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PPA MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR 2019

EVERY WEEK | FEBRUARY 5, 2020

County flags: which one is yours?

The splendour of The Athenaeum Eureka! The moments that inspired great careers PLUS London Life

ONE FAMILY SPECIALISING IN FINE FURNITURE SINCE 1866

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WWW.BRIGHTSOFNETTLEBED.CO.UK

WEST STAFFORD, DORSET

T

his classically beautiful Grade I listed manor house stands on the edge of a picturesque Dorset village. The house lies in charming landscaped gardens designed by George Carter and overlooks water meadows adjoining the River Winterbourne.

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

Guide price ÂŁ2,950,000 Knight Frank London & Sherborne hamish.humfrey@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1717 luke.pender-cudlip@knightfrank.com 01935 810 062 Ref: SHE160020

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

LONDON HACKNEY E8 A rare opportunity to acquire two adjoining buildings with considerable potential in the Town Hall Conservation Area.

Listed Grade II house, circa 1800, with garden and opportunity to incorporate basement into main accommodation, subject to planning. About 2,266 sq ft (210 sq m).

20th century former commercial building with potential, subject to planning, to convert to live/work accommodation over two floors. About 1,747 sq ft (162 sq m).

For sale as a whole or in two lots.

jackson-stops.co.uk

PROPERTY EXPERTS SINCE 1910

Please contact

LONDON OFFICE

020 7664 6646 london@jackson-stops.co.uk

COLDHARBOUR, SURREY

A

n exceptional country estate in an elevated position in the Surrey Hills. The house is well laid out for family living and has a swimming pool, tennis court, stable block, three excellent cottages and a small family shoot set within 142 acres. The Bearehurst Estate can be bought as a whole or in 2 lots.

9 B E D R O O M S | 7 B AT H R O O M S | 7 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | O U T B U I L D I N G S A LT E R N AT I V E LY, T H E H O U S E , C O T TA G E S A N D 2 0 .7 A C R E S A R E AVA I L A B L E A S A S E PA R AT E L O T | E P C F HOLMWO OD 1.4 MILE S (LOND ON VIC TORIA FROM 59 MINU TE S) | GUILDFORD 14. 5 MILE S

Knight Frank London & Guildford nick.hill@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1578 nigel.mitchell@knightfrank.com 01483 617 916 Ref: CHO150309

knightfrank.co.uk

Unique Design-Led Home Hitchin, Hertfordshire Codicote: 2 miles, Knebworth Train Station: 3.2 miles (London Kings Cross from 34 minutes) This exceptional Grade II listed barn conversion has featured in various leading interior and garden publications since its redevelopment. A home built to create a sanctuary which offers complete privacy whilst enjoying the changing English seasons. The property includes 6 reception rooms, 7 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, gym, tennis court, swimming pool and double garage.

About 1.37 acres | Guide ÂŁ4.25 million

Hugh Maconochie Savills London Country Department 020 3925 1895 hugh.maconochie @savills.com

Nick Ingle Savills Harpenden 01582 805 927 ningle@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Hertfordshire, St Albans

To Let

A substantial Edwardian country house, being one of the most prestigious residences in the St Albans area St Albans Station: 2.4 miles (London St Pancras from 19 mins), M25 Junction 21A: 3 miles, Central London: 25 miles Entrance hall | Drawing room | Sitting room | Study | Kitchen/breakfast room | Service kitchen | Cellar | Master bedroom with ensuite and dressing room 5 Further bedrooms | 3 Further bathrooms | Extensive outbuildings | Equestrian arena | Stables | Separate 2-bedroom cottage | Landscaped gardens Tennis court | Paddocks | Forming part of the Gorhambury Estate | EPC: E About 2.8 acres Jessica Waddington Jake Loftus St Albans Office | 01727 790 486 St Albans Office | 01727 738 299

/struttandparker

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

60 OfďŹ ces across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

Wiltshire, Oaksey

A beautifully proportioned edge of village family house with wonderful southerly views Malmesbury: 7 miles, Cirencester: 7 miles, M4 (Junction 16): 12 miles, Tetbury: 8 miles, Kemble Station: 3 miles (Paddington from 75 mins) Hall | Drawing room | Dining room | Study | Sitting room | Kitchen/breakfast room | Cellar | 6 Bedrooms | Dressing room | 3 Bathrooms Garage | Outbuildings and stabling | Lovely gardens and grounds | Tennis Court | Paddock About 5.2 acres Luke Morgan Country Department | 020 3642 4591

/struttandparker

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

60 OfďŹ ces across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

Sam Trounson Cirencester Office | 01285 898 036

The Country is Calling Making the great escape to the English countryside has never been easier with Knight Frank.

From listed country houses set on acres of landscaped gardens in Hampshire, to charming 19th-century cottages in the heart of Kent's most picturesque villages, we are always helping connect people with their perfect country home.

Overton, Hampshire A Grade II listed family house with far reaching views over adjoining farmland 6 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 4 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | A P P R O X . 2 . 7 9 A C R E S

Guide price £1,795,000

Knight Frank Basingstoke mark.potter@knightfrank.com 01256 809 176

West Clandon, Surrey Attractive Grade II listed house with substantial annexe 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 | A P P R O X . 0 . 5 A C R E S

Guide price £1,595,000

Knight Frank Guildford tim.harriss@knightfrank.com 01483 355 872

Lurgashall, West Sussex A 17th century cottage on the edge of Lurgashall 3 B E D R O O M S | 2 B AT H R O O M S | 3 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | A P P R O X . 7. 9 A C R E S | G R A D E I I L I S T E D

Guide price £1,050,000

Knight Frank Haslemere aelish.paterson@knightfrank.com 01428 787 414

Hambledon, Hampshire A country house in an elevated position on the edge of Hambledon 7 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 5 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | A P P R O X . 5 A C R E S | E P C G

Guide price £1,500,000

Knight Frank Winchester george.clarendon@knightfrank.com 01962 656 154

Hever, Kent A 16th century country house with rural views 5 B E D R O O M S | 2 B AT H R O O M S | 3 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | A P P R O X . 0 . 9 1 A C R E S | G R A D E I I L I S T E D

Guide price £1,450,000

Knight Frank Sevenoaks george.berry@knightfrank.com 01732 809 548

Cowden, Kent A beautiful period home less than a mile from Cowden station 4 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 4 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | A P P R O X . 0 . 4 4 A C R E S | G R A D E I I L I S T E D

Guide price £900,000

Knight Frank Tunbridge Wells holly.sibley@knightfrank.com 01892 887 180

If you’re thinking of selling your home, or would simply like some advice on the market, get in touch today. We’d love to help you.

Connecting people & property, perfectly.

knightfrank.co.uk

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings Founded by William Morris,

WARWICKSHIRE / OXFORDSHIRE – Sutton-under-Brailes Cotswold Barns | 3.5 Acres | 2,632 sq ft | Outbuildings | Offers over £1,000,000 * London Marylebone 1 hr from Banbury * Oxford 28 miles * Moreton-in-Marsh 7 miles * Soho Farmhouse 20 mins

Beautiful period barns with full planning permission to convert to a 4-bedroom family home plus separate guest annex or office within the Cart Barn.

Magnificent views over the Stour Valley within the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Large Dutch Barn could convert to stabling or garaging with planning. Separate entrance to land and buildings. Borehole supplies water and electricity is connected.

Drawing of St Dunstan-in-the-West by SPAB Scholar Ptolomy Dean

the SPAB protects the historic environment from decay, damage and demolition. It responds to threats to old buildings, trains building professionals, craftspeople, homeowners and volunteers and gives advice about maintenance and repairs.

Since 1877 countless buildings have been saved for future generations.

Information about maintaining your home is available through events, courses, lectures, publications and telephone advice.

To support our work why not join the SPAB? Members receive a quarterly magazine, our list of historic properties for sale and access to our regional activities.

www.spab.org.uk 020 7377 1644 01299 896968

liza@gherbertbanks.co.uk

A charitable company limited by guarantee registered in England & Wales. Company no: 5743962 Charity no: 1113753 37 Spital Square, London E1 6DY

the hOMe Of preMiuM prOperty Ou r prOpe r t y page s a r e w h e r e t h e f i n e st hOu se s a r e shOwc a se d t O a r e f i n e d, w e a lt h y r e a de r sh i p i n b O t h t h e u K a n d Ov e r se a s

COUNTRY LIFE is where buyers search for their dream For property advertising information please contact Oliver Pearson: oliver.pearson@ti-media.com – 07961 800887

OnTheMarket features thousands of new & exclusive properties every month, 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.

Lightwater, Surrey

£1,100,000

offers in excess of

A stunning four bed family home, with rear access to a lake, situated in one of Lightwater’s most prestigious locations.

Contact: Lightwater office 01276 945955

Albury, Surrey

£2,150,000 guide price

A character family house with beautiful gardens bordering the Tillingbourne stream.

Well-proportioned and full of natural light.

Contact: Guildford office 01483 665913

To be first to see them and the finest selection of premium properties, search OnTheMarket.com at CountryLife.co.uk and set up an insta t alert today.

Hassocks, West Sussex

£2,000,000

offers in excess of

A handsome and substantial Grade II listed period property with leisure complex, set in around 8.6 acres of gardens and grounds.

Contact Horsham office 01403 453771

SEE NEW PROPERTIES

HERE FIRST

See www.onthemarket.com/newandexclusive. Agents specify exclusivity.

All these properties appeared exclusively at OnTheMarket.com 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.

London Life: Knightsbridge L O N D O N L I F E I S A N OPP OR T U N I T Y T O H IGH L IGH T T H E B E S T OF T HO SE T A NGI B L E T H I NG S A N D E X PE R I E NC E S ON SA LE M A RCH 4, 2020

Don’t miss your chance to advertise in our March London Life: Knightsbridge Booking/copy deadline: February 19, 2020 For more information on advertising, please contact Steve Earley steve.earley@ti-media.com – 07961 783432

Your indispensable guide to the capital

P I C C A D I L LY C I R C U S

Alamy

Is this London’s most romantic statue?

In short, probably not. The Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain—built to commemorate Victorian philanthropist the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury,

by Sir Alfred Gilbert—has been dogged by controversy since its unveiling, in 1893.

Opinion is divided over the aluminium figure: some mistakenly believe it represents the Angel of Christian Charity, despite the bow and arrow; others that it was designed to depict Eros.

It is, in fact, Anteros, the Greek god of requited, selfless love and Eros’s twin brother (the god of love and sex would have been too sinister a subject to be associated with the Earl).

The mysterious figure was removed during the Second World War and replaced some years later, facing the ‘wrong’ way. Those in charge argued that the placement was a deliberate one: the statue now points towards Lord Shaftesbury’s seat in Dorset, St Giles House, where an identical, forgotten copy was reinstalled during recent restoration work.

In 2013, a transparent snowdome, erected over Anteros, collapsed in strong winds. RP

LONDON LIFE

News

Three of the best Chocolatiers

Scientists at the Natural History Museum collect a (fictional) Erumpent Horn for the upcoming exhibition ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Wonder of Nature’. Inspired by the ‘Harry Potter’ series, creatures from real and mythical worlds will go on display. Highlights include a giant oarfish, thought to be the inspiration for sea serpents. Opens May 22 ; tickets on sale (www.nhm.ac.uk)

Feeling crafty The International Art Fair for Modern Craft and Design is moving: to Somerset House, WC2. This year, it runs from February 27 to March 1, celebrating more than 400 artists from galleries across the globe. A bespoke, largescale glass and ceramic installation, by Venezuelan artist Daniel Reynolds, will take pride of place in the building’s West Wing; a series of curated talks will also be available to book (020–7806 2500; www.craftscouncil.org.uk)

£ 337 MILLION The cost of The Museum of London’s proposed new home, in a series of abandoned buildings near Farringdon, E1 16 Country Life, February 5, 2020

Rococo This brand has the chicest packaging: I don’t know many who wouldn’t fall head over heels for a box of Rococo’s salted-caramel truffles (£21.95) or a charming bag of praline quail’s eggs (£10.95). The company showcases the best in British craft and creativity, with all its creations made in south London. Its fair-trade, ethical chocolate is sourced from its own small cocoa farm in Grenada in the Caribbean (0800 054 2133; www.rococo chocolates.com) Melt We taste with our eyes, too, so visit Melt’s Notting Hill boutique to watch the chocolates being crafted. Plump for the delectable chocolate bon bons— choose the option of plastic-free gift-wrapping. Melt only uses single-origin cocoa, sourced directly from the cacao farmer, who, in turn, receives a fair wage. Its vegan chocolate is delicious; good-quality chocolate is naturally vegan, full of antioxidants and good for gut bacteria (020– 8354 0850; www. meltchocolates. com) Paul A. Young The best for daring and original flavours, Paul A. Young handmakes small batches of chocolate with his team on site at his two London shops, using the freshest ingredients. He’s won a Gold Academy of Chocolate award for his sea-salted caramel truffles and runs a delectablesounding three-day course in chocolate-making, too (020–7437 0011; www.paul ayoung.co.uk) HL www.countrylife.co.uk

News

Lights, camera, London To mark Instagram’s 10-year anniversary, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts has released a report on the five most ‘instagrammed’ sites in London: Buckingham Palace takes top spot, followed by Tower Bridge and the London Eye.

LONDON LIFE

For a good cause The London Ambulance Service has raised nearly £7,000 for the Australian Red Cross, to help support communities affected by the catastrophic bush fires—a quarter of the capital’s paramedics come from Australia. To make a donation visit www.redcross.org.au

The future of food Hungry to know how to eat more sustainably? On February 20, an expert panel will answer your burning questions about what we’ll be eating in 2030, food security, mindful production and more, at The Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, SW7. Tickets from £8 (www.rgs.org)

Book now To Kill a Mockingbird Rhys Ifans stars as Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s adaption of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s seminal work opens at the Gielgud Theatre, W1, in May. Tickets from £31.25 (www. fromtheboxoffice.com) The Seagull Emilia Clarke (right) stars in Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull at the Playhouse, WC2, March 11 to May 30; tickets from £15 (www.atgtickets. com)

LONDON LIFE

Getty; Alamy

1,248 likes

www.countrylife.co.uk

Editor Rosie Paterson Editor-in-chief Mark Hedges Sub-editor Octavia Pollock Art Heather Clark, Emma Earnshaw, Ben Harris, Dean Usher Pictures Storm Johnson, Lucy Ford Advertising Steve Earley 07961 783432 Email firstname.surname@ti-media.com

Fabulous Penthouse Apartment Marylebone, London, W1U Baker Street Underground Station: 0.3 miles This rare, lateral penthouse apartment boasts incredible views over London’s skyline and has direct lift access. Open-plan reception/dining room, kitchen/breakfast room, master bedroom with en suite, 2 further bedrooms (1 en suite), further shower room, balcony, eaves storage. EPC=C Leasehold, plus Share of Freehold | 2,433 sq ft | Guide £3.95 million Claire Reynolds Savills Marylebone & Fitzrovia 020 3925 1626 creynolds@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Superb Lateral Apartment Marylebone, London, W1G Oxford Circus Underground Station: 0.4 miles Set on the fifth floor, this beautifully presented apartment benefits from superb natural light and west-facing views. 2 reception rooms, master bedroom with en suite shower room and dressing room, 2 further bedrooms (1 en suite), further shower room, lift access, 24 hour porterage. EPC=D Leasehold, approximately 130 years remaining | 2,097 sq ft | Guide ÂŁ4.95 million Claire Reynolds Savills Marylebone & Fitzrovia 020 3925 1723 creynolds@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Marylebone

LONDON LIFE

No bones about it

Named after St Mary’s Church and the river, or bourne, beside it, Marylebone has held onto its family-friendly, suburban roots, finds Carla Passino

W1

LITTLE BLACK BOOK David Penton and Son Marylebone’s oldest store has been selling homeware for more than 160 years (64, Marylebone Lane) VV Rouleaux Simply the best haberdashery in London (102, Marylebone Lane) Lisson Gallery This hugely successful gallery represents Anish Kapoor, Marina Abramović and Ai Weiwei, among others (67, Lisson Street)

www.countrylife.co.uk

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PLIT down the middle by an avenue of plane trees punctuated by bronzes of eminent surgeons, officers and philanthropists, Portland Place progresses from Langham Place towards Regent’s Park in a stately sequence of blue-plaque buildings, reminiscent of a Parisian boulevard. Although Gallic grandeur influenced John Nash’s later plans, the street owes its matronly proportions to one of the handful of grandees.

‘It was a woman, however, who set into motion the events that would change Marylebone’s fortunes’ The vision of those grandees shaped Marylebone into today’s rare combination of graceful townhouses and tranquil mews, culture and medicine, urban sophistication and country village. In 1767, the 3rd Duke of Portland promised a gentleman named Thomas Foley that, if the land abutting his property were ever developed, the views from Foley House would be preserved by creating a large street

Marylebone retains a charming village feel and, at every turn, there are fine buildings, independent shops and restaurants, with Regent’s Park nearby

in front of it—and that’s how Portland Place came to be such an impressive 110ft wide.

It was a woman, however, who set into motion the events that would change Marylebone’s fortunes.

In 1711, Henrietta Cavendish Holles inherited the 200-acre manor of Tyburn—equipped with a village, fields and the notorious Boarded House, which held bear-, leopard- and tiger-baiting sessions—from her father, the Duke of Newcastle. After she married the 2nd Earl of Oxford, the couple (or rather, the Earl’s cunning uncle, Tory politician Edward Harley) conceived a brilliant plan to turn the estate into a new neighbourhood for the ever-expanding London.

The original design, featuring a grid of elegant streets serviced by pretty mews, persists even where the Georgian buildings have long gone.

Although the Oxfords had Cavendish Square laid out in 1717–18, it took another 50 years and the 3rd Duke of Portland’s inspired choice of developers— Robert Adam and his brothers—for Marylebone to evolve from sleepy suburb into one of London’s Country Life, February 5, 2020 21

LONDON LIFE

Marylebone

most fashionable quarters. In particular, Portland Place drew the attention of many of the city’s great and (not always) good, from Gen Thomas Gage, former commanderin-chief of the British forces during the American Revolution, to inveterate gambler Lady Sarah Archer.

Such was the road’s popularity that, story has it, a ferocious row broke out between a Society lady and her husband following his ill-advised decision to lease a house in Berkeley Square over one in Portland Place —the poor man had the worst of it when his wife struck his head with a poker.

Marylebone’s many socialites also made it a magnet for the doctors that cured their ailments. After a time during which Cavendish Square looked set to be a ‘citadel of medicine’, as Stevenson calls it in The Strange Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Harley Street took over and virtually anyone who was anyone in the profession eventually worked there, including Florence Nightingale.

Alongside the world of medicine, however, Marylebone has also played an important part in London’s cultural scene. The Royal Academy of Music and Wigmore Hall still fly the flag for music in an area that counted Hector Berlioz, Sir Edward Elgar and John Lennon among its denizens and the premises of venerable Daunt Books have been a literary landmark ever since antiquarian bookseller Francis Edwards opened a shop at 83, Marylebone High Street in the 19th century.

A short walk away from the bookshop, on the corner between Marylebone Road and Marylebone High Street, a relief commemorates Charles Dickens, who lived from 1839

Elegance personified in Nash’s sweep of lovingly maintained terraces at Portland Place

to 1851 at the now-demolished 1, Devonshire Terrace in a mansion of ‘excessive splendour’, whose sizeable bills go a long way towards explaining why the author published so many stories at the time, including A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield.

Perhaps Marylebone is simply conducive to writing: Frances Hodgson Burnett penned A Lady of Quality at 63, Portland Place, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote the poems that made her hugely famous at 50, Wimpole Street, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle killed time at the unsuccessful ophthalmology practice he had opened at 2, Upper Wimpole Street, by crafting the adventures of the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

If the Baker Street sleuth is Marylebone’s best-known, albeit entirely fictional scion,

THE UPS AND DOWNS

Residents love the community feel. Compared with other central London areas, where second homes abound, ‘Marylebone is a place where people set up their families,’ says Martin Ballantine of Carter Jonas Residents like the great food, with restaurants such as Chiltern Firehouse and Fischer, deli-meet-bistro Le Vieux Comptoir and shops including La Fromagerie, plus a great Sunday farmers’ market. ‘You could literally eat your way across Marylebone,’ says Marlon Lloyd Malcolm of Lurot Brand Residents could do without the premium parking. There is a 50% parkingbay surcharge for pre-2015 diesel cars, but this helps improve air quality.

Resident parking permits are free for eco-friendly vehicles, you can walk everywhere and the area is well served by the Tube

22 Country Life, February 5, 2020

one of its most generous residents must be philanthropist and collector Sir Richard Wallace, who made the area one of London’s top art destinations. Sir Richard had previously lived in Paris and ‘after the upheavals of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune, in August 1871, he started a frenetic year of collecting,’ says Suzanne Higgott, a curator at the Wallace Collection.

He bought on a vast scale from people who had been associated with the Second Empire and, after he moved to London in the 1870s, royals, artists, writers and notable medics all flocked to Marylebone, where Sir Richard and his wife lived at Hertford House, to view the magnificent artworks. Marylebone’s art fortunes were then sealed after Lady Wallace left the masterpieces from Hertford House’s ground and first floor to the nation in 1897—the Wallace Collection museum opened in 1900.

