player to (right) has in-chief fo years, vyin Vunipola f shirt. How behind the blonde mo and rugby lier act lies a fantastic player. Ma 29, has 68 England c and is fam his scrumm and tackli the madca to transce niche wall tion I’m a C Predictio

It’s coming home England look set to absolve their World Cup disappointment by lifting the Six Nations crown, foretells Owain Jones, ahead of the 21st running of the contest that kicks off on Saturday

Wales No more Warren Gatland? I’m afraid so. Gatlan Wales’s greatest coach, leading them to three G Slams and four titles, but the majority of the squ still together after reaching the World Cup sem finals. Under new coach Wayne Pivac, they have selected crowd pleasers Johnny McNicholl and Owen ‘Fast’ Lane, but they’ve also added heft in the form of 21st prop WillGriff John. The return o incomparable No 8 Taulupe Faletau and scrum Webb means Wales have a squad brimming wi How will the loss of Shaun Edwards be felt? unenviable job of replacing the world’s best defenc with making Wales watertight. In addition, Jonat Wales captain, has to build a scrum that can cop and French packs. Wales have also had to use Tompkins, the Kent-born Saracens centre, from nose. Bedding him into a key defensive channel will be instructive to how Wales fare.

Player to watch The term bolter was written for the stripling Louis Rees-Zammit (above) from Cardiff. At 6ft 3in, the wing, who plays his rugby at Gloucester has already been named ‘Rees Lightning’ on account of running in 10 tries in as m and the ability to come infield looking for work mark h Prediction 2nd

oe Schmidt, didn’t it? Irela ended his trophy-laden ten oud after a last-eight World om all quarters. Now, his lon Farrell has taken a broom t , with mainstays Rory Best Kearney left out and young aelan Doris and Jack O’Don g dynamism. New captain J on will mentor in-form halfb Cooney and Billy Burns. all well in Team Ireland? Th ry well-oiled machine, they s lost a year ago when being o y never recovered, as Sexto vincibility evaporated, Jacob and the backrow of Peter O me a blunt instrument. A ‘pe ull-back Jordan Larmour, 22 and bamboozle defenders under the high-ball sees hi Getty

T

HE Rugby World Cup might have become the big beast in the global rugby calendar, but there’s nothing quite like the Six Nations to stir the emotions and rekindle rivalries that date back 139 years. Our revered tournament touches places that others can’t reach and, throughout seven weeks of good-humoured revelry, the action will be punctuated by thunderous collisions, moments of barely believable dexterity and the sheer unbridled joy of watching speedsters decked in national colours pinning back their ears.

Shadow in the landscape Sir Don McCullin is best known for documenting more than half a century of global war, but he’s also one of our greatest landscape photographers. Mary Miers visits him at home in the West Country

Courtesy Hauser & Wirth/Photograph Matilda Temperley

A

S a boy growing up in warravaged Finsbury Park, Don McCullin would abscond from school and take the tube to Cockfosters at the end of the line, from where he’d roam into the countryside looking for birds’ eggs and snakes. Yet the seeds of his visual interest in the rural landscape were sown, he says, aboard the London Midland Scottish steam trains, where, aged 15, he had a job washing up dishes in the dining car for 30 shillings a week.

As he worked—‘they had no detergent in those days; there was a tin with a piece of fairy soap in it which you had to shake in the water to get a froth’—he’d look out through the slot of a window in his little pantry.

‘We’d go over these great Victorian viaducts as we tore through the landscape to those northern satanic cities and I’d toss out tea plates and the cows would look up. I was a bit of a rogue when I was a boy, you know.’

The story of how the defiant teenager escaped the ganglands of North London to become one of the world’s greatest war photographers is well known, his genius enshrined in countless books, films and last year’s major retrospective at Tate Britain.

But he’s also widely admired for his landscape photography, a genre that has helped assuage the nightmare of all the atrocities he has witnessed and the moral dilemmas he has had to battle as a photo-journalist.

When he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1984, fêted for his visual record of more than two decades of global conflict and for his stark social documentaries of 1960s and 1970s Britain, he told Roy Plumley: ‘I’ve got the most compelling desire to be the best English landscape photographer.

I suppose, in a way, my conscience is telling me to visit kinder aspects of life.’

His latest exhibition, featuring more than 70 of his landscape photographs, shows how brilliantly he has risen to that challenge.

The largest body of works in the show conveys his intimate relationship with his beloved Somerset, where he lives high up on the side of a combe that winds for nearly Sir Don McCullin in his Somerset garden.

At 84, he still travels constantly, but this is the place to which he yearns to return, where he feels he ‘spiritually belongs’ www.countrylife.co.uk

four miles through a landscape of plunging fields knitted together by hedgerows.

‘I think this part of Somerset is unique,’ he says. ‘Visitors are surprised by the sweeping hills; they expect it to be flat like the Levels. This was never a royal county; it was a land tilled by yeoman farmers that people travelled through on their way to Devon or Cornwall.’

Don first came to the West Country in 1940, when he was evacuated to a village eight miles away from where he lives now. ‘I was five, my sister three and we arrived at Frome station on our own. My mother had said we weren’t to be split up, but we were.’

I never forgot Somerset, the leafy glaze under the shallow streams or the unchanged villages Don was sent to live in a council house, his sister to the village’s wealthiest family, with a maid in uniform to serve her tea. ‘I would go round and peep through her window,’ he writes in his captivating autobiography Unreasonable Behaviour. Later, he was sent to a Lancashire chicken farm, where he was ostracised and cruelly treated, experiences that would instill ‘a lifelong affinity with persecuted peoples’.

‘But I never forgot Somerset,’ he tells me, ‘never forgot the leafy glaze under the shallow streams or the villages that hadn’t changed in centuries.’ So, when looking for solace in his early fifties, he returned. ‘The moment I walked into this house—it was a May day, blue sky—I knew I had to buy it.’

Somerset offered respite: he had been fired by The Sunday Times and ‘sentenced to peace’ by being prevented from going to the Falklands. Relationships had broken down. ‘I felt my life was falling apart; I was in a state of misery, although not decomposing—I’ve always been good at healing myself, and the landscape helped me at that time.’

Various beautiful women came and went: ‘I don’t think it was personal against me; unless you’re married and have made a commitment, young relationships don’t tend to flourish in an isolated place like this.’

Don married the travel editor Catherine Fairweather in 2002 and, having made various failed attempts to put down his flak jacket—he was in Aleppo for The Times aged 77—he has embedded himself fulltime in the West Country, with his orchard and his guineafowl. He has planted trees, stocked the trout stream and had his apples pressed into ‘quite the most extraordinary thing you’ve ever drunk in your life’. He says he’s not opposed to the country tradition of taking a gun out to shoot a few birds or rabbits for the pot, but ‘nobody shoots anything here; I won’t allow it. I once saw a man mow down a flock of pigeons in his car and I’ve never got rid of that image from my mind. I thought it was one of the most despicable acts that you could ever do’.

When I arrive at this sequestered place, the valley is shrouded in mist, every surface dripping. Even Don, who relishes the winter months, admits that ‘you couldn’t have a worse day than this—too dark even to touch up my prints indoors, so I’m sorting out my wine situation’ (he’s just bought a new wine rack). ‘When you’re 84, every day is terribly important; it’s a day you can’t get back. Even one like this is precious to me. I’m full on with my work here,’ he says, showing me where he stores his archive in a former garage. ‘I’m revisiting it and generally putting it in order. I’ve got 9,000 prints and there are things that need doing —I haven’t signed some of them or they need retouching.’ He does this with a double zero brush and watered-down ink, meticulously removing tiny dots and bits of dirt that register white when enlarged.

‘There’s no room in here,’ he says, pulling prints out randomly from a pile, each with its memory of a place and time he can recall at a glance: ‘This is Vietnam; that’s one of my views of Egypt; that’s what I call an industrial landscape; that was in Londonderry; this is India—I’ve done lots of landscapes in India—this was Palmyra—note the quality of the lens; the detail is extraordinary, but that’s all been destroyed now—and this is one of the very earliest pictures I took as a young photographer when I went to the Berlin Wall.’

We contemplate a recent Arctic scene that resembles a Modernist installation and an eerie view of the Somerset Levels Country Life, January 29, 2020 49

The West Country landscape in winter.

Top left: Ringed by hills resonant with Bronze Age and Roman history: Batcombe Vale, 1992–93. Middle left The Dew Pond, Somerset, 1988, seen from a Bronze Age fort. Don is fascinated by this ancient, stone-lined structure, which is perfectly circular and never dry. Left The Somerset Levels at dusk, 1998. Don is drawn to the mythology and ‘historical energy’ of Glastonbury and the surrounding wetlands and has ‘a fascination for water and photographing flooded fields’.

Above: On Creech Hill, Somerset, 1987.

He describes his skies in musical terms and says: ‘I couldn’t view the landscape without a certain amount of Romanticism’

50 Country Life, January 29, 2020

www.countrylife.co.uk

taken in midwinter. ‘Always winter. And towards evening. Rarely do I do morning pictures: the sun rises too quickly.’

Don’s ‘landscaping season’ runs from late October to the end of March. ‘These are the months of nakedness, when the leaves have gone, the trees are bowing, the elements are brewing and I know I’m alive.’ His pictures, unpeopled and brooding, charged with his own emotions and the intensity and discipline of his war photography, convey the tension.

As Mark Holborn has written in his introduction to Don’s book The Landscape (2019), ‘he welcomes the coming of a storm, or at least the hint of one, to dispel any pastoral reverie with a touch of menace… He has the unerring ability to photograph the landscape www.countrylife.co.uk

These are the months of nakedness, when the elements are brewing and I know I’m alive with which he is most intimate as if he were viewing the terrain of a battlefield’.

It’s a bit of an overstatement, Don says, but ‘there’s definitely a ravaged look about many of my landscapes. When the trees are covered, you don’t know what they look like underneath that foliage; the beauty becomes chocolate box for me and I’m not interested. Also, in summer, you don’t

notice the sky so much; you look at the trees. I weaned myself on the great Jewish American photographer Alfred Stieglitz and I always look at the sky—without it, you don’t have a landscape picture’.

Photographing in black and white, Don uses a yellow filter, which heightens the contrast and intensifies the drama—a tip he got from Wilfred Thesiger via Bruce Chatwin.

His medium-format, six-by-nine camera was recommended by David Bailey. ‘It was the most amazing advice anyone could have ever offered me; I’ve been using that camera for my landscapes for 40 years and it gives unthinkable quality.’ He develops everything himself, producing his ravishing silvergelatin prints in his dark room at home.

Country Life, January 29, 2020 51

Above: Brooding skies and a hint of menace over one of Scotland’s wildest landscapes: Rannoch Moor, 1991, on the way to Glencoe, site of the infamous massacre.

Facing page, top: The Monumental Arch leading to the Great Colonnade or Cardo Maximus, Palmyra, Syria, 2005, from Southern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire. Don’s fascination with the dignity yet brutality of Roman ruins is never more powerful than in images such as this, a view of Palmyra before it was destroyed by Isis. Facing page: Meroë, the east bank of the Nile, Sudan, 2012. A rare figure in a Don McCullin landscape, with its stark forms and echoes of another era 52 Country Life, January 29, 2020

His insistence that ‘I’m not a very intelligent or sophisticated person… I had no education,’ belies his gracious manners and impressive knowledge of the English landscape tradition, Romanticism and the Classics. He hates being described as an artist, but acknowledges that looking at paintings and listening to music has helped his photography.

‘I use light the way painters use light,’ he says. ‘We’re surrounded by sea, but the light here is different to on the coast. In summer, the trees and the land suck it up like velvet, but then the wind picks up and I feel this phosphorescence streaming across the country towards me. I call the winter skies either metallic or Wagnerian.’

