Country & Town House - January 2016

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

JANUARY 2016 £3.60

THE WHITE QUEEN

A STITCH IN TIME

Why bespoke is the ultimate luxury

Chrissie Rucker opens her home in the Alps PLUS

SAM KINCHINSMITH TRAVELS THE ROAD TO MANDALAY

HAPPY NEW YEAR

We look forward to the cultural highlights of 2016

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BY APPOINTMENT TO HRH THE PRINCE OF WALES, DUKE OF ROTHESAY MANUFACTURERS OF ESTATE TWEED WOOLLEN FABRIC JOHNSTONS OF ELGIN MORAY, SCOTLAND

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facebook.com/struttandparker twitter.com/struttandparker

struttandparker.com

West Sussex, Crawley Down

“Exquisitely refurbished Georgian splendour.”

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An outstanding Grade II listed Georgian country house.

Three Bridges Station 5.5 miles (Victoria/London Bridge from 37 mins) | Brighton 29 miles | Central London 30 miles

About 34 acres Hall | 6 Reception rooms | Kitchen/breakfast room Master bedroom suite | 7 Further bedrooms 5 Further bath/shower rooms | 2 Cottages Stable yard | Manège | Swimming pool | Gardens Pasture | Parkland | Woodland | Lake

James Mackenzie Country Department

Nicola Craddock Country Department

020 7318 5190

020 7318 5187

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One New Year’s resolution we can help you keep: Move.

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Here is a selection of properties we currently have for sale and to let

FOR SALE

FOR SALE

FOR SALE

VIRGINIA WATER, SURREY GUIDE £11 MILLION

MAIDENHEAD, BERKSHIRE GUIDE £2.295 MILLION

WEYBRIDGE, SURREY GUIDE £9.5 MILLION

FOR SALE

FOR SALE

FOR SALE

CLAPHAM, LONDON GUIDE £6.75 MILLION

FULHAM, LONDON GUIDE £3.2 MILLION

WIMBLEDON, LONDON GUIDE £7.35 MILLION

TO LET KNIGHTSBRIDGE, LONDON GUIDE £7,583 PER MONTH + FEES APPLY

TO LET KENSINGTON, LONDON GUIDE £12,783 PER MONTH + FEES APPLY

TO LET NOTTING HILL, LONDON GUIDE £6,478 PER MONTH + FEES APPLY

To see how we can help with your 2016 wish list, call us on 020 7877 4640 or visit savills.co.uk. * Fees to include drawing up the tenancy agreement and reference charge for one tenant - £276 inc VAT. £36 inc VAT for each additional tenant/occupant/guarantor reference where required. Inventory check out fee – charged at the end of or early termination of the tenancy and the amount is dependant on the property size and whether furnished/ unfurnished. For more details visit www.savills.co.uk/fees

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In the lead role: John Travolta, movie legend and aviation aficionado. Guest star: the legendary North American X-15 that smashed all speed and altitude records and opened the gateway to space. Production: Breitling, the privileged partner of aviation thanks to its reliable, accurate and innovative instruments – such as the famous Chronomat, the ultimate chronograph. Welcome to a world of legends, feats and performance.

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WELCOME TO MY WORLD

CHRONOMAT 44

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CONTENTS JANUARY 2016

24 26

30 31 33

36 68

52 53

54 87

54

65

68

ON THE COVER Styling by Ursula Lake. Photography by Greg Sorensen.

Simone from FM Models wears Crombie coat by Paul Smith, dress by Alberta Ferretti and boots by Victoria Beckham

THE GOOD LIFE Alice B-B puts on her boxing gloves THE RURBANIST Animal sculptor Hamish Mackie

Up Front

LOUNGE LIZARD Go with the flow SNOW BABIES Ski accessories OBJECT OF DESIRE Grazyna Solland’s Marque unit 34 THE TASTEMAKER Lucia van der Post 35 STYLE NOTEBOOK News and trends 36 THE GOLD DIGGER Jewellery news 38 MY BEAUTIFUL LIFE Facialist Su-Man 39 THE BOTTOM LINE Health and fitness 40 WELL GROOMED Men’s style

45 50

40

At the Start

76

The Guide

THE DIARY 2016’s cultural highlights ARTS AGENDA Children’s stories take to the stage BOOK CLUB Review of Edna O’Brian’s latest work, The Little Red Chairs CHINA IN YOUR HAND Discussing Herend’s superlative heritage in the world of porcelain

Features

ON THE ROCKS Winter whites have never looked so dramatic. Styling by Ursula Lake, photography by Greg Sorensen WELCOME TO THE WHITE HOUSE Felix Milns takes a snoop around White Company founder, Chrissie Rucker’s gorgeous new alpine retreat MEASURE FOR MEASURE Yes, it’s fun and easy to buy online but it will never replace creating your own bespoke pieces, says Lucy Cleland A NICE BIT OF TOTTY How interior designer Totty Lowther went from London to the Lake District

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THE OAK LEAF BRACELET & RING

L O N D O N S T M O R I T Z N E W Y O R K B E V E R LY H I L L S M I A M I O S A K A A S P R E Y. C O M

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CONTENTS JANUARY 2016

106

81 82 84 85

87

90 92

95 97 99

41

30 years TAG L I AT E L L E Diamond, gold and silver rings Cassandra Goad 147 Sloane Street London SW1X 9BZ Tel: 020 7730 2202

HOLD THE PHONE West One Bathroom’s phone box shower JANUARY BLUES Match your interiors to your mood DESIGN NOTES Interior ideas Q&A Hotelier Georgie Pearman

Food & Travel THE ROAD TO MANDALAY Burma is on the cusp of a renaissance and Sam Kinchin can feel the optimism in the air HOTEL WIZARD Fiona Duncan gets a taste of the Amalfi lemon RETAIL THERAPY Plot some lastminute shopping around a spoiling city break GASTRO GOSSIP A cheap smoke and Michelin stars aplenty HOLY MACKEREL Stuffed most deliciously by Tom Hunt FORK & FIELD The Lanesborough’s new gem Céleste

On The Move

101 PROPERTY OF THE MONTH 102 A CHALET OF ONE’S OWN After

a lull in sales, the ski chalet is back on the property buyer’s wish list, says Graham Norwood 104 LONDON LETS The capital’s real property story 105 PROPERTY BULLETIN Market news 106 HOT PROPERTY The best houses for sale in town and country

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The Insider

Regulars EDITOR’S LETTER CONTRIBUTORS HIGH SOCIETY

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OUTRAGEOUSLY BEAUTIFUL JEWELLERY

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON 01789 267 072 WWW.PRAGNELL.CO.UK

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Editor’s Letter

A

s we move into 2016, the world somehow seems a little bit different, a little bit less certain, which is why we need to cling on to our traditions and form new ones that promote freedom of expression, cultural harmony and the overwhelming beauty and talent in our country. For these are values and qualities that we do have to be proud of.

This magazine has always sought out the best that both country and town, its people, its landscape, its art and culture, its craftsmanship and entrepreneurship have to offer, and, with this issue, we are delighted to bring you our latest magazine, Great British Brands, a book-like compendium of over 100 UK companies that completely encapsulate the incredible talent and heritage of the north and south, east and west of this glorious island. We hope it will sit on your coffee tables and tell you stories that you never knew and will make you proud to live here.

Within these pages, too, you will also find plenty to keep the British flag flying high, from a look at our bespoke industry that, despite the encroachment of online, gives customers a chance to create their own stories and produce something entirely unique to them, whether that’s a pair of shoes, a handbag or a tailored suit (p68). Anastasia Bernhardt looks forward to the new year’s cultural offerings, from 2016 being the Year of the English Garden to it also being the 400th anniversary since Shakespeare’s death. Expect celebrations aplenty (p45).

Further afield, Sam Kinchin follows in Kipling’s footsteps when he traverses the road to Mandalay and finds a bristling hope among the people of Burma, who have endured centuries of oppression (p87); Graham Norwood explains why the ski chalet is back on the property investor’s wishlist and Felix Milns enters a white wonderland when he visits White Company founder, Chrissie Rucker’s extraordinary new Alpine penthouse (p65). @ countryandtown /countryandtownhousemagazine

SEEING IN THE NEW YEAR

1 Hoping it snows properly – the big, white, ball-making variety so my children can see what I’m talking about. 2 Cosying up in Hockley’s Delia jacket, new to celebrate its 70th

year anniversary. Yes, it’s fur but from sustainable sources and, boy, it’s warm, £8,945 (hockleylondon.com). 3 Visiting the Ivy Chesea Garden’s winter cigar terrace, complete with sofas, fluffy rugs and fires (theivychelseagarden.com). 4 Stockpiling Mother Brown’s Remedy Kits, botanical tonics to cure any holiday over-indulgences, £35 (motherbrownsremedy.com).

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ASTR AEUS Coloured Diamond Collection Limited Edition 35 Dover Street, London W1S 4NQ +44 (0) 20 7399 9590 info.uk @ stardiamond.com www.stardiamond.com

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+44 (0)20 7493 4444 Wigmore Street W1 · Harrods SW1 · King’s Road SW10

Hamish Mackie

Largely self-taught, Hamish Mackie has been sculpting since 1996 and has cast himself as one of the leading British wildlife sculptors.

Hamish won a major public art commission for six bronze horses for the Berkeley Homes Goodman’s Field development in the City of London, which were revealed last year. The project involved six different breeds of horses that were be scaled up to life and a quarter size, enhancing their dynamic and powerful aesthetic.

New Year’s resolution? ‘I have never been a big believer in New Year’s resolutions, I think that you should be able to set yourself a personal challenge when the opportunity presents itself.’

FELIX 03

From £7,500 to £125,000

CONTRIBUTORS

SLEEP BEAUTIFULLY The world’s most comfortable bed, hand made in London

Sam Kinchin-Smith savoirbeds.co.uk

London

Paris

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New York

Berlin

Taipei

Shanghai

Sam writes about culture, history and travel for various publications, and helps organisations like English Heritage, Southbank Centre and Brighton Festival express themselves digitally and in print.

He’s currently working on his second book, a study of Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes (Routledge). His first was a collection of essays about the musician Nick Cave (Silkworms Ink).

New Year’s resolution? ‘To install better heating on my houseboat in time for next winter, having failed to do so earlier this year.’

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CO U N T RYA N DTOW N H O U S E .CO.U K

EDITOR Lucy Cleland ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lydia Gard EDITOR-AT-LARGE Alice B-B FASHION DIRECTOR Lucy Bond CONTRIBUTING FASHION EDITOR Nicole Smallwood JEWELLERY EDITOR Annabel Davidson BEAUTY EDITOR Nathalie Eleni PROPERTY EDITOR Graham Norwood FEATURES ASSISTANT & FOOD EDITOR Anastasia Bernhardt

FITNESS BREAKS • SURFING GOLFING • CYCLING WALKING • COASTEERING EATING • CHILLING

LUXURY BRANDS DIRECTOR Lulu Gabriel PROPERTY DIRECTOR Fiona Kirkness SALES EXECUTIVE Arabella Boardman SALES ASSISTANT Julia Schulz ART DIRECTION & PRODUCTION Parm Bhamra WEBSITE MANAGER Mark Pearson DIGITAL CONSULTANT Lucy Kirkness DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER Charlotte Brouwer CREDIT CONTROLLER Penny Burles FINANCE DIRECTOR Jill Newey PUBLISHER Julia Carrick MANAGING DIRECTOR Jeremy Isaac CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Stephen Bayley, Simon de Burton, Sophie Dening, Fiona Duncan, Daisy Finer, Richard Hopton, Emma Love, Mary Lussiana, Anna Pasternak, Caroline Phillips, Charlotte Metcalf, Marcus Scriven THE EDITOR editorial@countryandtownhouse.co.uk FASHION fashion@countryandtownhouse.co.uk ADVERTISING advertising@countryandtownhouse.co.uk PROPERTY ADVERTISING property@countryandtownhouse.co.uk ACCOUNTS accounts@countryandtownhouse.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS subscribe@countryandtownhouse.co.uk

LOCATE D LE S S THAN A M I LE f rom the s tun n i ng N o r th Co r n i sh coas t and the buz z i ng su r f i ng haven of Po l zeath T he Poi nt at Po l zeath i s an idea l base f rom w h ich to ex p l o re Co r nwa l l.

With an 18 hole golf course, North Cornwall’s premier Health Club, featuring an indoor pool, Spinning ® room, fully equipped modern gym, dedicated brand new studio, tennis courts, restaurant with top reviews, accommodation ranging from one bedroom apartments to 5 bedroom houses together with 7 NEW contemporary apartments. The Point at Polzeath has become a premier destination for both short breaks and main holidays.

COUNTRY & TOWN HOUSE is a monthly magazine distributed to AB homes in Barnes, Battersea, Bayswater, Belgravia, Brook Green, Chelsea, Chiswick, Clapham, Coombe, Fulham, Holland Park, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Marylebone, Mayfair, Notting Hill, Pimlico, South Kensington, Wandsworth and Wimbledon, as well as being available from leading country and London estate agents. It is also on sale at selected WHSmith, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s stores and independent newsagents nationwide. It has an estimated readership of 150,000. It is available on subscription in the UK for £29.99 per annum. To subscribe online, iPad, iPhone and android all for only £24.99 visit: exacteditions.com/read/ countrytownhouse. For subscription enquiries, please call 020 7384 9011 or email subscribe@ countryandtownhouse.co.uk. It is published by Country & Town House Ltd, Studio 2, Chelsea Gate Studios, 115 Harwood Road, London SW6 4QL (tel: 020 7384 9011). Registered number 576850 England and Wales. Printed in the UK by William Gibbons and Sons Ltd, West Midlands. Paper supplied by Gerald Judd. Distribution by Letterbox.

Copyright @ 2015 Country & Town House Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. Materials are accepted on the understanding that no liability is incurred for safe custody. The publisher cannot be responsible for unsolicited material. All prices are correct at the time of going to press but are subject to change. Whilst every care is taken to ensure all information is correct at the time of going to press, it is subject to change, and Country & Town House Ltd. takes no responsibility for omissions or errors.

www.thepointatpolzeath.co.uk info@thepointatpolzeath.co.uk • 01208 863 000 The Point at Polzeath Cornwall PL27 6QT

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Please recycle

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COLUMN

Alice B-B goes from bellinis to the boxing ring

S

OMETIMES OLD STUFF IS BETTER THAN NEW. I realised this when armchair-hunting for the dream cottage in Oxfordshire. There are plenty of great new seats out there, but often they’re expensive and have to be ordered ten weeks in advance.

It was when I wandered into Susan Osbourne on Golborne Road that my heart leapt. Osbourne’s shop is stuffed with vintage chairs, all deliciously stripped to their hessian underpants, ready and waiting to be measured up for a new suit; whether tight upholstery, button-back or loose slip cover. I picked my late-19th century Howard-style chair, chose an ikat spot fabric

LUXURY & NECESSITY LADY GARDEN Suit by gucci.com

COVER UP Chic fabrics by Penny Morrison (pennymorrison.com)

BACK TO SCHOOL Florentine cookery classes at desinare.it

A ROOM WITH A VIEW The lap of luxury at Hotel Savoy (roccofortehotels.com)

THIS MONTH I’LL BE...

1 Celebrating my friend and facialist Dr Nigma’s new book Reverse The Signs Of Ageing (healthydoc.com). 2 Having a medical grade pedicure at Margaret Dabbs at Space NK (margaretdabbs.co.uk). 3 Ignoring the cringey name and just enjoying the properly delicious food at Sexy Fish (sexyfish.com).

GLOVES OFF with Pete Liggins at boxcleversports.com

PORTRAIT SHOT BY JANE MCLEISH-KELSEY

THE GOOD LIFE

by Penny Morrison in shades of dark pink and red, and just ten days later, the new chair is sitting pretty beside the fireplace.

‘Raspberry Splat’, as christened

by Mr Love, has no doubt welcomed a host of bottoms in its 100-year life and now it’s a new friend to our very own rears.

FLORENCE IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA. My entire family spent a weekend in the birthplace of the Renaissance, to celebrate my baby sister’s big-girl birthday (30) in her namesake city, whisked there by her generous husband. This is a town filled with familial memory lanes; where my parents spent their honeymoon, and where – as an 18-year-old – I learnt average Italian, how to cook a decent risotto and, most importantly, how to avoid having my bottom pinched. Now, here was a birthday weekend spent making new memories; staring at huge Medici commissioned tapestries in the Palazzo Vecchio, bicycling down cobbled streets and feasting on pasta with white truffles at Desinare, the extraordinary design hub and cooking school. Thank you, Florence. Both of you.

I SECRETLY LIKE BOXING. I’ve never been to a match but I’ve always enjoyed watching it on telly; the skill, technique, speed and confidence that make a champion. And, of course, all the showman stuff; the capes, silky shorts, massive belts not made for holding up yer trousers, and the specific choice of ‘entry song’. Mr Love has been boxing for the last three years and besides the weightloss and lean muscle, it’s his newfound calm, focus and assuredness that are most appealing. So, while in LA for the Vanity Fair Oscar party, I tried a boxing class. And loved it. Nearly a year later and I have plucked up the courage to join Box Clever on Ladbroke Grove, where founder Pete Liggins is teaching me the basics. Concentrating solely on what punch you’re throwing, while not forgetting to breathe or move your feet, is the most amazing meditation. In a world full of ‘float like a butterfly’ distraction, here is the chance for ‘sting like a bee’ focus.

I’m (right) hooked.

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MY LIFE

The Rurbanist Buy art you like it, not because you think you should, says sculptor Hamish Mackie What are you working on? Two life-sized roe deer cast in bronze, which will be shown at my solo show at the Mall Galleries in October later this year How do you keep yourself motivated?

I am driven, which helps when you are self-employed – I am not very good at sitting still.

Where would you most like to see your work displayed? I have sculptures in private collections all over the world but would love to see them in public institutions.

What’s the most difficult thing about what you do? Making a sculpture look alive out of a cold metal.

How do you know when a piece is finished? It is very easy to over work a sculpture and incredibly difficult to know when it is finished. Sometimes it is necessary to have the confidence to leave the sculpture ‘rough’, which has so much more energy.

Who would you most like to sculpt something for? I’d make a Lewa black rhino for David Attenborough because he has done so much for conservation.

What would you change about the arts industry?

Buy because you like, not

COU N T RY Bolthole My Studio. Style Practical clothing. Carhartt trousers and a Musto shirt. Shoes Dr. Marten Chelsea boots. Driving music Radio Four. Sunday lunch Slow-cooked lamb using a Green Egg. Present for the host A bottle of either The Beauty or The Beast, from Hentley Farm, Barossa. Transport VW Transporter Van. Historic house Boconnoc. Pub Must make more time for it. Restaurant Kylesku, Scotland. View Lantic Bay, Cornwall. App Instant Wild. Extravagance Westley Richards 12 bore. Gadget Leica binoculars. Sunday paper The Sunday Times. Secret address Wykham Park Farm. Hotel Soho Farmhouse.

Saturday night DVD The Bridge. Best thing... Changing seasons. And the worst... Less and less of it. Perfect day Salmon fishing. Relaxation Being outside. Sunday morning means… Pottering around with my girls.

FROM ABOVE: Boconnoc; Musto shirt, Hamish at work; The Botanist; Statue for Goodman’s Fields

because you think you should.

What makes you happiest?

There are so many incredible moments that happen in life that it is impossible to pin point just one. Seeing wildlife in its natural habitat is definitely a highlight... and sculpting.

What’s the first thing you do when you get home from a trip abroad? Ring family, open post, check emails, have a Badedas bath.

If money were no object, what would you buy? A warm climate island teaming with wildlife.

What would surprise us about you? That I can’t draw!

Who is your hero and why? My wife, Laura. She quietly does everything.

In another life I would be…

Robinson Crusoe.

TOW N Style Thomas Pink shirt in blue. Shoes RM Williams. Present for the host Roe deer fillet. Transport Taxi. Museum British Museum. Restaurant The Wolseley, Piccadilly. Pub The Botanist, Sloane Square. Hotel Browns. Hairdresser My wife. App Maps. Gadget iPhone. Magazine Fieldsports, The Week and The Art Newspaper. Secret address My bronze horses at Goodman’s Fields. Shop Instantaneous online shopping – everything is under one roof. Flower Blue Delphinium Extravagance Laura, my wife! Night out Good food and several bottles of wine with fun people. Relaxation Several Cotswolds gin and tonics.

Exercise Swim (badly). Best thing... People watching. And the worst... Slow traffic. Perfect day Returning home after a successful London exhibition.

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PERSONAL SHOPPING

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YOUR STYLE WITH OUR ADVICE Our Personal Shopping team provides a one-to-one service perfect for anyone with a busy schedule.

Whether you’re looking for an outfit for a special occasion or looking to update your seasonal wardrobe, our experts will select an edit tailored to your personal style and needs. With our luxurious personal shopping suites you can spend time trying on new pieces in total privacy, and with no obligation to buy.