Despite the culture, architecture and a pedigree to rival Mayfair’s, Marylebone’s most charming trait is that it remains a village at heart. ‘It’s that villagey feel you get by going to the local butcher, fishmonger and fromagerie, where they all know you,’ says Bob van den Oord, the managing director of Portland Place’s Langham Hotel, who lives locally. ‘Marylebone has lovely restaurants, shops and outdoor spaces—a stroll around Regent’s Park after dinner is a glorious way of finishing your evening. The whole atmosphere is rather tranquil, it’s not overcrowded and that makes it special. You simply don’t think you are in London.’ www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy

‘Charles Dickens lived from 1839 to 1851 at the now-demolished 1, Devonshire Terrace’

Marylebone

LONDON LIFE

At home in Marylebone

Dunstable Mews, £2.45 million

Ulster Terrace, £3,800 per week

Harley Street, £18.5 million

Tucked away in a quiet spot close to Marylebone High Street, this beautifully renovated mews house has a 29ft reception room, dining area and bespoke kitchen on the ground floor and two bedrooms and a second reception room upstairs.

Lurot Brand (020–7590 9955; www. lurotbrand.co.uk) and Dexters (020– 7224 5544; www.dexters.co.uk)

Set on the ground and first floors of a Grade I-listed Nash building, this magnificent three-to four-bedroom apartment has plenty of interesting details, including fine fireplaces and beautiful cornicing, and long views of nearby Regent’s Park.

Dexters (020–7224 5545; www.dexters.co.uk)

Beautifully renovated by awardwinning architects SHH, this 8,603sq ft, Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse combines period details, including exposed beams and trusses and the original wine cellar, with contemporary features, such as the spa, gym and pool complex in the basement.

Savills (020–3527 0400; www.savills.co.uk)

Escape to the city with CBRE

A home from home in London In the winter months, there’s nothing better than a cosseting London living room where you can catch up with family and friends–or simply relax after a long day in this most exciting of cities, says Laura Tracey, residential design consultant at CBRE

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PENDING time in London doesn’t just offer an opportunity to experience new cultural and gastronomic experiences, it’s also about socialising, in particular with those who you rarely get a chance to see. Yet although the city offers a rich and exciting mix of places to meet—from stylish bars and private members’ clubs to hotels and pubs—it’s hard to beat the peace and intimacy of your own living room, far from the lively hubbub.

A carefully considered living room is key to creating your own London home-from-home.

A new London apartment can also offer an opportunity to explore a new style. The clean, contemporary look of a newly built city apartment can offer a great backdrop

A new London apartment offers an opportunity to explore a new style to new collections, such as paintings, rugs and ceramics, which can fast become a consuming passion.

The absence of a structured floorplan gives an opportunity to create a cosy living-room zone with large items of upholstered furniture, as well as rugs and floor-standing lights. Whichever style you choose, flexibility is key in the successful

design of an apartment; a single, open-plan space provides all you need for entertaining, from a quick cup of coffee or a glass of wine to a large-scale drinks or dinner party. A seamless join between spaces designed for cooking, dining and relaxing creates an effortless setting for spending time with those you value.

A flexible layout allows you to make the most of a panoramic view of the breathtaking cityscape, which you can admire with a sundowner in your hand.

It also lends itself to a bold statement created with large-scale pieces and accent colours that will bring a space to life.

For further information, please visit www.cbreresidential.com

Advertisement promotion

Open-plan living

Facing page: The design in One Blackfriars, London SE1 (from £8.9 million), makes the most of the unforgettable view. Above: Chapter House, WC2 (left, from £995,000, rental from £775pw), and London Dock, E1W (right, from £1.3 million, rental from £525pw), are good examples of the difference statement bookshelves can make to a living room

Above: The use of bold colours at Lincoln Square, WC2 (from £1.55 million), makes the interior ‘pop’. Below left: Green plants add to the atmosphere at Hampstead Manor, NW3 (from £715,000). Below right: At Grand Union, HA0 (from £549,000), block colour is used to define the spaces and make the area more cosy. Bottom: Bolsover Street, W1 (from £1.05 million), perfectly illustrates how to make best use of feature lighting and sofas

Laura Tracey, senior architect at CBRE’s Residential Development Consultancy, shares the secret of an open-plan living room

Creating a focal point The starting point should be to define the space by creating a focal point, such as a fireplace, a big-screen TV or a work of art, around which you can arrange furniture. To further define the seating area, use a rug to add comfort, warmth and texture.

Lighting Interiors always look cosier in dim lighting. It hides minor flaws, gives everything a warm glow and is flattering to everything (including people).

Colour Colour offers a fantastic way to infuse a scheme with personality.

Creating combinations of colours can add dimension without overwhelming the space. Ensure that one is at least slightly darker than the other. A great example is the dressed studio in Grand Union, where a block of colour on the wall defines the living space and another defines the kitchen.

Furniture Arranging furniture is a powerful tool in defining living areas, blocking off spaces and creating conversation spots. Console tables and sofas tend to most commonly mark transitions from one space to another, but you can also use chairs, ottomans, bookshelves, desks and other pieces.

Remember that the backs of items of furniture will be visible in open-plan schemes, so ensure you provide enough empty space to make ‘walking paths’, which are free of obstacles.

The aim is cosy, not cluttered. Chose the colour of the curtains so that they complement the dominant piece of furniture in the room. This will help bring the room together and provide a canvas for your own personal design style.

CBRE is the world’s largest commercial real-estate services and investment firm, tracing its roots to San Francisco in 1906.

It is the name behind some of the most prestigious residential developments in London.

LONDON LIFE

Letters from London

Here’s looking at the capital’s green credentials

Letters to the Editor, from the Country Life archive. Our text and photographic archives date back to the magazine’s inception, in 1897. All enquiries to clpicturelibrary@ti-media.com

S

IR, On all sides there have been such cries about the congestion of London’s road traffic that it does seem strange that a water-’bus service… has not been put afoot, or rather afloat. It is

well to remind ourselves, however, that the river was once used for passenger traffic. True, the roads were bad then, but so are they now, only in a different way.

Donald C. Powell—February 15, 1936

London is home to 8.6 million people and 8.3 million trees According to a report by the London iTree Eco Project, those trees store about 2,367,000 tons of carbon London’s 3.8 million gardens cover 24% of the capital and are where we have the greatest power to ‘protect, conserve and create life’, according to London National Park City, a movement to improve life across the capital This month, wintering crocuses carpet the city’s frosty floor, from Kew Gardens to Battersea Park

Shop of the month

The Cloth Shop

T

HE CLOTH SHOP is an independent, familyrun store success story: this year, it celebrates its 40th birthday. The sight of its indigo awning and façade is always a reassuring sight through the throngs that crowd the Portobello area.

Run by Henry Harley and his mother (‘I couldn’t do it without her’), it was founded by Mr Harley’s father (who still works on Sundays) and specialises

in natural fibres, linens, handwoven cottons and silks. There are some vintage pieces, including quilts, thrown in for good measure, too.

As well as an eclectic mix of clients—from interior designers and antique dealers to a grandmother making a dress for her granddaughter—The Cloth Shop sells fabrics to film wardrobe and set designers, including for the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. RP

Open Monday to Saturday, 10am–6pm; Sunday 11am–5pm (020–8968 6001; www.theclothshop.net)

26 Country Life, February 5, 2020

www.countrylife.co.uk

Illustration by Polly Crossman; Bridgeman Images; Alamy; Getty

290, PORTOBELLO ROAD, W10

LONDON LIFE

B A R B I CA N C O N S E R VATO RY, E C 2

M Y P L AT E O F V I E W

A green space

The French House, 49, Dean Street, W1

F

EBRUARY offers an unwelcome reminder that winter is far from over, when spring seems nothing more than an improbable dream. The only answer is to surround yourself with warming culture and art, specifically in the Barbican and its glorious conservatory.

London, of course, boasts some of the most impressive glasshouses in Europe, from Kew’s Princess of Wales Conservatory and Palm House to the Sky Garden, the city’s highest public garden, at 20, Fenchurch Street, EC3.

Don’t miss GO FOR FREE There are several charity Pancake Day races in London, including Flippin’ Good at Greenwich Market, SE10, on February 22 and Shrove Tuesday, February 25; no tickets required for spectators.

Fancy dress is optional (www.greenwichmarket. london/events)

But it’s only at the Barbican that you can take in an exhibition, watch a famous actor tread the boards and then pop upstairs to a lush green world of palm trees, banana plants and terrapins.

Don’t miss Nigel Dunnett’s extraordinary ecological planting scheme across the BOOK NOW ‘David Hockney: Drawing from Life’ opens at the National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, W Fe Ti £1 np

rest of the site, too. Redesigned in 2013, it is still ahead of its time. Even in midwinter, there are seedheads and foliage to admire. Check opening times, as it’s only open a couple of times a month. Unless you’re there for a private party, you lucky thing (www.barbican. org.uk). Tabi Jackson Gee

(below) stars in Cyrano de Bergerac at the Playhouse, WC2, until February 29.

Tickets from £34.50 (www.atgtickets.com)

LA CH Ja M

with ednesday St Barthat, EC1, oldest hurch great s.com)

London curiosities

T

HIS striking pillar box is one of a pair in what is now a NatWest banking hall at 1, Princes Street, EC2, next to the Bank of England. The present building was erected in 1929–32 to the designs of Sir Edwin Cooper for the National Provincial Bank and rebuilt internally in 1994–97. The pillar boxes survive from the original interior and were probably manufactured by Maples and Co. They were perhaps intended to celebrate the fact that the world’s first postmarks, an invention of the first postmaster-general of the General Post Office, Henry Bishop, were struck on this site in 1661 at the General Letter Office in Post House Yard. Each has a fluted body and is surmounted by an urn.

The tops are veneered and the carved swags and lions’s heads are carved from limewood. Painted above the lions’s mouths are labels that read ‘London and Abroad’ and ‘Country’. JG

W O R D S

O F

W I S D O M

‘In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea’ J O H N O S B O R N E , I N H I S S C R E E N P L AY F O R T H E 1 9 6 3 F I L M T O M J O N E S

www.countrylife.co.uk

With February 14 around the corner, magazines are full of features suggesting places you should book for dinner with your significant other.

I’m here to tell you to ignore them all.

If you want to make a success of Valentine’s Day, go for lunch together in Soho. I’m going to take myself out of the picture just this once; you don’t want me crashing your date. But imagine me gently encouraging you as you walk up Dean Street until you get to The French House. The downstairs boozer—Jeffrey Bernard and Dylan Thomas’s home away from home—has always been a place of rackety legend, but although St John’s Margot and Fergus Henderson used to cook upstairs, things were quiet there for a while until 2018. Then Neil Borthwick arrived from Merchant’s Tavern and turned it into one of London’s most reliably excellent (and sexy) dining rooms. Book for 12.30pm, and ask for the discreet corner table.

With the black-and-white photos of Soho luminaries on the walls as your guide, consider the wonky paper menu.

It changes daily depending on what’s good, but you should start with oysters, of course: plump, craggy-shelled Morecambe ones, served with mignonette. Counterintuitively, get the confit garlic on sourdough: unblemished goat’s curd comes topped with an entire bulb, its funk mellowed by a long oil bath. Then perhaps the mustardy rabbit with a side of the richest aligot.

Romantic as in hearts-and-flowers?

No—and all the more beguiling for it.

There are perfect madeleines, £3 for four, baked to order and showered in icing sugar. But I’d suggest you settle the bill and wander up Dean Street to Quo Vadis. There, Jeremy Lee’s kitchen serves indecently good Puddings with a capital P: think brown-sugar meringue with blush-pink poached rhubarb, served with lemon curd, cream and custard, or profiteroles drowned in dark chocolate sauce. They’re all made for lingering over with a couple of glasses of something strong and sweet.

It should be after 3pm by now. What you do with the rest of the afternoon is up to you. Emma Hughes Country Life, February 5, 2020 27

LONDON LIFE

The great and the good

February at a glance We’re all guilty of ignoring what’s on our doorstep, so we’ve made it easier for you. Here’s what’s happening this month

From top: The Greenwich Royal Observatory; the moons of the Solar System; Charlotte Street Hotel, W1

28 Country Life, February 5, 2020

From top: LoveBug

by Grace & Thorn; JoJo Rabbit; no one can have too much Champagne; passionate colour

by Papers & Paint

www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy

L

OVE is in the air. Celebrate with a whimsical arrangement (if subtle hints don’t work, treat yourself) from East London florist Grace & Thorn (www.graceandthorn. com). Dine in style at Davies and Brook: Claridges’s new restaurant sees Daniel Humm return to the hotel kitchen, a quarter of a century after starting his career there at the age of 15 (www.claridges.co.uk).

Go all out with a staycation at the eccentrically elegant Char Street Hotel, in Bloomsbury, W1. Book through Mr & Mrs S for complimentary cocktails in the hotel bar (www.mrandmrssm com). Leave your room for an out-of-this-world experience at Royal Observatory. Astronomers narrate a brand new show the moons of the Solar System (www.rmg.co.uk). Alternativ hunker down at home and employ a private chef from La Be Assiette, who can arrange Champagne pairing menus (w labelleassiette.co.uk). Feeling creative? London’s premier p store, Papers & Paints, is celebrating its 60th birthday. Statem walls are all the rage: Oriental Ruby, from its latest colour collec is sure to inspire romance (www.pap andpaints.co.uk). Don’t fancy making small talk? Electric Cinema on Portobello Road is screening Oscar-nominated comedy-drama Jojo Rabbit.

The subject matter isn’t wildly romantic—Nazi Youth member Jojo battles his own beliefs, with little help from imaginary friend Adolf Hitler, when he discovers his mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in the attic (www.theelectric.co.uk). However, you’ll probably have the last laugh, as others suffer through faux-romantic meals.

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TA K E M E T O

LONDON LIFE

THE RIVER Katy Birchall visits RNLI Chiswick, the charity’s second busiest station in the UK, to learn more about its invaluable work

A

S soon as people get in the water during training, you can see it on their faces—they know straightaway whether or not this job is for them,’ explains Chiswick RNLI helmsman Glen Monroe. ‘It’s a sobering and important exercise, because the Thames doesn’t let up. The river may look calm, but the tide is very powerful.’

Chiswick Lifeboat Station is one of four stations that operate on the River Thames, with crews of full-time members and volunteers working around the clock to provide rapid assistance to anyone who finds themselves in trouble in the water. For some, the fact there are London-based stations may come as something of a surprise—the RNLI tends to conjure images of lifeboats battling crashing waves in fierce weather conditions to reach someone at sea, but the tragic 1989 Marchioness disaster, when a boat full of partygoers collided with a dredger and 51 people lost their lives, showed that a dedicated rescue service was much needed on the Thames.

Since beginning operations in 2002, the London lifeboat stations have collectively launched more than 14,000 times, saving hundreds of lives—a remarkable feat when you consider that the RNLI is funded by charitable donations and a portion of its crews is made up of volunteers, fitting in shifts around their day jobs.

‘Everyone here is from different walks of life,’ says fellow Chiswick helm Neil Ceconi. ‘We have a laugh; a sense of humour is essential. There are hard parts of the job, but our training gets us through them. We do a boot camp with the volunteers and we go through all the worst scenarios.’

Mr Monroe emphasises the importance of trust and teamwork in their line of work —‘if something goes wrong, it’s not only on one person, it’s on the whole boat’—and that, with the river’s cold temperature, fast pace, heavy water traffic and changing tides, timing is of the essence. The lifeboat is launched from the pier within 90 seconds of the coastguard’s call and the total time it takes for the crew to arrive at the scene of an incident from the moment the bell rings at the station is, on average, merely seven minutes. ‘We don’t dawdle,’ Mr Monroe says simply.

Unlike the coast, there are no patterns to incidents on the Thames—it doesn’t get noticeably busier in the summer months, for example —so the stations are manned 24/7. ‘No two days are the same,’ says Mr Ceconi. ‘You never know what’s going to happen.’ The crew is also never sure just who they’ll be saving, whether an adult, child or a four-legged furry friend. ‘We’ll do five jobs of pulling people out of the water and one where we help a dog, and the dog will be the rescue all over the press and social media,’ he laughs.

Attempts to rescue beloved canine companions from the Thames often lead to owners risking their own safety. ‘A lot of people don’t instinctively think of us when they go in to rescue their dog. They don’t think that we’ll come out for an animal, but we will,’ points out volunteer Alice Beetlestone.

‘Last year, we rescued several dogs. We even went out to save a goose,’ she adds with a smile.

Despite the well-known safety advice not to follow a pet into the water, Mr Monroe acknowledges that

‘We’re not here to judge or police the river.

If people need us, we come’

London Life, February 5, 2020 31

Did you know

32 London Life, February 5, 2020

Top: The River Thames may look calm, but the strength of its currents mean it can be as dangerous as the sea. Above: Many crew members are volunteers, from all walks of life it is much easier said than done. ‘We’re all animal lovers here; we put in as much effort into saving a dog as we do a human. We’re not here to determine which life is more important. It’s a life. We understand that a dog is a member of the family, so we know we can’t stop people from going in if they see their dog in trouble. The important thing to remember is, if you’re going to go in, give us a call first.’

There are some incidents with less understandable rationale behind them.

‘This summer, a man jumped off a pier and we were called out to help,’ recalls Mr Ceconi. ‘He’d thrown his girlfriend’s trainers into the Thames for a laugh and then gone to fetch them. He was very embarrassed when we got there.

But it doesn’t matter to us; we’re not here to judge or police the river. If people need us, we come.’

Chris Gamblin, who joined as a volunteer five years ago, motivated by a neardeath experience he had in the water as a child, highlights the organisation’s essential prevention work, as well as its

rescues. ‘We host a lot of school visits at the station and we have stands at dog shows, shopping centres and clubs. It’s important to get out there and educate, especially locals who live near the water—the community safety volunteers work very hard,’ he explains, before the rest of the crew begin to tease him mercilessly about his cardboard cut-out that apparently stands pride of place in a local rowing club. The camaraderie of the Chiswick lifeboat station is uplifting and, one imagines, necessary— if sombre incidents are mentioned during our interview, they are not dwelt on.

RNLI founder Sir William Hillary famously said ‘with courage, nothing is impossible’ and there is no doubt this charity’s motto still stands true today, whether at sea or here in the capital. ‘The biggest message we can put out is that we are here,’ concludes Mr Monroe.

‘If you need us, call. We’ll be on our way.’

In an emergency on the River Thames, dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

To make a donation or learn more about volunteering, telephone 0300 300 9990 or visit www.rnli.org www.countrylife.co.uk

Chiswick RNLI; Getty

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution was founded in 1824 by Sir William Hillary, who witnessed many shipwrecks from his home on the Isle of Man The RNLI played a significant role in both the First and Second World Wars. As well as coming to the aid of ships and downed aircrew, lifeboat crews ferried food, explosives and secret information In the Second World War, two RNLI crews joined the armada of little ships sent to rescue thousands of troops in Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk Following the tragedy of the Marchioness disaster and consequent inquiry, lifeboats began operating on the Thames in 2002, with stations at Chiswick, Gravesend, Teddington and Tower. When the London service began, the RNLI expected between 100 and 200 incidents a year—in 2018, there were 1,022 lifeboat launches on the Thames The Tower lifeboat crew is the busiest in the UK and Ireland with the highest number of launches each year, followed by Chiswick

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LONDON LIFE

How does London inspire your work?

There is always something to look at in London, from the Georgian grandeur of Robert Adam’s Kenwood House and the Brutalist architecture of Erno Goldfinger’s Trellick Tower to the shining, gleaming Modernism of The Shard, plus everything in between. That breadth of aesthetic stimulus is a constant inspiration for me.

Which interior and homeware shops are we likely to find you in?

Pentreath & Hall is a brilliant shop and happens to be just off one of London’s very best streets: Lambs Conduit Street. After shopping, you should always indulge in some good wine at the wonderful Noble Rot wine bar.

How would you spend a free day in London?

We (Lucy’s husband and business partner, Josh, is an architect and builder) love perusing antique shops: Lillie Road in Fulham and Church Street in Marylebone are favourites.

We go to Soho—via the Royal Academy or the National Portrait Gallery—for lunch (it has to be ramen) at Tonkotsu, Bone Daddies or Shoryu.

Barlow & Barlow projects at Notting Hill Lateral Apartment (left) and Maisonette (right)

T H E C A P I TA L A C C O R D I N G T O . . .

Lucy Barlow

Rosie Paterson speaks to the founder of interior-design studio Barlow & Barlow about the joys of Georgian architecture and why we need stricter planning laws Where do you relax?

I love the peace and quiet of looking around old houses: the striped silk drawing room at Apsley House is a favourite. Or Dennis Severs’s house in Shoreditch: a perfectly preserved Huguenot silk weaver’s house that conjures up what it would have been like in London in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Could you describe your London home?

I refer to it as our little scrapbook. It’s not terribly big, but is full of ideas, fabrics and furniture that we love and want to try out before, perhaps, unleashing on our clients.

So it’s pretty maximalist! I love houses that tell the owner’s story—ours definitely does.

Top: Bloomsbury inspiration at Pentreath & Hall. Above: Sanctuary at Apsley House 34 Country Life, February 5, 2020

‘I love the peace and quiet of looking around old houses’

What are your favourite and least favourite things about London?