The new exhibition—at the fashionable Hauser & Wirth complex at nearby Bruton —focuses on the places close to home, where Don feels he ‘spiritually belongs’. ‘I’ve walked every edge of this village and around it for miles, climbed hill forts and ancient burial sites, but I’m slowing down a bit. When I was younger, I was very fast at everything. I was fast at running; I can barely walk now, which makes my landscaping quite difficult.’

For all that, he remains an obsessive traveller—among the nine countries he visited last year were Turkey, Lebanon, Nepal, Norway and the Gulf of Guinea and he’s about to set off to West Africa with his son. The exhibition documents this interest in other www.countrylife.co.uk

cultures and places, concluding with three unseen Arctic landscapes taken last year.

Particularly notable is a body of work inspired by his love of Roman ruins that connects conflict and landscape with magisterial results. In 2005, Don set off on new adventures to capture the ‘venerable sun-drenched ruins’ of North Africa and the Middle East.

‘I’ve had enough of war and of photographing poverty. I sensed a need to do something with my work that was not so obvious. I wanted to combine my feeling for landscape with something almost archaeological,’ he writes in the introduction to Southern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire (2010). Conceived as a memorial to Bruce www.countrylife.co.uk

Chatwin, his companion on an assignment in Algeria for The Sunday Times in the 1970s, it is the book of which he is most proud.

The photographs record not the pretty and the elegant, but the brutality that came with the creation of those colossal monuments. ‘For McCullin has an ear for the rumbling thunder of history, for catching and recording the cries of the suffering, even when the conflict was fought some two thousand years before,’ writes his co-author and fellow traveller Barnaby Rogerson.

Despite its title, the book ends on the far northern tip of the Roman Empire, at ‘one of my favourite places in the world’. Standing on Hadrian’s Wall in a blizzard, he engaged

in ‘a kind of jousting match with the clouds and the sun. I wanted the sun to win through —but not 100%, so I’d have dramatic formation in the clouds. I make almost a chemistry out of clouds. And sometimes it doesn’t work.

‘You know, you come away from standing for hours and hours and you don’t have a picture. But that doesn’t mean to say you haven’t had an extraordinary experience.

To have an experience with a landscape is one of the greatest love affairs you could ever talk or think about.’

‘Don McCullin: The Stillness of Life’ is at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Durslade Farm, Bruton, Somerset, until May 4 (www.hauserwirth.com) Country Life, January 29, 2020 53

Y

EARS ago, I was signing books at the Game Fair when someone came over with a wirehaired vizsla,’ recalls Giles Catchpole.

‘This striking dog, with its whiskery beard and a certain air of haughtiness, looked me right in the eyes as if to say, “Well, what do you reckon?” Immediately, I knew this breed was the one for me. I started looking for a puppy and ended up with Rizla, who was with me for 15 years. He was the most charming dog I’ve ever come across.’

‘Rizla the vizsla’, as he was affectionately known, certainly left big paw prints to fill, but his young successor, Todd, is up to the challenge, already displaying the endearing qualities of the Hungarian wirehaired vizsla (HWV) that won over Mr Catchpole all those years ago. ‘They’re so docile, gentle and polite. When you first meet a vizsla, they look at you with a sort of superiority and then, once you tickle them under the chin, they just go to pieces. They’re terrific dogs to work, too,’ he adds. ‘They work like mad.’

When Mr Catchpole first acquired Rizla, the sight of an HWV working alongside labradors and spaniels in the shooting field was relatively uncommon, something he admits added to the breed’s appeal. ‘I fancied something a bit different, so I’d been looking at the hunt, point, retrieve (HPR) breeds,’ he recalls.

‘It’s amazing what you come across when you veer off the beaten track. Vizslas are so charismatic; they’re fantastic dogs, intelligent and with enormous character. They have a lot about them.’

The popularity of the HWV has steadily increased in recent years, as the sporting world eventually sat up and took notice of this russet-gold dog’s versatile abilities, handy weatherproof coat and loveable nature, which makes it an excellent family pet.

‘Almost every week, someone on a shoot will ask me about my dogs,’ admits gamekeeper Tracie Rickman, who’s worked HWVs for more than 20 years and currently has

a team of 11. ‘They’re extraordinary all-round dogs and they love their work. Nothing beats watching them quarter the ground.’

After spotting an HWV on a shoot day in the early 1990s, it was love at first sight for Mrs Rickman. ‘At the time, I had a smooth vizsla and he was a wonderful dog, but I was struggling slightly with his drive and enthusiasm for picking up,’ she explains. ‘It was a chilly day, there was snow on the ground, and my dog sat there, shivering, whinging and whining away. Jean Robertson, who I knew from the Norfolk and Suffolk HPR Field Trial Club, was also there with her wirehaired. Her dog sat beautifully by her side, not batting an eyelid in the cold, and went off on her command with no trouble, working steadily. I was struck by this dog’s incredible resilience and hardiness. I remember thinking “I must have one of those”. I fell in love with the breed on the spot and never looked back. It was a life-changing moment.’

The tough, resilient nature of the HWV is no accident—in the 1930s, Hungarian hunters crossed their smooth-haired vizslas with German wirehaired pointers in the hope of producing a multi-purpose dog with a heavy, rough coat suitable for working in cold, harsh conditions. Although, historically, the HWV is a fairly new gundog breed, the Hungarian vizsla is believed to have origins tracing back to the ninth century, when the Magyar tribes migrated from the steppes of Asia to the Carpathian mountain region, bringing their hunting dogs with them. Once formally established by the end of the 16th century, the vizsla was the dog of Hungarian sporting nobility—a versatile hunter, it excelled at scenting birds that were then either netted or caught by falcons. It also went on to be greatly valued for its pointing and retrieving ability when working with the gun.

The First and Second World Wars took their tolls on vizsla numbers, and, as with many breeds, it was thanks to enthusiasts that it wasn’t wiped out altogether. Having been mostly confined to their homeland, vizslas were smuggled out of Hungary during the Soviet occupation and the breed began to be spotted across Europe in the late 1940s. The first imported Hungarian vizsla was recognised in Britain in 1953, but HWVs didn’t crop up here until the 1970s, and only began to make their mark two decades later.

‘They’re great, robust dogs and brilliant for walked-up or rough shooting,’ enthuses

Vizslas look at you with superiority, then, once you tickle them, they go to pieces

Lord of the steppe and the shooting field: vizslas are hardworking—and loveable

The golden touch Once the dog of Hungarian sporting nobility, the charismatic russet-gold vizsla, either wirehaired or smooth, has almost unmatched all-round ability in the field, discovers Katy Birchall

There’s little point in trying to be cross at a vizsla. They’re absolute clowns

Jonathan Yearsley; Alamy; Shutterstock

Facing page: Vizslas have a natural hunting drive, but thrive on human company. Above: Nothing will deter the dogs from their point

Adrian Blackledge, owner of six HWVs. ‘It’s more relaxing than with, say, a spaniel, because the HWV will point—you’ve got time to walk up to the dog and get ready before telling it to flush. They’re beautiful to watch.

One that’s trained properly, that is,’ he adds.

The winner of several accolades over the nine years he’s worked with HWVs, Mr Blackledge quashed any doubts over the breed’s abilities in 2016, when he became the first person to win both first and second place in the HPR Championship with Caesar and Amber, although he’s much too modest to go into detail—‘yes, that was a pretty good day,’ he self-effacingly observes.

Mr Blackledge points out that the keen companionship of the HWV is a great advantage. ‘A lot of HPR breeds have a tendency to be a bit self-employed,’ he says jocularly.

‘When they’re hunting, you’re working them at such distances it can be easy for them to get carried away and off they go. The HWV is constantly in touch with the handler, no matter the distance. There’s a strong bond.’

This is a quality the HWV shares with the smooth-haired original, earning the vizsla a general nickname of the ‘Velcro’ dog, stuck to your side. However, as far as similarities between the smooth and wirehaired vizsla are concerned, there don’t seem to be many.

‘They’re completely different characters.

Other than the colour and their need for human company, they don’t have much in common,’ notes Derek Whitfield, chairman of the Hungarian Vizsla Club and owner of five smooth-haired dogs. Speaking before a shoot day where his lot will be joined by an HWV, Mr Whitfield acknowledges that www.countrylife.co.uk

the HWV will likely be doing the picking up, when his vizslas will be in the beating line.

‘I always say there’s a reason why the “R” comes at the end of HPR. Mine aren’t always the best retrievers,’ he laughs.

With five dogs in the house, Mr Whitfield often struggles to find a space on the sofa— ‘we do have a kennel; it’s full of old furniture’—but, he sighs, there’s little point in trying to be cross at a vizsla. ‘They’re absolute clowns, with a real sense of humour.

One of ours will curl her lips back and smile at you on command. They’ve got wonderful temperaments and are very intelligent, too.

With their natural hunting drive, it’s important that they get a lot of stimulation. They’ll drive you mad if they don’t.’

Since Hungarian vizsla Yogi won Best in Show at Crufts in 2010, there has been an increase in puppy registrations and a subsequent rise in dogs ending up at one of the rescue charities devoted to the breed. ‘They’re not for everyone,’ Mr Whitfield stresses.

‘However, for those looking for a vizsla, who aren’t bothered about it being a puppy, a lot of the dogs coming into rescues don’t have any issues. Most were simply in the wrong home, not being used to their potential.’

Speak to any vizsla enthusiast, whether they’re in the smooth-coated or the wirehaired camp, and within seconds it becomes blindingly obvious that they are more than happy to have this Velcro dog stuck to their side for life. ‘I used to have a Russian military motorbike and sidecar—Rizla the vizsla would sit in the sidecar wearing his bandana and, together, we’d go ride around town,’ remembers Mr Catchpole with a wistful smile.

Happy hunting: meet other HPRs • Weimaraner: noble, beautiful, but can be a handful. The charming ‘grey ghost’ has a powerful drive to hunt, plenty of energy and a stubborn streak—not one for the faint-hearted • German wirehaired pointer (GWP): like the HWV, the GWP has a wiry, protective coat, suitable for rough cover and harsh weather. Bold, courageous and hardworking • German shorthaired pointer (GSP): beautiful to watch, the GSP is quick, charismatic and strong, as well as stylish—a relentless worker, but wilful and can be high maintenance • Italian spinone: a large, hairy, wellbuilt gundog with a big heart and origins that go back cen makes it ideal for means it takes u space—intelligen the easiest HPR • Korthals griffon wiry coat makes lent hunter in t growth. Bright, f and one of the satile HPRs, bu to train, requiri • Brittany: popul France, it is over an HPR with a sp Brittany is biddab nose and will go

Country Life, January 29, 2020 57

Interiors The designer’s room

Susie Atkinson has taken a sympathetic approach to the interior of a Queen Anne townhouse in London

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ITH a training at the Inchbald School of Design under her belt, Susie Atkinson secured a job with interior designer Chester Jones before establishing her own studio in 1998. Since then, she has worked on myriad highprofile projects, most recently, at both the Lime Wood and Beaverbrook hotels.

As this townhouse has a Grade II* listing, the project required a light touch.

‘Very little could be changed internally,’ says Susie. ‘We replaced the fireplace and then reconditioned and restored the panelling. The latter is painted in Paint & Paper Library’s Canvas III (0845 880 5844; www.paintandpaperlibrary.com), a lovely, warm off-white, which is neither too yellow nor too cold.’

The owners have an extensive collection of contemporary art, which marries well against the simple Classical details of the room. London blinds were chosen over curtains that, the designer says, ‘would have compromised the window architraves’. The soft folds are ‘less severe than those created with Roman blinds and not as dressy as festooned blinds’, in a wool sheer by Rogers & Goffigon Ltd (001 203 532 8068; www.rogersandgoffigon.com).