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UP FRONT S T Y L E

·

B E A U T Y

·

J E W E L L E R Y

·

P A R T I E S

LUXE LAYERS LEARN THE ART OF SARTORIAL SAV VINESS

Clever women know how to nail layering in winter for that central heating/icy street blast conundrum that we all face when the clocks go back. Take your cue from Belstaff, which softens up a tough leather jacket with a super cosy blanket coat – giving us two enduring trends in one and a perfect style combo. belstaff.com

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UP FRONT | STYLE

Queene & Belle A/W’15 queeneandbelle.com

Lounge lizards Enjoy some duvet days...

DEREK ROSE Pure cotton sleep tee, £68. derek-rose.com

YAWN Dream Coat dressing gown, £195 loveyawn.com

COUNTRY

DENIS COLOMB Hand-woven cashmere cardigan, £3,180. matchesfashion.com

UGG Bailey Messenger, £210. uggaustralia.co.uk

OTIS BATTERBEE Purple leopard print eye mask, £50. otisbatterbee.com

MOU Eskimo lace-up boots, £249. farfetch.com

JANAVI Cashmere scarf with beaded border, £550. brownsfashion.com

TOWN

YOLKE Clementine stretch-silk loungepant, £200. yolke.co.uk

BALLET BEAUTIFUL Satin ballet slippers, £125. net-a-porter.com

CHINTI AND PARKER Onesie, £595. chintiandparker.com

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SHOPPING | UP FRONT

MARC BY MARC JACOBS Padded ski boots, £135. farfetch.com

TONI SAILER Alek nylon and leather gloves, £140. matchesfashion.com

SNOW FINEL Cashmere Hat, £55. snowfinel.co.uk STEFANO RICCI Octagonal Monogram Helmet, £419. harrods.com SILHOUETTE Adventurer aviator, £200. silhouette.com

TRANSITIONS X NIKE VISION Snow goggles, £249. transitions.com

Snow babies Perfect your ski style

FENDI Snowboot, £525. fendi.com

SOREL GLACY Explorer shortie, £110. sorelfootwear.co.uk

MOVER Sports bra, £50. net-a-porter.com

BLACK DIAMOND Halo 28 JetForce Avalanche Airbag Pack, £850. blackdiamondequipment.com

CHANEL Fibreglass skis, £2,440. chanel.com

FALKE Wool Blend SK4 skiing sock, £25. falke.com

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LUXURY | UP FRONT

Object of Desire Marque unit by Sollands’ Designer Grazyna Solland INSPIRATION Bold, abstract geometry and details, such as the unique patterns and character of wood grain.

HOW MANY INDIVIDUAL PIECES IS IT MADE FROM? Over 2,000.

WHERE ARE THE MATERIALS SOURCED FROM? The wood is sourced worldwide, including Europe, North and South America, Africa and the Far East. I have worked with specialist suppliers for decades and visit veneer sellers personally to find the most interesting patterns.

HOW MANY MAN HOURS DID IT TAKE TO MAKE? The cabinet absorbed over a thousand man hours and took approximately a year in development after the initial design.

HOW IS THE WOOD PREPARED? Extremely sharp blades create thin slices of the wood without any saw marks. The veneers are cut to shape freehand using a scalpel, then mounted onto cabinet panels before being lacquered with ten coats and finally polished to a brilliant lacquer shine.

HOW MANY EXIST? Two sole editions of this piece made from completely different woods.

WHAT’S THE DAMAGE? £54,000. All private commissions are considered on a case-by-case basis. sollands.co.uk January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 33

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UP FRONT | STYLE

LUXURY IN BRIEF

The Tastemaker Lucia van der Post’s favourite things...

WHITE WONDERS

Every wardrobe needs a white shirt. But, if you prefer them interesting, unlike the usual pedestrian fare, look no further than Palmer Harding. It specialises in just white shirts and was started by Levi Palmer and Matthew Harding, who met at Central Saint Martins and decided they needed to inject some new thinking into the matter. They make them in cotton or cotton silk and whilst they don’t do them cute and girly they do make them quirky and original. They come long or short-sleeved or sleeveless but also with or without peplums, long and straight or waisted. Not cheap, prices start at about £180 and go up to about £400. palmerharding.com

HOME FITNESS

If it’s January, we’re preordained to think of either getting – or keeping – fit. And since winter’s bleak months make it harder than ever to push the lazy bones amongst us out into the chill air, consider a trainer who will come to the house. My newest discovery is the wonderful French woman Amélie Khellaf who, in an extraordinarily small space (we live in a typical London terraced house), manages to give me the sort of workout that I just know is doing me good. Arms are strengthened, abdomen is tightened, hamstrings stretched... she’s a gem, and you can get double value by improving your French at the same time. ameliekhellaf.com

CULTURAL GEMS Museum shops often offer more interesting fare than more conventional retailers.

Two new ones on my radar are at the York Sculpture Park (love the Squiggle Vase by the House Doctor for £17.50) and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. Whilst it is rather heavy on sunflowers, there are some charming mugs, tealights, scarves and the like. ysp.co.uk; vangoghmuseumshop.com

HOME COMFORTS I’ve been a fan of Sophie Conran’s designs ever since I bought some of the white oven-proof range she did with Portmeirion. She recently launched her own website selling a charming range of her own linens, china, kitchen and gardening implements – many of the props, in fact, that make up the gentle Sophie Conran way of life. I particularly love the white ceramics but there are rugs and baskets, cushions and sweet items for children’s rooms such as this paper chandelier (£28). sophieconran.com

FACE TIME

Bobbi Brown has some of the cleverest and most seductive beauty packaging around... charming little pouches for its brush sets, as well as chic brown boxes for its eye and cheek palette, but best of all is it its two new stores (one in Covent Garden and the latest in Spitalfields), which offer all sorts of make-up lessons. There’s the Secret to Standout Eyes (20 mins) and Secret to Perfect Skin (20 mins), both of which are free. For a ProblemSolving makeup lesson (45 mins) or a Mastering the Basics Lesson Workshop (60 mins), the charge is £30 but redeemable against products. Well worth it for those who can never quite get it right. bobbibrown.co.uk

WRAP UP Since it’s January and ice and wind are probably on the agenda, what could be nicer than a beautiful Irish hand-woven woollen blanket from one of my favourite small companies, The Great English Outdoors. It comes in a rather chic black and cream. £155. greatenglish.co.uk

34 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | January 2016

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25/11/2015 14:29

NEWS | UP FRONT

KEEPING YOUR COOL

With the ski weekend being as much a part of the winter social season as hunting, shooting and fishing it deserves its own statement-making sartorial style that combines technical perfection with being fashion forward. Not an easy feat but step forward new brand Sonya Chodry – which nails the fashion conundrum of looking both adventurous and elegant perfectly.

Prices from £600. harrods.com

Style Notebook

TAKE THREE… WINTER SUNNIES You never know when the sun might shine

KAREN WALKER EYEWEAR Crazy Tortoiseshell Flowerpatch sunglasses, £165. avenue32.com

TAYLOR MORRIS Rollright sunglasses, £170. taylor-morris.com

HOOK LDN Parklife sunnies, £85. hookldn.com

Shopping dilemmas sorted PARKA WITH A TWIST

A Woolrich parka has long been a staple of a woman’s wardrobe when she needs to keep toasty warm but look stylish too. Yes, you can go for typical khaki green but why not go for broke with one of its three new designs by heritage brand Okajima, one of Japan’s oldest mills based in Kyoto? We love the blue one with coral-coloured flowers. Stunning. Available end of December. £409. 020 7494 9772 MICRO TREND

LONDON CALLING

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD Orb London stainless steel watch, £190. selfridges.com

SW1 STREET STYLE

Solve your shopping dilemmas – at least until the end of January – as Elizabeth Street, one of London’s chicest shopping destinations in SW1, launches its own concierge.

Let stylist Milda Chellingsworth help you pick party shoes from Bionda Castana, evening dresses from Beulah and the perfect jeans from Donna Ida. Party wardrobe sorted. stylingforyou.co

LILY & LIONEL Red phone box silk and wool scarf, £140. liberty.co.uk SMYTHSON London Skyline Correspondence Cards, £22. smythson.com

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25/11/2015 14:44

UP FRONT | JEWELLERY NEWS

FROM ABOVE: Timeless 18ct gold and diamond Arch necklace, £2,700, Chain bracelet, £2,500 and ring, £550, all by Links of London

The Gold Digger

3

Faubourg Pierre watch in rose gold and malachite, and lapis lazuli with gemset dial, £9,450,

by Hermès

The latest jewellery news.

By Annabel Davidson 1 TIMELESS STYLE

1

To celebrate 25 years of business, that quintessentially British brand Links of London looked to another very British icon, Big Ben, for inspiration – but you’d have to be a serious clocktower fan to recognise the clock’s influence on the company’s new ‘Timeless’ collection. The yellow gold range in particular is a super stylised version of the famous landmark’s detailed face, taking random sections of its pattern and setting it in gold and diamonds. linksoflondon.com

2 UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

Wandering along Bond Street, the UK’s most famous jewellery location, you’d be forgiven for thinking that all the action happens at street level, what with all those vitrines showcasing enough diamonds to make your head spin. But Bond Street has its secrets, too, and one of those is the showroom of VanLeles, the jewellery company founded by Vania Leles, originally of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, who is breathing new life into a somewhat traditional arena. Leles has had plenty of experience in the jewellery world, but this is her first foray into designing her own pieces, and her unique aesthetic is an enchanting blend of West African motifs and super elegant forms. Take the Enchanted Garden cluster rings, featuring tiny flowers of garnets and rubies on diamond bands – a riot of colour. vanleles.com

3 A LITTLE PRECIOUS

2

I don’t usually get overly excited about watches, but the new Faubourg Pierre collection of watches from Hermès – using semi-precious materials of onyx, malachite, and lapis lazuli for its dials – has stolen my heart. The timepieces are not only jewel-like in colour, they’re jewel-like in size. The teeny 15.5mm dial, variously surrounded with diamonds or gold, on metal or leather straps, make it a dinky little piece as elegant and decorative as any bracelet. hermes.com

4 GUY & MAX

Shepherd’s Market-based brothers Guy and Max Shepherd have quietly been blurring the lines of traditional jewellery and cutting-edge technology for a decade – but that doesn’t mean you need a degree in computing to appreciate their work. Inspired by cellular structure, the latest additions to their Digital Nature collection are a more minimalist Diamond, ruby and pink sapphire interpretation of previous pieces, and include easy little Enchanted Garden stud earrings and flamboyant cocktail rings. ring, POA, by Vanleles guyandmax.com

4

Digital Nature ring in Paraiba tourmaline and diamonds, £3,500, by Guy & Max

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Auctioneers & Valuers Antiques | Jewellery | Watches

Auctions of Antique & Modern Jewellery

Items previously sold in the December auction

Thursday 14th January Thursday 11th February Visit www.fellows.co.uk to view auction catalogues online CONTACT US FOR MORE INFORMATION REGARDING FREE VALUATIONS | 0121 212 2131 Jewellery Quarter Saleroom | 19 Augusta Street, Birmingham, B18 6JA Mayfair Office | 2nd Floor, 3 Queen Street, London W1J 5PA

Fellows.indd 1

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27/11/2015 10:14

UP FRONT | BEAUTY

My Beautiful Life Celebrity facialist and skincare pioneer Su-Man shares her tips, tricks and beauty loves with Nathalie Eleni

Beauty routine After cleansing, I rub my ears 36 times to improve my facial circulation then massage my own skincare products in a layering system. This takes about two minutes. My skin and face are left feeling supple, smooth, energised and protected. After this, I scrub my hair 36 times to stimulate brain activities, as well as for lymphatic drainage and detoxification.

How do you keep fit? I take ballet classes. It’s the perfect way to strengthen and lengthen muscles, while expressing yourself too. Add that to the fact that there is nothing else quite as effective for good posture.

Beauty advice I have many tips. However, one of them is never to lie in the sun between 10–4pm. Despite the pleasure of having your skin caressed by its warmth, the sun is the skin’s worst enemy.

What are your hero products? I love using Surratt beauty’s eyeliner. I apply it with a soft brush onto the skin, it’s so easy. With just one single brush you can achieve the perfect line. I also love Penhaligon’s Bluebell Bath oil and Udo’s choice oil to keep my body hydrated inside and out.

What treatment do you swear by for glowing skin? I don’t want to sound boastful, but it has to be my Skin Reborn Sculpting facial. It totally transforms my client’s faces and you can literally feel and see the light shining through their skin.

Favourite scent Chloe’s Eau de Toilette. It’s refreshing and sexy, without being overpowering.

APRÈS-BEAUTY

After a busy day on the slopes treat your skin to some extra-special TLC. These top picks will continue their magic well into your après skin session

1

SENSAI, SILKY PURIFYING SILK PEELING POWDER Keep skin fresh and clear with this remarkable enzyme peeling powder which removes dead cells and blackheads without aggravating winter skin, for a clean and fresh complexion with lasting results. £55. harrods.com

2

PESTLE & MORTAR, PURE HYALURONIC SERUM The most delicious of serums to seal in hydration to tired, dehydrated and sensitised skin and make it glow. Paraben, fragrance and propylene glycol-free make it a perfect choice for ‘natural’ loving beauties with delicate skin. £33. liberty.co.uk

3

RODIAL, SNAKE BOOSTER OIL Quench over-socialised skin with this peptide-infused wonder oil. Full of skin smoothing ingredients, this works a treat when applied to skin that has enjoyed rather too much aprèsski. £70. harveynichols.com

ME TIME

Valmont Fit & Tone Body Treatment Shape up this January with Valmont’s streamlining Fit and Tone Peaks of Slimness treatment. Using targeted massage techniques combined with their specialist C Curve Shaper bodycream, your muscles are worked out whilst fat cells are turned into fibroblasts (sounds baffling but all we need to know is that this helps to firm fatty areas!). Even though your wobbly bits will be pummelled to within an inch of their life, you will still get a chance to lie back and relax in beautiful, opulent surroundings and may even find yourself nodding off; never has cellulite reduction been so enjoyable. Both the Valmont Fit & Tone Body Treatment (£160 for 70 mins) and the C Curve Body Shaper cream (£210) are available at White Room Beauty, 46 Walton Street, London, SW3. 020 7584 3881

4

ILA, GOLD CELLULAR AGE-RESTORE FACE CREAM Sometimes all your skin needs is a deeply hydrating and luxurious face cream. If this is the case, look no further; jam-packed with collagen boosting 24 carat gold, white gold, gold dust, white lily stem cells and sandalwood, it’s almost too good to use. £120. harrods.com

5

ANNE SEMONIN, NOURISHING BODY OIL Treat muscular aches and dry skin in one go with this wonderfully nurturing body oil, blended with powerfully relaxing essential and nut oils to provide a halo of moisture to even the driest skin. £58. harrods.com

38 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | January 2016

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25/11/2015 14:11

HEALTH | UP FRONT

ALL THE GEAR...

If the grey days and soggy streets of winter make you feel less inspired to get outside and get active, try donning some of this exotic flora print gear from the new Heat Three range. wearehandsome.com

The Bottom Line LYDIA GARD IS THE EDITOR OF MRFOXMAGAZINE. CO.UK

On your marks, get set, sweat.

By Lydia Gard

THE BALANCE

MIND On the whole, I’m not one for self-help books but I am determined to become more mindful. In light of that, I picked up I am here now: a creative mindfulness guide and journal from The Mindfulness Project and have found myself returning to it time and again.

Each page and exercise is quick, playful and light, so you can dip in and out on the train, keep it by the bedside to record and diminish negative emotions and do the odd guided breathing exercise when you need a moment of calm. It is symbolic but helps reset your thinking. A pocket-sized sanity saver. £9.99. eburypublishing.co.uk

PLANET ORGANIC

You’ve probably heard of Primrose’s Kitchen’s raw vegetable muesli?

The creation of young naturopath Primrose Matheson from her small Dorset Kitchen is fast becoming a cult brand.

If you like to eat as close to nature and as unadulterated as possible, we recommend the Courgette and Cacao granola (if we can get to it before the kids, that is). £6.95. primroseskitchen.com

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW… Awesome US brand S’well has come to the UK. Created to reduce the environmental impact of disposable plastic bottles, they are made from pure 18/8 stainless steel, so no nasty chemicals, and keep drinks cold for 24 hours or hot for 12. All the cool kids have one in their kit bag, £29.95. hipandhealthy.com

BODY A DNA Fitness retreat is not for those who wear activewear on the school run. This one’s for real fitties. Take a simple swab test and post it off in advance. When you arrive, the results are explained in detail during a Skype call with ex-Olympic runner, Andrew Steele.

And it’s scary how much of the science rings true. That post-coffee flutter? The fasttwitch sprint mentality that makes you bolt the start line? It’s in your code, baby. Your daily training will then be tailored to your genetic predispositions. Three nights from £1,599. thirtyeightdegreesnorth.com SOUL At times of stress – especially post-party season when cold weather and dark afternoons zap our energy, it’s crucial to cosset now and again and accept the seasonal shift to slow down. I’ve recently discovered Olverum’s bath oil. Not only is it probably the most deliciously scented oil I’ve ever smelt (it lingers around the house too) but it also nourishes and hydrates at a dermal level with its pine, lavender and eucalyptus oils.

They say drop 5mls in the bath.

I say get someone to rub into your shoulders afterwards for complete relaxation. £36.95. olverum.com

January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 39

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25/11/2015 14:14

UP FRONT | STYLE

BRIT TIME

MAKE MINE A SCOTCH

Private White VC is proud to launch compatriots Pinion on its site – a brand that uses Swiss movements but which also designs, assembles and rigorously tests its timepieces in England. privatewhitevc.com

FLOWER POWER Don’t be misled! As so often with Comme, expect the unexpected and prepare to fall in love with this sexy, unisex fragrance, inspired by a flower that doesn’t have any scent at all... Floriental, £80 for 100ml. selfridges.com

The new Gleneagles luxury leather range has a pleasingly pre-aged look and we love this lived-in traveller holdall with its contrasting copper hue lining and external crackle-motif bands. £550. gleneagles.com

Well Groomed Subtle colours and scented candles.

By Matt Thomas Blenheim bouquet, £32. penhaligons.com

La Fumée, £40. millerharris.com

CABBAGE PATCH

Clever name, and ingenious use of ‘cabbage’ fabric by this new, eco-brand which makes fashion items from otherwise wasted leftovers. Patcharmed jumper, £60. sirplus.co.uk

Casa Blanca, £42. robbiehoney.com

THREE OF THE BEST MANDLES Light up, inhale and chill out! Three surefire desktop sensations to help you waft away those January blues...

CAMEL CRED

Camel is having (another) moment and this simply elegant coat from Grenfell ticks many of the classy camel boxes. The Hampstead, £600. grenfell.com

FADE TO GREY

JM Weston refreshes its ultra-chic, two-tone Saint Honoré collection by adding cool grey to the spectrum. Our pick are these nubuck Oxfords, £475. jmweston.com

40 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | January 2016

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25/11/2015 14:31

SOCIAL SCENE | UP FRONT

FASHION ON FILM

This year’s Burberry Festive Film paid tribute to Billy Elliot, which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2015. Five-hundred guests attended the premier at 121 Regent Street to watch the footage, featuring its all-British cast, which included James Bay, Romeo Beckham, Naomi Campbell, Michelle Dockery, George Ezra, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Toby Huntington-Whiteley and Julie Walters.

Romeo, Victoria and Cruz Beckham

Petra Palumbo Naomi Campbell

Paloma Faith Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Laura Bailey

Christopher Bailey, Sir Elton John and Romeo Beckham Michelle Dockery and Julie Walters

Elizabeth Hurley

High Society EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY

Stars flocked south of the river with their canine friends to The Collars and Coats Ball.

Bryan Ferry and Camilla Kerslake both performed at the event to raise money for Battersea Dogs and Cats home.

Andrea Buccellati and Lucrezia Buccellati Roubi L’Roubi

Elisa Sednaoui and Andrea Buccellati

Anthony Head and Sarah Fisher

Jeremy Hackett

Maria Cristina Buccellati and Sir Rocco Forte

Kim Frickleton and Jackie St Clair

Rosie Marcel and Camilla Arfwedson

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Lucy Connor and Greg Rusedski

Kim Hersov

Sue Barker and Camilla Kerslake

PHOTOS: MARCUS DAWES

Jacqueline Wilson

Jordan Kiffin and Leigh-Anne Pinnock

Debbie Sledge

Camilla Kerslake

Mark-Francis Vandelli and Sabrina Percy

Buccellati launched its Opera collection in the halls of Spencer House, London.

The central motif of the range evokes the culture of the Italian Renaissance.