Favourite is the rich cultural history that makes it one of the most exciting cities in the world. Least favourite is the dreadful façadism that unscrupulous planning officers allow. Architectural history is literally being wiped out to make way for badly built, soulless developments lurking behind lovely façades.

If you had the power t in London, what wou Planning laws!

Finally, which Londo be your ultimate clie I’m going to shoot for The Queen. She’s got a p ple of Georgian archite and I think she’s one of incredible residents. I tea with her and listen pet of some of the jui must have up her sleev www.barlowandbarl

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Do you have any favourite projects?

I love everything to do with Georgian architecture and interiors and we’re currently doing a full refurbishment of a beautiful listed Georgian house off Hyde Park, which means lofty ceiling heights galore. My first job on my own, however, was a Grade IIlisted building on the Strand. When the builders started peeling back the layers of paint, we discovered all this forgotten, intricate plasterwork on the walls and ceilings that we brought back to life.

Regency house.

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COUNTRY LIFE VOL CCXIV NO 6, FEBRUARY 5, 2020

Miss Olivia Catherine Burt Olivia is the elder daughter of Mr and Mrs Richard Burt of The Mynde, Much Dewchurch, Herefordshire.

Educated at Ballymaloe Cookery School, Ireland, and Le Cordon Bleu in London and Paris, Olivia has worked in both cities and is currently sous chef at Claridge’s, London W1. She was a finalist in The Roux Scholarship and MasterChef: The Professionals in 2019 and runs her own pop-up restaurants.

Photographed at Claridge’s, by Mike Garrard

Robert Tyler

Contents February 5, 2020

Dam, that’s high: a drone’s-eye view of Wimbleball, Somerset, by Robert Tyler, shortlisted for the British Photography Awards (page 84)

78 How it all began Experts in their fields, from interior design to dressage, tell Mary Miers about the moments that set them on their paths

This week Is your county shown here?

(Alamy/Getty)

Cover stories 15 London Life Fantastic beasts, the secrets of Marylebone, interior designer Lucy Barlow’s capital favourites and the RNLI on the Thames 64 Flying the flag From the Royal Standard to the Union Flag, banners of chevrons and crowns are familiar to us all, but do you know your county flag, asks Eleanor Doughty 72 A rendezvous for the Arts John Goodall examines the story of the spectacular Athenaeum, London SW1, a club thronged with literary and scientific luminaries 48 Country Life, February 5, 2020

60 James Birch’s favourite painting The art dealer chooses an untitled Surrealist work 62 Good things come in small parcels Fiona Reynolds explores an often-overlooked, yet remarkably varied patch of landscape just south of the Lake District 84 Moments worth capturing Lucy Ford selects spectacular images from the shortlisted entries to the British Photography Awards, from a starry halo over a church to the tiniest of bugs 90 Interiors Keep warm this winter with our pick of stoves and log baskets

102 Kitchen garden cook Melanie Johnson conjures sweet and savoury treats with juicy blood oranges 104 Crikey, what crocus!

The gardens of Little Court, Hampshire, boast one of the finest displays of crocus in the country. George Plumptre pays tribute to their modest creator 114 We laughed—until we cried A fresh take on Uncle Vanya and a new Lucy Kirkwood play impress Michael Billington

Every week 50 Town & Country 54 Notebook 56 Letters 57 Agromenes 58 Athena 94 Property market 98 Properties of the week 100 In the garden 110 Art market 112 Exhibition 116 Bridge and crossword 118 Classified advertisements 122 Spectator 122 Tottering-by-Gently

COUNTRY LIFE

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Home counties W

HENEVER Bilbo Baggins’s thoughts turn wistfully to his Shire home and a restorative cup of tea, usually after an uncomfortable encounter with an orc or a troll, one instinctively empathises.

Tolkein’s Shire—the Anglo-Saxon word for what we now think of as a county (from the French conté, introduced by the Normans), a place of cultural identity and devolved administration—symbolised home and warm feelings of relief, familiarity and security: indeed, the alternative title of his enduring novel The Hobbit is There and Back Again.

Not everyone can live in their home county, or even return there in later life, but the emotions of pride and identification tend not to fade, as our feature on the renewed enthusiasm for county flags demonstrates (‘Flying the flag’, page 64). Anyone who is born in Yorkshire—Alan Bennett, Geoffrey Boycott, David Hockney—will forever be a Yorkshireman, no matter where their career takes them. A Cornishman will defend to the hilt his county’s Celtic origins,

romance and language—in 2014, the Cornish were even recognised as a national minority through the Council of Europe Framework.

To an East Anglian, Norfolk or Suffolk will always be the lightest, most beautiful counties of destination, but if you were reared in the West Country, you won’t see the point of leaving Devon’s rich textures. A person

The emotions of county pride and identification tend not to fade through life born and bred in Herefordshire, the revered cattle of which are honoured on its new flag, has the confidence of its county motto —‘This fair land is the gift of God’—and, in times of stress, a Cumbrian’s mind can turn to the mountains (‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills’). The wild, watery and mountainous land of Merionethshire in

west Wales may have been subsumed into Gwynedd, but its motto claims defiantly: ‘While the sea lasts, so shall Merionnydd.’

Warwickshire has Shakespeare, Nottinghamshire Robin Hood and Dorset Hardy; the hearts of Oxfordshire (‘Dare to be wise’) and Cambridgeshire (‘With one heart let us be men of understanding’) are famous seats of learning; Worcestershire has pears and Vale of Evesham produce to feast on; Royal Berkshire boasts the gravitas of Windsor Castle, Eton and Royal Ascot; Surrey, Essex, Middlesex, Hampshire and Glamorgan are among the 17 first-class cricket counties.

Somerset’s eclectic topography, mournfully recalled in the nostalgic lyrics of Frederic Weatherly’s Green Hills O’Somerset, extends from Glastonbury Tor to Dunkery Beacon on Exmoor with the Levels in between.

Peaceful Northumberland is the place to go to find the fewest people per square mile; tiny Rutland’s motto is ‘Much in little’, symbolic acorns adorning its flag. Whatever a county’s speciality, all can be life’s lodestars, no matter where your travels eventually end.

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Country Life, February 5, 2020 49

Town & Country

Edited by James Fisher

Dear Prime Minister

T

t over food and anima lHE NFU is leading a coalition to keep the pressure on the Gover nmen welfa re standards now that the UK has left the EU. manifesto commitments In a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the coalition urges that ined in law. The letter was made in the run up to the 2019 General Election are now enshr l welfare and public health organisco-written and signed by more than 60 farming, environment, anima A and the Susta inable Food Trust. ations, includ ing the CLA, RSPB, W WF-U K, National Trust, RSPC national interests and our values, Theresa Villiers, Defra Secretary, recently prom ised to ‘defend our from comm itments made in the includ ing our high standards of anima l welfa re’. This follows on iations, we will not compromise on Conservative manifesto, which said that ‘in all of our trade negot ards’. our high environmental protection, anima l welfa re, and food stand ’ will be requi red and signatories However, the letter states that more than merely ‘verba l assurances and environmental standards will are worried that, without legal protection, the UK’s food, farmi ng concerned about how the UK will come under increa sing pressure in future trade deals. They are also would come under WTO rules. manage trading relationships outside of bilateral agreements, which ntal Policy, and comm issioned A repor t released on Monday by the Institute of European Environme gaps in domestic environmental by the The Wildl ife Trusts, RSPB and W WF, has already identi fied nment is, and recommends that the regulation. It identifies just how interlinked farming and the enviro that addresses these gaps.

Gover nment introduce a new regulatory framework for agricu lture rally’ in Westminster on March 25.

The NFU has also announced its intention to lead a ‘food standards n to ‘urge the Government to commit Hundreds of farmers from across the country will gather in Londo to standards that would be illega l’. that future UK trade policy will not allow impor ts of food produced nment’s ambitions to deliver more The NFU's president, Minet te Batters, says: ‘We share the Gover production to those parts of the for the environment, but in doing so, we must not offshore our food world who do not share our values and standards. n if the Gover nment chooses ‘British farmi ng can be one of the leading lights of post-Brexit Britai ndly food that our farmers produce,’ to become a globa l leader in championing susta inable, climate-frie challenge.’ she continues. ‘Farmers across the country are ready to rise to that t had responded to the letter.

At the time of going to press, neither Mr Johnson nor the Gover nmen rds rally, visit www.nfuonline.com To read the letter in full or for more information about the food-standa

Letter demands at a glance

food and anima l• The Gover nment must enshr ine its manifesto comm itments on welfa re standards into law comm itments • Signatories offer to work with the Gover nment to draft legislative iations that safeg uard standards while allow ing flexibility in trade negot and standards • Resur rect Michael Gove’s comm itment to establishing a trade holders comm ission, which could bring together a wide variet y of stake to engage on the UK’s trade policy l • The UK can and must show leadership in pioneering a new globa trading system: one that moves away from the narrow focus on cheap, mass-produced goods and towards one that promotes more susta inable models of production and consu mption

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

Good week for Green shoppers Sainsbury’s will spend £1bn to become net carbon neutral by 2040. The supermarket plans to cut emissions, plastic waste and water usage to reach its target

The world’s smallest farmers?

Getty; Alamy

O

NE of Britain’s smallest farmers has been secretly herding, feeding and milking its livestock for thousands of years, it has been revealed. Brown ants have been tending to giant pale oak aphids, building them barns and even moving them into the ants’ underground shelters in the case of extreme weather. In return, the ants feast upon the honeydew that the aphids secrete.

‘It is farming—they are milking the animals, moving them from high to low pastures and building shelters for them when there’s not enough protection,’ Matt Shardlow, CEO of Buglife, said to The Guardian last week.

It’s believed the aphid remained unnoticed for such a long time due to it being nocturnal and because it is so well protected by the brown ant.

In the winter, the aphids are kept underground, before being moved up the trunks of the English oak trees in the summer as the sap rises.

The aphid and its six-legged sheepdogs were first spotted by naturalist and photographer Julian Hodgson in ancient woodland near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire. Their discovery has renewed calls for certain aphids to be awarded formal conservation status.

‘These types of giant aphid are all very special and are rarely seen,’ continued Mr Shardlow. ‘We need more people to study wild aphids so that we can understand which species are threatened. Just because something is an aphid doesn’t mean it can’t be a conservation priority.’ www.countrylife.co.uk

Pedestrians in Birmingham The council announced it wants to cut air pollution by banning cars from driving through the city centre. Birmingham joins Brighton, York, Bristol, Cardiff and Oxford in considering ways to reduce the number of cars in their cities

David Hockney’s The Splash will be seen in public for the first time in almost 15 years, as part of Sotheby’s upcoming Contemporary Art Auction, London W1. The Splash will be joined by works by Francis Bacon, JeanMichel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein and others. The sale will take place on February 11–12

Seals Two injured and underweight seal pups have b t d t th sea by the R following rehabilitatio The seals were named Coulter and from Philip P ‘His Dark M

Bad week for Spreading your wings A rescued owl was deemed ‘too fat’ to fly by the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary. Staff found the bird to be ‘extremely obese’ and it has been put on a strict diet

Showering au naturel

Y

OU never seem to have enough sponges, right? Wrong, according to the Knightshayes estate in Devon, which has come up with a novel solution: growing your own.

Staff at the National Trust property have been growing their own loofahs in the kitchen garden and, from 30 fruit, have produced 50 washing-up sponges. The organic sponges will not only reduce plastic at the estate, but any left over will be sold in the shop. ‘You need to grow them up some kind of supporting structure, but there’s nothing more complicated than that involved,’ says kitchen-garden supervisor Bev Todd. ‘You simply grow them as you would courgettes.’

How to grow your own Luffa cylindrica • Sow seeds in April or May in a warm, sunny spot.

• Transfer to a large pot under cover (greenhouse or similar) for growing on • Ensure they have a support they can scramble up • Once fruit has matured and withered, squeeze to loosen the skin and peel completely to reveal the fibrous inner ‘skeleton’ • Wash the peeled fruit well to remove seeds and flesh from the ‘skeleton’ and hang to dry

Macmillan Cancer Support Some farmers are threatening to withhold donations after the charity encouraged people to give up meat for March. They are concerned the charity is inferring that there is a link between eating meat and cancer Japanese whisky It’s an ‘open secret’ that some high-end Japanese whisky is merely re-packaged Scotch, says The Times. The practice, known as ‘whisky laundering’, has come about due to demand for Japanese whisky far outpacing supply Wine A two-degree rise in global temperature would tr loss of vineyard l and a four-degre increase would w out 85%. Althoug changes in rainfa would be a facto biggest concern which would driv levels in the grap Compiled by Phoe Country Life, Fe

Town & Country

Defra must act to save our birds

Comma again A

The joys of boating and sailing in Scotland are celebrated in a series of 360º videos shot by the drone videography company Airborne Lens. Locations such as Skye, St Kilda (pictured) and Islay are all featured in the #MustSeaScotland campaign, created

by Sail Scotland in conjunction with VisitScotland, the National Trust for Scotland and other organisations

52 Country Life, February 5, 2020

Lapwings (top) and curlews (above) rely on predator control for survival

shouldn’t issue bad, unlawful ones, which is what BASC is suggesting.

‘Wild Justice stands ready to take legal action against Defra if necessary.

Any confusion, disruption or chaos that ensues will be entirely down to Defra not doing its job.’

It is hoped that the argument between BASC, Defra and Wild Justice is solved soon, as it would be ‘potentially catastrophic if licences weren’t issued,’ says the editor of Shooting Times, Patrick Galbraith. ‘It’s all well and good for talking heads to make grand statements about saving species on the brink of extinction,’ he said, ‘but if land managers and conservationists at the coal face are unable to trap and shoot predators, the likes of the lapwing and curlew face an uncertain future.’

Real danger of watching sport

I

F you watched Ben Stokes’s heroics at Headingley or the Cricket World Cup Final last summer, then the news that sports fans experience dangerous levels of physical stress will hardly sound like news at all. However, the science is now here to back it up, as researchers from the University of Oxford have shown that watching your favourite team can lead to high levels of cortisol, which increases blood pressure and stress on the heart. The study was conducted on 40 Brazilian football fans during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and it also found no difference in stress levels between women and men during games, rubbishing notions that men ‘care more’.

Raised cortisol can also give people a feeling of impending doom, which is how we all feel whenever England are batting. So whatever your significant other says, it’s never ‘just a game’. www.countrylife.co.uk

Getty; Alamy; Royal Mint; Sail Scotland Airborne Lens

G

ENERAL licences for the shooting and trapping of pest birds in England are due to expire on February 29 and there is increasing concern that Defra is not in a position to issue new ones. In a letter to Defra Secretary Theresa Villiers, BASC warned that vulnerable birds, such as the curlew, will be in danger should new licences not be granted or the current versions extended. Caroline Bedell, BASC’s executive director of conservation, said that ‘it has become clear that [Defra] will struggle to issue new general licences by the end of February’ and that Defra needs ‘to seriously consider extending the licences now to avoid the same mistakes as last year’.

Last year, a loophole in the wording of the general licence allowed for a successful legal challenge by wildlife group Wild Justice, the directors of which include Mark Avery and Chris Packham. The licences, which at the time were issued by Natural England, were temporarily revoked as a result.

Speaking to COUNTRY LIFE, Dr Avery said: ‘If Defra can’t issue good, lawful general licences a year after our initial legal challenge then they certainly

UTHOR Philip Pullman managed to upset the entire internet last week, when he wrote on Twitter ‘the Brexit 50p coin is missing an Oxford comma, and should be boycotted by all literate people’. Despite usually being above such petty arguments, COUNTRY LIFE conducted a poll to see what you, our readers, thought.

Some 40% of you agreed with Mr Pullman, but 44% of you thought the coin read correctly as it is. A worrying 16% of you answered ‘An Oxford what?’.

Well, that’s that settled then.

Country Mouse Cheering up February

T

The Munro Barista

I

N the first ever ‘Curious job opportunities of the week’, which is a new segment that will likely be cancelled as quickly as it starts, comes this advert to become the newest barista in the West Highlands. Corrour Station House, which sits by a remote loch and is inaccessible by road, is looking to recruit a barista and kitchen staff to serve an increasing number of tourists who have come to climb the nearby Munros. No need to worry about the commute, as the job comes with its own accommodation. ‘You have to live here; travel would take you far too long otherwise,’ said Shona Griffiths, the station’s manager. ‘You get used to it.’

The station, on the edge of Rannoch Moor, featured in the Trainspotting and T2 films and, last year, attracted more than 14,000 visitors.

HANK goodness for the Six Nations rugby tournament—without it, February would be an even drearier month.

The ephemeral pleasures of the pheasant and partridge seasons ended last weekend, thereby allowing my coats and various pieces of sporting kit to finally dry out after a series of soakings.

My fishing rods—I dare not tell you how many I own, but are all justified in my mind, as they all have a different role to perform, rather like the various clubs in a golf bag—will lie dormant until April. I should be tying flies now, ready for that moment, but my poor eyesight makes it too frustrating these days.

The garden is largely snoozing, yet, happily, the surrounding woods and copses are coming alive. Catkins or lamb’s tails hang heavily from the hazel trees, creating vivid colours in the low sun of dawn and dusk. And, best of all, the songbirds are starting to sing their hearts out.

The bird feeders have been taken over by the white-eyed jackdaws, whose crack and jack chatter alerts me to shoo them away. It’s a losing battle, for they are among the smartest of all the birds. Instead, I’m trying to teach myself to appreciate their natural joy and bravado.

It’s what February needs. MH

Town Mouse Skating to the shops

T

Bear unnecessities

S

OME 80% of Britons are in favour of seeing extinct species returned to the UK, according to a new YouGov poll. Of those who support re-wilding, some 83% said they’d like to bring back birds of prey and 79% approved reintroducing wading birds—so far, so good. Of those polled who answered in the affirmative, 50% were keen to see moose come back (for some reason) and 44% think wolves should be an indigenous species, as well as a football team. The most standout statistic, however, is that 30% of the polled devotees of re-wilding would like to see the return of brown bears. We assume they don’t mean up close. www.countrylife.co.uk

HIS week has seen the advent of two new things in the house that are difficult to ignore. The first is a smartphone for our eldest child. Apparently, they are the last person in their class to acquire one and, after months of pressure, we have finally yielded.

To say they are delighted would be to understate the truth. I have drawn up some terms and conditions of use, pointedly written out in longhand like a charter to make them look serious and impressive, and they have signed it. If they observe them properly, they will be more disciplined with their phones than their parents.

The other novelty is a birthday present for the younger child in the form of a pair of rollerblades. The sheer enthusiasm for using them is proving hard to satisfy. Indeed, it’s now almost impossible to leave the house without being bombarded with requests that the child can come on their rollerblades. Nipping out to the shops has never been so popular. The only problem is that the walk is transformed into a run by the untrammelled speed of the company.

A friend suggested that I should buy myself a pair, but who, then, would go into the shops at the other end and buy the food? JG Country Life, February 5, 2020 53

Town & Country Notebook Quiz of the week 1) Which book was first published by L. Frank Baum in 1900, before being turned into a popular film in 1939?

2) Nephrology is the study of which internal organ?

3) The name of which Italian pudding means ‘pick me up’ in English?

4) What is the oxygen-carrying component of blood?

5) Which singer collaborated with rock band Queen on the 1981 single Under Pressure?

Riddle me this The more I work, the smaller I grow.

There isn’t a bit of you that I don’t know. What am I?

Edited by Victoria Marston

Oh, the agony!

Resident agony uncle Kit Hesketh-Harvey solves your dilemmas

Polly’s not a cracker

Q

My elderly aunt recently died and has left us her revolting parrot. Not only does the bird bite, it also smells, swears like a trooper and might live for another 20 or 30 years. I have to admit, the children adore the wretched thing, but I really, truly despise it. Would it be terrible of me to give it away?

P. T., London

A

To whom would you give it? Who do you dislike that much? Children haven’t the faintest grasp of the exigencies of pet care. Toxic relationships benefit no one and this one clearly needs severing.

The symptoms of parrot fever (dry cough, muscle ache) are easily counterfeited. However, the disease’s proper name, Chlamydia psittaci, may be too distressing to bear conversational repetition. If so, train the bird to say ‘I’m outta here’. Secretly drive it to the parrot sanctuary in the backwaters of Lincolnshire, return and tell them tearfully that it Steve McQueen-ed its way out of the cage and house. Wrapping bloodied plasters around your fingers will add conviction. If they become agitated, take them to Ealing, where so many escaped parakeets fly happily hither and yon that their concern will be appeased.

Time to buy

100 years ago in

COUNTRY LIFE February 7, 1920

‘You can still be cool when you’re dead.

In fact, it’s much easier, because you aren’t getting old and fat and losing your hair’

Milk and dark chocolate bars, £4.50 each, Prestat (020–8961 8555; www. prestat.co.uk)

T

HE tempestuous weather of this month might be almost depressing were we not buoyed up with the hope derived from the fact that last Sunday, which was St Paul’s Day, was a gloriously fine one. For are we not told that: Clara dies Pauli bona tempora denotat anni, Si fuerint venti denarrant praelia genti Si nix aut pluviae, pereunt animalia quaeque Which has been thus rendered into English: If St Paul’s Day be fair and clear It doth betide a happy year; If blustering winds do blow aloft Then wars will trouble our realm full oft, And if it chance to snow or rain Then will be dear all sorts of grain.