Padded window seats are covered in a ticking by Robert Kime (020–7831 6066; www.robertkime.com) The sofa is the designer’s own—an easy and adaptable shape that works well in both traditional and contemporary settings. Old oak floorboards were found at reclamation specialists Lassco (020– 7394 2100; www.lassco.co.uk). On top is a jute-and-wool boucle, which has the appearance of a sisal without the roughness underfoot (020–7352 6001; www. starkcarpet.co.uk). Hanging over the deep-buttoned ottoman is a scalloped pendant in antique brass by Soane (020– 7730 6400; www.soane.co.uk).

Arabella Youens Susie Atkinson (020–7384 0700; www.susieatkinson.com)

58 Country Life, January 29, 2020

Interior designThe inside track

Giles Kime

Inspiration from the driving seat Furniture designers still have much to learn from the automotive industry

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HE news that Bentley recently commissioned Gainsborough, the historic Suffolk silk-weaving company, to create a bespoke damask for its EXP 100 GT concept car is yet another a sign that the lines between automotive and interior design are increasingly fuzzy.

The interior of a luxury car is one of its key selling points, particularly for those who can’t tell a camshaft from a crankshaft, and, in many respects, it’s an area in which car manufacturers have left furniture designers idling at the lights.

Much contemporary furniture is a triumph of style (and a designer’s ego) over comfort One can only assume that the owners of a Bentley have to exert massive self will to drag themselves from the car’s cosseting embrace and into the relative discomfort of their homes. However much you splash out on a sofa, it’s unlikely that it will be as comfortable as the back of a limo—or that it can be adjusted in 12 different settings or that the stitching is the work of Hand & Lock, the company that has made royal and military dress uniforms since the late 18th century.

Gainsborough has a similarly impressive

60 Country Life, January 29, 2020

pedigree, having been in business for much more than 100 years, with a client list that includes Morris & Co and Henry Ford and archives dating back to the 15th century.

The root of the problem is that, in the design of classic chairs and sofas, comfort is often constrained by convention. Given the emphasis that Modernist designers place on function, it would be tempting to think that they might have provided the answer. Yet other than an impressive attempt by Charles and Ray Eames (their Lounge Chair is the closest you’ll get to the club-class experience without leaving the ground), much contemporary furniture is a triumph of style (and the designer’s ego) over comfort.

The same could never be the case at the top end of the car industry and there’s no doubt that car designers significantly raise

the bar. When you’re building a twin turbocharged V8 engine, you can’t cut any corners and car designers tend to take the same approach to a passenger’s comfort.

Fortunately for Bentley owners, there’s no need to slum it away from the cosseting embrace of a Mulsanne Speed, Bentayga or Flying Spur. Last year, the company unveiled new additions to its furniture range— a desk, armchair and matching footstool— at the Milan Furniture Fair that ooze with the sotto voce sophistication of the brand.

The designs, launched to mark Bentley’s centenary, also include sofas, chairs, tables and lighting, most with a discreetly Art Deco feel. There might not be Bentley-style extras, such as fridge set into the back or a desk that folds into your lap, but the pieces are, nevertheless, suitably swish.

Bentley’s Bampton sofa (above) and Alston table (below) are inspired by the discreet luxury of its cars (right)

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Luxury News

Edited by Hetty Lintell

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HE NEWT—a hotel housed in a handsome, gingerbread-hued Georgian mansion—has been so exquisitely restored that, on arrival, it’s obvious Somerset’s latest hip destination more than lives up to the hype that has surrounded it since it opened last summer.

Bought by South African businessman Goos Bekker and his wife, Karen Roos—former editor of Elle Decoration South Africa— six years ago, after seeing it advertised in COUNTRY LIFE, the Grade II*-listed Hadspen House and its 800-acre Emily Estate has been reinvented as a 23-bedroom, achingly elegant and idiosyncratic retreat.

After a fascinating, albeit rain-soaked, tour of the Patrice Taravella-designed gardens, we warmed up with hot chocolate next to the log burner in the glass-fronted Garden Café—also open to non-hotel residents— where tree trunks rise up through the floor.

Our lunch featured a delicious whole cuminroasted cauliflower and grilled estate mushrooms with celeriac, braised beef, pickled walnut and black kale. The Newt, which was renamed after the 2,000 or so amphibians that reside there, also has a spa, a farm shop, a ‘cyder’ press and plans for both a gard and bee museum, which we’ll be back investigate, together with the intrigu ‘fresh, foraged and stored’ menu in T Botanical Rooms restaurant. Rooms fr £320 a night including breakfast, with gar tours at £15 a day (01963 577777; ww thenewtinsomerset.com). PL Raising the bar Give your bar an upgrade with beautiful bottles of single-estate gin and vodk from Wood Bros Distillery, set up by Ed and Charlie Stewart-Wood on their far in Bampton, Oxfordshir The brothers are proud to use only sustainably source winter wheat from their own crop, so they can chart their spirits from farm to bottle. The contents of the bottles are beautiful, too— I’ve tried the vodka and it’s wonderfully smooth and sweet.

With February in sight, it’s certainly time for a martini.

Vodka, £32; gin, £35 (www.woodbros distilling.com)

62 Country Life, January 29, 2020

Be mine I’m head over heels for eguet’s new Classique women’s timepiece. itian mother-of-pearl dial merising, keeping a very e piece from being overly e. Only 28 have been made, ould be a very special ndeed. £23,700 (0845 ; www.breguet.com)

HE Restory will take your much-loved yet exhausted accessories and bring them back to life, so shoes you thought wouldn’t live another day can be as good as new. The company’s expert restorers make light work of faded colours, scuffs on handbags and broken clasps—they can even re-paint worn-away animal print on pony skin. You can fall in love with your old favourites all over again and, most importantly, won’t need to buy new. The Restory will collect and return items (free of charge), then offer a solution and quote. Re-heeling from £20; full handbag restoration about £250 (020–8935 5333; www.the-restory.com). www.countrylife.co.uk

The Forager Cocoa Mountain, Highlands Deep in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, weary walkers and others heading to the far north have something of a treat in store. Artisan company Cocoa Mountain brings some of the finest chocolates to customers around the world, but those lucky enough to be passing through this part of the world can pop in to one of its two shops and cafes, in Dornoch and Balnakeil. The company opened in 2006, founded by chocolate-loving foodies Paul Maden and James Findlay. Today, the workshop creates delicious flavours, such as chilli and lemongrass, and the bestselling Scottish sea salt milk chocolate; plenty of local larder ingredients are used, too, from raspberries and whiskies. All the products can be bought online, but it is worth the pilgrimage to the picturesque headquarters to try the famous hot chocolate or a silky smooth Mountain Mocha— a winter warmer served in locally sourced pottery —under the gaze of the Highlands (01971 511233; www.cocoamountain.co.uk) Jemima Sissons

Soho far Soho good HE Gladwin broth ers, of The Shed and Nutbourne fame, have opened a new restaurant, bringing their Sussex Farm produce to the heart of Soho. Sit at the ba for a Sussex 75 featuri their own Nutty Wild ling wine to wash down the inexplicably moreish mushroom marmite eclairs (£4) or, perhaps, try their Sussex chilli beef biltong. The space is informal, yet special (perfect for a pre-theatre meal, with two courses at £24), and well placed on quiet Frith Street, slightly outside hectic theatreland. Don’t miss the melting beef tartare, to which an umami relish gives a twist (£9.50), or a rainbow-carrots dish with black garlic, with vegetables in a starring role.

I popped my head into the kitchen and saw the gnocchi being kneaded—sampled later, it was the perfect comfort food, topped with crispy sage leaves. The menu changes at the blink of an eye with whatever is in season—the meat is sensational and there is little to no wastage— so get your countryside hit here (020–3923 7770; www.sussex-restaurant.com).

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Bags of time Bonhams has launched a dedicated designer handbags and fashion department selling some of the finest pre-owned collectors’ accessories, building on the success of such pieces as this fuchsia ostrich Kelly bag (2006), sold by Bonhams Knightsbridge for £12,500 in 2012. According to GlobalData, the pre-owned market for all luxury goods is set to be worth $51 billion (£39 billion) by 2023, and Bonhams will be selling both contemporary and vintage fashion accessories. The debut sale on April 22 will feature 14 Hermès and Louis Vuitton handbags from author Barbara Taylor Bradford’s collection (020–7393 3900; www.bonhams.com) www.countrylife.co.uk

The gift of sleep is precious, so invest in top-quality pyjamas. If they look as lovely as these, even better Lila Jagger silk pyjamas, £420, Olivia Von Halle (020–7730 8000; www.olivia vonhalle.com)

Sky-striped silk top, £220, and shorts, £165, Asceno (020– 3601 2727; www.asceno.com)

Ada soft double cotton pyjamas, £95, Toast (0333 400 5200; www.toa.st)

Midnight-stripe trouser set, £100, plus £30 for monogramming, Piglet (www.pigletinbed. com) Country-vine cotton pyjama set, in rose and white, £150, Yolke (020 8964 2098; www.yolke.co.uk)

Country Life, January 29, 2020 63

In the making Penhaligon’s

The nose has it Global fragrance ambassador Dominic Collingridge tells Hetty Lintell the secrets of scent

Key notes Bergamot An inedible, yello intensely perfum citrus fruit, main in Calabria, Italy from the skin giv Grey tea its delic Vetiver A dry, st grass root from South-East Asia, useful for keeping insects away. In its native land, it is woven into fans and blinds as a natural air freshener. When it’s wet, the scent intensifies; mild, earthy, and musky, it invokes a feeling of calmness Patchouli Part of the mint family, it is thought of as the scent of the 1960s, with the best having a mossy, dark-chocolate note. In the 1800s, it was a benchmark for the authenticity of Eastern fabrics, as it was used to protect them from insects.

Even English and French clothing makers would scent their fabrics with artificial patchouli oil to encourage clothing sales

at 33, St James’s (where Café Murano now sits). His first fragrance, Hammam Bouquet, still available, was inspired by the Turkish baths. It has a sulphuric quality from the steam and notes echo the rose oils and oris that hung in the air.

Royalty was soon tempted through his doors and Penhaligon’s was named the Royal Barber and Perfumer to the Royal Court. In 1903, it was given its first Royal Warrant by Queen Alexandra (it has since been granted two more, from The Duke of Edinburgh and The Prince of Wales).

Scent can transport you back to a single moment in your past lenheim Bouquet was its next hurrah, mmissioned by the Duke of Marlborh and, naturally, worn by Sir Winston hill. Clean and uplifting, with lemon, and lavender, a bit of black pepper pine and musk note, it could happily used by both men and women. xotic ingredients imported to the don docks at the end of the 19th censparked Penhaligon’s ‘Trade Routes’ ction. My favourite, Lothair, launched ar the company was founded, was named after the last tea clipper of its kind to be built at Rotherhithe on the Lavender Dock.

Norton & Sons’s cutting room on Savile Row was the vision for Sartorial—the fougère (fern) scent has a countryside quality, but is also warm and slightly Oriental. ‘It’s like a fine whisky by a fire after a day outside,’ Mr Collingridge muses ‘with an almost

menthol head-clearing element.’ A metallic quality evokes Norton & Son’s needles, pins and scissors, followed by a subtle hint of the beeswax tailors use to strengthen thread.

‘Fragrance is about building memories and it can be emotional—customers can be moved to tears smelling a fragrance worn by a loved family member,’ he reveals. ‘I adore making young and old fall for the scents and the stories behind them.’ Penhaligon’s passion is weaving emotions and sensory memories through fragrances, taking clients on a journey that will stay with them for life.

Did you know? Original perfumers were actually glovemakers–

gantier parfumier. Urine was used to soften the leather and, to mask the smell, more pleasantly fragranced items, such as violet leaves, were applied.