Saffron Aldridge

Country & Town House social scene sponsored by Marquis Vodka UNCOMPROMISINGLY, UNAPOLOGETICALLY SUPERIOR

www.marquisvodka.co.uk

January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 41

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25/11/2015 14:27

TO THE NTH DEGREE

Robert Walton connects like-minded people in some of London and Dubai’s most sought-after private dining rooms

A

t a time when we are constantly warned not to become too absorbed in the digital world, Robert Walton MBE has harnessed the power of social networking to the real world, with an innovative and exciting private dining venture called The Nth Degree Club. President of the Restaurant Association of Great Britain and a former chef, Walton has a rare talent for finding the right people and bringing them together in just the right place.

A restaurant insider, Walton understands that, while the hottest restaurants can be booked for months in advance, the private dining rooms of some of the very best are often empty. Out of this idea, The Nth Degree Club was born.

Put simply, its aim is to connect like-minded business professionals through bespoke events at the most exceptional venues in London and Dubai.

Walton believes eating in a private dining room adds a certain something. Often unusual and always intimate, restaurants invest heavily in creating exceptional spaces. He says: ‘Even if you regularly eat in the very best restaurants, it’s not often you get to go to a private dining room. It’s tricky to get 16 or so of your friends together on a set date, so people tend to go out in smaller groups, making these rooms inaccessible. If I had to choose my favourite, it would be the one at The Ritz. The dining room at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is also great; all deep blues and browns, and one of the most extraordinary is located in the wine cellar of the Stafford Hotel. Chefs have become the new superstars.

I wanted to showcase their talent and create a great way for interesting people to meet. What better way to connect than by breaking bread together?’

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C&TH | PROMOTION around 500, with just a few sought-after places remaining.

Once it has been filled, the club will operate a one-in, one-out policy, so you’d best get your application in pronto.

The events are varied, from lunches and dinners through to tasting evenings, drinks gatherings and sponsored events.

The programme also considers the sporting calendar, with gatherings at events such as the Monaco Grand Prix, Ascot and Henley featuring every year.

With around 48 events per year, Walton’s team realised the opportunity to showcase the venues in print and so The Nth Degree Club book was born. Published twice a year, it is an indispensable insider’s guide to the very best private dining rooms around the world.

Although we are all connected in some way online, it is increasingly rare to meet new people face to face. Walton believes food is crucial to the success of networking events; that it gives people something to focus on and provides common ground.

Members might have completely different lives but, if they are enjoying good food and wine, the conversation will flow in a natural way and strong connections will be forged.

Walton’s inside track on the restaurant world means he is in the unique position of being able to choose the most vibrant and interesting settings, but also to create events where the head chef or sommelier will take time to meet the guests and introduce the menu. It’s this desire to curate information, to bring people together and to show off an industry he truly loves that make Walton a very amiable and knowledgeable dining companion.

020 7495 6377; thenthdegreeclub.com

The intimacy of a private dining room and the degree of access Walton commands enable The Nth Degree Club’s members unprecedented behindthe-scenes access, whether that be the chef making the time to greet guests or tailoring the menus specifically for the event.

As anyone who has fallen foul of a botched table plan will attest, the mix of people around the table is crucial. ‘They need to be different.

I like to put fashion people with bankers. The conversations between someone who makes suits and a man who works in foreign exchange are great, as it’s guaranteed that both are learning something new.’

So who is your typical Nth Degree member? The majority are in their mid-40s and 30 per cent are women. Despite this, the aim is to achieve a balance of younger and older, male and female, at every event. Members can also bring guests to events which, according to Walton, keeps things even fresher.

The patrons of The Nth Degree are in themselves a diverse group. They include singer-songwriter Tony Hadley, The Earl of Bradford, Chris Tarrant, chef Brian Turner and Walton’s wife, fashion entrepreneur Donna Ida Thornton. Walton says they all play a pivotal role in the club; nominating new members, hosting events and ensuring the mix is just right.

Before the committee meets to discuss new applications, all members must be proposed. Once in, members can attend any of the events on the club menu. Currently you can become a member in either London or Dubai, but the list is almost at its capacity of January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 43

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27/11/2015 10:02

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THE GUIDE E V E N T S

·

A R T S

·

P E O P L E

REVELATIONS: EXPERIMENTS IN PHOTOGRAPHY Exploding flowers, military drones and a bullet through an apple are all captured in the National Media Museum’s investigative exhibition comparing leading contemporary photographers – from Ori Gersht to Trevor Paglen – with early 19th-century pioneers.

Until 3 February; nationalmediamuseum.org.uk

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JOAQUIN SOROLLA, LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY (1911), ON LOAN FROM THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, NEW YORK, PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, NEW YORK; WASSILY KANDINSKY, MURNAU THE GARDEN II (1910), © MERZBACHER KUNSTSTIFTUNG; KIRSI PYRHÖNEN IN MONGOLIA BY TIM WALKER, 2011 ©TIM WALKER; © DAVID HOCKNEY, PHOTO BY RICHARD SCHMIDT; A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM © MIKE HOBAN / THE HOBAN GRAVETT ARCHIVE

THE GUIDE | EVENTS

MUST SEE

The Diary Navigating the cultural year ahead

GARDEN VARIETY

Capability Brown changed the face of 18th-century England, landscaping some of our most beautiful country estates, from Blenheim Palace to Milton Abbey (capabilitybrown.org.uk). Country houses across the UK will hold events to mark his 300th anniversary; meanwhile, in London, the Royal Academy turns its thoughts to some of the most famous depictions of gardens. Painting the Modern Garden: From Monet to Matisse takes Claude Monet’s work as a starting point and examines the impact of the garden on contemporary painting until the 1920s, spanning Impressionist, PostImpressionist and avant-garde artists of the early 20th century. Highlights include the Monet’s Agapanthus Triptych, it’s the first time it has been exhibited in the UK (30 Jan to 20 April; royalacademy.org.uk).

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JOAQUIN SOROLLA, LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY (1911), ON LOAN FROM THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, NEW YORK, PHOTO COURTESY OF THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, NEW YORK; WASSILY KANDINSKY, MURNAU THE GARDEN II (1910), © MERZBACHER KUNSTSTIFTUNG; KIRSI PYRHÖNEN IN MONGOLIA BY TIM WALKER, 2011 ©TIM WALKER; © DAVID HOCKNEY, PHOTO BY RICHARD SCHMIDT; A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM © MIKE HOBAN / THE HOBAN GRAVETT ARCHIVE

1

IN VOGUE

In September 1916, British Vogue was born. In the century since, there has been a modernist issue, edited in April 1926 by Aldous Huxley; the first ‘naked’ cover in 1931 based on Botticelli’s Venus; the first colour photograph cover in 1966, then there was THAT cover with the supers shot by Peter Lindbergh. Relive the best moments at the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition Vogue 100: A Century of Style, featuring over 280 prints from the Condé Nast archive (11 Feb to 22 May; npg.org. uk). The V&A couldn’t let a year go by without an all guns blazing extravaganza. This year’s is stripped back to the bare necessities.

Undressed: A Brief History of Underwear addresses all aspects, from the practicalities to its sexier side (16 April to 5 Feb 2017; vam.ac.uk).

2

RULE BRITANNIA

Three contemporary British artists come to light in landmark exhibitions. Six tapestries by Grayson Perry will go on display at Victoria Art Gallery. Inspired by Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress, they chart his thoughts on class mobility in modern Britain (9 Jan to 10 Apr; victoriagal.org.uk). Francis Bacon: Invisible Rooms at Tate Liverpool readdresses some of his most moving work. The first exhibition to survey his spatial structure, it will feature works from the 1930s – when he first started using the cubical motif – through to the ’80s (18 May to 18 Sept; tate.org.uk). David Hockney will showcase 77 new portraits at the Royal Academy, featuring his friends who sat for him at his LA studio, painted in the same chair, against the same vivid blue background, designed to be viewed as one body of work (2 July to 2 Oct; royalacademy.org.uk).

3

TO DIE, TO SLEEP

The English language owes him over 1,700 words, theatre owes him 38 plays and the world of poetry owes him 154 sonnets, and then some. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the arts industry is going to make it one to remember. Two operas at Glyndebourne Festival will be based on his plays – Béatrice et Bénédict by Berlioz (adapted from Much Ado About Nothing) and Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this time a revival of Peter Hall’s popular 1981 production (21 May to 28 Aug; glyndebourne.com). The Royal Shakespeare company is collaborating with the BBC with a live broadcast from The Royal Shakespeare Theatre on 23 April, hosted by associate artist, David Tennant. The RSC will also hold costume tours for the first time, plus a full repertoire of Shakespeare productions, including Antony Sher playing King Lear, alongside plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries at the Swan Theatre throughout the year (rsc.org.uk). His family home, New Place, at Stratford-upon-Avon will reopen in April, updated to tell the story of his later years (shakespeare.org.uk).

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THE GUIDE | EVENTS

AUTHOR ANNIVERSARIES Shakespeare isn’t the only writer we’re celebrating this year as British literature takes centre stage

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

LOOK NORTH

What do you get when you combine Steve Boyd (who has choreographed the last five Olympic ceremonies), 1,000 volunteers and a £31m budget? An epic, 90-minute, open-air live action show charting the last 2,000 years of British history, from Roman times to post-WWII. Eleven Arches’ Kynren will include 14 performances throughout the summer months at Bishop Auckland, County Durham, as part of a regeneration project in the area. kynren.co.uk

5

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

No image evokes female sensuality quite like Sandro Botticelli’s Venus riding the waves on a shell. Undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of all time, his work has permeated art, design, fashion and film for more than 500 years. The largest Botticelli exhibition in Britain since the 1930s, the V&A takes 50 original works and explores how artists and designers have reinterpreted his work, from Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris to Elsa Schiaparelli and Andy Warhol (5 March to 3 July; vam.ac.uk). The National Gallery will do the same for Caravaggio, identifying how his strikingly original, dramatically lit paintings have impacted artists as diverse as Orazio Gentileschi, Valentin de Boulogne and Gerrit van Honthorst (12 Oct to 15 Jan 2017; nationalgallery.org.uk).

ROALD DAHL

His tales of giants, witches and animals have captured the imaginations of children the world over. On 13 September this year, he would have celebrated his 100th birthday. While Stephen Spielberg’s version of The BFG hits the big screens in July, Cardiff celebrates with a city-wide performance, City of the Unexpected, co-produced with the National Theatre Wales, celebrating his stories with large-scale spectacles and smaller theatrical and art installations throughout the year (wmc10.org.uk). Literature Wales will host outreach events, Invent Your Events,

BEATRIX POTTER

Arguably the most famous Lake District inhabitant, Beatrix Potter’s imaginative children’s tales were greatly inspired by her childhood holidays there and, later, her life on her farm near Sawrey.

Her 150th birthday on 28 July will be commemorated throughout the year, starting with an exhibition of her original watercolours at the Beatrix Potter Gallery in Hawkshead (12 March to 30 Oct), another at William Wordsworth House in Cockermouth (12 March to 30 June) and at Mottisfont, Hampshire (16 July to 18 Sept; nationaltrust.org.uk).

PHOTOS: REXFEATURES; LA GHIRLANDATA BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1873) © GUILDHALL ART GALLERY 2015, PHOTO COURTESY SCALA FLORENCE, HERITAGE IMAGES

4

On 21 April, the English novelist – and eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood – marks the 200th anniversary of her birth. Cue the reworking of Jane Eyre in various guises.

Having already adapted Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights to great acclaim, The Northern Ballet has created a spirited adaption of the book, touring six venues across the country as part of its continued commitment to develop new audiences for dance (May to June; northernballet.com). There is still time to catch Sally Cookson’s trailblazing play of the novel at the National Theatre, which was first staged at Bristol Old Vic (until 10 Jan; nationaltheatre.org.uk).

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6 0 S U B L I M E S WA N S

-

1 S T U N N I N G S P E C TA C L E

Derek Deane’s breathtaking

SWAN LAKE IN THE ROUND

with

English National Ballet

“An exhilarating spectacle” Evening Standard

ROYAL ALBERT HALL 1 - 12 June 2016

Call: 020 7838 3100 royalalberthall.com

Raymond Gubbay and the Royal Albert Hall present

S P A C E S P E C T A C U L A R JOHN WILLIAMS

Star Wars • Superman • Close Encounters of the Third Kind • E.T

HOLST

Mars • Jupiter from the Planets

STRAUSS

Also Sprach Zarathustra • Blue Danube Waltz

PLUS

Star Trek • Battlestar Galactica • Thunderbirds ANTHONY INGLIS conductor

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC CONCERT ORCHESTRA

Friday 27 May at 7.30pm - Saturday 28 May 2.30pm & 7.30pm

ROYAL ALBERT HALL

Box Office 020

Raymond Gubbay.indd 1

7838 3100

Book Online royalalberthall.com

27/11/2015 09:56

Digital dexterity and immersive art.

By Caiti Grove DOT-COM REVOLUTION Digital technology is intimately entwined with every aspect of our lives. This season, three exhibitions reflect how the virtual space has affected society and art, and shows how technology can be as malleable a material as paint or plaster.

The digital age has changed the way we see the world and ourselves. Electronic Superhighway demonstrates the limitless possibilities for art and society created by the internet. But electronic art is not all virtual – look out for Celia Hempton’s portraits of men searching for a digital dalliance, live-painted over internet chatrooms.

29 Jan to 15 May; whitechapelgallery.org

Five minutes with OMAR KHOLEIF

2DIGITAL DYSTOPIA

In Hauser & Wirth’s countryside gallery, artists will illustrate the potent power of technology to alter our perception of the real world. A mix of ceramics, film, sculpture and painting, Qwaypurlake will imagine a flooded and uninhabitable Somerset abandoned by humans. Until 31 Jan; hauserwirth.com

CURATOR OF ELECTRONIC SUPERHIGHWAY

3VIRTUAL TRAILS

CCTV and the possibility of tracked communication spark outrage about privacy and state intrusion. Yet as Big Bang Data at Somerset House explores, social media and GPS-based dating apps leave willing markers of our lives. Moritz Stefaner and Lev Manovich explore trends in selfies, from Berlin to Bangkok, while Tekja will monitor people’s thoughts on Twitter, Instagram and TfL to analyse how Londoners’ moods change as they fume and exclaim online around the city. Until 28 Feb; somersethouse.org.uk

2

Our conceptual starting point was a 1966 exhibition Experiments in Art and Technology.

Surprisingly, there has never been an exhibition in the UK that looks at the link historically. Digital art reflects real life and how it’s changing our reality – it’s replacing the painterly hand.

We cover the most transformative key artists and particular trends that have emerged. The range is broad – ’80s early internet art, ’90s works made for web browsers and digitally enhanced pieces created since the millennium.

In the future we’re going to see more experimentation. Artists will also start to stretch technology, not just use it for inspiration. There will be a broader constellation of genres and ideas.

3

If the exhibition has one anchor piece, it is Harun Farocki’s Parallel I–IV (2012–2014). He shows the evolution of video games and how they have enabled a different kind of reality.

PHOTOS: INGO GÜNTHER, WORLD PROCESSOR, 1989–2014 © INGOGUNTHER.COM; ADDIE WAGENKNECHT, ASYMETRIC LOVE, 2013; ELIZABETH FRINK, BIRD, 1966, © THE FRINK ESTATE AND ARCHIVE, COURTESY HAUSER & WIRTH AND LIN JAMMET, THE FRINK ESTATE, PHOTO BY JOHN MORLEY

1CYBER ART

1

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PHOTOS: RHAPSODY, STEVEN MCRAE ©ROH, JOHAN PERSSON; AKRAM KHAN COMPANY IN REHEARSAL FOR UNTIL THE LIONS RUNNING AT THE ROUNDHOUSE, PHOTO BY JEAN LOUIS FERNANDEZ; FOUND AND LOST AT THE CORINTHIA HOTEL LONDON, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 2015 © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE; SON ABRINES STUDIO, PHOTO BY JEAN MARIE DEL MORAL; FREDDIE WATKINS AS JACK, PHOTO BY JOHAN PERSSON

Arts Agenda

ARTS | THE GUIDE

PHOTOS: RHAPSODY, STEVEN MCRAE ©ROH, JOHAN PERSSON; AKRAM KHAN COMPANY IN REHEARSAL FOR UNTIL THE LIONS RUNNING AT THE ROUNDHOUSE, PHOTO BY JEAN LOUIS FERNANDEZ; FOUND AND LOST AT THE CORINTHIA HOTEL LONDON, ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 2015 © SIM CANETTY-CLARKE; SON ABRINES STUDIO, PHOTO BY JEAN MARIE DEL MORAL; FREDDIE WATKINS AS JACK, PHOTO BY JOHAN PERSSON

PHOTOS: INGO GÜNTHER, WORLD PROCESSOR, 1989–2014 © INGOGUNTHER.COM; ADDIE WAGENKNECHT, ASYMETRIC LOVE, 2013; ELIZABETH FRINK, BIRD, 1966, © THE FRINK ESTATE AND ARCHIVE, COURTESY HAUSER & WIRTH AND LIN JAMMET, THE FRINK ESTATE, PHOTO BY JOHN MORLEY

TERPSICHOREAN DRAMA

As a leading choreographer in the ’40s and ’50s, Frederick Ashton’s muse was Anna Pavlova.

Together they fronted the Royal Ballet and refined an English kind of nuanced elegance. Now, some of his under-performed works return to Covent Garden.

The Two Pigeons, danced alongside two real pigeons, embodies his classical style in a story of a young errant man who turns his back on love to pursue reckless chemistry. On the same night, Rhapsody challenges its male protagonist to a performance of epic virtuosity. The piece was created for the Queen Mother’s birthday, specifically for the leading ’80s dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, whose strength and light boldness caught Ashton’s attention (16–30 Jan; roh.org.uk). Across town, a past collaborator of Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, will debut his first production at the Roundhouse. Akram Khan’s Until the Lions is inspired by the tale Mahabharata, an epic story that will combine contemporary dance with Indian classical style in an exciting sensual synthesis (9-24 Jan; roundhouse.org.uk).

FIVE OF THE BEST CHILDREN’S BOOKS ON STAGE 1 THE BOY WHO NEVER GREW UP Built on JM Barrie’s masterpiece, The Boy Who Never Grew Up promises a magical music and puppetry to show Peter Pan’s adventures in Neverland.

Magical. 31 Jan; artsdepot.co.uk 2 LORD OF THE FLIES A terrifying portrayal of children in charge, Lord of the Flies has been a perennial GCSE text as it sparks endless debate on the nature of morality and courage. Tours until 19 March; lordoftheflies.co.uk 3 THE TIGER WHO CAME TO TEA We’ve all had guests who drink the house dry. The Tiger Who Came to Tea teaches young hosts how to react: never protest and recover in a favourite restaurant. Valuable life lessons indeed. Until 10 Jan; thetigerwho cametotealive.com

ENVELOPING ARTS

VIVE LA FRANCE

Umberto Giordano, a contemporary of Puccini, sets his most popular opera Andrea Chénier during the bloody upheavals of the French Revolution. The inspiring tunes of France’s turbulent epoch play alongside love rivalry and political clashes.

Celebrated in its day, the opera offers a passionate libretto with a lyrical score as the poet of the title struggles to keep his love, the dispossessed Magdalena, against a background of murder and mayhem. An offbeat choice for Opera North, it is now dedicated to the resilience of the French people in times of trouble and tragedy.

Tours 19 Jan to 19 Mar; operanorth.co.uk

Punchdrunk Theatre started it and Silent Cinema took it to the big screen – now immersive performance is attracting art and opera too. In Marylebone, curators have recreated the Surrealist Miró’s Mallorca studio in intricate detail to show the colourful environment where, for almost 30 years, he conjured his trance-like spectacle paintings. Produced alongside 25 of his major works, this exhibition is a real exploration of the dreamer behind his masterpieces (20 Jan to 12 Feb; galeriamayoral.com). The Corinthia Hotel in Whitehall offers an intimately immersive drama on a miniature scale.

Having hosted a theatre troupe, now it is opera singers who flit around the grand corridors. Emily Hall’s Lost & Found gives its tiny audience an artistic run-a-round and a look into the high drama behind closed doors (25 Jan to 3 Feb; corinthia-air.com).

4 MINOTAUR Mythical monster, fearsome beast and mysterious source of bull worship through millennia, Minotaur is inexhaustible from Theseus’ daring to the present day.

24 Jan to 2 Apr; unicorn theatre.com 5 GOODNIGHT MISTER TOM A story about a city boy billeted with a seemingly grumpy older man in WWII, this is a must for young teenagers.

Mostly charming with a gritty edge.

In London until 20 Feb, tours until 14 May; good nightmistertom.co.uk

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THE GUIDE | BOOK REVIEWS

John Owen examines four novels that touch upon contemporary issues and recent history THE LITTLE RED CHAIRS Edna O’Brien

The main character at the heart of Edna O’Brien’s first novel in ten years is clearly a fictionalisation of Radovan Karadžić, the president of the Republic of Srpska during the Bosnian war. When Karadžić was arrested in 2008, he was living in disguise as a faith healer between Belgrade and Vienna, and it is this extraordinary coda to his story that O’Brien directly engages with in The Little Red Chairs.