—Fane Lambarde 1) ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ 2) Kidney 3) Tiramisu 4) Haemoglobin 5) David Bowie Riddle me this: A bar of soap

54 Country Life, February 5, 2020

Cloud7 Yukon Stone Grey Dog Coat, £120, Aurora Pets (01622 436501; www.aurora pets.co.uk)

The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

Sterling Silver Acorn and Oak Leaf Long Necklace, from £69, Grace & Flora (www. graceandflora.co.uk)

Aspen Camel Luxury Cashmere Scarf, £190, Pantherella (0116–244 1342; www.pantherella.com) www.countrylife.co.uk

Another log on the fire By Oliver Preston Wines of the week Clean and crisp Sainsbury’s, Taste the Difference Petit Chablis, Burgundy, France 2018. £10.50, Sainsbury’s, alcohol 12% Classy and classic nose of citrus and mineral, with a struck-match character.

The clean, crisp palate also has a lovely creaminess, all underpinned by a streak of minerality. Fresh, wellbalanced and great value for money.

Unmissable events Exhibition February 20–27 ‘Into a Land of Pure Magic (below)’, Olympia Auctions, Blythe Road, London W14.

The late Nell Gifford, co-founder of Giffords Circus, produced 60 paintings and drawings, including watercolours and balletic inks of horses and acrobats, which will be auctioned online from February 10–28 (020–7806 5541; www. olympiaauctions.com)

Alamy

Until March 22 ‘Jeremy Gardiner: South by Southwest’, St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire.

Coastal landscapes from Kent to Cornwall, inspired by the artist’s explorations and travel posters, as well as guidebooks, postcards and ViewMaster reels, which will also be on show (01590 676969; www. stbarbe-museum.org.uk) Music February 15 Impressions of Spring: BSO Trio of Flute, Viola & Harp, Nether Compton Village Hall, Sherborne, Dorset. Barbara Brown (flute), Tom Beer (viola) and Eluned Pierce (harp) of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra www.countrylife.co.uk

perform pieces by Debussy, Faure, Handel and Sir Arnold Bax. From 7.30pm, adult tickets £12 (01935 413220; www.artsreach.co.uk) Theatre February 20–April 23 Lady Chatterley’s Lover, various venues.

New stage adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s controversial novel, exploring war, love, female sexuality and toxic masculinity (www. tiltedwigproductions.com)

Film Until May 26 Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, various venues. Screenings of short adventure films featuring spectacular cinematography, from skydiving in Mexico to ice skating on frozen Swedish fjords, will be shown around England, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland (www.banff-uk.com) Lecture February 10 Greenwich Park Revealed, The Gallery, Cowcross Street, London EC1. Graham Dear explores the 17th-century Baroque landscape and the possible restoration of the Giant Steps and parterre banks. 7pm– 8pm (arrive from 6.30pm for a glass of wine), tickets £12 (020–7839 3969; www. londongardenstrust.org) Gardens February 8–March 8 Kew Orchid Festival 2020: Indonesia, London TW9.

This year’s showcase is inspired by Indonesia’s rainforests, orangutans, active volcanoes, carnivorous plants and 5,000 species of orchid. Included with general admission (020–8332 5655; www. kew.org)

Top value Sileni, Straits Grand Reserve, Marlborough, New Zealand 2019. £14.99, Boutinot, alc 13% Named after the Sileni, the hedonistic companions of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, this is an equally exuberant Kiwi Sauvignon (once the youthful nose opens up), boasting lush mango, peach and fresh herbal flavours. The best parcels of grapes were used and it spends time on lees for added complexity, the wine’s yeasty creaminess not masking the mouthwateringly fresh acidity. Top value.

Berries and smoke Reyneke, Syrah, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2017. £18, New Generation Wines, alc 13% An accomplished Syrah from South Africa’s first biodynamic producer—Johan Reyneke works with handpicked grapes, one third of which are foot-trodden. Natural fermentation is followed by 14 months in oak and the result is a harmonious wine with attractive, violetedged raspberry and blueberry aromas and a whiff of smoke. Bright red and black fruit on the palate is wrapped in silky tannins, with spicy, savoury hints.

For more, visit www.decanter.com Country Life, February 5, 2020 55

Letters to the Editor Letter of the week

Mark Hedges

Of mice and men

I

Beware the urban jungle

S anyone else experiencing mouse invasions this winter? I keep finding little piles of red lentils hidden in various places in my cottage—first in a pair of shoes, then under a heavy Persian rug (how they squeezed underneath is remarkable) and, most recently, in my linen cupboard, between two empty hot-water bottles.

I was rather alarmed that the mice may be getting into my kitchen cupboards, but was relieved to find that one of the lavender bags in my linen cupboard is the source of the lentils.

Lisa Nicole, Gloucestershire

A

S a livestock farmer, I worry I may be getting a paranoid persecution complex. I sometimes imagine an environmentalist surveying a landscape. There is rampant urbanisation, hundreds of thousands of houses are being built everywhere, there’s a busy airport and a highspeed rail link is under construction. Container ships are docked at a port full of goods manufactured in China, with power derived from burning coal, some of which was hauled from Australia. Fleets of lorries carry the containers on ever-more congested roads to huge distribution depots, swarms of vans are leaving to make deliveries.

The environmentalist’s attention is then drawn to a distant hillside, where sheep are grazing. They make an announcement: ‘I’ve seen the solution— the sheep have got to go.’

Antony Holyoak, Warwickshire

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

Trust in the north

I

WOULD like to point out that there is a separate National Trust for Scotland, contrary to the impression some might have gained from perusing your first edition of 2020 (January 1). It was a wonderful read and we all enjoyed it, but it did effectively omit our entire country north of the border.

Joanna Macpherson, by email

Our farming future

I

HAVEN’T read the Agriculture Bill (Town & Country, January 29), but am concerned that it doesn’t include reinstatement of strong policy protection for our best and most versatile farmland. Since the turn of the millennium, this protection has diminished greatly, leading to hundreds if not thousands of hectares being irreversibly lost to residential and other permanent development in the UK. Surely, if we are seeking food security, we should be preventing further losses of high-grade farmland that has the greatest productive capacity.

David Bass, Kent

The coming of age

C

OUNTRY MOUSE and Town Mouse recently celebrated age, both old and young, in a most charming way (January 22). Country Mouse honoured his late father and his feats of derring-do. At the other end of the spectrum, Town Mouse had a child’s birthday to celebrate.

As Mary Poppins herself would say, both mice were ‘practically perfect in every way’.

Patsy Dunne, Surrey

In decay serene

I

WAS enchanted by the picture of a derelict cottage in an autumnal landscape by Edward Wilkins Waite, advertised for sale by Messum’s in your magazine (January 22). The quote from John Keble that gave the picture its title also provided this reader of a certain age with a new valediction with which to end letters: Reposing in Decay Serene.

Jane Moth, Norfolk

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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.

56 Country Life, February 5, 2020

www.countrylife.co.uk

Nature versus nurture

R

EADING about birds’ biggest threats (‘Silence of the birds’, January 22), I recalled my glee on discovering a goldfinch nest in my garden, full of hungry babies. This was followed, a day or so later, by the sight of my beloved cat with a mouthful of the aforementioned babies. To say my feelings were torn is an understatement.

Margaret James, Suffolk

Dog days

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Alamy; Annabelle King

HEN does a gun with a decent dog ever get the chance to work them after the drive is over?

The pickers-up are there to pick the pricked birds that fall at least 500 yards behind the guns, not all the birds shot. Some pickers-up hoover up everything during a drive, which is a bad example to well-trained dogs.

Is it because some modern guns don’t have a gundog, so the day is all about numbers and the next glass of Champagne? I’m afraid it’s not worth taking my dogs to some corporate shoots nowadays, as they are made redundant.

Fergus McMullen, Hertfordshire

COUNTRY LIFE FEBRUARY 12

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Bringing home the (substitute) bacon

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E need meat for a healthy diet.

What’s more, if farmers produce beef and lamb on grassland as part of an arable rotation, it’s a valuable contribution to improving soil fertility. Taking meat seriously is good for the rural economy and the nation’s health; that’s why, last week (‘The beef about vegan foods’, January 29), Agromenes exposed the misleading environmental claims of so many of the plant-based alternatives.

Customers need to be able to make informed choices based on fact, not hype. However, it is still true that, on average, we British eat too much food and that includes too much meat.

It poses an extremely difficult problem for the industry: how to commend homegrown product with the lowest carbon footprint in the world, as well as accepting that, for our health and the health of the planet, we should eat less altogether.

Less but better is the message and that nuance isn’t easy to communicate.

However, farmers, processors and retailers must try harder if they’re not to be overwhelmed by the huge marketing budgets of their very professional competitors. Sometimes, apart from a bit of institutional whingeing, you’d wonder if they’re on the case at all. It may well be too late now, but how on earth did they not fight the battle for proper designation years ago?

A vegan sausage is not a sausage any more than vegetarian bacon is bacon. You can’t call margarine ‘butter’, however utterly-butterly it may be and however much you can’t believe it’s not butter. The truth is that it isn’t butter and the marketing men can’t pretend it is. That would be ‘passing off’—stealing the virtues of the natural product in order to sell the artificial, heavily processed alternative.

The reason that plant-based products are sold as if they’re meat is that they sell better that way. They don’t succeed on their own

virtues, but on their ability to get as close as possible to the virtues of meat. Vegetarian bacon is hypocritical bacon—pretending to be what it is not. The meat industry should have insisted that plant-based alternatives be honestly labelled ‘vegetarian substitute bacon’, ‘imitation sausage’, ‘non-meat sausage roll’.

No matter how many people call vacuum cleaners ‘Hoovers’ or hot tubs ‘Jacuzzis’, an Electrolux cleaner can’t pretend to be a Hoover and a Hydropool spa can’t call itself a Jacuzzi.

If you use the word sausage, sausage roll or hamburger, you’re using what the law calls a ‘reserved description’ and that means it must have a minimum percentage of meat. Butchers can be prosecuted for selling sausages with less than that minimum, even if they don’t claim they are ‘meat sausages’.

The word sausage is deemed to imply meat and to require a minimum standard. How did the industry allow plantbased products to ignore that piece of consumer protection? Long nurtured and widely known names should not be filched by imposters any more than by cheats.

Even if the meat industry can’t recover its proper status in terms of language, it does need to recover its reputation. That means putting its own house in order. British beef and British lamb should mean grass-fed beef and lamb. Red meat produced in other ways and using other feed should be labelled.

UK-origin marking of beef, lamb, pork and chicken should mean it’s produced here and not merely packed or processed here.

The food service and hospitality sector should tell its customers the truth about where it sources its meat products. It’s only by concerted industry action such as this that people will back British meat as better for their health and the health of the planet.

You can’t call margarine “butter”, however much you can’t believe it’s not butter

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Country Life, February 5, 2020 57

Athena Cultural Crusader

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were large numbers of boarded-up shops.

It added to the forlorn feeling that a man was flogging piles of cheap bedding from one of the shuttered-up doorways. Also, that a number of his customers were apparently living on nearby street corners.

Towns need residents, If Canterbury can’t as well as customers make its high street

AST week, Athena paid a visit to Canterbury. It’s a city that always gives her great pleasure and this visit was no exception.

The sunshine set off the city to advantage and the cathedral in particular, despite it being cloaked in scaffolding (and the sound of an organ tuner remorselessly working their way through the 6,000 pipes of the instrument), looked beautiful almost beyond imagining. The cathedral and its spacious close, however, struck Athena as something of an island, removed from the realities of life in the town.

In Athena’s memory, the High Street of Canterbury was a busy and bustling place. Last week, however, it felt as if it was—literally and figuratively—coming to pieces. On both sides of the street

work, what hope for the future of more hard-pressed places?

To see this happening in Canterbury is partly shocking because Athena thinks of it as being prosperous in comparison with so many county towns. It’s also because Canterbury possesses all those things that politicians tell us ought to solve its economic problems: it has large numbers of students and excellent communications with London: HS1 has reduced the journey time of the fastest trains between St Pancras and Canterbury West to only 54 minutes. Added to which, it’s a tourist centre, attracting large numbers of British and foreign visitors.

If Canterbury can’t make its high street work, what should we anticipate for the future of much more hard-pressed places across the country that live in hope of some of its existing opportunities?

Our county towns, with their history, buildings and atmosphere, ought to be some of the most appealing places to live in Britain. Until recently, however, nearly all of them have pursued a policy of expanding retail provision as a means to economic growth. The result has been a retail monoculture that first drove out residents, then, as the margins narrowed, small shops. Now, even the shopping centres are struggling and the hearts of our towns face an existential crisis.

To help fight this, we urgently need to get people back into them, not merely as customers, but as residents. Rather than meet housing targets the easy way, by building over greenfield sites, the time has come to make developers turn their attention to our town centres. They won’t be happy because of the constraints many of these sites present. Nevertheless, until we start stitching back together the hearts of our historic towns, using the plots and buildings sacrificed over many decades to retail, they promise only to become shabbier and more depressed.

The way we were Photographs from the COUNTRY LIFE archive

1969

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58 Country Life, February 5, 2020

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Alex Starkey/Country Life Picture Library

September 13 A double-decker bus advertising Guernsey tomatoes dominates the market square in the East Yorkshire town of Beverley. Since this scene was photographed more than 50 years ago, the shops have changed hands, skirts have become longer and cars have grown bigger, but the square and its array of architectural styles remain intact.

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My favourite painting James Birch An untitled painting by Reuben Mednikoff

James Birch is an art dealer.

He is the curator of ‘Them’, an exhibition featuring fashionable 1970s artistic high society at the Redfern Gallery, London W1, until February 15

The reason why I like it is I’ve had it hanging above my bed for 20 years and, even though it was painted in 1941, the hands and the feet look like a 1960s progrock album cover. The symbolism in it is too weird to mention and every time I look at it I see more.

Mednikoff’s partner Grace Pailthorpe invented the term ‘juvenile delinquency’ and every time I look at the picture, I enjoy that association

An untitled painting, 1941, 29in by 19in, by Reuben Mednikoff (1906–72), James Birch

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EX, politics and religion absorbed the Surrealists, especially sex, as they were most influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis. The term Surreal —‘transcending the real’—was coined in 1917 by Apollinaire. In 1924, his fellow French poet André Breton wrote the Surrealist Manifesto, advocating artistic expressions of ‘pure psychic automatism’ to free the mind of damaging repression.

In 1936, pictures by artist Reuben Mednikoff and his companion and collaborator Grace Pailthorpe (1883–1971), a First World War surgeon in military hospitals, were singled out by Breton as the pick of the British contribution to London’s first Surrealist exhibition. Who can wonder,

60 Country Life, February 5, 2020

when one considers this oil-on-board painting by Mednikoff? It dates from 1941, by which war-time date the couple had emigrated to the US. In 1935, when the pair first met, Pailthorpe was studying the psychology of female prisoners and wanted someone to help her ‘prise open’ the mind of a patient.

Mednikoff’s similar exploration of the subconscious as a painter and ‘sensitive, sympathetic nature’ made him the ideal person to do this. He taught her to paint and the two of them were soon producing separately—and sometimes together—pictures they called ‘psychorealist’.

This ‘automatically’ conceived figure is a prime example. The scholar Dr Hope

Wolf suggests the yacht may refer to their emigration and the beard to Mednikoff’s memories of Jewish religious figures. Art comes from art, so one might also see the effect of the Surrealists Dalí and Miró, even of Goya and of the medieval Hieronymus Bosch. It could easily be a digital image made today, too, which reveals how deeply Surrealism’s transcendence has influenced advertising, film-making and modern thinking. ‘It’s surreal!’ remains an appropriately automatic reaction.

The painting is included in the forthcoming exhibition ‘British Surrealism’, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London SE21, from February 26 to May 17 (www. dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk)

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Courtesy of James Birch

John McEwen comments on Mednikoff’s painting

A walking life

Fiona Reynolds

Good things come in small parcels People often miss the delightful landscape of Arnside and Silverdale as they hare off to the Lake District

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It’s intimate and enticing: a short walk has as much variety as many a day-long hike elsewhere Our walk, however, is long and beautiful, from the village of Yealand in the east, through the RSPB’s Leighton Moss reserve, around magical and remote reed-fringed Hawes Water and through woods up the hill to Arnside Knott. From there, we’ll traverse back via Silverdale and the coast, then across deeply wooded country to Yealand.

We step out in thick mist, but love the characterful parkland landscape around Leighton Hall, with glimpses of woodland beyond. Even in January, Leighton Moss is teeming with visitors and we watch cormorants drying their wings fruitlessly in the damp air. We enter the mysterious

62 Country Life, February 5, 2020

Early Evening Light at Low Tide I by Ben McLeod, from his ‘Silverdale Coast’ series

Trowbarrow nature reserve, an abandoned quarry rapidly being reclaimed by Nature; we wish it was June, as we read descriptions of the rare orchids and butterflies we’re missing.

Next stop is Hawes Water, a mysterious, lowlying marl lake, where, once again, we are told of riches, bitterns and lady’s slipper orchid, that can be seen when the time is right. We enjoy our swing around the lake and progress to Waterslack and into Eaves Wood in high spirits. Here, a track circumnavigates the hill on which the famous Pepperpot stands and we follow it, keen to reach Arnside Knott with its promised glorious views. A sharp pull up the hill and we’re there, but the mist is stubborn and all we can see is a panorama board telling us what should be visible.

Disappointed, but not daunted, we clatter back down the hill and follow the path to the coast, where we are captivated by a new phenomenon: wonderful coastal formations lit by weak sunshine trying to break through the clouds. The soft, ethereal light bathes the coast in beauty and warms our hearts as we cross the meadows to Silverdale.

A short diversion takes us to Gibraltar Farm, which sells fresh milk, eggs and other local delights, and Lindeth Tower, a Victorian

folly where Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her little-known, but excellent novel Ruth.

Resuming our walk, we cross the saltmarshes downstream from Leighton Moss, walking on an old sea wall as the light fades atmospherically around us. Reaching Crag Foot, we have only one more limestone ridge to cross and, as if to celebrate, a murmuration of starlings swirls around us. We pick our way across the wooded landscape, reaching Yealand as darkness descends.

We’ve walked 12 miles, each with much to admire, used well-waymarked footpaths and seen a great deal of evidence (including many National Trust signs) that this is a loved and looked-after landscape.

I am full of praise for the small team, led

by Lucy Barron, that cares for this place so well, but I’m also full of desire to see the Glover Review implemented to give special landscapes such as this a stronger, more secure role in the serious task of Nature recovery and giving everyone a muchneeded shot of beauty.

Fiona Reynolds is Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and author of ‘The Fight for Beauty’ @fionacreynolds

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Ben McLeod Fine Art

MALL and perfect’ are words often used about the landscape lying immediately to the south of the Lake District. It tends to be bypassed by people belting up the M6 to join the queues of traffic into Windermere and Ambleside, but it was designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1972, which makes it equal to the Lakes and other national parks in its beauty and significance. My work as a member of the Glover Review (‘Our national pride and joy’, May 29, 2019) has reawakened my engagement with AONBs and the marvellous work their overseers do, often on a shoestring.

Arnside and Silverdale is a landscape of many treasures. Largely underlain by limestone, culminating in Arnside Knott with its splendid views over Morecambe Bay and the Lakes, it’s a place of immense beauty and diversity, which abounds in woodlands, meadows, reed beds and limestone pavements, not to mention spectacular coastal scenery. It’s intimate and enticing: a short walk has as much variety as many a day-long hike elsewhere.

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From the Union Flag to the heavy standard carried at Trooping the Colour, flags are fluttering high in the UK, explains Eleanor Doughty.

But can you identify your county flag?

Flying the flag

It’s not all about the national flag. Last July, flags of 50 historic counties were flown in Parliament Square

Artist’s impression of the historic county flags of England, Scotland and Wales, as recognised by The Flag Institute

Anglesey’s 15th-century Hwfa’s Banner; Bedfordshire’s scallops echo the Duke of Bedford’s arms; a royal stag symbolises Berkshire.

East Anglian crowns for Cambridgeshire; the wheat sheaves of Cheshire date to the 12th century; Cornwall flies St Pirran’s Cross

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LAGS are big business in the United Kingdom—on a good day, it’s possible to see as many as 15 flying in the vicinity of Horse Guards Parade. In this part of London, flags mean a lot. In June, The Queen’s Birthday Parade, otherwise known as Trooping the Colour, is a whole ceremony dedicated to one.

Each year, a regiment from the Foot Guards troops its colour—a large, heavy banner— through the Guards and past The Queen.

The key soldier on Horse Guards Parade that day is the Colour Ensign.

Last year, the honour fell to 2nd Lt Robin Mackworth-Young of the Grenadier Guards, who explained to the BBC what a remarkable privilege it was, his ancestor having won the Victoria Cross ‘in the Crimean War while defending the colour’.

Since 2000, 17 English county flags have been registered, with five in Scotland and Wales The Colour Ensign is not the only flagrelated job in the Household Division. The Queen’s Flag Sergeant is responsible for changing, raising and lowering the flags according to the Monarch’s movements.