Grasse in France was traditionally home to the world’s finest glovemakers

Complimentary fragrance profiling includes Gusbourne sparkling wine and Charbonel et Walker treats. Made-to-measure is £295; bespoke commissions, the ultimate luxury at £35,000, are crafted with perfume king Alberto Morillas. The Maharaja of Jodhpur commissioned Vaara (blessing) in honour of his granddaughter Vaara’s birth, inspired by the florals of Rajasthan he could smell from his palace (0800 011 9877; www.penhaligons.com) 64 Country Life, January 29, 2020

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Alamy

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MELL is the most evocative of the senses. The power a scent can have over us is remarkable—relationships are relived, family members return to your side and childhood holidays feel as if they were yesterday. Penhaligon’s, which turns 150 this year, believes that if you don’t feel something for a fragrance, you won’t wear it. ‘It should speak about who you are and make you feel yourself,’ enthuses Mr Collingridge. He was introduced to the brand aged 12 by his grandmother, who bought him a scent library of 10 1.5ml fragrances (the company sells a 2ml version of it, at £20), and he has used the products ever since.

In the 1860s, Cornish barber William Henry Penhaligon’s creative ambition led him to London, where he worked as head barber of the Turkish Hammam on Jermyn Street, a favourite spot for Society gentlemen, from Oscar Wilde to Rudyard Kipling. Feeling it was time to expan his first shop in

A few of my favourite things

The actress trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and has worked all her adult life in theatre, film and TV. She has starred in 14 West End plays and countless TV dramas and mini-series, including A Woman of Substance.

Her latest film, Off the Rails, is due out this year.

In 2011, she founded Mane Ch Words by Hetty Lintell. Ill

Kate Lloyd

My mother gave me a very worn and ragged copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare when I was a young actor. I love the language and the imagery he has created with his words. To dip in and out can fire the imagination. It’s not really a luxury, but I couldn’t do without it, as I have a passion for poetry and there is plenty in his works.

Making time for a silent moment of peace and calm is essential, but also seems a luxury in our jam-packed, manic lives. There is a view at the Sanctuary (www.manechancesanctuary. org) that I love—I will go and sit there in the company of the horses when I can and re-charge, being ‘filled up’ by the beauty of Nature and the presence of the horses.

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Country Life, January 29, 2020 65

Paint the rainbow Styled by Hetty Lintell Photographed by John Lawrence Jones

From left to right: Mandarin garnet and diamond ring, £12,600, G. Collins & Sons (01892 534018; www.gcollinsandsons.com); yellow-gold cushion-cut Malaya garnet and diamond ring, £28,000, Pragnell (01789 267072; www.pragnell. co.uk); Legends ‘Ra’ ring with white and yellow diamonds, price on application, De Beers (020–7758 9700; www.debeers.co.uk); peridot and diamond ring, £4,950, G. Collins & Sons (as above); emerald ring with white and pink diamonds, price on application, David Morris (020–7499 2200; www.davidmorris.com); Jewelled Vault sapphire ring, price on application, Garrard (020–7518 1070; www.garrard.com); cushion-cut tanzanite and carre-cut pink sapphire ring, £14,580, Pragnell (as above)

Property market

Penny Churchill

Take me Home Counties Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Hampshire are off to a flying start in 2020

Set high in the Chiltern Hills, Grade II-listed Holmer Ridings, Buckinghamshire, was built as a hunting lodge in about 1728. £4.65m

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FTER years of false dawns, countryhouse agents around the Home Counties not only have a spring in their step this January, they’re positively bouncing, as buyers and vendors who have been waiting in the wings enter the arena.

Across the Chilterns, Savills report a good start to 2020 in all their offices, with Beaconsfield recording a 66% increase in viewings compared with January 2019 and Oxford agreeing some early sales at asking prices. At the top end of the country-house market, the firm’s farms, estates and equestrian department have set the pace with the launch of the immaculate, Grade II-listed Holmer Ridings at Holmer Green, Buckinghamshire, less than five

68 Country Life, January 29, 2020

miles from both Amersham and High Wycombe, at a guide price of £4.65 million.

Set high in the Chiltern Hills, in an everchanging landscape of ancient woodlands, traditional farms and brick-and-flint cottages in hidden valleys, the village of Holmer Green was once part of a wilderness of forest and scrub where inhabitants of the fertile Misbourne Valley came to hunt deer and wild boar. According to local historian Stuart King, Holmer Green was still an isolated place when William the Conqueror invaded England, subdued the Saxons and ushered in the medieval period that saw the establishment of large monastic and country estates, including the Manor of Holmer, first recorded in 1208, from which Holmer Green takes its name.

According to its listing, Holmer Ridings was probably built as a hunting lodge in about 1728. Approached down a long, tree-lined driveway, the pristine brick-and-flint main house stands in 18 acres of gardens, paddocks and equestrian facilities on the edge of the village, yet is largely unseen from the outside world.

For the past 23 years, Holmer Ridings has been the much-loved family home of sport-horse breeder Simon Davies and his wife, Jane, who have transformed and extended the main house and adapted the former dressage establishment into a successful breeding and training operation that produces top-class showjumpers to Grand Prix level—the Holy Grail of international www.countrylife.co.uk

Find the best properties at countrylife.co.uk

Old Great Halfpenny, Guildford, Surrey, dates from the late 16th century. £3m

showjumping. Their Dutch-bred Egalini is currently a star on the world stage.

‘We travel a lot and Holmer Ridings is ideally located within easy reach of London, Heathrow and the national motorway network, but now that our daughters have left home, the house is too big for my wife and me, so we are looking to downsize,’ Mr Davies explains.

Holmer Ridings is a classic Chilterns country house, beautifully renovated to provide five bedrooms and four bathrooms, including a large, lower-ground-floor master-bedroom suite. Elegant reception rooms are made up of an impressive drawing room with tall arched windows, and the distinctive orangery has a rounded bay linked to a fitted kitchen/breakfast room designed by Mark Wilkinson. www.countrylife.co.uk

A separate spur leads from the drive to the stable courtyard with its charming stableyard adjoining discreetly laid-out training facilities that include a horse-walker, a manège and a lunging arena. In addition, the property offers two further detached buildings: a one-bedroom guest lodge and a cottage currently split into two staff flats with adjoining garages.

The cathedral city of Guildford and its environs are usually seen as the bellwether of the housing scene for Londoners moving to the country and, although the flow of country houses in the Surrey Hills has yet to find its stride, the market for good family houses within Guildford itself is already up and running.

With a shortage of stock being a major concern in recent years, James Ackerley of Knight Frank was happy to launch 15 houses in Guildford in the past two weeks, among them Treetops, a 1930s family house on a quiet, tree-lined road within walking distance of the North Downs and Guildford’s historic high street. ‘We had 20 viewings of Treetops on the Friday and Saturday and, by Monday, we had received four bids at the full guide price of £1.5m—something we haven’t seen for several years,’ he reveals.

From next week, Knight Frank (01483 617920) will be offering a delightful mix of town and country in the shape of picturesque, wisteria-clad Old Great Halfpenny in Halfpenny Lane on the outskirts of town, 1.9 miles from Guildford’s Upper High Street, and two miles from Guildford station (London Waterloo in 47 minutes). A guide price of £3m is quoted for the Grade II-listed, late-16th-century, timber-framed farmhouse set in four-fifths of an acre of gardens with distant views of the surrounding hills.

Restored in the 20th century, Old Great Halfpenny has been sympathetically modernised by its present owners, yet retains a wealth of character, with exposed ceilings and beams and numerous period fireplaces.

It offers some 6,300sq ft of living space, including a large reception hall, four to five reception rooms, seven bedrooms, five bathrooms and a triple-bay car port and separate garage—‘ideal for an automotive enthusiast’, the agents suggest.

Meanwhile, the Epsom office of Hamptons International (01372 390516) has opened its Surrey country-house account for 2020 with the launch of Coneybury at Mogador, near Lower Kingswood, a hamlet at the edge of Banstead Heath, half a mile from the north-facing slope of the North Downs.

Country Life, January 29, 2020 69

Property market

Designed by Arts-and-Crafts architect Sir Banister Fletcher, Coneybury, Surrey, occupies three floors and is set in 1½ acres. £2.25m

For sale at a guide price of £2.25m, Coneybury is an imposing house of great quality, designed and built in 1912 in the Artsand-Crafts style by the Edwardian architect Sir Banister Fletcher and recently refurbished to an exceptionally high standard by the present owners. Set in 1½ acres of lovely landscaped gardens, the distinguished, 6,237sq ft house has stylish accommodation laid out over three floors, including four gracious reception rooms, a contemporary kitchen/breakfast room and seven bedrooms.

Across the county border in Hampshire, Mark Astley of Jackson-Stops in Chichester (01243 786316) is in a buoyant mood, having sold waterside properties at Itchenor and Bosham for more than their guide prices in recent weeks. He quotes £2.95m for handsome Wick Farm at Waterlooville, in the South Downs National Park, two miles from Rowlands Castle on the East Hampshire/West Sussex border and eight miles from Petersfield.

Since acquiring Wick Farm in 1981, the owner has gradually bought various parcels of surrounding land, including a 100-acre block of woodland, all of which provide a buffer against any future development.

The farmhouse at Wick, which is unlisted, is thought to date mainly from the 17th century, 70 Country Life, January 29, 2020

but has earlier origins, having provided accommodation for the monks at Chalton before the Dissolution of the monasteries.

The present house, beautifully restored by the owners, offers some 4,250 sq ft of living space, including three main reception

rooms, four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two-to-three bedroom annexe. In addition to the woodland, the property comes with a brick-and-flint outbuilding, one acre of gardens, three stableyards with modern barns and 24 acres of paddocks.

Wick Farm, Hampshire, although unlisted, is thought to date fom the 17th century. £2.95m www.countrylife.co.uk

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Property comment

Bridging the gap

W

HEN the first Severn Bridge was opened by The Queen in 1966, it was hailed as the dawn of a new economic era for south Wales, slashing what had been a 12-hour journey to London’s West End. Although removing bridge tolls in December 2018—saving commuters up to £1,400 a year—might not have felt quite as momentous, agents say the change has fuelled a spike in interest in Welsh property.

‘It’s noticeable—there’s definitely more activity,’ says managing director at Stacks Property Search James Greenwood (01594 842880). ‘There’s also a lot more traffic on the roads and a lot of people talking about it. The question is: is that because the tolls came down or because the pressure on price on the English side of the Severn is so great that people have been squeezed west?’

72 Country Life, January 29, 2020

Dan Rees at Savills Cardiff (029–2036 8915) responds: ‘For people who don’t know Wales and didn’t perhaps grow up there, I’m sure the scrapping of the tolls has widened their search. If they’re commuting, they haven’t got to worry about that extra cost.’

There are slightly different attitudes and values to money on the other side of the river Most new activity, say agents, has been focused towards the middle to lower end of the market. ‘We’re talking about the sub£300,000 level, especially new-builds,’ says Anthony Clay of Fine & Country Monmouth (01600 713030). ‘What will cost you £350,000 in Bristol will cost you £250,000 here, and

it’s also beneath the raised tax levels of Wales. People who work in Bristol in the middle end of the market will commute, bridge tolls or no bridge tolls.’

‘If they’re not Welsh, I think people are surprised by how beautiful south Wales is,’ muses Leah Mullin of Knight Frank Cardiff (029–2044 0138). ‘If I wanted to go and walk in the Brecon Beacons one weekend, it only takes 40 minutes to get there; if I want to go for a swim in the sea, it’s 30 minutes away. The mix of amenities is a massive pull.’