In O’Brien’s novel the war criminal is called Dr Vladimir Dragan and the book opens with his arrival in a remote town in the west of Ireland.

O’Brien is a master of atmosphere and the appearance of this strange man in a country pub is a perfect example.

Quickly he adapts to life in the town and his practice as a healer starts to gather momentum. The reader is given occasional glimpses into Dragan’s past but the town remains unsuspicious of him (even after a brilliantly tense description of a close encounter with a local policeman). His hold is particularly strong for Fidelma McBride, who is stuck in an unhappy and childless marriage. It is the consequences of their subsequent affair that form the basis for the development of the plot as both of their lives collapse simultaneously with the discovery of his true identity. Fidelma has to leave Ireland and come to England, where she lives a near-destitute existence in a variety of poorly paid jobs for recent immigrants, each of whom has a terrible story to tell.

Fidelma’s visit to The Hague to watch Dragan’s trial brings some sort of resolution to the story, although even here she is caught between the evil of his actions and her own former attachment to him. What O’Brien has pulled off in this book is quite remarkable, it is a novel with plot but led by powerful questions and ideas, one that is both bleak but lightened by humour and beautiful writing, and one that tackles the recent past in a distant part of Europe in a way that makes it matter to all her readers; every time you look at the cover of the book you are reminded of the little red chairs of its title, which were part of a memorial to the dead of the siege of Sarajevo. £18.99, Faber & Faber

1 NUMBER 11 Jonathan Coe Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up! is often regarded as the great 1980s-90s state-of-the-nation novel. It told the story of the deeply unattractive Winshaw family and their control of British society.

In this sort-of sequel, some of the Winshaws are back, and they are still in control in a postBlair world. The targets of the satire this time are broadranging, from Blair and Twitter to the politics of austerity. Once again, Coe shows that he has the satirist’s knack of holding a mirror up to society and he does so in a very funny way. £16.99, Viking

2 SUBMISSION Michel Houellebecq This novel will be seen as one of the most important pieces of writing in 2016, due to the two terrorist attacks in Paris last year. In truth, that will be slightly unfair, for the story he tells is of the peaceful rise of a Muslim party in France who set themselves up against the National Front amidst the collapse of the older parties. That said, this is an important and challenging book made interesting by his complex literature professor protagonist. £18.99, William Heinemann

3 THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO Steven Galloway If readers of Edna O’Brien’s book find they want a novel that shows them the true horrors of the Balkan wars, they could do much worse than Steven Galloway’s. It follows a small cast of characters living in Sarajevo during the war. Some of them engage in the fight with their besiegers, while others struggle through trying to maintain a semblance of daily life in which even the simplest of tasks is fraught with danger and horror. £12.99, Atlantic Books

JOHN OWEN IS A BOOKSELLER AT JOHN SANDOE. JOHNSANDOE.COM

Book Club

BEDSIDE READING

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PEOPLE | THE GUIDE

China in your hand Herend is the world’s largest maker of hand-made porcelain. Richard Hopton discusses its amazing history with Laszlo Szesztay

H

ungary is famous for Tokay and goulash, but also for Herend porcelain; especially the decorative figurines that congregate on Home Counties mantlepieces. Herend, founded in 1826, survived Hungary’s turbulent 20th-century history intact.

It weathered the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, outlived Fascism, co-existed with Communism and has now emerged as a fullyfledged member of the EU. Herend is a small town in western Hungary, dominated by the porcelain works, which employs 710 people from a population of 3,500. Indeed, as Laszlo Szesztay, the company’s chief commercial officer, says, almost every family in the town has a member employed by Herend. The factory was founded here not, as one might expect, because of the proximity of a source of the kaolin clay from which porcelain is made, but because there was an abundant local supply of wood for firing the kilns. Indeed, the company has always imported its clay, nowadays from Limoges and Germany.

Herend is the largest manufacturer of hand-made porcelain in the world. The company is unique in that it has preserved all its 16,000 forms of white porcelain and every one of the 4,000 decorative patterns. This means that any Herend piece can still be reproduced RIGHT: Flamingo figurine by hand, enabling the company to BELOW Cornucopia plate offer a ‘lifetime guarantee’ to its clients that breakages can be replaced. According to Laszlo, 98 per cent of the world’s industrial porcelain producers – relying as they do on large-scale, automated production – cannot offer this security.

As this suggests, tradition is

ABOVE: Victoria plate LEFT: Victoria teapot

an article of faith at Herend. The Habsburg Imperial court was an important early patron; Franz Joseph ordered three huge dinner services from the company for the Hofburg in Vienna.

Herend porcelain caught Queen Victoria’s eye at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and, to this day, the bestselling pattern is the butterfly and flower design named in her honour.

Herend carefully nurtures its traditions. In the town it sponsors a school – within the Hungarian state education system – which trains ten to 12 new potters and painters a year. This ensures that the skilled workforce needed to perpetuate Herend’s traditions is constantly regenerated.

The apparent popularity of Herend figurines might suggest that they are the company’s bestselling line but, in fact, that honour falls to the tableware, dinner services, tea sets and so on, ABOVE: Laszlo Szesztay which account for around 55 per cent of turnover.

BELOW: Early Herend production Decorative objects account for the balance. The USA is Herend’s most important market, followed by Japan and, more recently, China. Western Europe remains significant, too, for the company. Herend also offers a bespoke service, enabling clients to commission porcelain to their own design and pattern.

Herend is owned by its employees following its sale by the state after the fall of communism, although the government retained a 25 per cent stake in the company. The social ownership structure was modelled on Western examples and is an effective mechanism for preserving the traditions which are so important to Herend.

MODEL REPLIES

HOW LONG HAVE YOU WORKED AT HEREND? Since 1985. WHAT’S THE BEST THING ABOUT WORKING THERE? I eat my lunch off a different design of plate every day. WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE DESIGN? Cornucopia. WHICH IS THE MOST POPULAR DESIGN? The Queen Victoria pattern. HEREND IS A SURVIVOR. DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE AROUND IN ANOTHER 100 YEARS? I certainly hope so.

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ON THE ROCKS

Take winter whites to another level Photographer: GREG SORENSEN Fashion Editor: URSULA LAKE

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White felted wool coat, Tod’s.

White silk tiered dress, Kenzo.

Black leather boots, Aldo

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Cream wool double breasted coat, Fendi.

White chiffon and lace tiered dress, Vilshenko.

Black leather boots, Gianvito Rossi

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Textured wool white coat, Nina Ricci. Silk chiffon dress, Joseph

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Coat with sheepskin collar and cream poloneck sweater, both Louis Vuitton.

Silk chiffon skirt, Joseph

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Cream wool double breasted coat, Fendi

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Cream cableknit sweater, Coach.

Silk chiffon skirt , Joseph

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Cream cable cardigan, Temperley London.

Silk chiffon mini dress with neck tie, Pucci.

Riding boots, Manolo Blahnik

TEAM Hair and make up artist: Peter Lux using Bumble & Bumble and Charlotte Tilbury Photographer’s assistant: Wesley Rose Fashion Assistant: Stephanie Dale Model: Simone Kerr at FM STOCKISTS: PAGE 100

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Beautifully designed to perform and protect

Flagship Stores

34 Duke of York Square, London SW3 4LY 35 College Green, Dublin D02 N271 Visit our website for retail partners in your area or to buy online

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Halcyon Days.indd 1

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WELCOME TO THE

WHITE HOUSE

Chrissie Rucker has made a tidy fortune selling home accessories in varying shades of, you guessed it, white.

Now, you can live her lifestyle dream by staying in her own Klosters penthouse.

FELIX MILNS checks in

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T

he last year has been a typically busy one for Chrissie Rucker, founder of The White Company, husband of Nick Wheeler (founder of shirt retailer Charles Tyrwhitt) and mother of four. Following expansion into the US and the Middle East, turnover at The White Company now tops £180m and is forecast to grow to £500m in the next five years, yet Rucker has still found time to design a beautiful, chalet-style penthouse in the gloriously understated Swiss resort of Klosters. And the really exciting news is she has opened up it up for private rental, so you can live and breathe the White Company in its most collegiate environment, the glorious snowy Swiss mountains.

Unlike the more glitzy resorts of Verbier, St Moritz and Courchevel, Klosters is all about discreet luxury, not see-and-be-seen bravado and as such, it is a hand in (ski) glove fit for the White Company brand. There are no five-star hotels, only three-stars or private houses, and none come finer than Rucker’s Haus Alpina.

In typical Klosters fashion, the exterior and entrance are unassuming, but once you pull up in the underground parking and take the private

escalator to the penthouse, the doors open onto a scene of such sophisticated serenity you simply float in on air fragranced by the dozens of white lavender candles that discreetly adorn every surface.

The chalet is the mountain personification of the White Company brand, and the fact that it is so cocooning, yet not in the least overpowering, is testament to both the restrained nature of the brand and the design vision of Chrissie and her award-winning interior designer Nicky Dobree.

‘Nicky is an old friend of Nick’s and she is very established as a chalet specialist. I think she found my limited pallet of white, ivory, grey and black a bit of a challenge to begin with, but I am happy to say I think I maybe have converted her a touch.’

Surprisingly, perhaps, the interior design side does not come naturally to Rucker, whose strengths seem to lie in the accessories rather than the overall scheme. ‘I don’t actually find decorating very easy, but in understanding the challenges it brings it has really helped me to always think about finding new ways to do things simply but effectively.’

Having previously been fortunate enough to stay in Dobree’s Ferme de Moudon in Les Gets, which featured on Grand Designs and catapulted her to chalet design superstardom, it is fascinating to see how these two design visionaries have collaborated here. Dobree’s brief from Rucker was straightforward enough, ‘I wanted it to be really comfortable and a place to switch off. We also really wanted it to work for both relaxed family down time and for entertaining.’

It most certainly does that.

There are two doubleCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: height lounges, a beautiful Chrissie Rucker and her dogs; Haus dining area with a huge Alpina is designed for relaxed family reclaimed beam dining living and entertaining; monochrome colour scheme at Haus Alpina table, mezzanine library and snug, and the biggest chalet kitchen I have ever seen. This last comes with a second stuben-style dining space attached, complete with roaring fire.

It is not only the perfect place for tea and cakes after a day on the slopes, but also to start the day with a signature power juice, which has become an essential part of Rucker’s routine. ‘As I get older I have become more and more passionate about eating well. Juicing has become part of our everyday life.’

Rucker did not initially intend to rent the property out, but found that they were not able to spend as

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GET THE WHITE LOOK Mini Mercury Bottle table lamp, £95

The interiors at Haus Alpina are cocooning but not in the least bit overpowering

much time as they wanted here, as they already Chinese and poor quality – or designer brands; split their time between Buckinghamshire and beautifully designed, great quality, but so London, so how challenging is it to manage expensive. My key aim with The White homes on not just two but three fronts? ‘We Company was to bridge the gap.’ feel incredibly lucky to have been able to let our At the time she was working as a children grow up in the country whilst still being fashion and beauty journalist and had able to grow our businesses from London. We love spent five years at Condé Nast and national spending time at Alpina as a family. It’s so peaceful magazines, experience that would prove and the combination of lots of fresh air and good extremely valuable. ‘It taught me how to food makes us all switch into ‘getting away from plan a shoot, how to write copy and create a it all’ mode. Mobile phones are banned in the consistent message while always making sure evenings and we play good old-fashioned games.’ each issue was new and exciting.’

This sense of family togetherness comes The White Company duly launched as a 12through very strongly with Rucker. Whether page catalogue mail order only company, in the talking to her about her motivations or studying days before the internet, with a small product the family snapshots on the walls of Haus Alpina – range. ‘I mailed it to people I knew and yes it really does feel like staying in their home – it wrote a press release which, thankfully, was is clear that her family is her main motivation. well received and Lucia van der Post wrote This harks back to her childhood where her the most fantastic piece in the FT How To mother was a key influence. ‘She always made our Spend It, which really helped to launch us.’ home feel incredibly welcoming. My childhood Her key challenges were getting to was spent riding competitively as mum was grips with the technology of the time, passionate about horses. As a result the stables having enough space to hold the stock were immaculate and the house was often pretty and products not being what she had asked chaotic. However, when Mum did for and, as is the case throw a dinner party, she would with most fast-growing actually really take a lot of care businesses, she ‘learnt a to make the table look beautiful huge amount very and iron the linen perfectly.’ quickly on how not It is perhaps these memories to do things’. that Rucker drew on when That experience has launching her business, but her been put to good use eureka moment came when at Haus Alpina, which she was trying to source highstands apart as a great quality yet affordable white lesson in how to design linens and tableware for (then a contemporary alpine boyfriend) Nick’s flat: ‘I wasn’t family home. very confident, so I just decided to keep it simple and buy all white.

Weekly rental of Haus Alpina White towels, bed linen, china Penthouse (sleeps 12) starts and napkins. But at that time from around £26,500. there were two ends of the scale, haus-alpina-klosters.com White is the new black at Haus Alpina it was either high street; cheap

Sheepskin Sexto rug, £600

Sleep cushion cover, £35

Twenty One candle, £35

Portland wall mirror, £125

Pembroke throw, £120

Porto stoneware jug, £30

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Jason Basmajian, creative director of Gieves & Hawkes

While the online luxury digital revolution continues apace, there will never be anything to replace collaborating on your own bespoke design, says LUCY CLELAND

PORTRAIT PHOTO BY BRUNO EHRS

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PORTRAIT PHOTO BY BRUNO EHRS

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Grab yourself a apair of bespoke Upper Street shoes; Tom Davies buffalo horn glasses; Ethan K bag

I

n a world where previously unattainable stuff can be bought and delivered to your house on the same day (when buyers wouldn’t have dreamt of walking into the store itself) and fancy algorithms can even predicate what you’re going to need and like before you even know it yourself, the face of luxury retail is changing and then some. According to a survey conducted by Walpole and WGSN, luxury online retail is projected to reach $21bn by 2020 and drive 40 per cent of sales growth. Impressive. And not only do these digital channels drive sales but, apparently, they increase

brand loyalty (video imaging being a key driver). Take a look at Gucci’s recently unveiled, new-look website (which has more than 100 million unique visitors worldwide annually), which ‘enables users to experience the breadth of Gucci’s ready-to-wear and accessory collections but also connect emotionally with the brand’s new creative’.

The global fashion brand has taken its stunning offline imagery and put it online, enhanced by exclusive brand content that is easy for a user to access and experience. This is then compounded by the introduction of the Gucci Diary, which explores the details and inspirations behind creative director Alessandro Michele’s collections as well as an exclusive insight into his world.

But whilst we wouldn’t change the fact that we can buy whatever we like whenever we like with a click of a mouse, we might pause to think whether the process actually touches us in any meaningful way. Whilst we go about creating our online avatars, in most cases, an enhanced, polished version of our real selves, we must not neglect our physical reality; touch, feel, taste, smell and sound. Only the internet satisfies one sense: sight. And it’s not enough.

This is why online and an offline physical presence works in a beautiful symbiosis. Just look at Net-a-porter – which launched an offline entity in the form of Porter magazine. It turns out women like reading glossy magazines! Who knew?

There is, of course, a retail concept that really does require human interaction (though the web is catching up, no doubt) and that’s bespoke. Collaborating with a craftsman or designer to create something uniquely personal to you is where the internet can step back into the shadows to let physical communication, creativity, January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 69

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craftsmanship and storytelling shine.

It’s the knowledge you acquire on your bespoke journey, and the product that you can rest assured no one else will have, that enthrals the modern-day luxury consumer who wants more than a logo to announce their social and sartorial standing (in fact, that’s the last thing they want). As jewellery designer Carolina Bucci says, ‘These days the best approach to retail captures all aspects – online and mobile as well as in-store. But just as conversations face to face capture nuances and a breadth of expression that an endless email exchange cannot, so face to face retail with a selection of pieces in your hands provides a sensory and emotional connection that cannot be replicated online.’

Savile Row, of course, takes this understanding to its core. Take a tailor like Gieves & Hawkes, located in prime real estate at No 1 Savile Row. As its Senior Cutter, Davide Taub, who has been with the company for over three years, explains: ‘To fit different customers, I try to understand what each wants from their decision to have clothing made personally for them. It’s about interpreting their wishes with my knowledge and experience, hopefully exceeding their expectations.’

This is not something that can be done on a computer, after all a customer might change their minds on discussion with the tailor or fitter, once presented with the plethora of choices that a physical shop offers, along with the chance to touch, feel and see the materials.

One recent client, fitted for a bespoke suit, sums it up perfectly: ‘Gieves & Hawkes has the prestige of its address and its incredible heritage, yet manages to strike just the right balance by providing modern, informal, relaxed and friendly service. You feel that they would treat a Marquess or a market maker just the same and the resulting suit is a joy to wear.’

And, meanwhile, there are developments in bespoke where you wouldn’t have even thought to look. Tom Davies, who charges around £5,000 for a personal consultation (if you don’t see Tom himself it’s a lot cheaper), has brought the humble pair of glasses to a completely

revolutionary level. When you enter his store, just off Sloane Square, Chelsea, yes, there are racks of eyewear on display – but it’s Tom’s own infectious genius that will have you looking like a pin up in your new frames before you can say ‘let your hair down’. Below the shop is his futuristic lab, where you will have the most comprehensive eye test you can get. Once your lenses are sorted, the fun bit begins. Tom is most famous for his buffalo horn frames, which come from a sustainable source, are completely hypoallergenic and are also 35 per cent lighter than acetate. He’s also the only optician to offer them. A series of measurements are then taken to ensure your frames fit perfectly, with no slippage or nasty red marks left on the bridge of your nose. Tom will run round the shop grabbing frames like nobody’s business and you will both hone down the selection until you’ve found a pair that make you look and feel confident and – let’s face it – a little bit sexy in that librarian kind of way. The frames might be shaved a little bit here and enhanced a little bit there under Tom’s eagle eye to give you a shape that perfectly complements your face.

If you’re looking for a unique pair of shoes, you could do no better than spending an hour or so at Upper Street’s bijou Shoe Lounge just off Oxford Street XXXXX (you can do the whole process online too). This exciting young brand, set up in 2010 by Julia Elliott Brown, aims to make the process of bespoke easy and non-intimidating for customers. As Julia herself explains, ‘Luxury customers have now come CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Gucci’s new-look website; Ethan K bag; Ethan Koh

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Upper Street shoes; Tom Davies glasses; behind the scenes at Gieves & Hawkes

to expect some element of personalisation in the products they buy; it’s important not only to make sure they’re perfect for your needs, but it also makes you feel special to have something unique.

With technology being an enabler not only in facilitating customers make their design choices, but also for brands to manage bespoke production, I can only see customisation becoming even more prevalent.’

With over five million combinations (which sounds overwhelming, though the design team make the choosing part of the fun), you can choose each element from heel height and width to fabric, colour and embellishments. Fancy a pair of grey ponyskin boots with a two-inch heel? No problem.

And while, of course, you can let your creativity run as wild as you like, it’s also the perfect service for brides-to-be, bridesmaids and mothers of the bride, who want shoes that complement each other, but also feel special and unique to them. Men should take note too of their brilliant gift service whereby a beautifully wrapped and ribboned package can be given with an invitation to come in and design a bespoke pair of shoes. What’s even more exciting is the price point – there are not many places where you can get an absolutely unique pair of shoes for £300. No wonder her fans include Erin O’Connor, Helena Bonham Carter and Mollie King.

Have you ever lusted after an Hermès Birkin bag but thought, well, it’s not the most original choice? Step forward young Singaporean/ London designer Ethan Koh, who had not even graduated from the London College of Fashion before his talent was spotted by Harold Tillman, former chair of the British Fashion Council. Ethan launched his debut collection of 18 bags in 2011, before he opened his only European boutique in Harrods in autumn 2014. His creations are already toted around by Dita von Teese, Elizabeth Hurley and Rita Ora

to name but a few (apparently Cressida Bonas and Princess Eugenie are also waiting for their bespoke bags to arrive).

For three generations his family in Singapore has produced the finest skins from ethical sources, used by everyone from Louis Vuitton to Prada, so Ethan grew up surrounded by the most expert of craftsmen and intrinsically understands the processes by which leather should be treated to create the most luxurious of products.

Designing a bespoke bag with Ethan at his Chelsea atelier is a joyful experience – it can be constructed to any size to complement your lifestyle, whether you need to cart your laptop about or just want a clutch to match a particular dress, as well as colour and finish – but you might have to wait up to a year to see the results. He only takes on a few bespoke clients as his production methods are incredibly time-consuming, but he hopes to offer it more comprehensively in the future. As he says, ‘A bag is extremely personal and is both an emotional and functional form of essential fashion. Each design is unique and can take between two hours to two months for it to take shape and for me to feel completely satisfied.’