As the then incumbent Lance Sgt Nathan Bowen told Forces Network in 2016: ‘Her Majesty has a Royal Standard flying wherever she is in residence, at Buckingham Palace, in Windsor or at Holyrood. It goes up and down as she enters and leaves the palace.’

The flag must be in the right place at the right time, as it is key to official State ceremonies. ‘When the sale of Admiralty Arch to a Spanish property developer was completed in 2012, I made sure that the huge white ensigns that fly from the Arch during a State occasion were part of the contract,’ explains Lord West, co-chair of the Flags and Heraldry All-Party Parliamentary Group, who was also First Sea Lord from 2002 to 2006.

Britons notice when flags aren’t just so.

Jeff Robson, revise sub-editor of i newspaper and author of its Pedants’ Corner column, fields readers’ comments and almost nothing riles them more than a flag-related error.

‘Every time we’ve run a picture of [the Union Flag] incorrectly flown, it has prompted at least one complaint—even though it’s a mistake made by the hoister,’ he points out.

St Petroc’s Cross on the Devon flag; Dorset flies St Wite’s Cross; East Lothian gold recalls the area’s reputation as Scotland’s granary.

The Severn Cross of Gloucestershire; Hampshire’s history is referenced by a Saxon crown and three-tiered rose; Herefordshire’s new flag

Map by Emma Earnshaw; Alamy; Getty; Wikipedia Commons

Buckinghamshire, where swans were bred for the king; Owain’s eagles for Caernarfonshire; Caithness’s Nordic cross recalls the Vikings.

Co Durham’s flag is based on St Cuthbert’s Cross; grass-of-Parnassus flowers for Cumberland; Derbyshire, chosen by a vote in 2008

Not that the design helps. ‘It’s unfortunate that it’s tricky to tell when the Union Flag is upside down,’ agrees Lord West.

It’s not all about the national flag, however. There’s a growing movement in favour of county flags—last July, flags of 50 historic counties were flown on Parliament Square to celebrate Historic County Flags Day. But could you pick yours out in a line-up?

Of the 39 English counties, 38 have their own flag—Leicestershire is the omission.

The newest addition, the Herefordshire flag, was chosen in late 2019 after a competition.

The winning entry, by Jason Saber, shows a Hereford bull on a deep-red ground, reflecting the county’s soil, above the River Wye. Since 2000, 17 English county flags have been registered, with five more in Scotland and Wales. That’s not to say the county

Five provincial flags are (clockwise from top left): East Anglia, with the arms of Saxon ruling dynasty Wuffingas; Mercia, with the cross of St Alban, the first British martyr; Ulster, which extends into Ireland; Northumbria, with the stripes of 7th-century King Oswald; and Wessex, the West Saxon standard, borne into battle until the 15th century

Saxon seaxes for Essex; choughs and Edwin’s Cross on Flintshire’s flag; Glamorgan’s banner is that of 11th-century ruler Iestyn ap Gwrgant.

A ‘hart lodged proper’ for Hertfordshire; Huntingdonshire’s flag displays a beribboned hunting horn; the Isle of Wight, voted for in 2009

A ‘fireglow’ sunset for the Isles of Scilly; 5th-century Horsa is recalled for Kent; Kirkcudbrightshire, made for The Queen’s 90th birthday.

Middlesex is distinguished by a crown; Inyr’s Banner for Monmouthshire; the de Guader (or Gael) Banner, of Ralph, 1st Earl of Norfolk

flag is a new idea. Glamorgan’s red-and-white flag—a banner of the arms of Iestyn ap Gwrgant, the last native ruler of the kingdom of Morgannwg—dates from the 12th century. Suffolk’s, with the crown and crossed arrows of St Edmund, is from the ninth.

Philip Tibbetts, a vexillologist (vexillology being the study of flags) and communities vexillologist for the Flag Institute, has helped more than 70 communities register flags. Most of these are the result of a competition, in which members of the public submit designs to a vote. In some cases, there’s an obvious contender, such as in Warwickshire, where the bear and ragged staff was registered in 2016. The emblem is a symbol of the Earls of Warwick, commonly spotted on ‘welcome to Warwickshire’ road signs. Rutland’s county flag also includes

One can be loyal at several levels–to the nation, the region, the county, the town an established symbol. Its golden horseshoe has been a local emblem since 1784, referring to a tradition in which dignitaries travelled through the county to deliver a horseshoe to Oakham’s Castle Hall. The Worcestershire flag features three of the county’s black pears, backed onto wavy green and blue lines to represent its rivers and hills.

There were 600 design submissions to the 2008 East Lothian flag competition. The winning flag features a voided saltire, referencing

the village of Athelstaneford, the birthplace of the Scottish national flag, with a golden lion rampant in the centre, inspired by the arms of the Earls of Dunbar. No one could forget the Yorkshire flag, the white rose of which was that of the Yorkist forces.

So what has caused the 21st-century interest in county flags? ‘People see other communities benefiting and think there’s no reason why they couldn’t benefit, too,’ attests Mr Tibbetts. ‘The flag promotes community pride.’ It’s also good advertising —‘it can start as a branding exercise. Think of the Cornish flag on the packets of Ginster’s pasties’—and about conservation. ‘We think of this country as a patchwork. If you’re going to preserve that fabric, you need to preserve the patches. A flag is a standard bearer for each part of the patchwork.’

Orkney flies St Magnus’s Cross; an ox for Oxfordshire amid Oxford blue; Pembrokeshire displays Henry Tudor’s rose and St David’s cross.

Somerset’s traditional emblem; the knot is an ancient symbol of Staffordshire; Suffolk features the crown and arrows of St Edmund

The red rose of Lancashire; Lincolnshire, chosen in 2005; Merioneth’s ‘three goats dancing ’gainst a rising sun’, a banner borne at Agincourt.

Northamptonshire, the ‘rose of the Shires’; Northumberland, chosen in 1951; Nottinghamshire celebrates its most famous outlaw

Bearers of coats of arms can ask a flagmaker directly. Flying Colours, in KnaresPersonal flags are the remit of the heraldic borough, North Yorkshire (01423 860007; courts, ‘effectively, a by-product of having www.flyingcolours.org), will make flags a coat of arms,’ says Philip Tibbetts, who bespoke, using the appliqué method. You was recently granted his own. Once you have could also approach the College of Arms a coat of arms, it can be transposed onto (020–7248 2762; www.college-of-arms.gov. a flag that becomes your banner of arms. uk) directly to arrange it. ‘If someone who ‘The practice here when an individual wants doesn’t have a coat of arms wants to fly to fly a flag to represent themselves is to fly a banner, they often get granted a coat of an heraldic banner,’ affirms Mark Scott, Blue arms by us, then commission a banner once Mantle Pursuivant at the College of Arms. the design is finalised,’ spells out Mr Scott.

The best known of these is the Royal StanIt is unusual for anyone to have a flag dard, The Queen’s arms on a flag. ‘Anyone made purely for themselves. ‘What I suspect who has a coat of arms may fly a banner,’ may be more common is people having Mr Scott adds. ‘The reason they’re associ- banners made with arms they’re not entitled ated with the peerage is because you usually to—because they believe there’s a coat of arms for each surname.’ need a grand house to pull off a flagpole.’

How to choose your own flag

The Flag Institute has a number of guidelines for designs, the first of which is obvious: keep it simple. A small selection of bold, contrasting colours helps, too. ‘The flag of South Africa breaks this rule and gets away with it,’ notes the institute’s president, Capt Malcolm Farrow.

Eschewing words is critical. ‘Words on flags are graffiti.’ White is a no-no —‘badges on a bed sheet look frightful, and white goes grey,’ he contends —as is anything too ‘trendy, as this has to last, and people may risk their lives for it’. Using heraldry emblems is a great idea, but avoid complicated coats of arms. ‘If you can make it impossible to fly upside down, so much the better!’ concludes Capt Farrow with a smile.

Acorns symbolise Rutland’s small size; Scandinavia and Scotland meet in Shetland’s flag; leopards, locally loggerheads, for Shropshire.

Warenne checks for Surrey; Sussex’s flag dates to at least 1611; Sutherland is the historic mainland frontier of Scotland and the Vikings

Warwickshire’s familiar ‘bear and ragged staff’; an heraldic apple tree blazes for Westmorland; a great bustard represents Wiltshire

Ultimately, the flag is the embodiment of the nation.

We remain tribal and these things are the symbols of belonging Worcestershire’s pears, rivers and hills

En masse, flags representing different communities can be central to our identity.

‘One can be loyal at several levels—to the nation, the region, the county, the town,’ says Capt Malcolm Farrow, president of the Flag Institute, who puts the increase in interest in county flags down to our changing society.

‘We have been in a stable union for a long time and conquered the world as a nation.

We planted our national flag all over the world. At home, everyone knew who they were and local loyalties were embedded over hundreds of years.’ As society has changed, so have local identities. ‘But we still associate with the region we come from and have a yearning for the stability that comes with a feeling of belonging,’ adds Capt Farrow.

In Britain, the national flag is not as sacred as it is elsewhere. ‘We have no rules about exactly how long the Union Flag should be, unlike other nations,’ observes Lord West.

‘It’s like our unwritten constitution.’ It isn’t even against the law to burn the Union Flag, although ‘most people wouldn’t like it if you were to do that,’ cautions Tim Marshall, former Sky News foreign-affairs editor and author of Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags. ‘We have our patriotism and our flag is one of the most distinctive, but we’re not a massive flag-waving country.’

The exception, of course, is when there’s a Royal event such as The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee or a wedding—for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s marriage in 2018, three miles of Union Flag-styled bunting were strung up in Windsor town. Ultimately, the flag ‘is the embodiment of the nation,’ declares Mr Marshall. ‘We remain tribal, whether it’s at a local or national level. These things are the symbols of belonging.’

For more details of flags and their meanings, visit www.flaginstitute.org 70 Country Life, February 5, 2020

The traditional white rose of Yorkshire

Three islands and seven regions also have their own flags: (left to right, from top left) Nordic crosses of the isles of Barra and South Uist; a Sun of Barley for Tiree; Black Country chains; ancient ships for the Cinque Ports; a stag and a star for Exmoor, the first Dark Sky Reserve; symbols familiar to Swanage adorn the flag of the Isle of Purbeck; the white rose of the East Riding of Yorkshire is upside down, as is traditional for the region; the colours of the cross for the North Riding of Yorkshire recall St Wilfrid; and the West Riding of Yorkshire boasts the flag of St George

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A rendezvous for the Arts The Athenaeum, Waterloo Place, London SW1

One of the grandest Regency clubs in London has undergone a revival in recent years. John Goodall looks at the remarkable story of its development on the former site of Carlton House Photographs by Will Pryce

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N 1813, Parliament approved plans submitted by the architect John Nash for a major new thoroughfare through the heart of the West End of London.

His aim was to connect his new and picturesque suburb, Regent’s Park, with Whitehall and Westminster. In the process of constructing this route, he played a leading role in transforming a great swathe of the capital and conceived two public spaces that were named after Britain’s most famous victories in the Napoleonic Wars—Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Place.

The latter, opening onto Pall Mall from Lower Regent Street, originally introduced Carlton House. This was the palatial home of the Prince Regent, who lent his name to many of the principal elements of the scheme.

The outward grandeur of Carlton House, however, concealed serious structural problems and, in 1822, it was abandoned by the Prince Regent, now George IV, in favour of Buckingham House on the Mall.

In the summer of 1825, the Commissioners of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues solicited applications for those interested in taking out leases on the site of the empty building, which was approved for demolition in May the following year.

Two clubs expressed an interest in creating new buildings on this prime building plot overlooking St James’s Park. Such Fig 1: The main stair, with its copy of the Apollo Belvedere. The column capitals echo those of Athens’s Tower of the Winds 72 Country Life, February 5, 2020

institutions were then proliferating in the capital. They were also changing in architectural character, mutating in the first quarter of the 19th century from what were, in effect, grand townhouses to buildings of architectural pretension. This change was, in a large part, a mark of their gathering wealth and growing membership. It also reflected their increasing importance as meeting places, supplying the capital with its largest social interiors appropriate for public gatherings.

The larger of the two clubs seeking a new home on the site of Carlton House was the United Service Club, now swollen beyond the capacity of its existing building. With the hope of facilitating the planning process, it appointed the architect of the Commissioners—John Nash—as its own in March 1826. The other club, however, was a completely new foundation and the brainchild of the remarkable John Wilson Croker.

Born in Galway, Croker was a successful politician without high ambition. His AngloIrish connections, Tory sympathies and ability gave him an important role in the heart of political life, yet he combined these activities with interests as an historian, editor and critic. With huge energy, he straddled two different worlds. In Croker’s view, the new clubs being founded in London ‘had 74 Country Life, February 5, 2020

Fig 2 above: The main hall, with its marble panels added by AlmaTadema and Poynter after 1891.

Fig 3 right: The east front, with its gold figure of Athena by Edward Hodges Baily, erected in 1830.

Above is a copy of the Parthenon frieze, picked out in Wedgwood blue superseded and destroyed the old coffeehouses and I considered that literary men and artists require a place of rendezvous’.

Speaking of his proposed club in a letter dated November 23, 1823, to the president of the Royal Society and another driving force in the project, Sir Humphrey Davy, he declared that: ‘I know already more than 100 persons who wish to belong to it and many, most of their names will be attractive… we are certain of success. The difficulty will be in a short name, and one not liable to any Shandean objections.’

The Society, as it was first known, had its inaugural meeting on February 16, 1824, for which it hired temporary accommodation at No 12, Waterloo Place. Two months later, it hired the architect Decimus Burton to improve the premises. Decimus, the 10th child of the London builder James Burton, was undoubtedly recommended for his role

by Nash, already a member of the new club.

It was at Regent’s Park in 1823 that Burton, who had studied at the Royal Academy Schools under Sir John Soane, launched his public career, at the age of only 23, with www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 4: A view down the splendid drawing room. It has three fireplaces surmounted by enormous pier glasses that reflect the space the construction of the so-called Colosseum.

This copy of the Pantheon in Rome—with a dome broader than St Paul’s, but in Grecian guise—was yet another in the long line of London’s spectacular buildings of entertainment. It eventually opened in 1829 as the home of a panorama of the city (taken from the summit of its cathedral), but Burton lived to see it demolished in 1874.

Within a month of Burton’s appointment, the Society assumed its familiar modern name—the Athenaeum. The choice was perhaps informed by such other institutions as the Liverpool Athenaeum, founded in 1797, but it also perfectly expressed the interests of the club, which were in sharp distinction to the professional or political focus of its peers. From the first, it attracted a litany of literary and scientific celebrities and, to date, its members have won 52 Nobel prizes, at least one in every category.

By the summer of 1826, the position of the two proposed club buildings was agreed, www.countrylife.co.uk

facing each other across Waterloo Place, which was now extended across the full site of the demolished Carlton House. The arrangement gave both buildings a triple frontage at the end of terraces.

Nash, in his capacity as architect to the Commissioners, wrote to the Athenaeum directing that the Waterloo Place (east) and Pall Mall (north) fronts of the club ‘must correspond’ to those of the United Service Club. The Athenaeum committee concurred and expressed the hope that its members would be consulted as to the design.

At almost exactly the same time, however, the United Service Club extended the original area of its lease along the Pall Mall frontage, making such symmetry between the two buildings to the north impossible.

Nash, meanwhile, untruthfully declared the designs of the United Services Club had been finalised and agreed (presumably, he had no intention of consulting anyone about his designs). And, as he couldn’t share what

didn’t exist, Burton was forced to develop his ideas for the Athenaeum without clear information about Nash’s proposals.

On October 13, Nash finally submitted his plans for the United Service Club to the Commissioners. Then, without waiting for any reply, he persuaded the building committee to sign a construction contract. When the Athenaeum’s members finally saw his proposals, they were baffled: how could the two buildings be identical? Perhaps, they suggested, the two Waterloo Place frontages should match each other.

The Commissioners concurred and the two clubs drew up an agreement in December that the Athenaeum adopt as its east front the design of the west front of the United Service Club, with various modifications, including the fact that it should incorporate a central entrance and that each first-floor window should possess a balcony. This last provision was significant, because the clubs overlooked what was intended to be Country Life, February 5, 2020 75

Fig 5 above: The Coffee Room, with its new pelmets. Fig 6 right: The main stair rises and divides beneath an octagonal dome

a processional route for State occasions.

The Commissioners later decreed that the balcony should be continuous around three sides of the building.

In 1827, however, as work to the United Service Club advanced, it became clear that the new building was being realised without any modification to Nash’s original designs.

To make matters worse, the Commissioners failed to call the club to account. Thus, when Joseph Bennett and James Hunt of Horseferry Road tendered to build the Athenaeum for £26,715 in the spring of 1828, the two buildings clearly were not going to match.

A particular annoyance to members of the Athenaeum was Nash’s two-storey portico to the United Service Club on Pall Mall.

It was deemed ‘to throw an air of inferiority over the Athenaeum’ and it was proposed, therefore, to strengthen the cornice of their building with the complete frieze from the Parthenon, displayed at roughly its original height. The copy, jointly executed by John Henning and his two sons, John and Samuel, cost the fabulous sum of £1,300. It was picked out in Wedgewood blue only in 1950.

With the Commission deeply embarrassed

by Nash’s behaviour, several further changes were now made to the external design of the Athenaeum. These included the enlargement of the windows, the erection of an iron railing around the balcony and the expansion of the original portico into a tetrastyle Roman Doric structure (Fig 3). As always intended, however, the exterior was stuccoed to suggest a finish of exquisitely cut blocks of stone. It originally comprised two storeys, 76 Country Life, February 5, 2020

the lower of rusticated masonry to lend visual weight to the design. An inconspicuous attic level was added by T. E. Colcutt in 1899–1900.

On February 8, 1830, the club entered its new premises and, soon afterwards, the building committee issued a statement of costs. The whole club cost £43,101 of which £34,250 was spent on construction; £6,700 on furniture (much of it designed by Burton); and £770 on gas fittings. The committee expressed ‘their entire satisfaction at the manner in which the work has been conducted by Mr Burton… and they trust that the Club at large, as well as the public, must be satisfied of his professional skill, and the beauty of his architectural Designs’.

Burton’s commission was £1,614 4s 10d.

For all this praise, Burton must have been aware that architectural tastes had decisively moved on. The competition for the neighbouring Travellers Club (Country Life, February 20, 2019) in 1828 signalled the fashion for the Italianate Renaissance that would characterise the next generation of grand clubs.

The interior of the Athenaeum comprises a relatively small number of interiors on a palatial scale, which are introduced by the vaulted and arcaded entrance hall (Fig 2), as well as the sweeping stair rising up from it (Fig 1). These spaces have been redecorated on several occasions in the course of the club’s history, notably from 1891 by a committee that included the artists Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Edward Poynter. It was www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 7: The South Library. Burton supplied the room with much of its furniture. He also added the galleries as an early afterthought at this period that the marble panels were inserted up the great staircase (Fig 6).

To the left of the hall is the Coffee Room with views over the garden (Fig 5). Its interior was redecorated by the architect Albert Richardson in 1956, and has recently been refreshed and supplied with new curtains

by Irene Haines of Tisbury. On the first floor is the drawing room, an enormous interior articulated by paired columns (Fig 4), which opens at one end into the South Library (Fig 7). The library collection has long been a particular pride of the club and the shelving in this room almost immediately required expansion with a gallery in 1831. In 1843, www.countrylife.co.uk

an improved system of gas lighting invented

by Michael Faraday, another member, was also installed here. There are now two additional libraries; the collection holds 80,000 books.

Following the heightening of the building, a neo-Georgian smoking room was created at attic level in 1927 by Sir Aston Webb. This room was partitioned up at one end to create extra bedrooms in the 1960s, but has since been reopened. A special carpet has been made for the room by Ulster Carpets.

The present secretary, Jonathan Ford, has overseen these and many other changes.

He arrived more than 20 years ago at a time when the fortunes of the Athenaeum were

at a low ebb (incidentally, the United Service Club closed in 1978 and became the Institute of Directors). In that time, the rooms and furnishings of the building have undergone gradual renovation. He has also tracked down lost pieces of Burton’s furniture and even identified part of the original porcelain set, which had been sold by the club in the 1930s. The club itself has returned to rude health, too, both with the election of women members in 2002 and changes to the structure of the subscription system.

The building is intensively used and the club continues to adapt to serve the 21stcentury needs of its membership.

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How it all began Eight experts in their fields reveal to Mary Miers how an early life experience shaped their careers

Emma Bridgewater, ceramics designer and manufacturer I definitely didn’t plan a life in the Potteries.

I wanted to write and I imagined I’d work for a publisher or literary agent. But I think a seductive idea of the importance, and also the loveliness, of household china flowered in my mind early on and made me susceptible to a career in the industry—and for this I blame Beatrix Potter.

The Tailor of Gloucester was an especial favourite of Mum’s and she read it quite frequently—together with The Tale of Mr Tod (which also features kitchen crockery: meat plates are smashed in the great fight between Mr Tod and Tommy Brock). When the Tailor of Gloucester is ill in bed, his cat Simpkin imprisons all the kind and clever mice under the china cups on the kitchen dresser. I loved that dresser and pored over each cup and saucer. They were the same as some on our kitchen dresser, but with dancing mice in dear little outfits among them.