For buyers willing to widen their search, tempted by the new ease of the bridge, budgets will still stretch further across the border. ‘There will always be a bit more value for money in Wales compared with England,’ says Mr Rees, with Savills research showing Welsh properties are nearly £100 cheaper per square foot than on the English side of the bridge. ‘Initially, www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy

Scrapping the Severn Bridge tolls has put Wales in the spotlight, as buyers consider hopping over the border to get more for their money. Madeleine Silver explores

Take me to the river... and beyond Properties worth leaving England for Usk, Monmouthshire (above) Set amid Monmouthshire’s Lower Usk Valley, 19th-century Glyn Heulog is approached up a gravel drive and overlooks mature gardens. There are seven bedrooms, three bathrooms and a kitchen with an AGA. Outside is a former stable block with two original stalls and two garages, as well as a pair of adjoining cottages. £995,000 through Fine & Country (01600 775930)

The Usk valley in the Brecon Beacons is proving attractive to potential buyers

there was a bit of a surge anda scramble for properties and I think the values did go up a little bit. But, as time has gone on, things have flattened out.’

Monmouthshire, often considered ‘Wales light’—‘not too Welsh,’ explains Mr Clay— boasts the popular market towns of Usk and Monmouth; the latter is home to the Haberdashers’ Monmouth Schools, a major draw. Crickhowell, the other side of Abergavenny, is also in high demand, with its high street enlivened by independent shops.

Agents advise sticking near to the bridge for a daily Bristol commute; the realistic commuter belt is between Chepstow and Newport near the motorway, including popular Caldicot. ‘You also have the Severn Tunnel Junction or Newport train stations on your doorstep here, and can be in London in two hours on a fast train,’ adds Mr Rees.

Why not take the plunge? ‘It’s a bit of a cliché, but people can be surprised by how warmly they’re made to feel at home in Wales,’ says Mr Greenwood. ‘There are slightly different attitudes and values to money on the other side of the river. It is a more relaxed place.’ www.countrylife.co.uk

Chepstow, Monmouthshire (below) The Dene is in a small hamlet on the fringes of Chepstow, situated next to a shallow brook with established gardens and split-level sun terraces. There are three first-floor bedrooms and a family bathroom, as well as an attached two-storey annexe. £850,000 through Savills (0117–295 7573) Crickhowell, Powys Only yards from the town centre of popular Crickhowell, crowned the UK’s best high street in 2018, is 18th-century Dan Y Castell. There are six bedrooms, a conservatory, cellar and domestic offices, with views from the garden over the glorious Brecon Beacons. £1.35 million through Bidmead Cook (01873 853640) Llantilio Crossenny, Monmouthshire Cae Hedd is a barn conversion and annexe that together provide six bedrooms, with a detached office and double garage. Set in just over 2½ acres, the property enjoys views over the countryside between Monmouth and Abergavenny. As well as an orchard and greenhouse, there is a 10ft-deep natural swimming pool. £850,000 through Roscoe Rogers & Knight (01600 772929) St Arvens, Chepstow, Monmouthshire (right) In the popular village of St Arvans, The Laurels, a period home with five bedrooms, a timber orangery and wine cellar, is set behind a walled entrance. The impressive kitchen runs the full depth of the property and the drawing room looks onto the garden from the original sash windows. £915,000 through Savills (0117–933 5802) Country Life, January 29, 2020 73

A Veneto affair Giardino Giusti in Verona and Villa Fracanzan Piovene near Vicenza, Italy

Jenny Condie applauds the partnership between these two historic gardens in the Veneto that will assure their bright futures Photographs by Alex Ramsay

T

WO households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene…’ were united by marriage in the 20th century and have since worked together to preserve their considerable and separate heritages, with the aim of consigning them to posterity in good repair.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have made such a good plotline for a play, but there is reason to be grateful nonetheless to the partnership of Nicolò Giusti del Giardino and Francesca Piovene, and their vigorous stewardship of two of northern Italy’s cultural jewels: the Giardino Giusti in Verona and Villa Fracanzan Piovene near Vicenza.

The name Giusti has been synonymous with one of Italy’s most celebrated Renaissance gardens since the late 16th century.

Originally wool-dyers from Prato in Tuscany, the Giusti family had moved its business north in the previous century, settling in an unglamorous industrial suburb of Verona.

Within a few generations, its members were rich and had also acquired the requisite antiquarian and artistic tastes of true Renaissance gentlefolk.

The garden retains the surprise element of a stage set, presenting a magnificent and entertaining spectacle The garden created by Agostino Giusti between 1565 and 1580 was intended to fulfil various functions. It had to showcase his collection of Roman inscriptions and to serve as a setting for the lavish theatrical and musical productions—the predecessors of opera—then in vogue. To this day, the garden retains the surprise element of a stage set, presenting a magnificent and entertaining spectacle that totally confounds one’s expectations of a city garden.

Entering from a narrow street, the visitor is confronted with the sight, just visible through a wrought-iron gate, of an impossibly long avenue bordered by enormous cypresses ascending a distant slope. Steps lead up to a Classical pediment under which gapes a dark arched recess, and above, at an unexpectedly great height, a huge, grimacing stone mask juts out from bare rock.

That recess, the centrepiece of the garden, was once a grotto, decorated with the Harmony and permanence: order over Nature in Verona’s Renaissance giardino all’italiano. Cypresses soar above a geometry of clipped box and gravel paths

Country Life, January 29, 2020 75

most outlandish objects available to a 16thcentury garden owner. Corals, scallop shells, mother-of-pearl and moss-covered artificial rocks were combined with painted landscapes and large sheets of glass reflecting the garden behind to create an infinite game of illusion. Sudden jets of water intensified the awe-struck visitor’s disquiet, as eerie sounds came from another hollowed-out space in the cliff a little way off.

Clearly, a large part of what this scenographic garden was about was the eliciting of a kind of wonderment that was both frightening and exquisitely pleasurable. For 21st-century sensibilities, this might seem tame stuff, but on dark nights when flames and sparks are said to have been blown out of the mask, the effect would undoubtedly have been unnerving.

76 Country Life, January 29, 2020

We can still admire the audacious gesture of ownership that is the spectacular 3,200ft-long avenue In deliberate contrast, the organisation of the lower garden into orderly compartments of box parterre containing brimming stone fountains or weathered mythological statues engenders a more contemplative mood.

Here, the slow beat of symmetry, repetition and a restricted palette of deep greens is interrupted only by lemon trees in terracotta pots and by the famously treacherous labyrinth

in which various celebrities of the past lost their bearings. Redesigned in 1786, it has mercifully low hedges these days.

The questions of how one conserves a garden such as this and whether it is acceptable to, say, peel away the layer of Romantic English landscaping style (yes), reinstate a row of cypress trees that were certainly present when Goethe visited in 1786 (yes) or dispense with the flowing French parterres that at some point in the past must have replaced the more strictly geometric Italian ones (probably never) is one that has exercised Nicolò Giusti for most of his life.

He is currently handing over the reins to his cousin, Livia Imperiali, having completed his swansong: the restoration of the 20thcentury apartment in Palazzo Giusti, which is now open to the public for the first time. www.countrylife.co.uk

Left: Stepping over the threshold: elusive meanings are hinted at in ancient statuary and flowing water throughout Giardiano Guisti. Above: An elegant stone pavilion offers views back over the garden and over the red rooftops of Verona beyond The distinctive interior decoration, furniture and photographs tell a more recent, but no less fascinating family story. Indeed, Nicolò’s wife, Francesca Piovene, is an old hand at this.

Villa Fracanzan Piovene soars into sight on a bend in a country road leading out of the small town of Orgiano on the southernmost tip of the Berici Hills. A mountainous outcrop rising suddenly and steeply from the Veneto plain on the edge of Vicenza, the Berici were an obvious site on which to build the medieval strongholds, fortresses and castles that formed the backdrop to centuries of power struggles between feudal overlords.

With the advent of more peaceful times, the Veneto nobility and their architects came here in search of sites less impervious, but which still offered a desirable elevation upon which to lay out their Classicising villas and www.countrylife.co.uk

gardens. Several of Palladio’s most celebrated creations are here and the area continued to be favoured during the great villabuilding period precipitated by the erosion of Venice’s maritime empire and the consequent imperative to invest in the land.

Those Venetian families who made the transition to land ownership had no intention, however, when overseeing the unfamiliar practices of the countryside, of renouncing the style to which they were accustomed.

Sumptuous ballrooms and grand reception rooms were transposed from the Grand Canal to the fields and ditches, as the glittering reflections of chandeliers in the water were replaced by the flashing of fireflies over rows of corn and hemp.

At Villa Fracanzan Piovene, from a wide terrace on the piano nobile, we can still

admire the audacious gesture of ownership that is the spectacular 3,200ft-long avenue traversing the whole length of the property southwards. Ornamented by evenly spaced pairs of stone urns, it is crossed horizontally by the occasional line of tall rushes marking a ditch. Such orderly tranquillity is deceptive, however, as when the villa was built in 1710, this area was a hunting enclosure, filled with wild animals kept ready for the chase.

Entering the property from a side gate, the visitor finds himself at the farthest end of a grandly proportioned, rusticated portico that would have been the fulcrum of all villa activities. It projects from the sheltering roof of the single barchessa, a rural construction unique to the Veneto that housed the workshops, peasants’ accommodation, stables, storehouses, estate offices, hen Country Life, January 29, 2020 77

Facing page: Giardino Giusti, the cypress avenue, grotto and stone mask. Above: The rear elevation of Villa Fracanzan Piovene.

Grain was stored in the villa’s elegant attic, safe from human pilfering and rodent incursions until the price was right for selling houses and laundry rooms upon which the running of the villa’s estate depended. Here, a Museum of Daily Villa Life and Work has been created, displaying some of the hundreds of agricultural implements, carpenter’s tools and household gadgets fashioned over the centuries to aid the backbreaking labour of the men and women employed at the villa.

The work is finally bearing fruit–as are the re-created kitchen garden and orchard When Contessa Francesca Giusti Piovene inherited the property, she and her husband moved into the upper floor of the barchessa where, in former times, silk worms had been reared. That left them free to plan a strategy for the villa’s survival.

Now, the work is finally bearing fruit—as are the kitchen garden and orchard, painstakingly re-created in their own walled enclosure. House and garden were both dilapidated and have taken years of investment and effort to imagine back into life.

Where the garden was concerned, a conservative approach to restoration was essential. The once-clipped yews that had become hopelessly overgrown have been left to live out their naturally sprawling lives within box enclosures. Lemon trees and other citrus plants, formerly moved laboriously between the orangery and garden in pots, www.countrylife.co.uk

are now planted outside under low southfacing walls and take care of themselves.

The Contessa has allowed herself a few roses, but refrains from planting anything more demanding. Those memories of playing here as a little girl as her aunts weeded fussily around their beds of dahlias and antirrhinums must be strong. Simplicity and ease of maintenance are the priorities now.

The villa hosts weddings, conferences and other events, offering a tasteful opulence and a majesty of scale that is unsurpassed, even in a region that counts some 4,000 historic villas. At weekends throughout most of the year, people come to admire the rows of

vintage tractors and walk around the villa’s beautifully furnished rooms, the star turn of which is the kitchen, with its timeless accretion of culinary utensils ranged around smoky walls that still seem to echo with the voices of cooks and the banging of copper pans. From the worn red brick of the uneven floor to the Bakelite radio, the famous 16thcentury sink in red Verona marble to the burnt and blackened fireplace, it has the look of a room that could cope with any emergency, and that could provide any amount of sustenance. It perfectly epitomises Francesca and Nicolò’s thoughtful approach to conserving and recounting their family history.

Visit Venice and the Veneto with Country Life Join Country Life on a tour of the Gardens & Palazzos of Venice & the Veneto from September 14 to 19. The tour price of £3,580 includes return flights from London, all garden entries, most meals, two nights at the Hotel Monaco in Venice and three nights at Hotel Villa Michelangelo in the Berici Hills.