At least you can be sure that no other bag will be like it anywhere in the world – which is just what the modern definition of luxury is. It says, ‘I’ve taken the time to realise something unique, I have a story to tell and I have something that no one else anywhere has.’ And you can’t get more luxurious than that. n Bespoke suit from Gieves & Hawkes, from £5,000; gievesandhawkes.com. Tom Davies bespoke frames (only), from £695; tdtomdavies.com. Upper Street bespoke shoes, from £300; upperstreet.com. Ethan K bespoke bag, from £2,500; ethan-k.com

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C&TH | INTERIORS Casafina.com partnership

THIS PAGE FROM TOP: A cycling poster on the bedroom wall; the monochrome living room features painted floorboards and a mini gallery of photographs, each in a black frame; homeowners Cat Burnell and Stuart Lonsdale

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Tastemaker:

CAT BURNELL Photo editor Cat Burnell gives us a tour of her monochrome Glasgow home and talks black bathrooms, woodchip nightmares and cycling PHOTOGRAPHY BY SUSAN BURNELL

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ne look at this stylishly monochrome Glasgow flat and it’s no surprise to learn that the owners Cat Burnell, a freelance photo editor, and Stuart Lonsdale, a graphic designer, have artistic backgrounds. ‘We’re both very creative. I studied photography and I love painting and drawing,’ says Cat. ‘One of our favourite pastimes is hunting around charity shops and vintage furniture stores for pieces that I can upcycle.’ A case in point is the wooden floor in the bathroom and kitchen, which the couple found at local reclamation yard Yooz. ‘We saw this lovely flooring heaped up and we were told that it was Canadian maple flooring from the Glasgow School of Art. It’s a piece of history, so we had to buy it. We didn’t want to touch it because the old marks and patterns look lovely, so we

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Casafina.com partnership INTERIORS | C&TH

just cleaned it up and sealed it. It’s one of our favourite things in the flat.’

What’s instantly noticeable is that finds such as this feel utterly contemporary and modern when paired with the mostly black and white colour scheme. ‘We just wanted to keep the space light, airy and open,’ says Cat. ‘I like white walls as a blank canvas, the old furniture really stands out and you can add dashes of colour. Plus,’ she continues, ‘if you have white walls and your taste changes, you can move pieces around quite easily.’

Several of the key black elements, such as the walls in the bathroom, were almost a happy accident. ‘We chose black tiles to go on the back wall as a feature then thought that it made sense to continue that across and paint a wall black too,’ recalls Cat. There’s also a black blackboard on one wall of the kitchen (‘I think it’s quite a fun feature,’), black and white graphic cushions on the sofa and black frames around the photography on the wall.

The simple palette is pepped up with pops of yellow that appear on bed linen, cushions, the legs of a coffee table and, even, on a poster in the bedroom. ‘Yellow is one of my favourite colours, so it naturally started creeping in. The artwork in the bedroom is an old vintage cycling poster that I redrew using a computer

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: The second bedroom is Cat’s office; in the kitchen, there is a blackboard wall and reclaimed floorboards from the Glasgow School of Art; Cat’s favourite colour yellow adds a pop of colour to the bedroom

programme and had blown up as a birthday gift for Stuart, who is a cycling fanatic.’ Situated in the West End of the city, the top floor flat also boasts amazing views. ‘We’re opposite the Botanical Gardens and, at the bottom of the driveway, there’s a path to the River Kelvin Walkway, which is beautiful. We also share the crescent’s communal garden; it’s a pretty nice spot.’

When the couple first saw the flat two years ago, they were struck by the light and the views – less so with the woodchip that covered all the walls. ‘The flat has a lot of character: it’s in a period 1870s building but, because it’s at the top, it also has a modern loft feel,’ says Cat. ‘There were lovely floorboards in the living room and bedroom, which we kept and painted a light grey. As we started pulling the woodchip off, the plaster started coming off too. We had to January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 73

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C&TH | INTERIORS Casafina.com partnership

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: The white walls of the living room act as a blank canvas; Cat in her office; the black walls of the bathroom are a mix of tiles and paint; a reading nook in the living room

have all the walls replastered, which was a nightmare.’ Thankfully those decorating days are behind them now and the couple can spend time doing what they love: having friends over for drinks and movie nights, rummaging around the antique shops on nearby Ruthven Lane and cooking. ‘The kitchen is a lovely space; there’s a little breakfast bar next to the window so Stuart will often sit there reading a book while I’m cooking dinner.’

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Make a statement in the office by hanging these masculine antlers above the desk

This graphic print cushion adds colour and texture to a living room sofa

Keep wall art simple with a scientificlooking drawing framed in black

An aluminium ceiling light brings an industrial edge to the kitchen

This aged wooden chest is a lovely contrast to the monochrome colour scheme

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hoto Editor Cat Burnell’s dream apartment in Glasgow is a creative haven. She has transformed a Victorian period house into a modern Combining black leather ultra-chic home. Her look draws heavily and wood, this chair from contemporary graphic art with draws together the key elements of the design strong angular lines, colour blocking and a monochrome palette with flashes of vivid colour and vintage finds. We have been dazzled by her combination of minimalism and adventure, so have collaborated with Cat for an exclusive A minimal, Tastemaker sale. Lasting just four weeks, sculptural shelving unit is ideal for take a look at this collection of Casafina displaying coloured Shop Cat Burnell’s look items that have been hand-picked and glass vases and at Casafina.com recommended by Cat and Stuart. a few of your favourite objects As well as working with leading industry experts and top designers, Casafina launches new daily sales each day at 7am, containing a handpicked selection of homewares, all A desk light is perfect in an office. Simply bend at up to 70 per cent off. the arms to adjust the This means implementing light direction Lay a star-patterned the latest designer trends as necessary rug over white and decorating ideas has become painted floorboards even easier with the most up-to-date for a cosy touch trend suggestions being delivered directly to your inbox.

Shop the Look

Register today and shop the look at Casafina.com

A grey sofa helps to break up the monochrome colour scheme and the L-shape fits nicely into the corner of a room

Shop Cat Burnell’s look at CASAFINA.COM. Exclusively for C&TH readers.

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Totty’s Cumbria shop is a swirling cacophony of colour and pattern

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A NICE BIT OF TOTTY

Totty Lowther’s path to owning an interiors shop in the Lake District is one of London glamour, Hollywood celebrity and Cumbrian cattle, says CHARLOTTE METCALF

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esigner Totty Lowther is photographing a French sofa against a pink backdrop.

The sofa is sprayed with silver glitter and upholstered in neon fabric and is one of the many pieces of customised furniture that Totty sells in her shop and online. Around us are piles of specially commissioned ‘bunny’ artworks, painted mirrors and a pair of fuchsia armchairs. Yet we are not in an urban photographic studio but in a farm outbuilding in Cumbria on a raw, autumn evening. Smoke drifts in from outside where Totty’s husband, Tom, is barbecuing and charring a haunch of lamb on an upturned oil drum. Behind him the sun drops behind the Pennines against a magnificent gold and blood orange sky spread over the sheep speckled Eden Valley. The ruins of Lowther castle, home to Tom’s ancestors for centuries, are visible. The nearest village, Askham, is over a mile away down a bone-rattling drive over cattlegrids and pot-holed asphalt. It’s an unlikely and remote location in which to find one of Britain’s most original designers but if anyone is a hybrid of country and town, it’s Totty. Today she’s dressed in snaffled men’s patent leather loafers and a silk shirt under a gold and black bomber jacket, but she’s just as likely to be wearing muddy riding boots, jodhpurs and battered tweed.

Totty was brought up in Montpelier Square, Knightsbridge and went to Saint Martins to study textiles and fashion. Her mother is Belinda Bellville, founder of couture house, Bellville Sassoon, that once dressed Princess Diana and the Duchess of Kent, amongst the other It girls of their day. Bellville Sassoon was at its height during the Seventies and Eighties, when Sloane Rangers ruled and girls still needed coming out dresses, taffeta ball gowns, wedding dresses and going away outfits. As a teenage rebel, Totty eschewed the ballgowns in favour of the punk look, complete with goth make-up, blue hair, leather and chains but still cut her creative teeth working for her mother sourcing trimmings. It was to give her a permanent eye for detail that still informs her work.

Totty soon landed a job at Berman’s & Nathan’s, the theatrical and film costume hire firm, as stock hire assistant, where she dressed extras for theatre and films including Gandhi and Lady Chatterley’s Lover. She went on to become Laura Ashley’s window display designer for five years and then became a freelance photographic stylist and January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 77

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CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: Totty can ride out straight onto the fell from home; Totty with one of her bunny paintings; her eclectic taste dominates her home’s design; shop sign; their home is a thriving B&B

set decorator, clocking up impressive clients like Wedgwood and Harrods. But, when she teamed up with legendary, award-winning designer, Michael Howells, as a prop buyer in the art department, it was film that dominated her career.

Totty’s first film was Malcolm McLaren’s quirky rockumentary, The Ghosts of Oxford Street. Other films with Howells followed, including Orlando, starring Tilda Swinton, which was nominated for an Oscar for art direction.

From there Totty worked on several high profile films as a set decorator, including Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow and Miss Julie, directed by Mike Figgis.

Life then extracted Totty from the film set to plonk her in the farmyard. Totty was friends with Camilla Lowther, founder of one of London’s foremost agencies for fashion photographers.

She met Camilla’s younger brother, Tom, cousin of the eighth Earl of Lonsdale, while he was at London University. They married in 1997, when he had recently returned to Cumbria to work his family farm. ‘I cried when I saw the motorway sign saying “Welcome to The North”,’ says Totty. ‘I was totally out of my comfort zone on the edge of a windswept fell with not a pavement in sight.’ Simply, Tom would not live outside Cumbria.

‘In his case you can take Cumbria out of the boy, but

you can’t take the boy out of Cumbria,’ she laughs.

‘I’ve been here nearly 20 years and I don’t think there’s any way back to London. I’ve got too accustomed to riding from the door straight onto the fell, bottling lambs and scouring the local sale rooms for pieces to put in my shop,’ she continues.

Totty embraced life as a farmer’s wife and has two children, Harry and Eleanor, now 17 and 14. Surrounded by sheep, cattle, horses, chickens, dogs and red squirrels, she turned the farmhouse into a thriving bed and breakfast. That might have been that had Michael Howells not tempted her to take on another project in 2013.

‘He asked me to work for him on creating the look for Tally Weijl,’ explains Totty. With 800 fashion outlets round Europe, Tally wanted its flagship stores in Vienna and Basel to be redesigned. Totty shows me the photographs of the bland retail spaces that they transformed with specially commissioned wallpaper, ‘bunny’ paintings, huge Frenchstyle mirrors and luscious chairs and ottomans in bright colours. The project was a resounding success and rekindled a working relationship with her old friend Michael, whose most recent project was director Charles Sturridge’s Churchill’s Secret, starring Michael Gambon.

Totty had commissioned many

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local craftsmen when working on the Tally stores and decided that so much talent should not go to waste. She began thinking about a shop, and then, Askham Hall – previously home to the late seventh Earl of Lonsdale – was reopened as a hotel, restaurant and wedding venue by Tom’s cousin Charles Lowther. Totty provided some furniture for the reception rooms and, soon, hotel clients were enquiring about it. It was a natural progression to open a shop within the hotel grounds.

In the shop visitors are met by a dazzling cacophony of swirling colour and pattern. Ottomans in vibrant weaves from northern Pakistan clash with Afghan cushions, Turkish kilims, Kazakh throws and zebra rugs. Retro chairs are upholstered in chirpy Sixties fabrics or silky damasks in acid brights. Peshwari patchwork is matched with vintage Designer’s Guild silk check. Hand-painted lampshades

by TMO Lighting throw warm light around the grey panelled walls, adorned with the framed ‘bunny’ paintings that became Totty’s popular signature throughout the Tally Weijl stores. When I visit, a husband and wife are enthusiastically making lists of what they want to buy – Totty can custom-make almost anything to size and every piece, by nature of the rare Central Asian textiles she loves working with, is unique. Already they adorn several stately homes round England, including Port Eliot, Cornwall, where Cathy, Countess of St Germans, hosts the Port Eliot Literary Festival. Totty has furnished elements of the Chalk Valley History festival and is currently working on some pieces for the Hampstead Theatre Drama and Literary Festival for March 2016.

Totty’s style has also enlivened the Lowther home. From the outside, the farmhouse has a forbidding, robust façade, designed to withstand brutal northern winters but, inside, turquoise and vermilion paint and vintage Colefax & Fowler wallpapers brighten walls; exotic ethnic throws disguise sagging sofas; quilts and

Totty and her farmer husband, Tom

crochets add comforting warmth to bedrooms; kilims soften flagstone floors and, everywhere, are Totty’s signature cushions, welcoming soft chunks of bobbled, trimmed and embroidered colour, pattern and texture from sunnier climes. It’s as if an army from the southern hemisphere has invaded this grey, stony, northern corner of England and left behind evidence of a spicier, brighter, more audaciously playful world.

What really underlies the look is Totty’s own personality, as much a glorious jumble of town and country as her style. It is not for the timid or restrained but for people bold enough to want to pump a sense of celebratory party spirit into their surroundings. It’s the antidote to drab, dreary and neutral. It’s no wonder that Totty’s ottomans and cushions are bringing fun and colour to drawing rooms all over Britain and elsewhere. tottylowther.co.uk n Totty on a customised sofa with one of her signature cushions

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Wallpaper: Halie. Cushions: Etosha Embroidery. Curtains: Halie, Halie Embroidery. Bellwood Bench from Thibaut in Mykonos Key.

Enchantment Collection: Wallpaper, Embroidery, Print and Woven Fabrics www.thibautdesign.com tel: 020 7737 6555

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THE INSIDER I N T E R I O R S

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L I V I N G

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D E S I G N

HOLD THE PHONE West One Bathroom’s Telephone Box shower will tickle the fancy of any Londonphile.

Designed with Morpheus London, it took six months to plumb and restore. £29,100. westonebathrooms.com

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THE INSIDER | TREND DOMINIQUE KIEFFER

BY RUBELLI Knitted, £142 p/m. rubelli.com

January Blues They are here to stay for the whole month, so embrace them

BERRY RED Pantone coffeemaker, £25. berryred.co.uk

DEDAR Balloons wallpaper, £134.50 per 10m roll. dedar.com

MARLBOROUGH TILES Hand-painted tile, £1.75 per tile. marlboroughtiles.com

IN SPACES Blue Honey Bee plate, £25. in-spaces.com

LAURA CARLIN London Life tiles, £90. thenewcraftsmen.com

NASON MORETTI Dandy pitcher, £275. conranshop.co.uk

ZUZUNAGA Cuzco pouf, £547. zuzunaga.com

HEAL’S Forum wing chair melange, £1,395. heals.com

CLAUDIA RAIMONDO Joy n11 basket, £49. alessi.com

LONDON BASIN COMPANY Decorative porcelain basin, from £570. londonbasincompany.com

LILLY LORAY Dylan filing cabinet, from £596. lillyloray.com

OLD CINEMA Six mid-century wine glasses, £85. theoldcinema.co.uk

STEPEVI Fade rug, £310 per sq/m. stepevi.com

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The Biggest Blanket Company Exclusive blankets, throws and accessories

45 Pimlico Rd. London. SW1W 8NE www.biggestblanket.co.uk 020 7823 4336 Biggest Blanket Co.indd 1

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THE INSIDER | INTERIORS

IT’S A WHITE OUT Who needs colour when you can have something beautiful and bleached from Max Rollitt’s latest collection White Goods.

The interior designer has a long history of working with antique furniture, both as a dealer and restorer; this collection has been designed as a foil to the richer patinas of his 18th and 19th-century antiques, focusing on raw wood, celadon glaze, stoneware and gesso, all designed from his Hampshire studio.

Windsor bench, £4,860. maxrollitt.com

SNOOZE YOU LOSE

You’ll know Soak & Sleep best for its bed and bath accessories but let us introduce you to its debut furniture collection, split into four key bedroom ranges: Winchester, a linear approach to design for those who hate clutter; Sheringham feels chunky and organic; Haslemere will suit loft dwellers; and Cranbrook is smart and sophisticated, combining metallics, honey-coloured wood and charcoal fabrics. From £170. soakandsleep.com

MEN OF CLOTH

Design Notes

Architectural supremo DAVID ADJAYE has designed a geometric range of fabrics inspired by his memories of Africa for Knoll Textiles.

From £34 per metre. studiotex.co.uk

News and inspiration from the world of interiors TURN OVER A NEW LEAF

New year, new you. Why not celebrate with one of Joy de Rohan Chabot’s sculptural chairs that take their lead from the forest, designed as branches that change with the seasons, from ‘Printemps’ to ‘Automne’, the lacquered steel chairs are available in five beautiful shades. POA. joyderohanchabot.com

PASTE UP PASTORAL

Dorset, county of heritage coastlines, cosy boltholes and, now, the inspiration behind Farrow & Ball’s latest wallpapers. Blotsma, a pattern of windswept petals, is named after the old English word for blossom, Feather Grass conjures lazy days in meadows and Hornbeam takes its cue from British hedgerows. Each design is available in seven colourwarys. From £95 per roll. farrow-ball.com

British-born NYC-based artist JON BURGERMAN’s fun fabrics for Kirkby Design burst with colour and wild patterns. £55 per metre. kirkbydesign.com

MILES REDD, the US’s A-lister decorator, has collaborated with Schumacher for a traditional fabric range with a modern twist at Turnell & Gigon. From £131. turnellandgigon.com

CHANGE THE CHANNEL

Samuel Chan commemorates the 20th anniversary of his design studio, Channels, with designs inspired by old products. The Three Wise Men pendant series takes the original solid turned wood shapes and flattens it in wood veneers. From £220. channelsdesign.com

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INTERIORS | THE INSIDER

Q&A

GEORGIE PEARMAN Co-owner and interior designer for The Lucky Onion group of boutique hotels Why did you move from London? My husband, Sam, was running a Michelin-starred restaurant and I was working at Allen & Overy, both working very long, unsociable hours. When we had our first child, we decided that we didn’t want to return to that lifestyle.

What do you miss most about city life? I love the interesting mix of people, architecture, restaurants, parks, theatres... everything really. But it’s not an easy city to live and work in; property prices are high so, even on a good salary, you have to live in a shoebox and the commute is a pain. I get the best of both worlds... going up once or twice a week to London.

Your style All our hotels and restaurants are different because the buildings aren’t the same. We wouldn’t do the same interiors for a 17thcentury Cotswolds coaching inn as we would for a Georgian townhouse, which sounds obvious but I’m often amazed to walk into places where they’ve taken a beautiful old building and ripped it to pieces with interiors that are completely out of character.

Do the hotels reflect your own home? No, largely to do with budget as we can’t afford to spend what we would on our hotels and restaurants. We’re in the middle of doing up our home, bit by bit. With hotels, you have a

huge budget and can do the whole thing all at once.

Finishing touches I fuss about the finish of a hinge or the texture of a fabric. We try to source everything from Britain, using British craftspeople, even down to our door hinges. In our tiny way we want to support British industry and, also, if something goes wrong, they are there and they care.

What building would you change? There are lots of buildings where I wonder how they got through planning. I do feel upset by the planning policies in the UK, where beautiful environments are destroyed by, what is in my view, bad architecture, design or just mass, uniform housing, because those decisions stick around for hundreds of years.

If money were no object... I’d buy a beautiful house surrounded by these Cotswold valleys, stuffed with art, books, friends, our extended families and our children running feral. The fires will be lit, the wine flowing.

Most importantly, though, would be finding the time to enjoy it!

What would you change about your home? I love our house but I’d buy back some of the fields that FROM TOP: The Wheatsheaf; it originally had, which now has Georgie Pearman; No. 38 The Park housing on it... just a few acres.

LIT TLE BL AC K BOOK Steal Georgie’s contacts TABLEWARE David Mellor. davidmellordesign.com

LINEN The Linen Works. thelinenworks.co.uk

FINISHING TOUCHES Chelsea Harbour Design Centre. dcch.co.uk

BATHROBES Kimonos from the Japanese Shop. thejapaneseshop.co.uk

SOAP 100 Acres. 100acres.com

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Introducing Twenty Nine on our return to 29 St. James’s Street

225 YEARS IN THE MAKING VISIT US AT OUR NEWLY RENOVATED PREMISES 29 St. James’s Street London SW1A 1HB www.drharris.co.uk 020 7930 3915

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FOOD&TRAVEL E A T

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D R I N K

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E S C A P E

The Road to Mandalay

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

SAM KINCHIN-SMITH looks for an authentic experience of Old Burma on the river made famous by Rudyard Kipling – and finds a country optimistic about its future

Kipling’s Old Burma

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Sulamani temple in Bagan

F

or Kipling, the Ayeyarwady River was a great road; the road to Mandalay, specifically, and therefore Myanmar’s main north-south artery. Which meant that the essence of Burma was there, on the water: ‘The mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was dropping slow’. For Kipling, this microcosmic river, with its blur of pagodas and ‘spicy garlic smells’, was – like the fictional district of Kyauktada in George Orwell’s Burmese Days – a way of making sense of the strangeness, exoticness and hugeness of one of the world’s most beguiling countries.