Emma Bridgewater is president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and a patron of the Heritage Crafts Association. She founded her eponymous company, best known for its earthenware pottery designs, such as Polka Dot, in 1985.

Operating from a factory in Stoke-onTrent, it is one of the largest pottery manufacturers based entirely in the UK

Patrick Baty, historic paint expert My first career was as rather ineffectual cavalry officer. Fortunately, I had a very able troop sergeant, who was happy to play along with my notions on painting. Our armoured cars were always painted a little differently to the rest of the squadron’s— same colours, different process. No doubt it was that which contributed to my early arrival in Bond Street as a fledgling art dealer, shortly afterwards.

Our armoured cars were always painted a little differently to the rest of the squadron’s Joseph Beuys, the happening, and performance, artist, was not for me and, within a year, I had joined my father at his shop, Papers and Paints, in Chelsea. A new boy again, and acutely aware that I had a lot of catching up to do, I attended an early talk given by Dr Ian Bristow on the investigation of historic decorative schemes. The die was cast.

That talk, and customers’ requests for such things as ‘a good Adam green’, led me to sign up for a part-time research degree. My thesis on the 18th-century housepainter led to an approach by the National Trust and others.

It was only later, when assembling a catalogue raisonné of the works of my artist great-grandfather, Robert Bevan, that I learnt that the then director of the National Gallery had described him as ‘the first Englishman to use pure colour in the 20th-century’.

Patrick Baty is an expert in the painted decoration of historic buildings. His work covers research, paint analysis, colour and technical advice and colour surveys.

Projects have ranged from Henry VIII’s heraldic beasts, Baroque churches, country houses and RAF stations to London social-housing estates and structures such as Tower Bridge and Holborn Viaduct.

His first book, ‘The Anatomy of Colour’, was published by Thames & Hudson in 2017

Peter May, author Ever since the age of four, when my parents began schooling me in the rudiments of written English, I had been writing stories.

But it wasn’t until I met two Spanish sisters on holiday in Spain, aged 14, that I found love and the inspiration to write my first book.

It was an adolescent fantasy romp involving a teenage band—The Aristokrats, in which I played lead guitar—and the two Spanish girls who had stirred such unsuspected passion in my heart. It was called The Aristokrats in Spain. I wrote it between the ages of 14 and 16 and it ran to 50,000 words.

Of course, it was never published, but it

Facing page: Beatrix Potter led Emma Bridgewater to pottery. Above: Patrick Baty turned from camouflaged tanks to historic paint www.countrylife.co.uk

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Above: A day with his father cast David Profumo into the role of fisherman. Below: A Spanish holiday proved Peter May’s early inspiration set me on a course that would change the rest of my life. For the first time, I knew what it was I wanted to do.

It is little surprise, therefore, that more than 50 years later, writing my latest book set in Spain, A Silent Death, I named two of the main characters after those Costa girls I’d met so long ago—Cristina and Nurita.

Peter May is a novelist best known for his award-winning thrillers ‘The Lewis Trilogy’. His latest book, ‘A Silent Death’, was published by riverrun last month

really had worked some magic and that summer afternoon transformed my life.

David Profumo is an author and journalist who has been fishing correspondent for ‘The Daily Telegraph’ and Country Life.

He has fished all over the world and his new book, ‘The Lightning Thread’, will be published next year by Simon & Schuster

Rupert Sheldrake, biologist

David Profumo, writer and fishing correspondent In August 1963, shortly after my father had resigned from Macmillan’s Government in rather public circumstances, it seemed as if things were coming apart, but, quite suddenly, there was a wondrous convergence instead. Our family had taken refuge in the lovely House of Tongue on the Sutherland coast and, one day, my father dodged the waiting press photographers and drove me up to a remote moorland burn. We had rarely spent time à deux (I was seven), so such an expedition would anyway have been memorable, but there was the added attraction of a delicious spate. Despite the crude

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tackle (a Japanese glass rod with a worm float as massive as a pike bung), we somehow conjured from its element a mahogany dark troutling, after which the sorcerer and his apprentice celebrated in the heather with Cheez Whiz sandwiches. Since then, I have had fishing in my heart—I have swum my hooks in 40 countries.

Last summer, after a family funeral Up North, I retraced that burn, but it has since been excavated into a drainage ditch. I wish I still had that shonky rod, however, as it

My paternal grandmother came from a family of willow growers in Nottinghamshire, with holts on the bank of the River Trent, producing osiers for local wicker workers. One of my most vivid memories is from when I was staying at the old family farmhouse in Farndon, near Newark-on-Trent. I was about five years old. Near the house, I saw a row of willow trees with rusty wire hanging from them. I wanted to know why the wire was there and asked my uncle. He explained that this had once been a fence made with willow stakes, but the stakes had come to life and turned into trees. I was filled with awe.

I forgot all about this incident until I was in my forties, when it came to mind in a moment of sudden illumination—first the memory of seeing that seemingly dead stakes had turned into living trees; then the amazing realisation that it summed up much www.countrylife.co.uk

of my scientific career. The materialist theory of Nature, which is still orthodox, treats all Nature as inanimate and mechanical.

Instead, I see the natural world as alive.

Biologist Dr Rupert Sheldrake is known for asking the questions other scientists prefer to ignore, He is the author of nine books, including ‘The Science Delusion’, ‘Ways to Go Beyond’ and ‘Why They Work’. He is a patron of the British Pilgrimage Trust

I was bewitched by the way the sunlight fell on the panelling and the long vista Dan Cruickshank, architectural historian and broadcaster My love of Britain’s 18th-century Classical architecture was born of tragedy. I was in my teens and living in London’s Bloomsbury.

I’d long enjoyed architecture, mostly castles and cathedrals that, with their generous scale and drama, inevitably appealed to a child’s taste, but in Bloomsbury, among and very near to late-17th-, 18th- and early-19thcentury terraces, I started to appreciate the artistic power of sublime simplicity, ruthless repetition, the application of seemingly simple sets of harmoniously related proportions. I found myself delighting in the visual possibilities of inventive variety of detail within a general uniformity of composition and I realise, with hindsight, that I was starting to appreciate the essence of civilisation.

These works of urban art, produced by the unlikely mechanism of profit-orientated speculative building, were, I found to my horror, vulnerable to the brute forces of barbarism. I remember being struck by the decaying late-17th-century houses in Denmark Street, strictly uniform, but with a charming variety of doorcase designs, and by a group of large and gaunt early-18thcentury houses in Millman Street. In the mid 1960s, these had been long derelict and, one day, I penetrated inside. This modest adventure changed my life. I remember being bewitched by the way the sunlight fell upon the raised and fielded panelling and by the long vista through the house from the front door, along the corridor and through the rear closet to the garden. The sense of space and the prospect were magical.

I did my best to save the houses, but failed. I was horrified that things of such obvious beauty could be lost. I started to haunt the streets of London, to seek out The earthly magic of the willow tree drew Rupert Sheldrake into the world of biology www.countrylife.co.uk

Right: The loss of urban beauty was the catalyst for the work of Dan Cruickshank, seen here in Denmark Street, outside one of the 17thcentury houses that escaped destruction.

Below: The long career of Jo Malone has literally gone full circle. Facing page: Tourists and a donkey called Jacko set Carl Hester on the path to dressage gold at the Olympics

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such similarly threated buildings of beauty, to document them and to fight for them.

Indeed, I’m fighting still.

Dan Cruickshank has presented numerous films and written 19 books on architecture, engineering culture, conflict and travel.

‘Cruickshank’s London: a portrait of a city in 13 walks’, was published by Random House last year. In 1976, he co-founded the Spitalfields Trust. An honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, he has served on the executive committee of the Georgian Group and the architectural panel of the National Trust

Jo Malone, perfumer I believe life can often bring us full circle— back to a time and place to either relive, relearn or reignite. When I was only 16 years old, my first job was in a flower shop in Belgravia. My second job followed closely afterwards, due to an incident with my boss and a bucket of water. The new job was at No 42, Elizabeth Street, a delicatessen owned by Justin de Blank, who set me to work.

I learnt so much from this man—the love of retail, the enjoyment of shopkeeping and a passion for the ingredients of life that can take us on adventures to last a lifetime.

In 2011, I started a new brand, Jo Loves.

It took two years to take off and, in 2013, we desperately needed to find our first home.

On my 48th birthday, my husband handed me a blue box—I was convinced it was

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jewellery, but I was wrong: it had a key in it —the key to No 42, Elizabeth Street. Life was to take me full circle and the dreams of my 16-year-old self were to be reignited.

We still reside there today, bringing theatre and entertainment to the fragrance industry, with the desire to change the world.

Jo Malone, who started the eponymous perfumery company in 1983 (now owned

by Estée Lauder), is the founder and creative director of fragrance brand Jo Loves

I’d ride the horses to their fields–that’s how I learnt to balance with only a headcollar

Emma Bridgewater; Clara Molden/Country Life Picture Library; Chris Watt/CLPL; Shane Reid; Daniel Gould/CLPL; Jon Stroud/TI Media

Carl Hester, dressage rider and Olympic Gold medallist I’m from a totally non-horsey family. My Mum was 16 when I was born and I had an idyllic upbringing on Sark, where there were only 600 people, no crime and no cars. The only mode of transport was walking, bicycling or horse and carriage. After school, I would hang around with the carriage drivers as they waited to pick up tourists and, at weekends, I’d hitch lifts with them. I realised this was a great way of earning tips, because the carriages couldn’t always get to the beauty spots, so I’d take the tourists on foot. At the end of the day, I’d go back to the farm with the drivers and ride the horses out to their fields—that’s how I learnt to balance with only a headcollar for steering.

I’d spend all my free time at the farm and the owner bought me a donkey called Jacko, which ignited my passion for riding. I went to boarding school in Guernsey and did my O levels, but, aged 15, I decided I didn’t want to go back to school, much to my parents’ horror. A couple who holidayed on Sark invited me to the New Forest, where I did my BHS teaching qualification at the Fortune Centre. I was put in charge of the competition horses and started competing. At 18, I was the under 21 National Dressage Champion— looking back, I’ve no idea how I won it.

In 1989, I was taken on as a rider at Dr Wilfried Bechtolsheimer’s big dressage yard in Cirencester and, six months later, I rode at my first World Championships in Stockholm. What a wonderful opportunity his family gave me. Nearly 30 years later, if I’m selected, I’m looking forward to competing at my sixth Olympic games, in Tokyo.

Carl Hester is acknowledged as the mastermind behind Britain’s dressage success on the world stage in the past decade.

He won team gold at the London Olympics in 2012 and team silver in Rio in 2016 www.countrylife.co.uk

Country Life, February 5, 2020 83

Moments worth capturing As the British Photography Awards are announced, Lucy Ford selects a few of the shortlisted images

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N 1840, William Henry Fox Talbot discovered how to ‘fix’ latent images to photographic paper with the judicious application of chemicals, paving the way for the future of the art. Today, his processes have been embellished by the drone and the macro lens, introducing a whole new generation of photography that brings out astonishing details and allows eye-opening angles. This year’s British Photography Awards, the winner of which was announced last night, reveal a diverse range of techniques. Here, we showcase some of the shortlisted images, from an ant to a halo.

Maciej Natkaniec’s A shadow from the past, Cowdray ruins, West Sussex (Drone category)

Facing page: Hitching a Ride by Jason Meadows (Macro). Above: Little Wing by Jonathan Casey, taken on the Norfolk Broads (Birdlife) www.countrylife.co.uk

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Top: Ethereal Mushrooms by Jonathan Lodge (Macro). Above: Jo Stephen took Pyramidal orchid and quaking oat grass in Dorset (Macro) 86 Country Life, February 5, 2020

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Above: The Seahorse by Matt Warren shows Booby’s Bay, Padstow, Cornwall (Drone).

Below: Cheeky: Highlands Cow by Toamsz Kowalski (Pets & Domesticated Animals)

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Facing page: A Day in the Museum by Hazel Parreno (Architecture). Above: For Rame Head Halo, Oliver Dickinson set a drone to circle the Cornish chapel as he photographed it with a 13-second exposure (Architecture). Below: Keith Trueman’s The Tree Hopper (Macro)

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Interiors

Hot news The latest fireside fittings and paraphernalia to warm the cockles, selected

by Amelia Thorpe

On fire Designed to increase the efficiency of your fire and add decorative interest to your room, this solid, castiron Fireback in matt black costs £274.50, from Jim Lawrence (01473 826685; www.jim-lawrence.co.uk) Join the club Fiona Wilbraham’s designs inject a sleek edge into the traditional world of club fenders: Criss Cross fender corners, hand-finished with gold and copper lustre, £2,600 per pair; Round and Barley Twist Bar with Antique Gold finish, £2,575 per pair; and Straight Bar with Antique Gold finish, £2,550 per pair (07799 778787; www.fionawilbraham.com)

Fine feature Antique-fireplace specialist Westland London offers an ever-changing selection of the unusual, including this understated Regency-columned chimneypiece in warm-grey fossil marble. English, from about 1810, it is offered for sale at £15,000 (020–7739 8094; www.westlandlondon.com)

Burning bright Clearview Stove is a good option for those who love the comforting glow of a fire, offering a good view of the burning flames within. To see the whole range, including this Clearview 750 (£1,782), visit its showroom in the pretty town of Ludlow, Shropshire (01584 878100; www.clearviewstoves.com) 90 Country Life, February 5, 2020

To the point Hand-forged 18th-century replica Log Fork, £780, from Jamb (020– 7730 2122; www.jamb.co.uk)

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Slim fit In 1979, engineer Ossie Goring developed the environmentally friendly Everhot, designed to run off a 13amp plug and use less than half the energy of comparable range cookers. Forty years on and the first model, Everhot 60, is enjoying renewed popularity in smaller kitchens, as it comes in a host of smart colours and is designed to fit a standard 600mm-wide cooker space. Shown here in Graphite, it costs £5,350 (01453 890018; www.everhot.co.uk)

Double duty The small C-Five stove, £1,092, teamed with a vitreous enamel Vlaze heatshield, from £497, is designed for compact cabins and garden rooms, as the heatshield has a dual skin to provide thermal protection for the wall and an effective convection system that distributes heat back into the room, from Charnwood Stoves (01983 537777; www. charnwood.com)

Smart note Simple and elegant, the Classic fireplace, £1,349, has been designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects for Haddonstone (01604 266000; www. haddonstone.com)

Sitting comfortably Interior designer Rosanna Bossom has a small, but perfectly formed collection of furniture and accessories, including The Bobbin Fender, £1,800, with two metres of fabric, which will sit comfortably in any room (020–3691 4552; www. rosannabossom.co.uk)

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Brush up The humble dustpan gets a makeover with the launch of the Eldvarm Emma shovel and brush set in Lichen and beech. It costs £124, from Skandium (020– 3633 7626; www. skandium.com)

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Interiors

Circular log basket, from £206.90, Waveney Rush (01502 538777; www.waveneyrush.co.uk)

Fireside trug, £160, The New Craftsmen (020–7148 3190; www.thenewcraftsmen.com)

Toba log basket, £200, Sweetpea & Willow (0345 257 2627; www.sweetpeaandwillow.com)

Light my fire Tangled Weave basket, large, £120, Garden Trading (01993 845559; www.gardentrading.co.uk)

Log baskets for every taste, selected by Amelia Thorpe

Ørskov suede firewood holder, £163, Nordic Nest (020–3002 1196; www.nordicnest.com)

Norfolk large storage basket, £125, David Mellor (020–8050 4259; www.davidmellordesign.com)

Randed weave log basket, from £90, John Cowan Baskets (07745 862758; www.johncowanbaskets.co.uk)

Burley log basket, rattan, £350, OKA (0333 004 2042; www.oka.com)

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Emma wood basket, £380, Skandium (020–3633 7626; www.skandium.com)

Heston woven log basket, £55, Perch & Parrow (020–8629 1166; www.perchandparrow.com)

Nkomi basket, from £39.95, Nkuku (0333 240 0155; www.nkuku.com)

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Nothing works like a Clearview

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Property market

Penny Churchill

No troubles at t’mill Feel the rush of two exciting mills in Hampshire and Gloucestershire

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T will be a sad day for Laurance and Patricia Lafosse when they hand over the keys to imposing, Grade II*-listed Lumley Mill at Emsworth on the Hampshire/ Sussex border, a charming small town set at the head of a channel in Chichester Harbour, between the South Downs and the sea. For the past 47 years, the mill house, which they bought as an empty shell in 1972 and have painstakingly remodelled 94 Country Life, February 5, 2020

and refurbished over the years, has been their cherished family home and they are understandably reluctant to leave.

Mrs Lafosse, whose great joy has been the garden she re-created from a wilderness during their long period of ownership, is philosophical about the couple’s need to move: ‘With both of us now heading towards our eighties, a six-bedroom house with a large garden is too much to manage.

However, we won’t be going far, as we plan to move to a smaller house in nearby Westbourne, taking with us some wonderful family memories that include the weddings of all three daughters and holidays spent with our grandchildren, who happily ran wild in the garden with its tall trees, river and mill race.’

The delightfully quirky, early 19th-century house with its generous ceiling heights, www.countrylife.co.uk

Find the best properties at countrylife.co.uk

Left and above: The owner of Grade II*-listed Lumley Mill, Hampshire, supplied provisions to troops during the Napoleonic wars. Now, the house has been fully refurbished. £1.5m

well-proportioned rooms and large Georgian windows that give the whole property a light and airy feel, is now on the market through Knight Frank in Haslemere (01428 770560) and Henry Adams in Emsworth (01243 377773) at a guide price of £1.5 million.

The original Lumley Mill complex, powered by a mill race leading off the River Ems, was the most northerly of Emsworth’s mills, located halfway between the harbour town and the village of Westbourne.

According to local records, it was built in 1760 on the Sussex bank of the town, as part of Lord Lumley’s substantial Stansted estate. www.countrylife.co.uk

The Old Mill, Goucestershire, affords picturesque views across the river, lake and mill race and has more than 5,000sq ft of accommodation over three floors. £2m

In 1802, on the eve of the Napoleonic Wars, Edward Tollervey, well known locally as ‘an astute and prosperous baker and miller from Portsmouth’, acquired Lumley Mill and set about building ‘a large pseudoGothic house, outbuildings and stores in which he installed ovens to bake bread and biscuits, and also erected pigsties’. He secured lucrative contracts with the Admiralty and others to supply salt pork, bread, biscuits and flour for distribution to the 14,000 troops stationed at Portsmouth during wartime, as well as the local townsfolk. However, by the time the war ended,

Tollervey had over-extended himself and was ultimately declared bankrupt.

Lumley Mill saw its fortunes restored in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was owned by successive generations of the Terry family: firstly, by James Terry, from 1860 until his death in 1906, and then by his nephew, Alfred, who sold it to a local farmer in 1915 before going off to fight in the First World War. The mill complex burned down the same year, in seemingly unexplained circumstances, leaving only Tollervey’s landmark miller’s house, its front façade decorated with Country Life, February 5, 2020 95

Property market a curious fleur-de-lys design that suggests, some say, that French prisoners-of-war may have been involved in its construction.

The main house and its adjoining south wing—known as the Toll House from the days when passing funerals had to pay to gain entry to the nearby cemetery—together provide 5,149sq ft of accommodation, comprising five reception rooms, six bedrooms, four bath/shower rooms and two kitchen/ breakfast rooms in all.

The living space is currently split between the main house, which contains all the original reception rooms, plus a recent addition—a splendid Marston and Langinger orangery added in 2005—and the Toll House (the former bake house) which nowadays operates as a separate, three-bedroom holiday let, but could easily be reintegrated with the rest of the main building. Outside, two linked octagonal buildings offer a further 1,059sq ft of useful space, in the shape of an artist’s studio and an adjoining greenhouse.

Up in the Cotswolds, the Stow-on-theWold office of Knight Frank (01451 600610) has launched another substantial mill

house, Grade II-listed the Old Mill at Upper Swell, Gloucestershire, onto the market at a guide price of £2m.

The former mill stands on the edge of the quaint hamlet of Upper Swell in the Dikler Valley, a mile from the quintessential Cotswold town of Stow-on-the-Wold and five miles from Moreton-in Marsh. The hamlet comprises about 14 houses, with the small Norman church of St Mary perched at its highest point, above the wooded terraces of the Old Mill.

Some say that French prisoners-of-war may have been involved in its construction The house stands alongside the weir that dams the River Dikler to form the wide mill pond, which was enlarged in the 18th century to create a more picturesque view. Prospects from the garden, which

look out across the lake, the mill race and the river to the fields of the extensive Abbots-wood Estate, are remarkably private.

The Old Mill is made up of four linked buildings: the original mill to the east, possibly 17th century, now with a 19thcentury iron water wheel in place; the original baker’s house, a broad cottage with an exceptionally large bread oven, which is now a splendid, two-storey kitchen overlooking the mill pond, with a study and galleried dining area above; to the west, a 19th-century cottage that extends along the back of the house; and, at right angles to that, a coach house. This combination of buildings is clearly evident from outside the house, although all were joined together in the late 1990s to create an intriguing variety of rooms.

The Old Mill offers more than 5,000sq ft of accommodation on three floors, including a reception hall, three reception rooms, six bedrooms and five bath/shower rooms.

The property can either be used as one large family house or divided to allow part of it to be used for holiday lets.