Country Life contributor Charles Quest-Ritson and garden expert Kirsty Fergusson are hosting and leading the tour and will be joined in Venice by guest lecturer Jenny Condie. Highlights include a private boat across the Lagoon and up the Grand Canal to Hotel Monaco; a private visit to the flower-filled garden of Palazzo Cappello Malipiero Barnabò; an exploration of the fertile countryside of the Veneto, where we are invited to drinks and lunch with the Contessa Marina Emo in her Palladian-style Villa Emo at Rivella; a visit to the exquisite green theatre at Villa Rizzardi Pojega and the iconographical Villa Barbarigo, as well as one of Palladio’s finest villas. We are also invited to join Francesca Giusti Piovene at Villa Fracanzan Piovene as special guests for lunch in the villa and to view her gardens, orchards and incredible 16th/17th-century kitchens In Venice, we will stay at the beautiful Hotel Monaco on the Grand Canal before heading to the 18th-century Palladian-style Hotel Villa Michelangelo, a heavenly retreat in the Berici hills, surrounded by parkland and views reaching to the mountains beyond.

For more information and to book, please contact Boxwood Tours, 1 West Street, Buckingham (01341 429290; mail@boxwoodtours.co.uk; www.boxwoodtours.co.uk) Country Life, January 29, 2020 79

In the garden

Mark Griffiths

The naming of plants is a difficult matter

The graceful Gaura lindheimeri is now Oenothera lindheimeri

biological nomenclature. They appreciated that the language of life is itself living; that it exists not to provide eternally unalterable labels, but to reflect science’s understanding of the organisms it articulates; and that, when this understanding changes, so may the names.

Recently, the rate of change has accelerated due to the revolution in plant classification that is molecular systematics. Through DNA analysis, degrees of relatedness can be demonstrated with unprecedented precision. This has powered a root-and-branch revision of the tree of life in which lineages and evolutionary histories are reconstructed and new delimitations are proposed for families, genera and species.

Like that poor old term ‘plantsman’, many existing plant names end up no longer saying the right thing and need to be changed.

Horticultural aide memoire Keep off the grass When frost turns the grass white, it is a sight for sore eyes, yet, like snow, its beauty is instantly compromised the moment a human footprint appears on it. Frosted grass is physically frozen and your heavy tread breaks the leaf. For weeks afterwards, you will see where you walked, as your blackened footprints will give you away. Even when the lawn is not frosted at this time of year, it is typically sodden, another reason for not making it worse by walking on it. The cast-iron signs of our youth urging us to Keep Off the Grass were right. SCD 80 Country Life, January 29, 2020

For all its forensic exactitude, molecular systematics is neither omniscient nor infallible.

Samples may be too small, or contaminated or misidentified.

The results may be capable of varying interpretations, and the conclusions wrongheaded.

For these reasons, the RHS Nomenclature and Taxonomy Advisory Group scrutinises academic papers, evaluating the validity and likely impact of their proposals before recommending adoption or dismissal.

DNA analysis has powered a root-and-branch revision Adoption can be asking for trouble, not from gardeners, but the media. Here’s a newspaper headline from last November, after the RHS announced it accepted the renaming of Rosmarinus officinalis as Salvia rosmarinus: ‘Rosemary is not a rosemary, rules RHS—it’s a sage, as they tell gardeners to change plant labels.’

For imbecilic inaccuracy, this is beaten only by the same article’s opening: ‘Rosemary is not a separate species of plant after all.’

In fact, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and many other of the

world’s leading plant authorities, agree with the RHS’s view of Rosmarinus, having been convinced by molecular studies that place it in an enlarged and diverse, but genetically coherent genus Salvia. This does not mean that rosemary ‘is not a separate species of plant’, let alone one and the same as culinary sage (Salvia officinalis). Its revised status as a new Salvia species, far from diminishing ‘rosemary’, only heightens its importance.

There’ll be no writing this beautiful English name out of poems, plays, herbals, gardens and kitchens, no loss of its cultural identity and its wealth of lore and uses: ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’

Names also need to change if they contravene the international codes, one for wild and the other for cultivated plants, that govern the formation and formalisation of nomenclature.

Last year, Yoko and I investigated Fatsia japonica Spider’s Web. We found that, originally, the breeder of this strikingly variegated cultivar had named it Tsumugishibori (‘batik-dyed cloth’) and that it had appeared in print with this name in Japan. Later, without the breeder’s consent, someone else renamed it Spider’s Web and it became known as such in the West. Its familiarity, however, is immaterial. Spider’s Web does not meet the requirements of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants, whereas Fatsia Tsumugishibori does and, crucially, has priority: it was the first validly published name for this cultivar.

Clearly, it is the correct name.

Meanwhile, Spider’s Web becomes superfluous, a synonym.

Naturally, we reported this in The Plant Review—where else, but in that triumph of renaming?

Mark Griffiths is a member of the RHS Nomenclature and Taxonomy Advisory Group Next week Asparagus www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy

L

EST it be thought sexist, a Men Only for the greenthumbed and hornyhanded, after 40 years in print, The Plantsman was renamed The Plant Review last September.

Much as I loathe the PC policing of English, I prefer the new title. The great beauty of this RHS quarterly is the depth of its feature articles, each devoted to one kind of cultivated plant.

But its chief utility is as a review of taxonomic research into the gamut of garden flora. The editor, James Armitage, presents this material in an invaluable section called ‘Classification corner’. It’s here that the RHS announces and explains the changes to botanical names that will be adopted in future editions of The Plant Finder and its other publications.

To give three examples that were gazetted in the first The Plant Review: henceforth, the airily elegant perennial Gaura lindheimeri will be called Oenothera lindheimeri; the azure-flowered and mat-forming alpine Lithodora diffusa will be renamed Glandora diffusa; and Fallopia japonica (Japanese knotweed) will revert to its old alias, Reynoutria japonica.

It’s widely assumed that such rebrandings exasperate gardeners. In 1992, however, when I had the task of introducing many hundreds of name changes, I found most of my fellow plantspersons glad to adopt them in the knowledge that they were supporting a vital function of

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• Deodorising • Holes & Tears Repaired

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Examples of the types we clean and repair include Turkish, Persian, Caucasian, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Contemporary, Kilims and Tapestries.

WORKSHOP 14 Oliver Business Park, Oliver Road, London NW10 7JB

APPRAISALS & ASSESSMENTS 12 Oliver Business Park, Oliver Road, London NW10 7JB

Theatre

Michael Billington

How could things go so right?

The art of the pratfall–onstage ineptitude is much harder than it looks to pull off

I

CAME late to Mischief Theatre, a group of former drama students who joined forces in 2008 to exploit the comic potential of stage disasters. I eventually caught up with The Play That Goes Wrong, still running at the Duchess Theatre, but found it much less funny than Michael Frayn’s Noises Off. Groan Ups, which kicked off the group’s year-long residency at the Vaudeville, also struck me as an over-familiar exploration of the idea that the child is father of the man—and woman.

I am pleased to report, however, that I have finally found a Mischief Theatre show that I loved. Magic Goes Wrong, the group’s second piece at the Vaudeville, has had mixed 82 Country Life, January 29, 2020

reviews, with some critics complaining about a lack of narrative drive, but that seems to me the whole point. There’s a loose framework suggesting that we’re at a charity fundraiser for injured magicians, but the real pleasure lies in watching an array of startlingly inept acts.

Mind Mangler (Henry Lewis) is a self-important clairvoyant who relies heavily on a disobliging stooge. The Blade (Dave Hearn) ends up severely mutilated by his knife-throwing routines. Two Germanic female gymnasts (Bryony Corrigan and Nancy Zamit) aim for the stars and frequently come to earth with a bump.

Why did I enjoy the show so much? Partly because it takes

a good deal of skill to do magic badly and—with the aid of US magicians Penn and Teller— some of the tricks actually work.

My delight, however, stemmed from the show reminding me of the Variety theatre I saw as a child in the 1950s.

At one point, The Blade is immersed in a heavily padlocked tank of water from which there seems no escape—an idea that took me back to an old Jewel and Warriss sketch in which the hapless Jimmy was similarly submerged in a surreal attempt to try out a pen that wrote under water. When Sophisticato, the show’s compère, elegantly played by Henry Shields, seeks to produce doves from his capacious sleeves, I recalled Eric

Morecambe appearing as a magician in an evening-dress suit that also bulged with recalcitrant birds.

When Mischief Theatre seeks to tell a story, I find the endless mishaps become repetitive. Here, the troupe has found the perfect format in a show that presents a series of isolated acts unified only by an air of solemn superiority and hilarious incompetence.

I was reminded that even the best planned theatre can go wrong when I went to Beckett Triple-Bill, directed by Trevor Nunn at the ever-enterprising Jermyn Street Theatre. The opening item was Krapp’s Last Tape (1957), in which an old man sits at a Grundig recorder biliously listening to memories www.countrylife.co.uk

Robert Day; Robert Workman

What’s happened now? Bryony Corrigan’s gymnast routine is one of many acts that fail horribly—and brilliantly—in Magic Goes Wrong

of his younger self, and the sound-system initially failed to function, a mishap from which the actor, James Hayes, recovered with heroic élan.

Fortunately, nothing went wrong with the second item, Eh Joe, written for television in 1965, which is one of Beckett’s most compelling works. An old man sits alone, his face seen in camera close-up, listening to a disembodied female voice recording his past callousness.

Niall Buggy’s features minutely registered the man’s anguish as the voice of Lisa Dwan brilliantly modulated from scornful irony to withering contempt.

The real pleasure lies in watching an array of startlingly inept acts Finally came a real rarity: The Old Tune, which Beckett adapted for radio in 1960 from a French text by Robert Pinget.

In this, two old codgers (Mr Buggy again and David Threlfall) sit on a bench hazily reminiscing about their shared past as traffic thunders past. The piece is unusually wordy for Beckett, but has strong echoes of the Shallow-Silence scenes from Henry IV Part Two and is full of quiet melancholy: asked about his wife, Mr Buggy replies ‘Still in it, still in it, but for how long?’

Taken together, the three plays offer a deeply moving meditation on the power and the fallibility of memory. After the technical glitch, everything very much went right for this beguiling Beckett trio.

Sometimes, however, no amount of toil, ingenuity or talent can turn lead into gold.

A case in point is the production of Rags: The Musical at Park 200 in north London.

When it opened on Broadway in 1986, this show, with music www.countrylife.co.uk

A pair of old codgers, but worth listening to: Niall Buggy and David Threlfall in Beckett Triple-Bill

by Charles Strouse, book by Joseph Stein and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, ran for only four performances. Now, the work, about the Jewish immigrant experience in America and a follow-up to Fiddler On The Roof, has a radically revised book by David Thompson. The piece is excellently staged by Bronagh Lagan and boasts some fine performances, yet still feels only halfway to being a really good musical.

The main problem is the lack of cohesion in the story. Carolyn Maitland reveals a shining talent as the heroine, Rebecca, but there seems little plausibility in her move from an East Side tailoring sweatshop to becoming a fashionable uptown dressmaker.

It seems odd that her big climactic number is a hymn to the past at the very moment when she is supposedly embracing the present. The consolation lies in the bustling re-creation of immigrant life and in Mr Strouse’s tuneful score.

One number, Three Sunny Rooms, starts as a tentative loveduet between an ageing couple, beautifully played by Dave Willetts and Rachel Izen, and expands into a melodious quartet.

At that moment, a flawed musical

What’s new The Welkin Lucy Kirkwood’s new play, starring Maxine Peake,

shows a woman on trial for murder in 18th-century Suffolk.