In the 125 years since Kipling left Burma, it’s seen an awful lot of history, most of it horrible. One effect of the stagnation of successive waves of oppression has been the preservation of picturesque features of the past, from farming practices to the candy-striped arches of colonial architecture. This phenomenon has been at the heart of Myanmar’s tourism boom (income increased tenfold between 2011 and 2014): visit soon, before it becomes another Thailand.

Sanctuary Retreats is one of many major brands to have recently unveiled a new property offering international standards of luxury in this unspoiled setting. It might just be the smartest, too. Because in launching a small but perfectly formed ship, the Ananda, on the road to Mandalay itself, they’ve located the golden gateway into the Burma everybody wants to find. On the Ayeyarwady, you can still hear

ABOVE: Novice monks at Kuthodaw Pagoda in Mandalay BELOW: Buddha in a Bagan temple

Kipling’s ‘tinkly temple-bells’ in the pitter-patter chimes of a hsaing waing ensemble on the riverbank; you can still see the sunsets of another age, obstructed by a burnished pagoda rather than the silhouette of a hotel.

Which isn’t to say that all Myanmar’s hotels obscure its heritage, or that the river is the only place to locate the country’s rich spirituality.

My journey from Yangon to Mandalay begins at the Belmond Governor’s Residence. Less famous than Yangon’s Strand, traditionally the only viable hostelry for an English gentleman abroad, it arguably surpasses it with a uniquely decadent take on Eastmeets-West luxury. A terraced teak mansion that formerly housed British governors, it is a place where the sun loungers around the pool are fourposter beds and there’s champagne at breakfast. Best of all, it doesn’t mess about in its evocation of colonial good times: there’s an unlimited supply of Burmese lager and cheroots.

Brilliantly curated luxury isn’t the only shortcut in the search for evocative authenticity, though. So I

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ESCAPE | FOOD&TR AVEL

sidestep the renowned Le Planteur restaurant, with its Myanmar-inflected, pan-European menu of elegant morsels, and talk my way into a Burmese cookery lesson instead. The chefs of Green Elephant Yangon present a delectable introduction to the delicate balance of lime, sesame, peanut, lemongrass and, above all, fish sauce, which results in admirably straightforward dishes pitched right in the middle of the venn diagram of Indian, Chinese and Thai cuisines.

Then I catch the train heading north out of Yangon.

A transport option totally ignored by tour operators, who see its walking-pace progress through townships far removed from conventional tourist trails as a disastrous downside, it turns out to offer a thrillingly unfiltered insight into the rhythms of rural Burmese life. As a freak rainstorm lashes my carriage, and a little boy who had been selling crystallised fruit hangs his body out of a window, I feel closer to the heartland of Burma than at any other stage of my journey.

I zigzag from Nay Pyi Taw (the country’s new first city) to Bagan, the capital between the 9th and 13th centuries. At the former, I stay at a Hilton of immensely generous proportions doing its best to project an atmosphere of reassuring warmth in a ghost town of empty 12-lane highways and neo-Stalinist conference centres. In the centre of ‘NPT’ is a full-size replica of Yangon’s famous Shwedagon Pagoda, a shell of gilded concrete built around a Buddha tooth relic from China.

Arguably no less weird than the Disneyland-for-monks of the original, it represents excellent prep for Bagan, an archaeological site as important as Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat but denied UNESCO recognition because of the encroachment of government-owned luxury hotels – grotesque pastiches of the thousands of thousand-year-old temples and pagodas that bristle among the sand and tamarind trees of the Bagan plains.

My Sanctuary Retreats guide leads a necessarily scalpel-sharp tour through the different phases of

ABOVE & BELOW: Cruising from Bagan to Mandalay

BOOK IT

Sanctuary Ananda (sanctuaryretreats.com).

Regent Holidays offer a 17-night trip to Myanmar from £5,450 per person, including a ten-night cruise on the Chindwin River with Sanctuary Ananda from Bagan to Mandalay, plus three nights hotel accommodation in Yangon and Mandalay and international flights (regent-holidays.co.uk).

Deluxe Rooms at Belmond Governor’s Residence start from £196 per night (belmond.com).

On the train from Yangon to Nay Pyi Taw

the site, culminating in an opportunity to scramble up the sandstone passageways of the shockingly beautiful Sulamani Temple in time to see the sinking sun turn countless masterworks of masonry pink and gold.

Similar moments of elegantly orchestrated perfection come to define all four days of my cruise from Bagan to Mandalay. I am also left alone, though, for several hours a day, to bliss out and watch a world of eccentric simplicity drift by: the flash of pink robes and jangling drums of a novitiation ceremony on the riverbank, perhaps, or a passing wooden boat packed with unimpressed livestock. Optional interruptions include cocktails invented by the Ananda’s revelatory mixologist, charming daily gifts, and the best westernised food I eat in Myanmar.

Mandalay, the El Dorado of my journey to the heart of Kipling’s Burma, was the country’s last royal capital and remains its religious centre. As I explore the Kuthodaw Pagoda, where the Tripitaka is engraved on 729 upright stone slabs forming the ‘world’s largest book’, then travel by ferry and horse to Ava, yet another old capital and a paradise of palaces and paddy fields, I start to finally feel at peace with Burma’s ancient energies.

I also find something else in Mandalay, though.

Perhaps it’s the miles I’ve put between myself and the malevolence and melancholy of NPT, or the city’s bubbling excitement about the imminent Thingyan water festival, but there is a note of optimism in the super-heated summer air, which suggests, for the first time, that Burma’s future might soon be a cause for celebration, alongside its past. I can see it in people’s faces and hear it in their stories, too – an opportunity for a renewal, perhaps, of the sentiments of Kipling’s soldier, ‘for [whom] the templebells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be – / By the Old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea’.

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FOOD&TR AVEL | TRAVEL NEWS

TEN REASONS WHY I LOVE

The Hotel Wizard

Hotel Santa Caterina, Amalfi, Italy

Fiona Duncan finds a love for lemons on the Amalfi coast

ON THE TRAVEL RADAR

LEMON HEAVEN

» Culture mountain: Europe’s highest art space and concert

When in Amalfi, don’t miss Salvatore Aceto’s delightful tour of his 1,000-year-old lemon grove. His family, who have been there since 1825, live by the famous Amalfi lemon: huge, knobbly fruit so sweet you can chomp it raw. Salvatore says it heals cuts, wards off mosquitoes and solves upset stomachs. And, of course, the family cooks with lemons. Under a shady arbour, Salvotore’s wife Giovanna and cousin Ramona teach us how to make the lightest of lemon cake and ricotta and lemon stuffed ravioli, which we eat with pitchers of fresh lemon juice at a big check-clothed table. Afterwards, we visit their tiny limoncello factory and buy several bottles (refrigerate but never freeze the bottle, only the glass) to take home and dream of the Costa d’Amalfi.

The Lemon Tour, from £87pp; tour only £18 (+39 335 1218292; amalfilemon.it)

hall has been unveiled in the picturesque village of St Christoph in the Austrian Alps near St Anton, alongside the luxurious Arlberg Hospiz Hotel (arlberg1800resort.at).

» Hotel plus culture in Miami too: the just-opened oceanside Faena

Hotel Miami Beach, designed by Alan Faena and cinematic visionary Baz Luhrmann, launches an exciting new cultural area in Miami: the Faena District (faena.com).

»

Kit Kemp of Firmdale Hotels has a new book: Every Room Tells a Story (£30, Hardie Grant).

1 The way the doorman kisses my hand.

2 The heady mix of warmth, homeliness and effortless glamour that makes this the perfect Italian hotel.

3 The owners – sisters Nelli and Giusi and Giusi’s son Crescenzo – descended from the town doctor who opened the gracious clifftop hotel in 1904.

4 The authentic Amalfitana interiors – dazzling white, with vibrant splashes of Mediterranean colour on tiles and fabrics, plus charming family antiques.

5 The cascade of citrus groves, gardens and pergolas smothered in jasmine and bougainvillea that tumble to the sea, and the romantic follysuites dotted amongst them.

6 The glass lift that descends to a classy pool and beach club; the hotel’s secret asset.

7 The famous faces amongst the guests, there because they love the hotel.

8 The bedroom balconies that jut over the sea and make me want to leap straight in.

9 Dancing to a live band in the moonlit garden.

10 The setting; the long-serving staff; the incomparable coast; the limoncello.

Doubles from €360 (+39 089 871012; hotelsantacaterina.it)

SHORELINES

Talking of coasts, a nostalgic collection of 60 poems, accompanied by 25 evocative black and white illustrations, about the timeless pleasure of beach-walking and beach-combing is published in Shorelines. Including poems by John Betjeman, Philip Larkin, WH Auden, Carol Ann Duffy and Bernard O’Donoghue, they are for everyone who loves to be beside the sea and finds it impossible to come back from the beach with empty pockets. £10, Lautus Press

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The Colour of Travel...

www.jcjourneys.com 01886 812862

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Retail therapy Got shopping to do? Make a real trip of it.

Edited by Daisy Finer

1

MANDARIN ORIENTAL, Paris

If you’re going to Paris to shop, and shop you will, especially for scent, because the French capital is home to the sexiest, most exquisite little perfumeries in the world, you will thank yourself for so sensibly booking into the Mandarin. The hotel is the only five-star on Rue St Honoré, the swishest shopping street in the whole of Paris. So, besides loving the sumptuous beds and big bathrooms, narrow brocade-covered sofas and sublime coffee and croissants, the blissful thing about swinging out of the big doors after breakfast in Camelia is that it’s all there, right in front of you. Turn left and across the street is Ex Nihilo, where perfumes are mixed to order, on the spot, in a giant contraption of tubes and copper piping. Further up is a gleaming golden jewel box of an Annick Goutal parfumerie. Turn right, on the other hand, and you’re minutes from the lovely Francis Kurkdjian boutique and, in the Palais Royal gardens, Serge Lutens and Les Parfums de Rosine. The Louvre is also close by. Or you could just fragrantly waft back and gloat at the bar.

BOOK IT Doubles from €1,019 B&B. mandarinoriental.com/paris 92 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | January 2016

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ESCAPE | FOOD&TR AVEL

2

FOUR SEASONS, New York

For the ultimate shopping splurge, what could be swankier than the Four Seasons, NYC? The highest hotel in New York, soaring between Madison and Park Avenue – perfect for enviable Upper East Side shops – offers 52 floors of exquisite, zen-like calm. You literally rise above the roar of the urban jungle. Rooms are pared down, all walnut and cream hues with wrap-around windows that ingeniously open, so you don’t feel hermetically sealed. Head concierge Josephine Danielson is the hotel’s magician. Want tickets to the Met, a ballgown altered, a blow dry at John Barrett at Bergdorf Goodman, right now? There’s nothing she can’t conjure up. Kick start your stay with breakfast at The Garden; healthy juices, elixirs and power food.

Then collapse, post credit-card bashing, in the cocooning basement L. Raphael spa geared for ‘relax and results’.

This hotel screams sophisticated, discerning traveller.

BOOK IT Doubles from £492. fourseasons.com/newyork

3

BEL AIR, Los Angeles

Tucked away in 12 acres of crisp, landscaped gardens, this legendary Hollywood hotel is renowned for its pink-stucco Spanish colonial architecture, resident swans and absolute discretion – which is why celebrities flock here.

After a huge renovation three years ago, rooms come with hi-tech gadgets as well as polished marble floors, walk-in wardrobes and, in some cases, a private outdoor hot tub and fireplace. Other additions include a spa by La Prairie and the Wolfgang Puck restaurant and bar, where black and white portraits of film stars by Norman Seeff adorn the walls.

Handily only moments from the designer fashion boutiques on Rodeo Drive (for vintage, one-off finds head further afield to Melrose), the hotel will send a complimentary car to pick you up when your arms are laden down with purchases.

BOOK IT Doubles from $515. dorchestercollection.com

4

HAYMARKET HOTEL, London

Savile Row, Jermyn Street and Bond Street are all a stroll away from this Piccadilly hotel in the heart of the capital.

Part of the Firmdale group, it’s owned by Kit Kemp who is behind the modern English design: think pink blowsy floral prints paired with zingy colours and geometric patterns in the spacious rooms, sophisticated granite and oak bathrooms, sculpture by Tony Cragg in the lobby and clusters of vases on wooden tables. This place buzzes. Friends gossip over a late brunch or afternoon tea at the Brumus restaurant before hitting the shops (dinner is delicious too: smoked haddock and salmon fishcakes, rib eye steak); or in the bar, which comes with a swimming pool and a ceiling covered in a rainbow spectrum of fibre-optic lights. For some downtime, hunker down with a novel in the library or book in for a pampering Soholistic beauty treatment. You’ll feel rejuvenated – and ready for retail therapy round two.

BOOK IT Doubles from £402 B&B. firmdalehotels.com January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 93

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Inspiration

Craftsmanship

Heritage

THE MAYFAIR ANTIQUES & FINE ART FAIR

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THE ST ENODOC HOTEL Privately owned boutique hotel and spa in exquisite hideaway overlooking the Camel estuary in Rock. The beach is a stone’s throw from the hotel and a passenger ferry to Padstow.

The spa offers a relaxing and enjoyable day spa experience, with a friendly qualified team who go above and beyond to ensure you leave feeling invigorated and pampered.

For reservations and the latest offers 01208 863 394 info@enodoc-hotel.co.uk www.enodoc-hotel.co.uk

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27/11/2015 11:47

NEWS | FOOD&TR AVEL

NORTHCOTE OBSSESSION

The best meals you’ll remember for the rest of your life, but how about 16 nights back to back of culinary excellence like no other? For the 16th year running, Nigel Haworth invites 16 of the world’s best chefs, including Jean-Luc Rocha, Tom Sellers and André Garrett, with 18 Michelin stars between them, to take over his kitchen at The Northcote, Langho, Lancashire. 22 January to 7 February. northcote.com

THIS MONTH… DON’T BOTHER WITH ‘CLEAN’ EATING AND DRY JANUARY

EAT

Jealous sweets for proper grown-ups. Try gummy bears in pomegranate, mango and pineapple, all 100 per cent artificial-free. £2.50 for 50g. thejealouslife.com

Gastro Gossip

DRINK

Forget dry January.

Award-winning Castle Brook Classic Cuvée 2009 is made from grapes grown in the Wye Valley. £26. castlebrookvineyard.co.uk

January is only depressing if you’re on a diet HOLY SMOKE

With chefs like Richard Turner and Neil Rankin reviving smoked meats, Williamson Tea Mint Garden caddiewhy not give it a go at Press Advert for COUNTY & TOWN HOUSE home? While a Big Green Third page ad: 99 x 225 mm + 3mm Egg bleed will set you back a few hundred pounds, you can get a pack of 12 Smoke Genies for £8.95, which will smoke both hot and cold foods. These natural hardwood blocks smoke for up to 30 minutes 225 and don’t make mess like traditional wood chips. Simply light with a naked flame and add to a pan, into the oven or the BBQ. Line them up to smoke a whole salmon. Job done. smokegenie.co.uk

MILK IT

Wine plus chocolate equals everything you’re not supposed to consume postChristmas. We say, life’s too short – get yourself to The Winemakers Club in Holborn for an evening hosted by Cocoa Runners, for a few glasses of wine and to discover new producers.

The dark milk session will debunk the myth that milk chocolate isn’t ‘real’ chocolate, by tasting bars with high mm cocoa content, like Iceland’s Omnom and Friis Holm’s Danish take. Sorry, Yorkie... 19 Jan. £20pp. cocoarunners.com

BUY

Christabel’s hand-painted plates look good enough to eat. £20. christabels.org

READ

Made in Shropshire. Over 90 recipes from local producers, restaurateurs and epicureans. £20. recipesmade here.co.uk

as tea farmers we do things differently...

We nurture young tea bushes and pair certain varieties with different soil types, protecting the soil and natural environment before harvesting and drying our teas.

We know exactly what’s happened to our teas every step of the way, offering complete transparency from bush to cup.

To find out more about our farms and teas visit our new website.

www.williamsontea.com

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27/11/2015 14:30

RECIPE | FOOD&TR AVEL

Holy Mackerel Top up your omega-threes with Tom Hunt’s marvellous mackerel

SERVES FOUR FISH AND POTATOES » 1 quantity roast new potatoes with rosemary and thyme, assembled but not yet cooked » 4 mackerel, trimmed and gutted » light olive oil

Williamson Tea Kenyan Earth caddie Press Advert for COUNTY & TOWN HOUSE Third page ad: 99 x 225 mm + 3mm bleed MACKEREL STUFFED WITH CHERMOULA

Preheat oven to 180°C. Wash the mackerel and dry with kitchen paper. Roast the herbed new potatoes in a hot oven for 35–45 minutes.

Meanwhile, roast the pepper for 25 minutes,

CHERMOULA » 1 red pepper, halved and deseeded » 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted » 1 tsp sweet paprika, plus more for the fish » 1 red chilli, chopped » 2 garlic cloves, chopped » 50g sprigs of coriander, roughly chopped » 10g sprigs of parsley, roughly chopped » Juice of ½ lemon » extra virgin olive oil

225 mm

until soft, then roughly chop. Dry toast the cumin seeds, until smelling aromatic before grinding with the paprika. Grind to paste with chilli and garlic. Blend in the herbs, roast pepper, then stir in the lemon juice and a glug of extra virgin oil. Season to taste.

Stuff each mackerel with 2tbsp of the chermoula, saving some to dress the potatoes.

Drizzle with light olive oil in a baking tray and season with salt, pepper and paprika. Cook in the oven alongside the potatoes for the last 15 minutes of their cooking time.

Q&A TOM HUNT

Executive chef of Poco, Broadway Market FOOD PHILOSOPHY? Ethics are more important than taste. I put people and the planet before profit and won’t make any exceptions. I call it root to fruit or conscious cookery.

WHAT WOULD YOU BAN ? Tin foil, cling film and blue roll because they can’t be easily recycled.

I’m considering banning all electrical devices and only using primitive hand powered equipment if I open another restaurant.

SECRET INGREDIENT? Lemons. Which is why it is the only imported ingredient at Poco.

WHAT KEEPS YOU MOTIVATED? Being able to make a difference, whether it’s putting a smile on someone’s face because of a tasty meal or educating people about food waste.

FOODIE LOCATION? Sushi Tetsu in Clerkenwell, it’s a tiny little traditional sushi bar hidden in an alleyway. Plan in advance.

WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? It is an archaic view that chefs and waiters need to work over 60 to 70 hours a week.

as tea farmers we do things differently...

We nurture young tea bushes and pair certain varieties with different soil types, protecting the soil and natural environment before harvesting and drying our teas.

We know exactly what’s happened to our teas every step of the way, offering complete transparency from bush to cup.

To find out more about our farms and teas visit our new website.

www.williamsontea.com

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27/11/2015 12:17

RESTAURANT REVIEWS | FOOD&TR AVEL

Fork & Field Fancy fine dining and full-on farming. By Anastasia Bernhardt

N E W K I D O N T H E B LO C K

CÉLESTE, SW1

O L D FAVO U R I T E

THE POINTER, BRILL

Williamson Tea Mother and Child caddie While any country restaurant worth its salt has a kitchen garden, none go to the Press Advert for COUNTY & TOWN HOUSE lengths of Fiona and David Howden. What started as a few chickens in the garden, has Third page grown ad: 99 x 225 mm + 3mm bleed into a herd of 120 pedigree Longhorn cows, a legion of rarebreed pigs and a farm growing 80 different vegetables. What to do with all the surplus grub? Set up a restaurant, pub and butcher, of course. Now the beating heart of the sleepy village (they make 150 meals every day for the local schools), its ethos has pulled in the London set too. Settle in for a cosy, long lunch under the oak beams for225 a hunk of one of their mm Longhorns with proper earthy veg and a bottle of something from David’s well-stocked cellar. If you grow your own, swap your bounty for a pint at the bar. This is from field to fork... and then some. Three-course Sunday lunch, £27. thepointerbrill.co.uk

The Lanesborough is looking well nigh Napoleonic following a megabucks restoration.

Fortunately, its new operators (the Oetker Collection) have not done away with Barry, the pianist in the gorgeously draped and superbly staffed bar. The restaurant, however, led by executive chef Florian Favario – previously at Le Bristol under superchef Eric Fréchon – has been completely rethought. Elegantly leapfrogging London’s rival haute cuisine offerings, Favario’s food is flawless French luxury, based on seasonal British ingredients: look out for Burford brown egg filled with chicken and lardo di Colonnata and lamb from the home counties cooked three ways. Also swoon-worthy are the langoustine ravioli, a flamboyantly served French onion soup and Norfolk blackleg chicken cooked in hay. This unstoppably grand place, with its confident, deft service, deserves to be full of bejewelled duchesses from lunch until dinner daily. Mains, from £28.