Secluded in West Sussex

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OR sale for the first time in more than 20 years, elegant, Georgian The Dower House at Walberton, West Sussex, was once the principal house to the largest of three farms on the Walberton Manor estate.

Now on the market through the Chichester office of Hamptons International (01243 839399) at a guide price of £2.5m, the house stands in 2½ acres of beautiful landscaped gardens– its focal point a glorious walled rose garden that is a blaze of colour in summer. During their tenure, the owners, who are 96 Country Life, February 5, 2020

reluctant downsizers, also installed a swimming pool, which is cleverly screened by a solid beech hedge.

The Dower House stands in verdant seclusion next to the church in the heart of historic Walberton village, eight miles from Chichester and two miles from Barnham station. Built in the 18th century and later extended, it offers 5,885sq ft of gracious living space that includes three fine reception rooms, a kitchen/breakfast room, a master suite, two further bedrooms and two bathrooms on the first floor, with three further bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. www.countrylife.co.uk

Properties of the week

A whiter shade of pale Paula Lester peruses a selection of covetable, whiterthan-white houses Kent, £1.95m A fine, early-15th-century, white-rendered Wealden hall house that has been impeccably maintained, Grade II*-listed Henden Place overlooks the village green in Woodchurch, near Tenterden. Reclining in 1.7 acres, which include a large natural pond, this charming timber-frame house has five bedrooms and three bathrooms (two of which are en-suite), a farmhouse-style kitchen with an Aga and an oakpanelled sitting room with a vast inglenook fireplace. Phillips & Stubbs (01797 227338)

Somerset, £2m Perched high above the Saxon village of Stoke St Mary and described by Pevsner as ‘overlooking a huge view, somewhat colonial with a timber arcaded veranda’, Stoke House enjoys an incredible vista over the Taunton Vale.

Built in about 1810 for Lord Portman’s agent, this Grade II-listed, light-filled property boasts five bedrooms, three bathrooms and a coach house, set in about 10 acres of gardens and woodland, four miles from Taunton.

Knight Frank Exeter (01392 848842)

Surrey, £5.5m It might require complete renovation, but this elegant Georgian manor house near Kew in Richmond offers a cornucopia of period features, such as a pilastered entrance canopy and fanlight, fireplaces, panelling and window shutters, all waiting to be restored to their former glory. Situated in just over half an acre, West Hall has seven bedrooms and three bathrooms, plus separate coach and studio houses.

Savills Richmond (020–8614 9100) London NW3, £4.5m Once the home of the late comedian Peter Cook, this Grade II-listed Queen Anne eyrie wouldn’t look out of place in a fairy tale. Situated in Perrins Walk, a private mews close to Hampstead Tube station, it has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, a roof terrace, a 70ftlong landscaped garden and, unusually for London, designated parking.

Dexters Hampstead (020–7433 0273) Buckinghamshire, £6.5m Designed by Robert Lugar—known as ‘the country gentleman’s architect’—in the early 19th century, Denham Mount is an elegant Grade II-listed Georgian villa with four cottages. Occupying 40 acres, which hold a Victorian ice house, folly, coach house, extensive lawns, a lake, fruit and vegetable gardens and a tennis court, this seven-bedroom/four-bathroom home is near Gerrards Cross and within 18 miles of London. Part of the 1945 film Blithe Spirit was made on the veranda. Strutt & Parker (020–7318 5025)

98 Country Life, February 5, 2020

www.countrylife.co.uk

In the garden

Mark Diacono

Ready your spears To enjoy asparagus at its sweetest, get ready in the kitchen before you pick a spear

It’s like fresh peanuts crossed with artichoke heart For every wet, cold, muddy day in the garden, you need something to swing the pendulum back your way, and quickly cooked asparagus with butter, too much pepper, a little salt and a rubble of parmesan just about covers the duff days on its own. Yes, I love a Sungold tomato eaten off the stem and the first, less-than-romantically named BF15 potatoes of the year, but, if you turned the thumbscrews sufficiently, I would choose asparagus, cut and eaten within minutes, as my favourite vegetable.

I am not naturally patient.

It wasn’t until we moved into our third house that I realised I ought to bite the bullet and plant some asparagus, although it meant a good wait until the eating. I’d had a revelation—over a pint of Timothy Taylor—that I should see asparagus not as a sluggish part of the vegetable patch, but as a mini vegetable orchard. It is, after all, a perennial capable of delivering many years of wonderful harvests.

Waiting to eat homegrown asparagus is unavoidable: the

Horticultural aide memoire Start dahlias The dismal clumps of light-brown dahlia tubers that project from boxes and buckets in sheds across the land can now be brought miraculously back to life in preparation for their stage performance this summer. Just as well you labelled them last autumn. For now, simply pot up each plant, bring it into a frostproof glasshouse and begin watering. Soon those familiar chunky green shoots will appear and cuttings can be taken. Alternatively, tubers can be removed for the same purpose. Keep the plants cool to maintain sturdy progress. There’s plenty of time yet. SCD 100 Country Life, February 5, 2020

question is, will you pay a few quid to shorten the torture? You can sow seed in spring and wait three years until they’re ready to offer you lunch or reduce that to two years by spending on young plants known as crowns.

My stomach trumped my wallet.

There is still one spring of torture after planting, when delicious stems push through the earth and everything about you wants to reach for the knife.

But sit on your hands or go on a six-week cruise you must, as asparagus plants need all their early strength to establish themselves.

I did, accidentally, try my first homegrown asparagus in that forbidden spring. I knelt on a spear, snapping it a few inches from the tip and ate it brushed free of soil. If you’ve never tried raw, just-cut asparagus, you must—it’s like very fresh peanuts crossed with artichoke heart.

By the following spring, I had a dozen or so recipes awaiting my spears, but, in the end, we

ate almost all of them the same way: quickly cooked and simply adorned. The secret to enjoying asparagus at its sweetest, its most succulent, is to get everything else ready in the kitchen before you pick. Get the water on to boil or the oven preheating.

It makes a difference, I promise.

It’s an entirely elevated pleasure to the Peruvian pencils that sit in our supermarkets all year.

I avoid asparagus for all but the weeks my vegetable patch offers.

Asparagus is as simple to grow as it is to eat. It’s naturally a seaside plant and prefers the kind of well-drained soil my patch of Devon lacks, so I created a raised bed, full of compost with a little sand and gravel for drainage.

Crowns look like small dead octopi and are usually available in early spring. Ahead of their arrival, dig a trench a little deeper than the depth of your spade, refilling with 6in or so of excavated soil and well-rotted manure or compost, forming a ridge in an upturned V along the bottom of the trench. Space the crowns at least 20in from each other along the ridge, spreading the tentacles out on either side. Refill with the excavated soil and water well. Allow about 30in between rows.

Watering well in the first year and keeping the bed weed-free is all that stands between you and the best asparagus. Being the idle sort, I use a mulch of compost or well-rotted manure to suppress the weeds, feed the plants and retain moisture.

Stop harvesting at the end of May, leaving the spears to grow on before cutting them back to 2in above ground as the foliage turns yellow in autumn.

And then dream again of April Fools’ Day. Mark Diacono grows edibles, both usual and unusual, at Otter Farm in Devon (www. otterfarm.co.uk) Next week Hedges www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy; Getty

E

NTIRELY appropriately, I start looking for the first asparagus to push through the soil on April Fools’ Day. I’m usually a good fortnight early, but still, what have we if not hope? At some point, when spring crosses a happy threshold, the spears drive skyward, often appearing overnight.

I’ve seen a half-brick lifted by this push into the light.

It is, of course, all driven by sex: the stems are topped with flower buds desperate to blossom and produce seed, and it’s your duty to interrupt this indecent business to your culinary advantage.

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Kitchen garden cook Blood oranges

by Melanie Johnson

More ways with blood oranges Blood-orange, beetroot and butternut salad with labneh and hazelnuts Spread a large platter with 300ml of seasoned labneh (strained and thickened Greek yoghurt). Arrange three peeled and sliced blood oranges and six freshly roasted beetroots, cut into wedges, and an equal amount of cubed butternut squash on top. (To roast, simply wrap the beets and squash in foil with olive oil and a sprig of rosemary and cook until tender.) Scatter over 50g of chopped and roasted hazelnuts, two teaspoons of za’atar, a coarsely chopped sprig of rosemary, a drizzle of olive oil, another of syrupy balsamic and seasoning.

Serve immediately.

Pretty-in-pink blood-orange Bundt cake Serves 8 Method dissolved, increase the heat and simmer until it has reduced by half. Set aside.

While the cake is cooling in its tin, pierce holes in the sponge with a toothpick and brush it with the sugar syrup.

When it’s cool enough to handle, invert the cake onto a wire rack and brush the syrup all over the top.

Make the glaze by simply mixing the strained juice into the sifted icing sugar in a medium-sized bowl.

When the cake has completely cooled, pour over the pink blood-orange glaze and serve. You could decorate the top with extra zest.

This delicious cake should keep for a few days in an airtight container—if you and your family can resist it for that long.

Ingredients For the cake 2 blood oranges, zest of 250g caster sugar 4 eggs 250ml vegetable oil 200g soured cream 1tspn vanilla-bean paste 350g self-raising flour Pinch of salt For the vanilla and bloodorange sugar syrup 75g caster sugar 2tspn vanilla-bean paste 150ml strained bloodorange juice For the blood-orange glaze 30ml strained bloodorange juice 125g icing sugar, sifted

Fragrant blood-orange and ricotta toasts Super simple: toast sliced sourdough. Spread each slice with ricotta and top with peeled and sliced bloodorange pieces. Drizzle with honey. Scatter with a few lemon-thyme leaves and serve.

This is also delicious made in small pieces as a canapé.

Melanie Johnson

Rub the zest into the sugar in a medium-sized bowl to really release the flavours and set aside to infuse. Preheat your oven to 180˚C/350˚F/ gas mark 6 and generously butter a pretty Bundt tin with a diameter of about 25cm (10in).

Put the flavoured sugar, eggs, oil, soured cream and vanillabean paste in a large bowl.

Whisk to combine everything.

Add the flour and a pinch of salt, then mix again until just combined.

Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and bake for about 45–50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Make the sugar syrup by dissolving the sugar, vanilla-bean paste and blood-orange juice in a small pan over a low heat. Once the sugar has

Fresh and tart, blood oranges add so much to both sweet and savoury dishes 102 Country Life, February 5, 2020

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Crikey, what crocus!

The Garden at Little Court, Hampshire

A natural at gardening, Patricia Elkington typically underplays her role in the creation of one of the finest displays of crocus in the country, says George Plumptre Photographs by Clive Nichols

I

F you’re an Englishwoman at 50, you either get God or gardening—I got gardening’ is Patricia Elkington’s characteristically self-deprecating explanation for the garden she has created over the past four decades. Yet behind the breezy humour lies a story that mixes chance and good fortune, as well as the development of a particular talent common to so many British women gardeners. Mrs Elkington creates gentle, understated and inherently domestic gardens, where plants are the personalities and encouraged to give of their best and in which everything is included, from the trees that provide shade to the wildlife and the countryside beyond.

It was pure chance that the opportunity to create the garden at Little Court arose at all. In the early 1950s, Patricia’s father spotted that the house was coming up for sale at a local auction. ‘I’ll just go and see what it goes for,’ he reassured his wife, who, not surprisingly, was rather unprepared when he returned home its proud owner. Patricia’s mother was a flower arranger and began the garden, but its creation really dates from 1975, when Patricia and her husband, Andrew, a distinguished opthalmologist, succeeded her parents and moved into Little Court.

The garden is arranged in seven adjoining areas, some of them divided by old flint walls —mostly low, but higher around the Little Court comes into its own between winter and spring, with winter aconites and snowdrops, followed by crocus, anemones, Scilla bithynica and narcissus

104 Country Life, February 5, 2020

The secret to naturalising crocus How has Patricia Elkington managed to make her Crocus tommasinianus naturalise so healthily? In her view, she can take very little of the credit, believing it is the combination of various conditions that contributes to the stupendous growing habitat. In a sense, this is rather like the terroir that wine growers consider the primary ingredient in a wine’s character and success; that indefinable combination of soil, aspect, weather and je ne sais quoi.

At Little Court, the crucial factor in the crocus’s success seems to be the thin, freedraining chalk soil. Mrs Elkington explains: ‘I like to imagine it makes them think they are growing on a stony limestone Turkish hillside or somewhere similar, where they have thrived naturally for centuries.’ She is adamant they would not naturalise so well on clay or even freer-draining greensand. Yet she also believes that the layer of ground elder beneath the apple trees in the orchard where the crocus are most dense is another important element. (Hosting crocus is certainly a novel use for something most gardeners regard as an unwelcome invader.)

Mrs Elkington has also noticed that, in late April, the crocus flowers are replaced by bulging sacks that look like small ice lollies and burst open to disperse the seed. Being in the south of England, there is usually a generous amount of helpful early-summer sun, but, whatever the true reason for the spectacular crocus carpet, it is clear that the conditions are wonderfully conducive to germination. With this in mind, Mrs Elkington makes certain that the one piece of annual intervention she does insist on—mowing off the dead stalks, ground elder and orchard grass—doesn’t happen too early, so it is usually left until July.

walled kitchen garden—all of which appear on a map of 1837. Other than the kitchen garden, however, there is no real sense of division from one area to another and part of Little Court’s charm is the glimpses one gets of one area from another, especially early in the year before the trees have come into leaf.

Although the garden is delightful in summer, with borders overflowing and fruit and vegetables cropping heavily, it reaches its zenith during the weeks when winter turns into spring. ‘I remember my mother and I planted one packet of 10 crocus bulbs,’ Mrs Elkington recalls. ‘They clearly like our soil —7.5ph —and have spread by sowing seed and by small bulblets, marching like an army.’

An army, indeed. From February to March, the orchard and the bank beneath the old beech tree are covered in sheets of pale lavender ‘tommies’ (Crocus tommasinianus). On a late-February afternoon, as they catch the low winter light, they gleam like a jewelled carpet.

The crocuses might be a highlight, but they are by no means the first plants to flower. Mrs Elkington has quietly built up a winter and spring garden that seamlessly perpetuates itself from one week to the next, with an almost imperceptible succession of different small delights beginning with aconites and snowdrops. As well as the crocus spectacular, there are anemones, the rich mauve-blue A. blanda contrasting with the cheerful white A. nemorosa, the Preceding pages: The orchard is carpeted with naturalised Crocus tommasinianus, which thrive on the thin, free-draining chalk soil. Facing page: Snowdrops and winter aconites with hellebores behind www.countrylife.co.uk

wood anemone. Later, there is pale blue Scilla bithynica and, of course, narcissus.

The narcissus provide a good example of how this garden gives the impression of being entirely natural, spreading through the orchard and into the borders. Closer inspection, however, reveals that the plants are subtly selected. They include some rare specialities, none more so than Mrs Elkington’s favourite White Lady.

The garden gives the impression of being entirely natural, but the plants are subtly selected Small and delicate, with white tepals surrounding a pale yellow corona, White Lady was raised by famous daffodil breeder the Rev George Engleheart. Between the 1880s and his death in 1936, he raised some 700 daffodils, of which White Lady was one of the best. Breeding was reputed to have brought solace from a difficult relationship with his wife and, occasionally, his parishioners would arrive at church to find a notice from the vicar: ‘No service today, working with daffodils.’

Similar care has gone into the choice of tulips, most of them small-species kinds, such as bright red Tulipa sprengeri, which flowers in May, and T. clusiana, which produces its white-and-pink striped, star-shaped flowers a bit earlier. By this time, primroses and cowslips have appeared in the curiously

named Goose Garden, just beyond the first low flint wall, as well as various fritillaries.

F. pallida stands out with its distinctive straw-yellow flowers, in contrast to the betterknown snake’s head F. Meleagris.

Along the far side of the Goose Garden is the second low flint wall. Beyond this is a large open area, until recently farmland, but now laid out as meadow with scattered summer wildflowers, as important as a habitat for butterflies as it is for the wildflowers themselves. Accommodating the local wildlife is a high priority here.

Indeed, on an early summer visit one year, what Mrs Elkington really wanted to show me, far more than any of her flowering highlights, was a pair of mating slowworms on top of her compost heap. As she writes in her own notes for visitors: ‘We have bantams which are generally free-range, there will be newts in the pond and tadpoles in the bath, a beneficial frog population and toads, and increasing butterflies in the paddock.’

Andrew died in 2014, but his widow continues to open the garden, because of the enjoyment they always got from sharing it with visitors. Her maxim is that everyone should leave feeling better than when they arrived and many people comment on the garden’s tranquillity. Beyond the welcoming and restorative atmosphere, however, the more discerning of them detect a degree of lighttouch plantsmanship that is notoriously hard to achieve, combining plants from one season to another, so that the whole succession appears almost completely natural.

The garden of Little Court opens regularly in aid of the National Garden Scheme (NGS; www.ngs.org.uk). George Plumptre is chief executive of the NGS Country Life, February 5, 2020 109

Art market

Huon Mallalieu Fig 1: Saint Clare rescuing the Sailors, predella panel by Giovanni di Paolo. £5,313,750 like Alice, through the lookingglass.’ Here, his 8in by 11½in panel of the saint receiving the robe of her Order of Poor Clares from St Francis (Fig 2) was comparatively conventional and it sold for £3,611,250, but the 7in by 11¾in Saint Clare rescuing the Sailors (Fig 1) was distinctly surreal.

Some of his panel paintings are remarkable for their fantasy

Through an Italian looking glass Restituted paintings, particularly a stormy scene from the life of St Clare, light up Christie’s, as Dürer poses a riddle

I

T is natural, I suppose, to experience a little twinge of sadness on learning that the heirs to a restituted work of art have immediately put it on the market; natural, but unfair.

One can know nothing of the family’s present circumstances, still less of motives or individual tastes. Indeed, they may have no personal relationship, as it were, with the object, having been separated from it two or more generations ago.

Harry Fuld (1872–1932) was perhaps lucky to die when he did, on a business trip to Switzerland.

Descended from antique dealers, he had made his own fortune in what has become known as telecommunications and was a major collector of Modern and some older art. His widow and sons inherited the collections, which were confiscated and sold off by the Nazis. After the war, his heirs had only limited success in getting back what should have been theirs and it is only subsequent generations that have had 110 Country Life, February 5, 2020

their rights recognised. The two paintings that turned out to be the stars of Christie’s main London Old Master sale in December had been returned to the family earlier last year.

Peter Harry Fuld (1921–62), the younger of the two sons, was so affected by his experiences as an emigrant and refugee, which included a spell of internment on the Isle of Man, that he set up a foundation to support young emigrants in London and Germany who face racial and other discrimination. Perhaps some of the proceeds from the sale will be directed to this.

The two predella panels were painted in tempera and gold by a Sienese master, Giovanni di Paolo (about 1399–1482). A predella is a run of four or more small scenes below the main subjects of an altarpiece—in this case, an altar dedicated to St Clare, the companion of St Francis of Assisi.

Giovanni di Paolo was a fine miniator, or illuminator, who

may have trained with the Limbourg brothers when they were in Italy, but some of his panel paintings are truly remarkable for their fantasy; as Sir John Pope-Hennessy commented: ‘Few experiences in Italian painting are more exciting than to follow Giovanni di Paolo as he plunges,

This posthumous miracle is recounted in De conformitate vitae beati Francisci ad vitam Domini Iesu by Bartolomeo da Pisa, issued at Assisi in 1399: ‘Several Pisans were surprised by a terrible tempest during a dark and gloomy night on their way to Sardinia. The strong storm had already broken the stern of the ship, so that all those on board saw themselves close to death and invoked the Virgin Mary and many saints with shouts and lamentations.

As their prayers were unanswered and they feared to sink, they started to invoke St Clare of Assisi: If she would free them

Fig 2: The Investiture of Saint Clare by di Paolo. £3,611,250 www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 3: Grotesque heads, one of two Hopfer prints. £13,750 for both

from their perilous danger, they promised to make a pilgrimage from Pisa to Clare’s church, barefoot, in penitential robes, and with a pound of wax in their hands.’ Either in the form of three guiding lights or in person, as here, the saint obligingly flew to their rescue.

The painting is almost naïve, yet full of life, with the flying spray and the sails being ripped away. Unsurprisingly, the price far outran that of its companion, reaching £5,313,750.

Although di Paolo was at work during the dawn of the Italian Renaissance, his art seems to

be backward-looking in that context. Donatello (1386–1466) was a slightly older contemporary, but his sculptures belong to a different world.

There was little trace of the medieval in a 14½in-high polychrome gesso bust of a young boy, which sold for £431,250, also at Christie’s. One might guess from the open mouth that the boy was singing—perhaps he was intended as an angel or decoration for a choir gallery; this was a product of the new Humanism. Christie’s was not confident in the attribution, dating the bust to between 1420

Pick of the week This 19th-century, cotton-based, hand-woven wool Mahal minahani design rug from north-west Persia, measuring more than 13ft by 8ft, was one of two rugs sold by the Carpet Restoration Studio on the opening day of the London Antique Rug & Textile Art Fair in Battersea Park for four-figure sums.

www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 4: Melencolia I, 1514, engraving by Albrecht Dürer. £187,500 and 1440 and pointing to Desidero di Settignano or another of Donatello’s followers. The estimate was to £30,000.