Until May 23, at the Lyttelton, SE1 (020–7452 3000) Uncle Vanya Toby Jones heads the cast in Chekhov’s ever-moving masterpiece. Until May 2, at Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1 (0844 871 7622) Kunene and the King Powerful South African drama by John Kani, who co-stars with Sir Antony Sher. Until March 28, at Ambassadors, WC2 (020–7395 5405)

Book now Adventures With The Painted People David Greig’s new play,

set in Scotland in ad85. From July 23, at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Perthshire (01796 484626)

Last chance to see Swive (Elizabeth) Ella Hickson’s play offers a challenging new

perspective on the Virgin Queen. Until February 15, at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, SE1 (020–7401 9919).

Give this a miss Cirque du Soleil: Luzia Strictly for addicts of showbiz acrobatics. Until March 1, at the Royal Albert Hall, SW7 (020–7589 8212)

suddenly becomes a show where absolutely nothing goes wrong.

‘Magic Goes Wrong’, until May 31 (0330 333 4814); ‘Beckett Triple-Bill’, until February 8 (020–7287 2875); ‘Rags: The Musical’, until February 8 (020–7870 6876)

At a glance Magic Goes Wrong ✸✸✸✸✸ Beckett Triple-Bill ✸✸✸✸✸ Rags: The Musical ✸ ✸ ✸ ✸✸ Country Life, January 29, 2020 83

Art market

Huon Mallalieu

France to Fulham Magnificent pieces from turbulent 19th-century France surface as the potting Martin brothers return to roost

Fig 1: Mahogany Jupe’s Patent expanding table

by Johnstone and Jeanes. £104,000

Where might the remaining 10 candelabra be?

They are likely to be hiding in plain sight

T

HE regimes of Restoration France were unfortunate in losing their most promising heirs. The well-known jibe misattributed to Talleyrand, that the senior Bourbon line had learned nothing and forgotten nothing from the Revolution, is unfair to Louis XVIII, if not to his brother Charles X. It is probably also unfair to Charles X’s younger son, the duc de Berry, who was comparatively liberal and popular and a patron of the Arts. He was assassinated aged only 42 by a diehard Bonapartist in 1820.

In 1842, Louis Philippe’s eldest son, the duc d’Orléans—another relatively liberal art patron— died in a carriage accident a little before his 32nd birthday. This was the period of the Renaissance and Medieval revivals known as Style Troubadour and the furnishings commissioned for Orléans’ apartment in the Pavillon de Marsan at the east end of the north wing of the Louvre, for which numerous 84 Country Life, January 29, 2020

Fig 2: French ormolu candelabra, once owned by the duc d’Orléans. £161,200

young sculptors and bronziers were employed, were expressions of this. They included a magnificent 1839 surtout de table designed by Aimé Chenavard for the dining room.

A surtout is a silver or bronze centrepiece running the length of a table, made up of candelabra, bowls, dishes and figurative sculptures displayed on a run of mirrored trays. This was

a fitting commission as, according to Sir Roy Strong, the fashion originated at the wedding of a previous duc d’Orléans in 1692.

Coincidentally, the fire-blackened surtout ordered for the Tuileries

by Napoleon III is now displayed in the part of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs housed in the Pavillon de Marsan.

During the 1848 revolution, the duc’s works of art were sold off by the family to avoid confiscation by the state, including 14 of these hard-stone mounted ormolu candelabra, each 43¾in high. One pair was sold for £75,000 by Christie’s, New York, in 2017. Earlier this month, another pair came up at Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury, having been in an Anglo-Scottish family since 1853 (Fig 2). There was considerable multi-national interest, but initially, bidding was slow from a £20,000 start. However, it ended in £161,200, paid by a telephone bidder from New York. Where might the remaining 10 candelabra be? Given their stature, they are likely to be hiding in plain sight.

Another lot to do very well in this sale was an almost exactly contemporary dining table, although, being circular, it was not suitable for such a surtout.

This was a fine example of one of about 50 Jupe’s Patent expanding tables made by Johnstone & Jeanes of New Bond Street, W1, in the early www.countrylife.co.uk

Pick of the week

Fig 3: Aquatic jar by Edwin and Walter Martin, 1896. £15,600 1840s. A number of firms made these ingenious contraptions, but John Johnstone had been Robert Jupe’s partner when the patent was registered in 1835.

The ingenuity lay in the fact that the table expanded from a common centre, extending both the width and breadth, rather than only growing laterally. This was a large one in mahogany, expanding from nearly 6ft to more than 7ft diameter (Fig 1).

Jupes are always popular and this one, estimated to £50,000, sold for £104,000.

In late November, the same auctioneer held a sale dedicated to the potting Martin brothers.

Their business began in 1873 in the family home in Fulham, when the four brothers—Robert Wallace, Walter, Edwin and Charles—fired up their first kiln. They moved to a disused soap works in Southall, west London, four years later and their 50-year production ended in 1921, when only Robert Wallace, the eldest, was still

Fig 4: The Norwich Cryer, a stoneware figure by Robert Wallace Martin. £5,200

www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 5 above: Bird jar and cover

by R. W. Martin. £36,500. Fig 6 below: Dragon vase by Edwin and Walter Martin. £12,350

alive to see bidding at Sotheby’s reach £50 for a single bird jar.

Fifty years ago, the grotesque Wally-birds were making money again, as the Victorian revival picked up speed, and I remember thinking that the more restrained pots and vases also deserved attention. Then the dealer Richard Dennis and Sotheby’s Belgravia began to promote the brothers and, later, Christie’s South Kensington followed suit with the first dedicated sales organised by Michael Jeffery, who is now in charge at Woolley & Wallis.

Mr Jeffery had attracted several good collections and, although the bird figures and jars still ruled the—surely, in fact, unruly—roost, several vases and other forms of jar did notably well.

Perhaps because I enjoy crosswords, I haven’t a clue what this is about, although it has been explained to me. The artist-craftsman Kit Williams is best known for the 1975 book Masquerade, which launched a national treasure hunt for his golden hare. He does not like crosswords or anagrams and did not want to provide clues that could be cracked by puzzlers, so he devised a way of hiding them in the illustrations. As his encryption machine, he used a 32½in by 26in ‘orrery’ carousel constructed of wood with a metal mechanism and hand-painted front.

‘The circular wooden frame surrounding the image carries a message: Dance Three Rings The Song Thrush Sings Add One A Day To Ensnare The Hare. At the top of the frame a model song thrush leans over, its beak pointing to a single letter. Rotating the carousel also rotates the letters so that the bird’s beak points at different letters depending on where it stops. This leads to the eventual appearance of the hare in a window cut into the picture.’

How it might have led to the eventual appearance of the bejwelled hare from the ground is beyond me. On the other hand, I do like the orrery itself, which found its way into the collection of the late Hollywood film producer Elliott Kastner. It was the top-selling lot in a January Entertainment sale at Ewbank’s in Surrey, where it made £21,816.

Among these were a fine stoneware Dragon vase (Fig 6)

by Edwin and Walter, dated 1899, from the Daryl Fromm collection, which reached £12,350, and an equally fine stoneware Aquatic jar (Fig 3) and cover by the same brothers and from the same collection, dated 1896, at £15,600. Mr Jeffery called this one of the finest pieces of Martinware he had ever handled.

A stoneware bird jar and cover by Robert Wallace (Fig 5), again from the Fromm collection, made the top price, £36,400, and one of his less expected creations, a stoneware figure, The Norwich Cryer (Fig 4), from the George Twyman Collection, reached £5,200.

Next week A Surrealist Old Master Country Life, January 29, 2020 85

Exhibition Tristram Hillier (1905–83)

Seeking salvation Peyton Skipwith probes the haunting solitude of Tristram Hillier’s lonely vision

La Route des Alpes, 1937, painted near Vence, in the south of France, saw Hillier’s imagery evolving from Surrealism to super-Realism

T

HE notes I jotted down when viewing this exhibition—enigmatic, joyless, stillness, soulless—seem a very negative response to a fascinating and absorbing show and, from what one learns about Tristram Hillier, stem from the circumstances of his boyhood rather than the individual works.

He was born in Peking, the fourth child of a banker who, on going blind at the age of 30, converted to Catholicism as an alternative to shooting himself.

Tristram’s mother, with whom 86 Country Life, January 29, 2020

he returned to England, died of cancer when he was 12 and his elder brother was killed on the Somme in 1916. By this time, bereft of family and left to fend for himself, he was a pupil at Downside in Somerset, serving ‘Masses at the High Altar of the Abbey’ and contemplating life as a Trappist monk.

‘In short’, as John Rothenstein—often perceptive about artists who shared his faith— wrote, ‘his childhood and boyhood were lonely and loveless.’

Such love as he did get came

from his Japanese nurse, Tuk-San, a Catholic convert whom he described as meaning ‘more to me at that time than any mother’.

A return visit to Peking in 1922, to consult his father about his future, led to him abandoning monastic dreams in favour of Cambridge, but, after two years, he forsook academia for art, first at the Slade and Westminster School of Art, then in Paris with André Lhote and at the Grand Chaumière. By this time, having discovered both sex and Provence, he rejected

religion and vowed never to return to England. More importantly, he also discovered Spain, a country he described as both ‘noble and cruel’, which he came to love ‘above all others’, comparing it to China—‘no grass, no trees, but only rock and tawny earth’. Apart from the Second World War years, he revisited Spain almost every summer for the remainder of his life.

Despite affairs and two fruitful marriages, something in his soul had died or been frozen out by his loveless childhood, something www.countrylife.co.uk

Tate; South West Heritage Trust; Wolverhapton Art Gallery/Bridgeman Images

that could not be revitalised; forced to seek his own salvation, painting became both life and therapy. Over the years, his imagery evolved from Surrealism to super-Realism, a transition marked in the present exhibition by a 1937 canvas La Route des Alpes. With his deep religious training, he had few illusions about his work, writing to John Rothenstein in 1970 ‘one must know one’s limitations and seek to perfect one’s technique within these limitations’. Despite technical brilliance, the results are often soulless, although the finest —Pylons (1933), Harness (1944) and Alcañiz (1961)—are masterpieces in their way.

He was less happy with figures, which tend to become jokey, as in Fishwives (1938), in which the figures are more like witchwives, The Beach at Yport (1940) and The Argument (1943). The Accident (1940), a modern-day take on the deposition, could be a parody of works by the fashionable Zinkeisen sisters.

The outbreak of war forced Hillier and his wife, Leda, to quit their dream house near Etretat and obliged the artist to renounce his vow never to return to England. The couple gravitated to Somerset, where, following service in the RNVR and a nervous breakdown, he found a new strength and tranquillity, as reflected in such works as The Vale from Cucklington (1944) and Glastonbury

Fallen branches, a broken gate, an inert church bell: wartime Somerset in The Vale from Cucklington

Fens (1953). This new phase of his work was bolstered by a revival of his faith and the proximity to Downside.

He never lost his lust for travel, disappearing to Spain for several months every summer and returning with countless notes and sketches, from which he would work during the winter months. He never worked on the spot and admitted that the intensity of his response to Iberia could best be preserved by spending most of his time

Technically brilliant, but somehow soulless: Harness (1944) was painted after Hillier had been invalided out of the Royal Navy

Viseu, Portugal, 1947, showing the Chapel of the Misercórdia www.countrylife.co.uk

in ‘misty, gentle Somerset.’

Glastonbury Fens, with its three gaunt pollarded willows like an abandoned rural Golgotha, and the enigmatic Signpost (1980), are, respectively, the first and last works in this major survey. The only thing missing is a showcase of sketchbooks.

Because all Hillier’s paintings were done in the studio, it would have been instructive if the curators could have included some of the studies from which he worked, thus enabling the

exhibition visitor to gain a deeper insight into the mind of this Trappist artist whose pictures are so bereft of humanity and spontaneity.