Tasting menu, from £75. lanesborough.com

as tea farmers we do things differently...

We nurture young tea bushes and pair certain varieties with different soil types, protecting the soil and natural environment before harvesting and drying our teas.

We know exactly what’s happened to our teas every step of the way, offering complete transparency from bush to cup.

To find out more about our farms and teas visit our new website.

www.williamsontea.com

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25/11/2015 15:49

ON THE MOVE P R O P E R T Y

·

N E W S

EDITED BY GR AHAM NORWOOD

THE GRANGE

Sandhill Lane Crawley Down, West Sussex £5.5M

Sell it to us in a sentence... An outstanding Grade II listed Georgian country house within stunning grounds and easily commutable to London.

Any juicy history? The property was twice used as a school in a past life – and a sargeant major used to give drills on the front lawn.

Best feature? Coming up a long driveway and seeing the house in front of you and being completely ensconced in your own grounds. This is Georgian architecture at its best, complete with 23 sash windows and elegant proportions throughout.

Will it need a lick of paint? The house has plenty to offer by way of modern comforts, having recently undergone extensive refurbishment. The newly extended kitchen has been the last project the owners finished, creating open-plan living space.

Where would we put guests? There are eight bedrooms and two cottages, so there’s no shortage of space.

What are the gardens like? Four acres of formal gardens and someone had the vision to lay them out into rooms. Whatever your bag – roses, vegetable plots – there’s something for everyone. And this is protected by pastureland from all angles.

What’s going on to keep us entertained?

Tennis, riding, heated swimming pool, woodland for children to play in, gardening, parties, parties and more parties. Nearby, you have golf at Copthorne, Effingham Park and Royal Ashdown, racing at Lingfield Park, Plumpton and Brighton, show jumping at Hickstead and polo at Rowfant and Knepp Castle.

How long’s the commute to London?

London Bridge in 37 minutes door to door.

What’s on the doorstep? Gatwick Airport but without the noise overhead, schools, golf courses, the coast, Brighton is only 25 minutes away.

How much upkeep will it require? The current owners have one gardener there 3.5 days a week but they have no other permanent staff. It really depends on what you want to do with it.

The current owner says… ‘I love the way that it is in the middle of its own land and we have no near neighbours, yet we’re within walking distance of the village with its pub, post office and the best butcher in the area.’

PROPERTY OF THE MONTH

Strutt & Parker, 020 7318 5190; struttandparker.com

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A chalet of one’s own After the downturn, interest in easy-access, fashionable and super-stylish ski chalets is on the rise

B

CHÂTEL, France

It’s only 90 minutes by car from Geneva airport but this alpine village’s architecture, attitude and, even, cuisine are all distinctly French. Snowboarding and bobsleighing vie for attention with skiing during the season but, like so many resorts, this one has developed year-round activities – there’s hiking, biking and riding on the doorstep, while rafting, fishing and paragliding are available close by too.

Two brand new ski lifts opening for business this season will link the massifs of Super-Châtel and Linga to provide skiers with easy access to 650km of slopes on 285 pistes in 12 resorts in France and across the border into Switzerland.

For sale: Apartments for sale in the first phase of MGM’s résidence de tourisme in Châtel, Les Chalets d’Angèle proved to be so popular when it opened for business at the end of 2013 that two new chalets, containing 35 apartments, have just been built. Prices of two-bedroom apartments start at an extraordinarily affordable £176,000 through MGM. 020 7494 0706; mgmfrenchproperties.com

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

ritish ski devotees tend to have three ambitions. Firstly, there’s ownership of a marvellous chalet that’s relatively easy to get to, so you can whoosh into action rapidly, even if you’re there only for the weekend. Secondly, there’s the hope that the location has a classic ski atmosphere – all wood and pine fires. And, finally, the aim is that you should enjoy a profit when you hang up your skies and sell.

The first two are achievable enough – and for a combination of great skiing and easy access, the Alps win hands down. But, for the last few years, a profit has been elusive. The international economic downturn made skiing a luxury many people felt they could not afford, and fear of global warming (the average Swiss ski season has shortened by 12 days since 1995) cast a shadow over the viability of owning a chalet for the long term.

But then came 2014 and 2015: during these two years alpine estate agents reported improved sales and most locations came into their own because they had developed summer, as well as winter, pastimes. Suddenly, skiing is chic again and, for many Britons, the hunt is on for – you guessed it – a chalet in a fashionable resort.

There are literally hundreds to choose from but we have short-listed four, offered at different price ranges, yet all within a few hours of the UK and each one located in a superb year-round resort.

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PROPERTY | ON THE MOVE

VERBIER, Switzerland

With over 410kms of piste and a range of runs from gentle Les Esserts to challenging bumps on Tortin, there is plenty for active novice and advanced skiers. In the summertime there are 400kms of hiking trails and 200kms of mountain bike piste.

Not tired yet? Then have a go at paragliding, swimming, golf, badminton, ice karting, or just settle for a trip aboard the area’s many mountain railways.

‘With Switzerland consistently voted one of the best places to live in the world – not surprising given the beautiful scenery, healthy air quality and the efficiency of its communication links – Verbier has been our best performing ski destination over the last year and is expected to continue on this path for the foreseeable future,’ says Rob Green, general manager of Abercrombie & Kent International Estates.

For sale: The magnificent Chalet Feuille d’Erable is positioned near the piste and, dramatically, 200m above the Verbier resort. A floor-to-ceiling, two-storey panoramic window dominates the open plan living room while a floating oak staircase leads up to the master suite – the largest of four bedrooms. £6.43m through Abercrombie & Kent International Estates. 020 3667 7016; akinternationalestates.com

ARLBERG, Austria

For ski connoisseurs, this mountain range between Vorarlberg and Tyrol is really rather special. The highest peak is Valluga at over 9,200ft and there are plans to connect both parts of the ski region (Lech, Zürs and Warth on one side and St Anton, St Christoph and Stuben on the other) with new lifts in the next five years.

‘The area is renowned for good snow quality and off-piste skiing, and properties here are offering good returns on investment. In addition to that, the region has a friendly atmosphere offering a traditional alpine environment within easy reach of the UK,’ according to Paul Kleinekorte of Pure International.

For sale: Chalech, appropriately enough in the Lech resort, is a chic development of four luxury chalets, set over three floors, with a spa and beauty area. The scheme also has a large pool and outdoor lounging area – and it’s run by a five-star hotel, too. Chalets cost from £4.46m to £5.32m, through Pure International. 020 3695 4095; pureintl.com

ST MORITZ, Switzerland

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

‘This offers some of the best skiing and winter sports to be found in the Alps and the best après ski – a potent combination. It’s long been regarded as the playground for the international jet-set, attracting royalty, film stars and those who enjoy a lively, chic nightlife, designer boutiques and fine dining as much as the excellent skiing,’ explains Andrew Langton, chairman of Aylesford International estate agency.

And it’s not just property people who think this is a worldclass destination. St Moritz has hosted two Winter Olympics, three Alpine World Ski Championships, sailing and windsurf World Championships and, just four years ago, was home to the Bilderberg Group annual conference – an invitation-only body of the world’s most influential people.

For sale: The Apartment Staz Duplex, built on edge of Lake St Moritz offers spectacular views of the mountains, valley and lake, and sits next to the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel. The twostorey home has an open plan kitchen with its own bar, plus six bedrooms and a wonderful sun terrace. £12.7m through Aylesford International. 020 7349 9772; aylesford.com January 2016 | COUNTRYANDTOWNHOUSE.CO.UK | 103

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ON THE MOVE | PROPERTY

London lets The capital’s rental market is set to rise exponentially

L

ondon property headlines focus on sales – unsurprisingly, really, when some homes hit £100m. But the biggest growth sector in reality is the capital’s burgeoning rental market.

Statistics reveal why. Over 30 per cent of households in inner London now rent privately, forecast to rise 40 per cent by late 2020, as renting increasingly becomes a lifestyle choice and not just an economic necessity.

Mix in the current short-term uncertainty in the sales market – increased stamp duty on high value properties now deters many buyers – and it’s easy to see why the rental market has become the most dynamic element of London’s property scene as we head into 2016.

‘When the sales market is soft, the rental market tends to be strong – and it certainly is in Prime Central London at the moment.

There’s been a surge in demand,’ explains Guy Meacock, head of London for buying agency Prime Purchase.

‘Renting looks like a more attractive alternative for many,’ says Rachel Thompson, partner at The Buying Solution, the buying arm of the Knight Frank estate agency.

But anyone considering becoming a landlord must realise that the days of tenants being undemanding, undiscerning and frequently unprofessional are over. Today’s tenants are shrewd and sophisticated, driving specifications upwards to match rental levels.

Homework is essential. Equipping a flat with a lower specification than required or in a location that is unpopular with professional renters may mean significantly lower returns.

‘A concierge would be a minimum for a PCL apartment with new developments factoring in the Pan Peninsula possibility of a more

Stanley Gardens, Notting Hill

lifestyle-oriented service being available – to book taxis, restaurants and the like,’ says Dan Parker, of letting agency Savills. He could add in hotel room service and same-day dry cleaning as ‘must haves’ in many cases, too.

The type of property in demand from tenants falls into two categories, say agents. Firstly, the refurbished period gem in a classic location. An example is a six-bedroom house in Notting Hill’s Stanley Gardens, with conservation status outside and state-of-the-art audio-visual and security systems inside. This lets at £6,500 per week through Strutt & Parker and typically appeals to the British, western European or American professional family renter (struttandparker.com).

Secondly, there is the new-build, full-creature-comfort property in an emerging part of prime London – modern developments like Pan Peninsula at Canary Wharf have three-bedroom apartments from £5,000 per week through Foxtons (foxtons.co.uk). A brand new apartment at an iconic development – Battersea Power Station, say – will let for much more. International tenants, often from the Far East, are enthusiastic devotees of new-build homes.

Buying an appropriate rental property will be expensive; upgrading and managing it will add to the bills. Yet while the bar is high for potential London landlords, returns are good too: Savills forecasts that by the end of 2020, PCL rents will have risen 17.1 per cent from today’s levels, and capital values will have risen 22.7 per cent.

In theory, that means a huge potential return, far beyond most alternative investments. You see – the rental market really is the best show in London these days.

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NEWS | ON THE MOVE

A TIGHT SPOT

If your idea of winter luxury is slipping into a pair of Emilio Cavallini tights (go on, admit it), then take things one step further and look inside his former Florence home – at least through an estate agent’s brochure. The designer, who has worked for Dior, Céline, Gucci and Alexander McQueen, once lived in this three-level apartment with its four terraces providing a stunning 360-degree view of the city. With three bedrooms, a Jacuzzi and a Turkish bath this mix of pop art and high architecture is seriously cool – and not as expensive as you might think. £1.82m (milansothebysrealty.com).

Bulletin A WRITER’S RETREAT

Here’s a writers’ block with a difference – it’s a block where writers have lived, and you could too. Not just any old writers, mind; this is Carlyle Mansions on Cheyne Walk in Chelsea where, over the years, Ian Fleming (pictured), Henry James and TS Eliot have all rested their heads and their pens. Now a four-bedroom apartment in the mansion block is up for sale. It’s got bespoke fittings inside but you’ll probably spend most of your time dreaming of your next novel as you gaze over river views (£6.495m; struttandparker.com).

PHOTOS: REX FEATURES

WHERE A LEGEND WAS BORN

THERE’S NO LET OUT CLAUSE NOW

You’ve seen it win at Le Mans and you’ve seen it star in Spectre. Now see where the Aston Martin marque was created. It was over a century ago, of course, when Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford used a central London mews workshop to build their first vehicle called, unglamorously, Coal Scuttle. When it performed well at a hill climb in Aston, the name was changed – the rest, as they say, is shaken and stirred history.

Now the mews is a three-bedroom home in a gated community. It’s yours for £2.295m (struttandparker.com). With a history like that, there’s also parking – of course.

It’s a chore but now it’s a law, too. From 1 February every landlord must check the immigration status of each tenant who signs a new rental contract. Landlords must verify the tenant’s name, see official ID, such as a passport or national identity card, and keep written records – failure to do so could result in a £3,000 fine. The checks have to be done fairly and to all tenants, and if there is a complication there’s a Home Office helpline too. Details are at gov.uk but many landlords may be tempted to instruct a letting agent with training and experience in handling sensitive discussions and checks.

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GORGEOUS GEORGIAN

Cadlington Hall has Georgian features aplenty, from sash-style windows and flagstone floors to high ceilings and ornate fireplaces. Recently modernised, it has five bedrooms and grand reception spaces, in the most imposing part of the former large mansion on the Cadlington House Estate. If the parklike grounds don’t quite cut it, the South Downs National Park is on the doorstep.

Cadlington Hall, Blendworth, Hampshire, £1.2m, Humberts, 01730 776642

MEDICAL MARVEL

With its history rooted in the 1430s, Tremeer has an illustrious past.

Amongst other things, it is believed that the first animal blood transfusion was conducted by Dr Richard Lower in the basement here in 1667. The elegant gardens are the work of General Harrison, a distinguished collector of azaleas and rhododendrons, who lived here after WWII. The imposing building is Grade II listed, with seven bedrooms, plus a separate two-bed lodge and former coach house.

Tremeer, Bodmin, Cornwall, £2.75m, Knight Frank, 020 7861 1528

Country Our pick of the best country houses on the market this month PIP TO THE POST

This impressive five-bedroom Queen Anne-style house has been updated to suit 21st-century living, with modern touches such as a home entertainment system with a pull-down screen projector and roomy ‘his and hers’ fitted dressing rooms. Located down a rural lane, it has equestrian facilities that include a paddock, two groom cottages, outbuildings and extensive planning permission. Priors Field, Chipstead, Surrey, £5.45m, Hamptons International, 020 3151 2414

FOREST REFUGE

One-minute by foot and you’re straight into prime New Forest walking territory. Tucked down a quiet private lane, this four-bed would make a cosy family hideaway, with woodburners, slate and oak floors and Aga. Once the weather picks up, take advantage of the pretty country garden and riding direct from the front gate – just don’t forget to close it, or the New Forest ponies will take over. Tyrells Lane, Burley, Hampshire, £1.15m, Hearnes, 01425 489955

FINDERS KEEPERS

English country life meets Scandi comfort in this contemporary six-bedroom Herefordshire home. Guests will clamour to stay to play tennis on the floodlit court and croquet on the formal lawn. Just as well then that there’s a separate coach house with two en suite bathrooms to handle the overspill and a generous wine cellar to toast the winners. If it all gets a bit much, there’s over 63 acres of forest to hide in. Keepers House, Lyonshall, Herefordshire, £2.5m, Savills, 020 7016 3780; Jackson Property, 01432 344 779

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HOT PROPERTY | ON THE MOVE

MADE IN CHELSEA

It’s rare that such a large family home comes onto the market in Chelsea. This turnkey embraces classical styling and designer craftsmanship. Laid out over five floors in the heart of The Boltons conservation area, there are five bedroom suites, a landscaped garden, spa facilities that would put any five-star hotel to shame, a garage with a stacker for two large cars and state-of-the-art technology throughout. There’s no need to lift a finger here whatsoever. Cresswell House, Cresswell Place SW10, £37.5m, Knight Frank, 020 7349 4300

Town HOME OFFICE

Divided into three zones, this pretty Notting Hill home is beautifully designed and set back from the road. While it already has a front and back garden, you can also apply for access to Ladbroke Square. It has four beds, airy double-height living space and a renewed kitchen, plus a Wentworth garden room kitted out for office use, with heating, air con, and phone lines.

Ladbroke Grove, W11, £5.95m, Savills, 020 7535 3300

Our pick of the best town houses on the market this month MICHAEL’S MEWS Michael Caine used to call Albion Close home in the ’60s and now, so can you.

Out of the 339 mews in London, just 29 are gated, including this one, so peace and quiet is assured.

This particular property was formed by merging two of the original mews houses to create 2,900 sq/ ft, with four bedrooms, library, study and ample living space. A fifth bedroom can be found by sliding the bookcase to reveal a hideaway bed.

Albion Close W2, £4.95m, Kay & Co, 020 7486 6338

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY

FAMILY LIVING This Chelsea townhouse has been cleverly reconfigured into a five-bed family home. It’s ideally located for entrance to top prep schools and is walking distance from both Sloane Square and Knightsbridge. It has been kitted out tastefully, with a custom-made Italian kitchen and wired for Sonos and Cat 6 throughout. Spread across five floors, the master bedroom suite occupies the entire second floor, with dressing room and en suite. Cadogan Street SW3, £6.5m, Strutt & Parker, 020 3468 5659

Once home to the Earl of Suffolk, this is a unique opportunity to ‘try before you buy’.

Available to either let or buy, the home is palatial, with seven beds, six bathrooms, three reception rooms (including an Edwardian library), gym and wine cellar. Dating back to 1792, this imposing townhouse was designed

by Henry Holland, best-known for his work on the original Marine Pavilion in Brighton.

Hans Place, £14.5m SW1, Russell Simpson, 020 7225 0277; Harrods Estates, 020 7225 6700

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First Street, Chelsea SW3 A newly refurbished two bedroom period house on a quiet Chelsea street Designed with open plan living in mind, the house benefits from a bright and spacious kitchen, dining and family room which leads onto the patio, a large ground floor double reception room, an impressive first floor master bedroom suite with dressing area and stunning marbled bathroom, and occupying the top floor, a further bedroom with en suite shower and balcony. EPC: D. Approximately 140 sq m (1,512 sq ft).

Freehold

KnightFrank.co.uk/knightsbridge knightsbridge@knightfrank.com 020 3641 5930

@KnightFrank KnightFrank.co.uk

Guide price: £3,625,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/SLA120418

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Trevor Square, Knightsbridge SW7 An immaculate house in a desirable Knightsbridge garden square The house has been meticulously and stylishly refurbished to a very high specification and is in a prime position overlooking the picturesque garden square. It offers a generous open plan kitchen and dining room, a well appointed reception room flowing onto a large west facing garden, a large master bedroom suite, 3 further bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a dressing room and laundry room. EPC: D. Approximately 216 sq m (2,330 sq ft).

Freehold

Guide price: £6,450,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/knightsbridge knightsbridge@knightfrank.com 020 3641 5930

@KnightFrank KnightFrank.co.uk

KnightFrank.co.uk/SLA110426

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Down Street, Mayfair W1J A bright and contemporary one bedroom apartment A luxurious, newly refurbished one bedroom lateral apartment situated in a beautiful period building moments from the leafy spaces of Green Park, boasting impressive ceiling heights and day porter. Bedroom, bathroom, reception/dining room, kitchen, porter. EPC: D. Approximately 63 sq m (673 sq ft).

Leasehold: approximately 960 years remaining

Guide price: £1,695,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/mayfair mayfair@knightfrank.com 020 3589 0899

@KnightFrank KnightFrank.co.uk

KnightFrank.co.uk/WER150150

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Carlyle Square, Chelsea SW3 A family house on one of Chelsea's finest garden squares This generously proportioned semi-detached town house is now in need of some renovation. The house also has the significant advantage of having planning consent in place for a substantial extension.

5 bedrooms, 2-3 reception rooms, 2 bathrooms, guest cloakroom, patio garden, access to communal gardens. EPC: E. Approximately 325 sq m (3,507 sq ft).

Freehold

KnightFrank.co.uk/chelsea chelsea@knightfrank.com 020 7349 4300

@KnightFrank KnightFrank.co.uk

Guide price: £8,250,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/CHL120068

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Abbots House, Kensington W8 Stunning four bedroom penthouse with parking and private pool This newly developed four bedroom duplex apartment is arranged over the top two floors of Abbots House. With extensive entertaining spaces, panoramic views and indoor swimming pool, this rare property is the ultimate penthouse. 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 3 reception rooms, entrance lobby, kitchen/breakfast room, utility room, study, swimming pool, 2 terraces, parking. EPC: D. Approximately 577 sq m (6,211 sq ft). Â Leasehold: approximately 999 years remaining

Guide price: ÂŁ13,950,000

KnightFrank.co.uk/kensington kens@knightfrank.com 020 7938 4311 waellis.com sales@waellis.com 020 7306 1610 residential.jll.co.uk kensington.sales@eu.jll.com 020 7087 5696

@KnightFrank KnightFrank.co.uk

KnightFrank.co.uk/KEN150192

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Lyford Road, Wandsworth SW18 Designed by Charles Voysey A rare and special detached villa, designed by the world famous Arts and Crafts master architect Charles Voysey in 1903, currently presented in immaculate condition. 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 reception rooms, kitchen, dining room, study, dressing room, garden, swimming pool. EPC: E. Approximately 373.9 sq m (4,025 sq ft).

