Country Life 24th May 2023

EVERY WEEK MAY 24, 2023

The wonderful West Country

60 pages of delightful property

Is Shakespeare our greatest naturalist?

Operation orchid: the great flower rescue Full steam ahead: the beauty of heritage trains

VOL CCXX NO 21, MAY 24, 2023

Eliza was educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art before joining art insurance brokers Hallett Independent. She is the daughter of Honor and the late Edward Dubois of Hampshire and follows in the footsteps of her mother (née Sharpe), who appeared on the Frontispiece on December 12, 1996.

Photographed by Millie Pilkington

Miss Eliza Maud Dubois

Contents May 24, 2023

Bedruthan Steps, Cornwall, at low tide (eye35/Alamy)

COVER STORIES

82 The original Nature boy Shakespeare’s understanding of the natural world and its wildlife shows him to be a true countryman, says John Lewis-Stempel

96 Let’s pull together

Indefatigable volunteers and picturesque locomotives mean Britain’s heritage railways are thriving. Melanie Bryan and Kate Green climb aboard

116 The kraken wakes Spectacular properties new to the market are giving the West Country ever more allure, describes Penny Churchill

120 Give it a west James Fisher presents his pick of West Country properties

134 Where the wild orchids sing

Ben Jacob goes in search of our increasingly rare native orchids, from early spider to heath spotted, lizard and ghost

THIS WEEK

78 Christopher Jackson’s favourite painting

The poet chooses a poignant scene with a powerful message

80 Gather your wits

The Bard had a line for every occasion, finds Agnes Stamp

88 Making a modern castle

In the second of two articles, Clive Aslet unravels the travails of constructing—and restoring

—Sir Edwin Lutyens’s massive, remote Castle Drogo in Devon

94 Native breeds

Kate Green admires the tough, locally prized Exmoor Horn

102 Earning their stripes

Cheerful Cornishware china is a familiar sight in kitchens across the land. Paula Lester takes her turn at the potter’s wheel

106 Move over Mrs Beeton Her recipes are familiar, yet her name is forgotten. Neil Buttery salutes cook Elizabeth Raffald

110 Interiors

Giles Kime pays tribute to US designer Billy Baldwin and Amelia Thorpe gathers modern versions of his slipper chair

122 Shared economy

You can enjoy a far-flung home without the mundane realities. Agnes Stamp reveals how

124 Pastoral care

Shaded shrubberies yield to fine views at Little Benville House, Dorset. George Plumptre visits

132 Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson on carrots

144 The good stuff

Hetty Lintell takes to the water

A triumphant return thanks to horticultural endeavour: the once-frost-damaged Wisteria Walk at RHS Wisley, Surrey, blooms at last

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’Tis the season

MR MCGREGOR would be in seventh heaven: the lupins, the lettuces, the espaliered apple trees, the radishes— with nary a pesky rabbit in sight. As you read this, thousands of visitors will be happily sniffing roses, admiring orchids, working out how to train a wisteria or trying to push their new delphinium into a London taxi. It’s the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, one element of the well-oiled calendar of spectacular events that traditionally illuminates a British summer, spanning some 100 days of beautifully orchestrated light relief from the dispiriting ills of this nation.

Next up is the Ashes (starts on June 16), when England and Australia’s finest sportsmen slug it out in tense competition (we hope) on shimmering pitches across the country and gardeners snooze in greenhouses to the gentle murmurings of Test Match Special. The cricket overlaps with noisier Royal

Ascot: splendid regal pageantry, noble gleaming horses, outrageous hats and a last hurrah for Frankie Dettori, the Italian jockey who has lit up British racecourses for four decades with genius horsemanship and flying dismounts. His farewell tour of the graded races began in style, with a win in the 2000 Guineas earlier this month, and there’s still the Derby, Glorious Goodwood and the St Leger among the colourful meetings to come. O n the water comes Henley—boaters and blazers on the bank, muscular oarsmen in the river—and Cowes Week. Tennis fever— and eternal national optimism—grips the country during Wimbledon fortnight. The horse world has Hickstead, site of the precipitous Derby Bank, one of the greatest challenges in showjumping six decades after it was built by Douglas Bunn, and the Royal International Horse Show, plus highgoal polo at Cowdray and horse trials against the glorious backdrops of Bramham Park,

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The Princess Royal’s Gatcombe Park and on the historic, Capability-Brown landscapes of Burghley House and Blenheim Palace.

Then, there’s the music (not to mention the picnics and the flags): an ever-more impressive calendar of country-house opera that defies the Arts cuts and the Brexit paperwork, Glastonbury and glamping/camping, plus the feat of international logistics that is the BBC Proms, the season of festivities culminating in its Last Night ecstasy of patriotism and brilliance.

I f this all sounds too exhausting and expensive, there’s not only the blissful armchair television watching, but lower-key, more charming local versions with cheaper tickets and shorter queues: the county agricultural shows that showcase British farming and produce, the fun family regattas with inevitable dunkings, village fêtes with Pimm’s stalls and village cricket with egg sandwiches. Just as much fun, really.