‘Landscape of the Mind: The Art of Tristram Hillier’ is at The Museum of Somerset, Taunton Castle, Castle Green, Taunton, until April 18 (www. swheritage.org.uk/museumof-somerset; 01823 255088) Next week ‘Picasso and Paper’ at the Royal Academy Country Life, January 29, 2020 87

Kitchen garden cookPomegranates

by Melanie Johnson

More ways with pomegranate Mozzarella, artichoke and pomegranate salad Add three handfuls each of rocket and baby spinach to a large salad bowl. Spoon over about six grilled, drained and halved artichoke hearts in oil, 150g of mozzarella balls, lemon zest and the seeds from one pomegranate. For the dressing, put 100ml of olive oil, 50ml of apple-cider vinegar, 20ml of lemon juice, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, one teaspoon of honey and seasoning into a lidded jam jar. Shake the jar vigorously and pour the contents over the salad. Toss well and serve.

Pomegranate, pistachio and orange cake Serves 8 Preheat the oven to 160˚C/ 325˚F/gas mark 3. Generously butter a 25cm (10in) loosebottomed cake tin and line the base with a circular disc of baking parchment. Set aside.

Beat the butter and the sugar in a large bowl, until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, orange zest and juice and the vanilla-bean paste, then beat again. Add the ground pistachios and flour, then beat until combined. Finally, mix in the yoghurt and pomegranate seeds.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bake for

50–55 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Once cooked, take the cake out of the oven and remove from the tin. Set it to cool on a wire rack.

Fold the whipped cream through the Greek yoghurt.

Pile the mixture on top of the cake and sprinkle over the pomegranate seeds, chopped pistachios and a few rose petals. I add some mint for a little colour on top, too. Serve immediately.

After the initial feast—if there is anything left—this cake needs to be stored in the fridge.

Pomegranate adds a wonderfully exotic feeling to this afternoon-tea cake 88 Country Life, January 29, 2020

Ingredients For the cake mixture 200g butter, room temperature 200g caster sugar 3 eggs 1 orange, zest of, and 3 tbspn of juice 1 tspn vanilla-bean paste 100g pistachios, ground to breadcrumb size in a processor 100g self-raising flour 40ml Greek yoghurt 100g pomegranate seeds For the topping 100ml double cream, softly whipped 150ml Greek yoghurt 100g pomegranate seeds 75g chopped pistachios Handful of rose petals Mint leaves

Sea-bass ceviche with pomegranate Arrange two thinly sliced sea-bass fillets in a single layer on a cold plate and refrigerate for half an hour.

Add a generous squeeze of lemon and a splash of yuzu juice to the fillets, cover them with clingfilm and refrigerate again until you are ready to serve.

Meanwhile, grate two cloves of garlic and toss with one chopped spring onion and two teaspoons of soy sauce. Scatter around the fish and finish with a small pile of shiso leaves sprinkled with a couple of tablespoons of pomegranate seeds.

Serve immediately.

www.countrylife.co.uk

Melanie Johnson

Method

Bridge Andrew Robson

Crossword

I

A prize of £15 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened.

Solutions must reach Crossword No 4614, CounTry LIfe, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF, by Tuesday, Feb 4. UK entrants only.

F you were walking in a mineinfested zone and, in order to reach your safe destination, had to choose between a field in which you knew there were two hidden landmines and a field with only one hidden landmine, it’s a nobrainer—you choose the field with only one mine.

With those dangerous thoughts in mind, declare this Six Spades on the Knave of Clubs lead.

completely counter-intuitive. However, count your winners and it becomes entirely logical. Plan the play on West’s Queen of Diamonds opening lead.

Dealer South Both Vulnerable

1087 Q985 QJ10 J96

Dealer South Neither Vulnerable

107 Q632 1042 J1096

J82 KJ85 AQJ6 K5 64 N A7 W✢E K875 S 87432

South 1♠

3♠(1)

5♥(2)

South

West

North

East

1♠

Pass

2♣

Pass

2♥

Pass

4♠(1)

Pass

End

(1) Loving his major-suit Kings.

West Pass

North 2♦

East Pass

Pass

4NT(2)

Pass

Pass

6♠

End

(1) Repeating the six-card suit, with a jump to show 16 or more points (adding one for the fine Spade quality).

(2) Asking for Aces: answer, two.

Winning the Queen of Clubs, you draw trumps in two rounds and must decide which red suit to broach. At the table, declarer tried a Diamond to the Knave.

No good—East won the King and cashed the Ace of Hearts.

One down.

Here’s the point. Even if the Diamond finesse wins, you still need to guess the Hearts, so, in effect, you need to avoid two landmines.

If you play on Hearts, running the ten, you need only one slice of luck, namely West holding the Queen. The ten of Hearts runs to East’s Ace and you win East’s Club return. You run the nine of Hearts, then lead to the Knave and cash the King, discarding a Diamond. No longer do you need the Diamond finesse— slam made.

Only an opening Diamond lead defeats the slam on best play.

Perhaps East should have doubled Six Spades, calling for the lead of dummy’s suit?

Our second deal, another Six Spade slam, is a fascination. The correct play is, at first glance, www.countrylife.co.uk

AQ653 A762 AK8 3

6♠

AKQ953 1094 93 AQ

K42 K43 75 A7542 J9 J10 N 96432 W✢E KQ108 S

You win the King of Diamonds and, to pass the time of day, cash the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Diamonds. Now what?

The 12 tricks you will have to garner will be five Spade tricks (assuming a 3–2 split) and a Diamond ruff in dummy, two Heart tricks, two Diamond tricks, the Ace of Clubs and, crucially, a long Club (assuming a 4–3 split).

To avoid an inconvenient overruff in Clubs, you should lose the first round—such a common theme when establishing a suit.

The only winning play at trick four is to duck a Club—yes, really.

East wins and finds the best defence of switching to the Knave of Hearts. You win the Ace (preserving dummy’s King as the late entry to the Clubs).

You cross to the King of Spades and ruff a second Club. You ruff your third Diamond with dummy’s remaining small Spade and ruff a third Club. You cash the Queen of Spades, discarding dummy’s small Heart, then cross to the King of Hearts to enjoy the Ace of Clubs and, triumphantly, win the last trick with dummy’s remaining low Club, a length winner.

Only an initial Heart lead would have fatally damaged declarer’s communications.

I first recall this theme of ducking the first round when you have a singleton facing Ace-tolength in the late Barry Seabrook’s From Average to Expert, which I read at school in Latin lessons behind my primer.

ACROSS 5 Keen to see retired prima donna (4) 7 Domineering about carriage (11) 9 Son excluded from one and only fireplace (5) 10 Unexpectedly go into nick mostly under assumed name (9) 11 Start to trace French composer’s wanderings (7) 12 Showing sternness always in south-east (6) 14 Mobility? Crazy proposal for debate (10) 17 Crazy hints about deposit on plants (6-4) 20 Lorry crossing cold area of northern hemisphere (6) 22 Not normal, a French chap touring American university (7) 23 It’s just the same in dialect somehow (9) 24 Bizarre? Not in the Royal Engineers (5) 25 Man in tails disturbed about old loyalty to homeland (11) 26 Part of Percy’s thick membranous sac (4)

DOWN 1 Singers on course mistreated a castaway (8,6) 2 Hollow initially observed in wooded area (6) 3 Unusually lenient, Alice’s illustrator (7) 4 Rice dish knight served up before Bismarck, perhaps (7) 5 Rabble-rouser got Rita a novel (8) 6 French artist briefly on diet including new component (10) 8 Section of paper supporting Nelson specifically in London? (8,6) 13 Rank of girl’s cousin originally in Kent, perhaps? (10) 15 Prize originally conferred at university (3) 16 Certificate from GP posh fellows ultimately want? (8) 18 What gymnasts may do, involving new body supporters (7) 19 Beating a method of browning skin (7) 21 Cool S American country by the sound of it (6)

4614

CASINA

NAME (pLease prInT In CapITaLs) ADDRESS Tel No TI MedIa LIMITed, pubLIsher of CounTry LIfe wILL CoLLeCT your personaL InforMaTIon soLeLy To proCess your CoMpeTITIon enTry and Then IT wILL be desTroyed

SOLUTION TO 4613 ACROSS: 1, Whistleblowers; 7, Langouste; 9, Lilac; 10, Benignant; 12, Het up; 13, Scrutiniser; 14, Geomagnetic; 19, Label; 20, Taffrails; 22, Suede; 23, Free agent; 24, Streetsweepers.

DOWN: 1, Well thought of; 2, Isolate; 3, Triceps; 4, Blame; 5, Wrong ‘un; 6, Rascals; 8, Enthrallments; 10, Burundi; 11, Notates; 15, Offbeat; 16, Airfare; 17, Closure; 18, Observe; 21, Links.

Winner of 4612 is Cassandra Wrenn, Tunbridge Wells, Kent

Country Life, January 29, 2020 89

the directory COUNTRY LIFE classified advertising guide

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Country Life, January 29 2020 91

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Country Life, January 29 2020 93

Spectator

Jason Goodwin

People in glasshouses

W

E inherited the glasshouse from the most recent-tenants-butone. The carpenter who built it for them made it big, 18ft by 12ft, as a lean-to. It has a concrete floor and a low concrete wall, windows all round and a roof made of three sheets of corrugated plastic.

They were clear when they first went up, but they’re made of square tubes, for rigidity and perhaps insulation, and the tubes have filled with algae and dead insects. The winds and the frosts have cracked them, so they let in the water in places.

The whole building is damp and rotten as a pear. Only the glass holds it all together. A couple of summers ago, noticing it sagging and rotting like a bad tooth, we found some old paint and painted its face, orange for the base and sugar-bag blue for the woodwork. I shaved the double doors, too, so that they close.

When the glass is clean and the sun is out, the whole place looks almost twinkly, but in the rain, under a gloomy sky, it looks like

a teahouse in a run-down corner of Uzbekistan, on the cinder road between the tractor factory and the Soviet-era cement works.

Originally, the roof was supported on wooden pillars, between which the carpenter built a table with drop ends, which could sit eight people. A vine that comes into the glasshouse through a vent fans out across the roof in summer and plunges the insides into a cool green shade.

In the rain, it’s like a teahouse in a run-down corner of Uzbekistan They were a convivial family, the people who built the glasshouse, they threw lots of parties and lunches; our neighbours still talk about them with affection.

By the time we arrived, the glasshouse was already bust and

TOTTERING-BY-GENTLY

Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation

By Annie Tempest

lurching. The rain slid down the pillars from rusty washers in the plastic roof and, one day, I put my foot through the table and crashed down rather painfully, taking a section of it with me.

After that, I took out the table and one of the pillars, as it didn’t seem to be doing very much, which gave us a lot more room.

And then, as room does, it started to fill up. We use it to store deck chairs and croquet hoops and outdoor cooking stuff, the fire bucket and the tripod.

The back wall is crammed with old chests of drawers and mirrors in loose frames. A carpenter’s bench fits nicely between the doors and the corner and there’s a line of staging under the windows facing south. There’s even a yellow table where you can eat in summer, a gallery of chairs and a sofa missing a cushion where I like to lie on autumn evenings, reading a book or at least holding onto one.

The poodle forms a puddle under my outstretched legs. Yellow leaves whirl around outside, but

inside, the grapes dangle dark and mildewed and a tiny wren, with no discernible head, but a spiky long beak, comes in through the open door and hops about. The poodle stirs and the wren makes a short, whirring flight from the tip of a fishing rod to a branch of the vine.

Then comes winter and nobody goes near. The sofa gets damp, the windows fog and beetles fall from the roof and lie dead in the dried-up church candles. The January gales have ripped the door from two of its three hinges, but it is still standing. The glass is holding up the roof.

One sunny morning, I open the doors and inhale a rich, alcoholic smell of damp and decay. Someone has burrowed into a box of blood and bonemeal, leaving porridge on the bench. Piles of flowerpots are slumped against the glass. I start sweeping rubbish into an empty sack, clearing the way for seed trays on upturned flowerpots, in an effort to thwart the mice, and get it ready for another year.

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