The German engravers of Dürer’s generation belonged to a different world again. Daniel Hopfer (1470–1536) is believed to have been the first to use etching to make prints. Previously, the techniques had been employed to decorate armour and Hopfer had been trained by an Augsburg armourer. A shield and sword survive that were decorated by him. It is thought that he was etching prints from about 1500, using iron plates, which needed great care to avoid rust marks.

In Christie’s early-December sale of Old Master prints, there were two by Hopfer, sold together.

One—a sheet of grotesque and devilish heads (Fig 3) measuring only 3½in by 5¼in—was a rarity; the second was a design of ornamented stripes, perhaps for armour decoration or dagger sheaths. They sold for £13,750 against a £3,500 estimate.

Dürer was the first printmaker to date an etching—three, in fact —in 1515. However, it was one of his great engravings that took the honours here: a fine impression in generally good condition of the 9¼in by 7¼in Melencolia I (Fig 4) of the previous year, which reached £187,500. Many books and papers have been written about the meaning of this strange image, so full of astrological, scientific and architectural objects, without reaching any fully convincing explanation.

I like the idea that this is actually the point. Melancholy may be induced by the impossibility of achieving what one wishes— in this case, deciphering the riddle.

The cheapest lot in this sale, incidentally, was a rare early mezzotint depicting Nuremberg tailor Johann Langstein. Dating from 1670–1722, the print was the work of Georg Fennitzer (1646–1722) of the same burg, and sold for £50.

Next week Hounds and a woodpecker Country Life, February 5, 2020 111

Exhibition

Picasso (1881–1973) at the Royal Academy

Paper pictures Caroline Bugler is thrilled by an exhibition that traces Picasso’s entire career through his work on and with paper

P

ICASSO loved paper and he never threw a scrap of it away, firmly believing that ‘one is what one keeps’.

A visit to the massive archives of the Musée Picasso in a suburb of Paris, from which about 80% of the loans to this exhibition came, reveals exactly how extensive his paper collection was.

Not only did he keep thousands of sketches and graphic works, he also hoarded all manner of paper ephemera, including bus tickets, letters, newsprint, pieces of wallpaper and bottle labels. Many of these fragments made surprising reappearances in his art: magazine photographs were doctored with comic figures, slivers of ugly wallpaper or pages from newspapers were incorporated into collages;

a paper napkin was torn to resemble his lover Dora Maar’s beloved pet dog after it died.

This wealth of material has meant that the curators of this show, a collaboration between the Royal Academy, Musée Picasso and Cleveland Museum of Art, had plenty to choose from when they picked the 300 objects to display and they have made an insightful selection that includes many works not previously seen in public. There has been no shortage of exhibitions devoted to Picasso in recent years, most of them focusing on specific aspects of his work, but this show is probably the nearest we will ever get to a grand retrospective that encompasses his entire career. The arrangement is broadly chronological and each

Picasso’s mesmerising, swiftly drawn Self-Portrait of 1918

room contains at least one carefully chosen painting or sculpture that relates to the works on paper.

Sometimes, exhibitions of graphic work can seem rather monochrome, but here there is plenty of visual variety and colour and the idea of displaying the exhibits against walls painted in rich hues of blue and maroon adds to their impact.

An image that starts as flowers morphs into a fish, then a chicken, then a faun

Violin, 1912, created using Picasso’s papier collé technique

112 Country Life, February 5, 2020

Some of the works are surprisingly large. The reconstruction of the mixed-media Cubist costume Picasso created for Erik Satie’s 1917 ballet Parade is nearly 10ft high and must have been almost impossible to move around in. Women at their Toilette (1937–38), a collage with gouache, is almost 15ft wide. Created at the same time as the more famous Guernica,

it was conceived on a similarly epic scale and, likewise, shows women in stages of fright and grief, possibly also reflecting the artist’s complicated love life Picasso drew incessantly, from the moment he was old enough to hold a pencil. A study he made of a Classical sculpture in 1893/94 shows that he had already mastered the academic style by the age of 12 or 13. Having excelled as a traditional draughtsman at such a young age, he went on to experiment freely in pencil, watercolour, gouache and print.

His private sketchbooks became a laboratory for his changing thoughts, as he worked out his painted compositions, or a record of his state of mind, emotions and intimate relationships.

A whole room devoted to the groundbreaking Demoiselles d’Avignon, which Picasso worked on in 1906/07, reveals how he endlessly deconstructed and reconstructed the composition and restlessly moved the figures around, doing away with the sailor and medical student who were originally included, abandoning conventional perspective in favour of compressed space and www.countrylife.co.uk

Above: The collage Femmes à leur toilette, 1937–38, is rendered on an epic scale. Below: Seated Woman (Dora), 1962, of Picasso’s lover

Succession Picasso/DACS 2019

giving two of the women features derived from African masks.

Throughout the exhibition, sketches show how he worked spontaneously and almost instinctively, modifying and often radically changing his compositions as he went along. The film Le Mystere: Picasso, made in 1955/56, records the artist at work on three drawings, rather like a piece of modern performance art. An image that starts out as a bunch of flowers morphs into a fish, then a chicken and, finally, the head of a faun, in the space of a couple of minutes. A drawing of Picasso’s wife Jacqueline, Reclining Nude Woman, undergoes many transformations until it ends up as a collage of wallpaper and wove paper. The original is shown on an adjoining wall.

Picasso’s fascination with other artists is also a constant theme.

Having gone through a period in the 1920s when he drew inspiration from Ingres’s classical style, he later made an intensive study of Delacroix’s Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement (1834) www.countrylife.co.uk

and Manet’s Dejeuner sur l’Herbe (1863). Not only did he produce numerous paintings based on the pictures, he also made lithographs, etchings, linocuts, watercolours and drawings that played around with the compositions, analysing and reassembling them. He even made little three-dimensional cardboard cutouts of Manet’s figures, which he moved around to create different configurations.

One of the most moving works is also the most modest— a scribbled pencil self-portrait that Picasso created when he was 90, the head skull-like and the eyes vacant. The final work on show, it strikes a valedictory note, its childlike simplicity profoundly eloquent.

‘Picasso and Paper’ is at the Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1, until April 13 (020–7300 8000; www.royalacademy.org.uk) Next week ‘Portraying Pregnancy’ at the Foundling Museum Country Life, February 5, 2020 113

Theatre

Michael Billington

We laughed–until we cried

W

ATCHING Ian Rickson’s fine new West End production of Uncle Vanya, I kept thinking how much theatre had changed in my lifetime.

I first saw Chekhov’s masterpiece at Chichester in 1962, in a legendary revival by Laurence Olivier that remains crystal clear in my memory. The difference between then and now is epitomised by the fact that there was a wasted grandeur to Michael Redgrave’s Vanya, whereas Toby Jones plays the character as a scruffy buffoon. However, the play still leaves you overwhelmed and penetrates the memory for days afterwards.

The tone of this production is set by Conor McPherson’s

114 Country Life, February 5, 2020

‘new adaptation’. The language is more coarse, colloquial and comic than we are used to. Anna Calder-Marshall as the old Nana, complaining about the upset to the rhythms of rural life resulting from a visit by the Professor and his wife, moans that it ‘gives you a pain up the backside’. Vanya describes his mother as ‘still wanging on about women’s rights’.

The mother’s role has also been built up so that she becomes, in Dearbhla Molloy’s performance, a somnambulistic feminist who sharply tells Vanya not to equate ‘laziness with rebelliousness’.

The chief innovation, in both Mr McPherson’s version and Mr Rickson’s production, is to

heighten Chekhov’s comedy.

When Richard Armitage as the ecologically minded Astrov strips off his shirt to embrace the refreshing rain, Peter Wight as the paunchy Telegin hilariously follows suit. Vanya’s attempt to remove a sauce-stain from the crotch of his trousers is embarrassingly misinterpreted. And the scene where he and Astrov get wildly inebriated, which ends with Vanya crawling into a cupboard, reminded me of nothing so much as the nocturnal drinking bout in Twelfth Night.

The test of any Chekhov play is whether we see the tragedy that is inseparable from the comedy and, on that score, this production succeeds. Mr Jones’s Vanya may be a sham-

bling, turnip-faced idiot, but his passion for Rosalind Eleazar’s Yelena is as real as it is futile.

In the evening’s other outstanding performance, Aimee Lou Wood is superb as his niece, Sonya. Instead of making her a dowdy drudge, Miss Wood plays Sonya as an attractive, if naive, young woman, whose love for Astrov is hopelessly unrequited. There’s a heartrending moment when her face crumples as Astrov casually kisses her forehead rather than her proffered lips and Sonya’s final speech to her uncle about the need to endure life’s pain and hardship is as moving as ever. We start by laughing at this Uncle Vanya and end up close to tears. www.countrylife.co.uk

Brinkhoff-Moegenburg; Johan Persson

A new production of Uncle Vanya is startlingly colloquial, but still succeeds in moving, and Lucy Kirkwood writes another compelling play

What’s new

Persona An old venue comes to new life with a stage adaptation

of a classic Ingmar Bergman film. Until February 23 at the Riverside Studios, W6 (020–8237 1000) Endgame Alan Cumming and Daniel Radcliffe star in a revival of Samuel Beckett’s hilariously bleak play. Until March 28 at the Old Vic, SE1 (0844 871 7628) Albion Mike Bartlett’s acclaimed play, set in the garden of England, makes a welcome return. Until February 29 at the Almeida, N1 (020–7359 4404)

Book now

The Watsons Laura Wade’s brilliant extension of an unfinished Jane Austen novel is not to be missed. From May 8 at the Harold Pinter Theatre, SW1 (0844 871 7622)

Last chance to see

My Brilliant Friend Buoyant version of Elena Ferrante’s much-

loved Neapolitan novels. Until February 22 at the Olivier, SE1 (020–7452 3000)

Give this a miss &Juliet Noisy musical rehash of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Until

October 3 at Shaftesbury Theatre, WC2 (020–7379 5399)

Above: An arresting scene at the start of Lucy Kirkwood’s topical new play. Below: Toby Jones is riveting as a dishevelled Vanya

Lucy Kirkwood’s impressive new play, The Welkin, at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre takes us on a similarly dramatic journey. The evening begins with a stunning image—owing much to Bunny Christie’s design and Lee Curran’s lighting— of 12 women framed as in a medieval painting, engaged in domestic toil. It’s not giving too much away to say that it ends in individual tragedy.

In the interim we watch as a ‘jury of matrons’, confined to a courthouse on the Norfolk/ Suffolk border in 1759, are asked to determine whether or not a girl sentenced to death for killing a child is pregnant. If she is, she faces the lesser punishment of transportation: if she isn’t, she will be hanged. The format is that of Twelve Angry Men: much of the action consists of a midwife, Elizabeth, passionately trying to persuade her www.countrylife.co.uk

fellow jurors of the need for justice. Miss Kirkwood’s real theme, however, is the paradoxical position of women: granted temporary judicial influence, but ultimately powerless.

Sally, the accused, has been sentenced on the testimony of her cuckolded husband, the jurors want a quick decision because of the demands of their housework and the male doctor, who finally supercedes their authority, declares that ‘the whole animal economy of a woman makes reason and intellect a struggle’.

What makes this a good play is that the author has avoided writing a feminist tract.

The victimised Sally is surly and foul-mouthed, there’s a touch of self-righteousness about the fervent Elizabeth. Her fellow jurors are full of superstition and snobbery, but you come out feeling that Miss Kirkwood has fashioned a compelling historical drama out of the legal system’s timeless bias against women.

My one complaint about James Macdonald’s production is that, in striving for authenticity, some of the actors’ accents are impenetrable. That, I hope, can be rectified and there’s excellent work from Maxine Peake as the militant midwife, Haydn Gwynne as a supposed toff and June Watson and Jenny Galloway as truculent senior citizens.

If we ask for a play to take us on a journey, it’s hard to see where we are heading in Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited at the Boulevard Theatre in Soho.

The theatre, which has only just opened and combines an

intimate auditorium with a welcoming bar and restaurant, is a delight, but, although Mr McCarthy is an admired novelist, his play offers an undramatic encounter between a suicidally depressive white professor and a black believer in God who tries to convince him of life’s worth.

Jasper Britton and Gary Beadle impress as the intellectual combatants, but they rehearse the same arguments about futility and faith time and again. What one misses is ‘the change from ignorance to knowledge’ that Aristotle thought was the foundation of drama and which Chekhov, like all the great masters, totally understood.

‘Uncle Vanya’, until May 2 (0844 871 7622); ‘The Welkin’, until May 23 (020–7452 3000); ‘The Sunset Limited’, until February 29 (020–3968 6849)

At a glance

Uncle Vanya ✸✸✸✸✸ The Welkin ✸✸✸✸✸ The Sunset Limited ✸✸✸✸✸ Country Life, February 5, 2020 115

Crossword

Bridge Andrew Robson

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

Solutions must reach Crossword No 4615, CounTry LIfe, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF, by Tuesday, February 11. UK entrants only.

T’S from the sublime to the ridiculous this week. Admire young Norwegian Christian Bakke’s brilliance on this distinctly optimistic Six Spades.

ACROSS 6 Notice place has been shot?

(8,5) 8 Angus loses article to form pleat (6) 9 Son leaves stateswomen to chop up beef cubes (4,4) 10 Yes an exclamation of disgust (3) 11 Constitutional left is terrible (6) 12 Had in mind fiance (8) 14 Constant during weekend lessons (7) 16 Lady’s comic dies (7) 20 More distressful to drink with queen (8) 23 Freeze during early part of evening in Italian city (6) 24 Period inside after arrest (3) 25 Scissors for sailors? (8) 26 Analogy of me caught in a beam (6) 27 Noisy clamour I stir up caustically (13)

DOWN 1 Good girl first fills up level measure (8) 2 Tweaks designs that depend upon the French axis (8) 3 Fashionable and skincrawling connection (7) 4 Sailor dispatched on leave (6) 5 Local pump attendant (6) 6 A Bolivian glue fixes South American vine (13) 7 A mild literacy issue at opposite ends (13) 13 Dine in the theatre bar (3) 15 Watch relatively calm centre (3) 17 So in vain to repair breach (8) 18 Minds hot stew last (8) 19 Show here (7) 21 Those who record what grows gradually thinner (6) 22 Watery discharges chap put in drinks (6)

4615

TAIT

I

Dealer South Both Vulnerable

765 92 J5 AQJ653

AQJ1094 8765 A107 — — N AJ104 W✢E K86432 S 1084 K832 KQ3 Q9 K972

South 1NT

West Pass

2♠

Pass

4♥(3)

Pass

North 2♣(1)

4♣(2) 6♠

Dealer South Both Vulnerable East Pass End

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 4614 ACROSS: 5, Avid; 7, Overbearing; 9, Ingle; 10, Incognito; 11, Travels; 12, Severe; 14, Locomotion; 17, Cuckoo-spit; 20, Arctic; 22, Unusual; 23, Identical; 24, Outre; 25, Nationalism; 26, Cyst. DOWN: 1, Robinson Crusoe; 2, Groove; 3, Tenniel; 4, Risotto; 5, Agitator; 6, Ingredient; 8, Personal column; 13, Viscountcy; 15, Cup; 16, Document; 18, Splints; 19, Tanning; 21, Chilly Winner of 4613 is Ian Webster, Shropshire

116 Country Life, February 5, 2020

A7 N A8762 ✢ W E AQ853 S 10

(1) Stayman—looking for a Heart fit (although this is perhaps unnecessary, given there is a known Spade fit).

(2) A splinter bid slam try agreeing Spades, showing Club shortage.

(3) Cooperating a little, and showing his Heart control (albeit secondround).

NAME (pLease prInT In CapITaLs)

Tel No

— KQ3 7642 QJ9875

Pass

West began unwisely by leading the Ace of Clubs. Declarer ruffed (with the nine) and led a Heart.

East erred by flying in with the Ace and exited with a second Heart.

Despite the defenders being too hasty with their Aces, it appears declarer must lose a Diamond.

Not so—watch a small piece of magic. Winning the King of Hearts, declarer ruffed a second Club (with the Ace). He cashed the Queen of Spades and overtook the Knave with the King. He ruffed a third Club (with the ten) and led the four of Spades his eight.

Declarer cashed the King of Clubs, discarding dummy’s seven of Diamonds then, in this ending, led his last Spade, discarding dummy’s ten of Diamonds.

ADDRESS

East was caught in a criss-cross squeeze. If he threw a Heart, declarer could cash the Queen of Hearts, cross to the Ace of Diamonds and cash dummy’s promoted Heart. In practice, East let go a Diamond, baring his King.

However, declarer crossed to the Ace of Diamonds, felling that King then returned to his Queen of Hearts to enjoy the promoted Queen of Diamonds. Slam made.

And now for the ridiculous— a famous deal played in an Istanbul rubber-bridge club back in 1989. Declarer made a slam in spite of missing all four Aces.

West — — J5 QJ

North — 87 A10 —

South 3 (led) Q Q9 —

East — J10 K9 —

98532 J10954 109 A

KQJ1064 — KJ K6432 South

West

North

East

1♠

2♠(1)

Pass

3♥(2)

5♠

Dbl

6♣

Pass

Pass(4) Pass

4♣

4♥(3)

5♣

5♥

Dbl

(1) Michaels, showing five-five in Hearts and a minor.

(2) East should clearly bid Four Hearts, given the 10-card fit.

I doubt North-South’s Club fit would have seen the light of day (South would surely have bid Four Spades, not Five Clubs).

(3) Should really pass, with no extra offense.

(4) Excuse me, has Christmas come early? Partner doubles their slam and I have three Aces?!

If West had led a Club, East would have won, fired through the ten of Diamonds, and the defence would have won the first three tricks. However, West greedily led the Ace of Hearts. Oops!

Declarer ruffed the Heart and led the King of Spades, covered by the Ace and ruffed. He cashed the King-Queen of Hearts, shedding his King-Knave of Diamonds, and was soon claiming his doubled slam for the loss only of the Ace of Clubs. West had not scored any of his Aces. Wow! www.countrylife.co.uk

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Spectator

Jason Goodwin

One man’s meat

A

FRIEND of ours gave a dinner the other day and invited a couple who had only recently got together.

Welcoming them at the door, he shook hands with the new girlfriend, who wore bouncing plaits and named herself, he thought, Gludenfrieda. He gave them a drink and introduced them to the rest of the crowd. ‘This is Mark and Gludenfrieda,’ he said.

‘Jeremy, Gludenfrieda.’ It was only later, in the kitchen, that he was told that Gludenfrieda’s actual name was Rachel.

‘In that case,’ he objected, ‘why did she say, “Hi, I’m Gludenfrieda?”’ At which point, it dawned on him that she had been hastily trying to signal her dietary preferences at the threshold.

Goodwin’s Law states that the amount of attention, measured in minutes, that you give to food scares, food fads and dietary prohibitions will be in direct proportion to the number of internet users in your household divided by the weight of butter currently in your fridge. If your result is 10 or lower, you may not even be

aware that we’ve just seen the end of Veganuary, in which an estimated 400,000 people ditched whatever they were eating before to pursue an animal-free diet.

I was not one of them. I did do some reading on the subject and my conclusion was that the effort to make a meat-free diet morally and ecologically superior involves some very dodgy statistics.

The Ecologist magazine has released a chart ranking foods according to their carbon footprint, led by beef, which is almost off the scale at 60kg of CO2 emissions per kg of meat. Lamb comes in second, at 24kg, olive oil stands at the same level as poultry, at six, and the clear winners, right down the bottom of the scale, are root veg, apples, citrus fruit and nuts. Nuts, in fact, get a negative rating because planting nut trees sequesters carbon from the atmosphere.

That’s all very well, but, only a few days ago, we read how billions of bees die servicing California’s almond trees, planted in droves and drenched in pesticides to supply a burgeoning

TOTTERING-BY-GENTLY

Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation

By Annie Tempest

market for almond nut milk, or ‘mylk’, as some people express it.

The same sort of monoculture has developed in countries such as Mexico to supply avocados.

The results are not only a loss of biodiversity and increased pesticide use, but also deforestation and environmental degradation.

Making a meat-free diet morally and ecologically superior involves dodgy statistics It takes hundreds of gallons of water to produce a single avocado (or a handful of Californian almonds, for that matter). Worse still, it robs small farmers of their independence. Avocado producers are now sitting ducks for extortion by violent crime gangs. Perhaps that’s why avocados don’t figure on the Veganuary chart.

Growing cereals or soya in one place to feed cattle in giant feed lots somewhere else is, of course, unsustainable, whereas beef herds eating grass, which covers more than two-thirds of British farmland, are, by a country mile, the best way of turning grass into food.

The alarmist stats on the chart lump together all the beef-rearing practices in the world, from feed lots in the US to forests cleared to grow soya beans for cattle cake, as well as the world’s largest rearer of cattle, India, where, for religious reasons, no one eats beef and a lot of methane is produced with nothing to show for it.

I think that, as we realise how few harvests we have left, animals are coming back to the farm.

Well-managed grazing can restore fertility and, according to which statistics you quote, possibly make grassland a carbon sink, drawing greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere. The key report, produced by the Oxford University-based Food Climate Research Network, goes by the brilliant title Grazed and Confused? Hold the lentils.

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