Freehold

KnightFrank.co.uk/wandsworth wandsworth@knightfrank.com 020 8682 7777

@KnightFrank KnightFrank.co.uk

KnightFrank.co.uk/WND110092

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struttandparker.com

St. Stephens Gardens, Notting Hill W2

A stunning three bedroom duplex offering a generous open plan entertaining space. The flat also offers a charming roof terrace with far reaching views.

ÂŁ1,895,000 Share of Freehold

1,163 sq ft (108 sq m) Entrance hall | Kitchen/reception room | Two terraces | Three bedrooms | En suite bathroom | En suite shower room | EPC rating E

Notting Hill 020 7221 1111 nottinghill@struttandparker.com

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Parkgate Road, Battersea SW11

Two luxury apartments moments from Battersea Park. Each stunning apartment has two double bedrooms, 3.4m ceilings, excellent security, concierge and private parking.

Prices from ÂŁ2,750,000 Leasehold

1,938 sq ft (180 sq m) – 2,056 sq ft (191 sq m) Living room | Kitchen/dining room | Hallway | Two bedrooms | Two bathrooms | Cloakroom | Air conditioning | Passenger lift | Concierge | CCTV security | Private internal car park | EPC rating C

Chelsea 020 7225 3866 chelsea@struttandparker.com

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struttandparker.com

Abingdon Road, Kensington W8

An impressive and beautifully presented five bedroom family house, over four floors only, with a fabulous 45 ft long west-facing garden

ÂŁ4,750,000 Freehold

2,447 sq ft (227 sq m) Entrance hall | Drawing room | Kitchen | Dining room | Study | Master bedroom with en suite bathroom | Four further bedrooms | Further bathroom | Utility room | Two cloakrooms | West-facing garden | EPC rating E

Kensington 020 7938 3666 kensington@struttandparker.com

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Cambridge Place, Kensington W8

An impressive and wide five bedroom house, over four floors with a garage, situated in this most prestigious and sought after street, in the De Vere Conservation Area.

ÂŁ7,350,000 Freehold

3,712 sq ft (344 sq m) Entrance hall | Drawing room | Kitchen/breakfast room | Dining area | Family room | Two studies | Master bedroom with en suite shower room and dressing room | Four further bedrooms | Two further shower rooms | Bathroom | Cloakroom | Utility room | Wine cellar | Terrace | Garage | EPC rating F

Kensington 020 7938 3666 kensington@struttandparker.com

JSA: Knight Frank 020 7938 4311 kensington@knightfrank.com

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struttandparker.com

Portland Road, Holland Park W11

Spread over four floors, this beautifully presented house has excellent entertaining space including a formal ground floor drawing room with French doors onto a terrace.

£2,850 per week* Unfurnished

2,312 sq ft (214 sq m) Double drawing room | Kitchen/dining room | Family/T V area | Study | Master bedroom with en suite bathroom | Three further bedrooms | Bathroom | Garden | EPC rating E

Notting Hill 020 7221 1111

nottinghill.lettings@struttandparker.com

* The following Tenant charges may apply prior to tenancy commencement: Tenancy Agreement £210 (inc VAT) Credit References per application £54 (inc VAT). All advertised prices are exclusive of utility costs and associated services.

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Old Church Street, Chelsea SW3

A wonderful triple aspect apartment on the corner of Old Church Street and Mulberry Walk, in the heart of this most historic part of Chelsea.

£3,150 per week* Unfurnished

2,565 sq ft (238 sq m) Private street entrance | Double height open plan drawing room, dining area and kitchen | Galleried sitting room above | Master bedroom with en suite bathroom | Two further double bedrooms | Large family bathroom | Bedroom four with en suite shower room | Cloakroom | Excellent storage throughout | EPC rating D

Chelsea 020 7589 9966

chelsea.lettings@struttandparker.com * The following Tenant charges may apply prior to tenancy commencement: Tenancy Agreement £210 (inc VAT) Credit References per application £54 (inc VAT). All advertised prices are exclusive of utility costs and associated services.

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Glin Castle, County Limerick, Ireland

“One of Ireland’s most historic properties.”

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Guide price ÂŁ4,550,000

A romantic castellated mansion with superb interiors and enjoying a glorious setting within some 380 acres of parkland. Benefiting from being superbly positioned overlooking the Shannon estuary on the periphery of the attractive Glin village and is less than one hour’s drive to Limerick city centre and Shannon International airport.

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20,548 sq ft (1,909 sq m) Drawing room | Dining room | Living room | 3 Libraries | 2 Kitchens | Kitchenette | Office | Smoking room | 20 Bedrooms | 20 Bathrooms | 5 Cloakrooms | Garden room

Lulu Egerton 020 7225 3866 lulu.egerton@struttandparker.com

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savills.co.uk

1 AN IMMACULATELY REFURBISHED RAISED GROUND FLOOR FLAT pont street, sw1 Entrance hall ø reception room ø kitchen ø bedroom ø bathroom ø resident caretaker ø 54 sq m (583 sq ft) ø EPC=D

Strutt & Parker

Savills Sloane Street

Bertie Hare bertie.hare@struttandparker.com

Lucie Hirst lhirst@savills.com

020 7235 9959

020 7730 0822

Guide £1.495 million Leasehold, approximately 90 years remaining

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savills.co.uk

1 ELEGANT AND ATTRACTIVE MID VICTORIAN TOWNHOUSE lingfield road, sw19 3 reception rooms ø 5 bedrooms ø 3 bath/shower rooms ø 115ft rear garden ø approximately 150m from High Street and Common ø garage parking ø elegant interiors ø 233 sq m (2,508 sq ft) ø EPC=E

Savills Wimbledon Clive Moon cmoon@savills.com

020 8971 8120 Guide £3 million Freehold

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1

savills.co.uk

LETTINGS LAYOUT ONLY

2

LADBROKE GARDENS, w11

LANCASTER GATE, w2

3 bedrooms ø 2 bathrooms ø reception room ø communal garden ø Council Tax=H ø EPC=D

3 bedrooms ø 3 bathrooms ø reception room ø private roof terrace ø direct lift access ø 162 sq m (1,750 sq ft) ø Council Tax=G ø EPC=F

Unfurnished £1,495 per week

Furnished £1,695 per week

+ £276 inc VAT tenancy paperwork fee and other charges may apply* Savills Notting Hill amackinnon@savills.com 020 7727 5751

+ £276 inc VAT tenancy paperwork fee and other charges may apply* Savills Notting Hill

STAFFORD TERRACE, w8

CHENISTON GARDENS, w8

4 bedrooms ø 4 bathrooms ø reception room ø kitchen ø sauna and steam room ø garden ø 225 sq m (2,421 sq ft) ø Council Tax=H ø EPC=D

2 bedrooms ø bathroom ø shower room ø reception room ø open plan kitchen ø 2 terraces ø stylish furnishings ø 80 sq m (870 sq ft) ø Council Tax=G ø EPC=D

Furnished £3,950 per week

Furnished £995 per week

+ £276 inc VAT tenancy paperwork fee and other charges may apply* Savills Kensington lgood@savills.com 020 7535 3333

+ £276 inc VAT tenancy paperwork fee and other charges may apply* Savills Kensington lgood@savills.com 020 7535 3333

3

4

*£36 additional tenant/occupant/guarantor referencereference where required. check out fee -check charged at the of or early *£36inc incVAT VATfor foreach each additional tenant/occupant/guarantor whereInventory required.

Inventory out fee end – charged at termination the end of or early termination ofofthe andand the amount is dependent on the property and whether furnished/unfurnished.

For more details For including fee, visit www.savills.co.uk/fees. thetenancy tenancy the amount is dependent on the size property size and whether furnished/unfurnished. moreexample details,inventory visit www.savills.co.uk/fees.

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savills.co.uk

1 A STUNNING VILLAGE HOME white waltham, berkshire 5 bedroom detached house ø 3 reception rooms ø games room ø kitchen/breakfast room ø miele & siemens appliances ø luxury specification ø South facing garden ø detached double garage ø private driveway

Savills Windsor Charles Elsmore-Wickens cewickens@savills.com

01753 834600

Guide £1.695 million

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EDMUND HOUSE SLEEPERS HILL, WINCHESTER

An exceptional five bedroom house with luxurious bathrooms, just a shade under 5,500 sq ft with a magnificent garden and stunning views towards the South Downs.

Accommodation comprises reception hall, study or formal dining room, drawing room with elegant limestone fire place, galleried library, kitchen (by bulthaup), dining area and family room with double sets of bi-folding doors opening onto an expansive terrace and garden, plus laundry room, media room and bespoke wine room.

Guide Price ÂŁ2,950,000 To register your interest, please contact our joint agents:

S AV I L L S 01962 841842 J K E N N E R L E Y @ S AV I L L S . C O M

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PEARSONS 01962 853344 WINCHESTER@PEARSONS.COM

W W W. A L F R E D H O M E S . C O . U K

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Part of the Chestertons Group

Somerton Somerset Guide Price ÂŁ1,500,000

An exceptional Grade II Listed property comprising a beautiful Georgian house with annexe, gym and entertainment area, set within beautiful gardens and grounds of circa 6 acres. EPC exempt.

Yeovil 01935 477 277 yeovil@humberts.com

Country Department 020 7594 4746 jeremy.campbell-harris@humberts.com

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Newark Nottinghamshire Guide Price ÂŁ1,000,000

Nottingham 0115 9505 444 nottingham@humberts.com

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offices across the country

Country Department

A sensational and extremely unique luxurious detached family home, skilfully redesigned for family living where the layout naturally flows showcasing the beautiful accommodation.

Situated only a short distance from the market town of Newark and access to the East Coast Main Line (London Kings Cross scheduled from 1 hour 13 minutes). EPC rating C.

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London and International offices as part of the Chestertons Group

days a week opening

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Part of the Chestertons Group

Castle Combe Wiltshire Guide Price ÂŁ1,950,000

A stunning and impressive Grade II country house in a private elevated position on the edge of Castle Combe with glorious views over the roof tops of the village. In all about 1.8 acres.

EPC Exempt.

Chippenham 01249 444 557 chippenham@humberts.com

Country Department 020 7594 4746 jeremy.campbell-harris@humberts.com

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FIND

THE

HOME

YOU D E S E RVE

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01223 214214

cheffins.co.uk

Little Abington, Cambridgeshire

UNRIVALLED COVERAGE AROUND CAMBRIDGE

Guide Price ÂŁ950,000

A rather special and most stylish barn conversion of immense character and exceptional quality in a wonderful position within an exclusive small courtyard style scheme towards the edge of this sought after village just 7 miles south of Cambridge.

Beautifully presented and well-proportioned accommodation comprising magnificent reception hall/dining/living room, drawing room, breakfast room, study, luxuriously appointed kitchen/ breakfast room, cloak room, utility. First floor galleried landing, principle bedroom with luxury en-suite and dressing room, 3 further bedrooms, en-suite and further bathroom. South facing landscaped walled garden, double garage with roller doors. Workshop and attic/store/games room. Garden store. EER: Awaiting

Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire

Guide Price ÂŁ950,000

An extended and refurbished detached period residence offering substantial and extremely flexible accommodation of approximately 3,000 sq.ft. with the added benefit of an independently built annexe of approx 1,700 sq.ft. all set within mature and private gardens of approximately 2 acres conveniently placed for commuters with its own mainline station and major routes closeby.

Entrance hall, 4 reception rooms, kitchen/breakfast room, 6 bedrooms including 2 ground floor bedrooms with kitchenettes, 5 bathrooms.

5 bedroom detached annexe. Equestrian potential. EER: D

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CAMBRIDGE ELY HAVERHILL NEWMARKET SAFFRON WALDEN LONDON

Portugal Street, Cambridge

Guide Price ÂŁ800,000

A most impressive and stylish modern town house situated in a prestigious location close to the church of St Clement, Jesus Green and Historic City Centre. With a number of fine architectural features including vaulted ceiling in the second bedroom suite, plus its own private parking space.

Versatile and well-proportioned accommodation comprising: Reception hall, living room with open fireplace, kitchen/dining room, cloakroom, master bedroom with en-suite and balcony off, further bedroom and bathroom. EER: Awaiting

Huntingdon Road, Cambridge

Guide Price ÂŁ795,000

A most beautifully presented and well proportioned Victorian bay fronted residence with versatile and spacious accommodation over three floors with generous garden and garage/studio in this most convenient location towards the city end of Huntingdon Road.

Entrance hall, 3 reception rooms, kitchen/breakfast room, landing, 4 bedrooms, luxury bathroom and cloakroom. EER: Awaiting

Passionate about property since 1825

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Navestockside, Brentwood Guide price £2,000,000 – Six double bedrooms

‘Brentwood mainline train station is within 3.7 miles’ A stunning Six double bedroom Country residence.

Situated within an idyllic rural position on the periphery of the popular hamlet of Navestock Side, approximately 3.5 miles from Brentwood. The property is approached via electric entry gates into an extensive sweeping driveway which gives access to both sides of the property and onto the 3.5 acre plot (stls) which incorporates outbuildings, a small lake and two substantial garden terraces. There are three receptions and beautiful kitchen which has open studwork to a breakfast/ living room opening to the rear terrace. EPC N/A Country Homes: 01245 397 475

Little Burstead, Billericay Guide price £975,000 – Four bedrooms

‘Set within a stunning plot of 3.5 acres (stls)’ A charming four bedroom cottage thought to date back to 1890 set in stunning grounds of approximately 3.5 acres (stls).

The property offers two further good size receptions, large utility/ workshop, detached one bedroom annexe, detached games room, stunning landscaped formal grounds with pasture land/paddock beyond. Fantastic equestrian potential if required. Billericay mainline train station within 1.5 miles. EPC F Country Homes: 01245 397 475

Property professionals with branches across Essex and into Greater and Central London.

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Stopham, West Sussex

£625,000

A beautifully appointed first floor 3 bedroom apartment in this historic mansion with private roof terrace, garage and lovely views over parkland. Extensively refurbished with an extended lease and enjoying 6 acres of wonderful landscaped grounds in a rural setting between Petworth and Pulborough.

Entrance Hall • Drawing Room • Roof Terrace • Kitchen/Breakfast Room • Dining Hall • Cloakroom • Principal Bedroom with en-suite Bathroom • Bedroom 2 with en-suite Shower Room • Study/Bedroom 3 • Courtyard Garage and Parking • Beautiful Parklands and Walled Garden • Updated by present owners • Pulborough Station approx 1 mile (for London Victoria 80 minutes).

Associate London Office: 12 Park Lane, London W1K 7AG Tel: 0207 079 1553

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www.comynandjames.co.uk

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Beyond your expectations www.hamptons.co.uk

Clareville Street, SW7 A superb four bedroom house, which has been comprehensively refurbished to the highest standards, offering impressive reception space, four generous bedrooms all with en-suite bathrooms and a garage. The property is presented in immaculate decorative order, with air conditioning on the upper floors and an intelligent lighting system. EPC: B

£6,500,000 Freehold • • • •

Reception room Kitchen and dining room Family room Four generous bedrooms all with en-suite bathrooms • Guest cloakroom • Garage

Knightsbridge Sales: 020 7717 5461 | knightsbridge@hamptons-int.com

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Courtfield Gardens, SW5 A stunning four bedroom first and second floor apartment, forming part of this beautiful stucco fronted period building. This impressive flat has direct lift access to both floors, and also offers a beautifully presented first floor reception room, with direct access to a private terrace with views over wonderful communal gardens. EPC: B

£4,450,000 Share of Freehold • • • • • •

Four bedrooms Stunning views over gardens Split level first and second floors Lift Roof terrace 2,031 sq ft

Chelsea Sales: 020 7717 5431 | chelsea@hamptons-int.com

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Beyond your expectations www.hamptons.co.uk

Palace Court, W2 A superb lateral four bedroom penthouse apartment, which spans three buildings creating a light space with delightful views. Beautifully refurbished, the exceptional attention to detail is demonstrated by the retractable roof in the dining area and the exquisite furnishings throughout. The apartment is sold fully furnished and dressed. EPC: B

£4,750,000 Share of Freehold • • • • • •

Two reception rooms Four bedrooms Three bathrooms Direct lift access Air conditioning High quality security system

Notting Hill Sales: 020 7034 0404 | nottinghill@hamptons-int.com

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Westbourne Terrace, W2 Within an attractive white stucco fronted period building is this refurbished Grade II listed three bedroom apartment with a larger than average private garden (25ft x 21ft) and decked patio.

Stylishly developed and configured to provide luxury modern living.

£1,975,000 Leasehold • • • • • •

Newly refurbished Three bedroom Three bathroom Private rear garden Decked patio 1,503 sq ft (139.6 sq m)

Hyde Park & Bayswater Sales: 020 7723 0023 | hydeparkbayswater@hamptons-int.com

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Beyond your expectations www.hamptons.co.uk

Buckingham Street, WC2N An imposing Grade II listed Georgian property, positioned in a quiet street within the Adelphi Conservation Area, nestled between The Strand and Victoria Embankment Gardens.

The two bedroom, two bathroom apartment features voluminous entertaining space, benefiting from high ceilings and grandly proportioned sash windows of the Georgian era.

£2,750,000 Leasehold • • • • • •

Two bedrooms Two bathrooms Grade II listed building Quiet location Ample entertaining space High ceilings

Mayfair Sales: 020 7758 8450 | mayfair@hamptons-int.com

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Pembroke Square, W8 Located on Pembroke Square and Earls Walk in the heart of Kensington, this property encompasses both tradition and the contemporary. A newly developed five bedroom Grade II listed Kensington townhouse and newly built two bedroom mews with a garage for two cars.

EPC: C

£8,950,000 Freehold • • • • • •

Five bedrooms Terraced Communal garden Private parking Mews Very good decoration

Kensington Sales: 020 7937 9371 | kensington@hamptons-int.com

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Beyond your expectations www.hamptons.co.uk

Chipstead, Surrey Reigate – 4.3 miles; Central London – 22.7 miles; Gatwick – 15 miles; Heathrow – 29 miles. (All distances/times approximate).

A substantial and impressive Queen Anne style house understood to date from the 19th century, situated off a rural lane and surrounded by extensive landscaped grounds and equestrian facilities. The property has undergone a complete refurbishment program to a high specification.

Guide Price £5,450,000 Freehold • • • • • •

Master bedroom suites with 2 dressing rooms Five bedrooms and 3 bathrooms Annexe 2 cottages and outbuildings Gardens and paddock In all about 42.8 acres

Country House Department 020 7493 8222 | countryhouse@hamptons-int.com

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Mortimer, Reading, Berkshire Reading – 7.5 miles, Newbury – 14 miles, Heathrow – 31 miles, Oxford – 33 miles, Southampton – 43 miles, M4 (Junction 11) – 4 miles. (All distances/times approximate).

Heron Lodge is an outstanding Queen Anne style country house set in its own parkland and grounds with stable block. Recently constructed to an exemplary standard with generous interiors and classic proportions.

Guide Price £4,500,000 Freehold • • • • • •

7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms 5 reception rooms Conservatory Self-contained flat Outbuildings, equestrian In all about 12 acres

Country House Department Newbury | 01635 582111 | countryhouse@hamptons-int.com

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Beyond your expectations www.hamptons.co.uk

Hambledon, nr Godalming, Surrey Godalming Station (London Waterloo 50 mins); Guildford Station (Waterloo 42 mins); Central London – 40 miles; Heathrow – 32 miles; Gatwick – 33 miles; Farnborough Airport – 18 miles.

(All distances/times approximate).

The opportunity to create a truly unique English country estate of classical design in a very private and secure setting. The landscaped grounds offer pristine parkland, lakes and ancient woodland, allowing for the outdoor pursuits of fishing, horseriding and shooting to be enjoyed.

Price on Application Freehold • • • • • •

9 Ensuite bedrooms 5 Principle reception rooms Separate guest and staff cottages and flats Equestrian, indoor pool and leisure facilities Gate lodge In all about 212 acres

Country House Department 020 7493 8222 | countryhouse@hamptons-int.com

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Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire Beaconsfield Station – 0.5 miles (Marylebone from 23 minutes); M40(Junction2) – 2 miles; M25 (Junction 16) – 5 miles; Central London – 25 miles. (All distances/times approximate).

Eleven is located within Beaconsfield’s golden triangle, on one of the towns most sought after roads. Built to a spectacular standard and set within a mature acre of gardens and grounds.

Guide Price £6,995,000 Freehold • • • • • •

5 Principal first floor bedroom suites Bespoke fittings including ‘Extreme’ kitchens Triple garage Self contained flat Cinema suite Gardens and grounds, in all about 1 acre

Country House Department Beaconsfield | 01494 677744 | countryhouse@hamptons-int.com

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BO ODL ES.COM / BL OS SOM

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