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Town & Country

Edited by James Fisher

Farming to the fore

ALANDMARK food summit intended to tackle issues such as foodprice inflation, supply-chain issues, domestic investment and selfsufficiency in food production has received mixed reviews (Agromenes, page 75 ). The summit, titled Farm to Fork and hosted by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at No 10, Downing Street, arose from a commitment made by Mr Sunak to the NFU last year and was designed to ‘convene the whole supply chain together’ to discuss the measures needed to ‘build resilience and transparency’ in the sector. Defra Secretary Thérèse Coffey was also in attendance, as were farmers, lobbyists, trade bodies and supermarket representatives.

After the meeting, the NFU was cautiously optimistic, with president Minette Batters noting ‘the number of cabinet ministers present shows the ambition for cross-departmental coordination to deliver measures to boost homegrown food production’. She also said that farmers and growers will be ‘relieved’ to see UK food security being taken seriously.

After the summit, an update was published by the Government that contained some new announcements, which include a £12.5 million investment into research on environmental sustainability and resilience, a boost to the number of seasonal workers available to

horticulture and ‘cutting red tape’, as well as commitments on water and energy security. In advance of the summit, the Prime Minister also published a ‘letter to British Farmers’, in which he highlighted the importance of trade in boosting the agriculture sector and set out six principles ‘to ensure British farming is at the heart of British trade’.

The Prime Minister set out six principles

These are: putting agriculture up front; protecting sensitive sectors; prioritising new export opportunities; protecting UK food standards; upholding UK production standards; and removing market access barriers.

‘What we need now is to build on these announcements,’ added Mrs Batters. ‘We are calling for a set of core agri-food import standards for trade. Although it is pleasing [that] the Government is looking to maintain self-sufficiency at 60%, we believe there’s an

opportunity to produce much more of our own food. We can and should be more ambitious... Vitally, the Farm to Fork Summit should become an annual event, as our food supply is part of the UK’s national infrastructure and will ensure food security never drops down the political agenda, across all parties, again.’ However, not everyone in attendance was impressed by the summit, with some participants describing it as an ‘empty meeting’ and that it ‘did not touch the fundamental problems of food price inflation’. One attendee, British Poultry Council CEO Richard Griffiths, said that the summit was only ‘a little step forward’ and that ‘there needs to be more attention to how we and the Government promote British food’. He also added that focusing on trade deals without making a plan to deal with inflation was ‘like taking one corner of a big problem and trying to fix it without reference to the rest’.

The secretary of the Lea Valley Growers’ Association, Lee Stiles, was more damning, calling the summit a ‘PR stunt’ with ‘nothing of substance’ to help growers. He was not in attendance, but called on the Government to tackle issues with labour shortages, adding that the current seasonal workers scheme is ‘not fit for purpose’ and that ‘the idea you can fill these roles with local workers is ridiculous’.

“to ensure British farming is at the heart of British trade”

They feed us, we must listen to them: reactions to the Government’s Farm to Fork summit have been mixed, from optimistic to sceptical

The end must be good

ABATTOIR closures are causing chaos to farming and food businesses across the country, a survey has revealed.

The Sustainable Food Trust (SFT) polled some 1,300 farming and food businesses across the country and found a large majority stated that their closest abattoir is either ‘essential or important’ to the success of their business. However, with small abattoirs closing at a rate of 10% per year, according to the Food Standards Agency, many businesses and farms are in peril, with journey times for livestock increasing and busy abattoirs proving difficult to book into.

One respondent was very clear that their business relied on their local abattoir, saying ‘if this one closed, we would lose our business’. Another added that ‘we are very lucky, but if it shut, I would have to stop livestock farming, because the nearest would be too far away’. Thirty respondents even used an abattoir that has closed down since the survey was conducted and some farmers are having to send their animals on journeys of more than 200 miles to

slaughter. ‘Since Orkney abattoir closed in 2018, the situation here is dire—most of the freerange rare-breed pig farmers have closed down,’ said one Orkney farmer. ‘The next nearest abattoir costs us more than £250 just for the ferry taking a trailer that can hold a maximum of 20 sheep, then there is the 30-mile drive to the port and the 110mile drive to Dingwall.’

The SFT and industry group National Craft Butchers both called on the Government to do more to protect local abattoirs.

‘This survey highlights that a diverse network of abattoirs throughout the UK is vital to farms of all sizes and to the viability of meat businesses,’ said Megan Perry, head of policy and campaigns at the SFT. ‘We welcomed the Government’s announcement of funding for the sector, earlier this year. For

Plant for our pollinators

SATURDAY was World Bee Day and, to celebrate our endangered pollinating pals, the RSPB has released some tips to make your garden buzz. Some 35 species of bee are currently endangered in the UK, which is an issue as one in every three mouthfuls of food we eat depends on pollinators such as bees, according to the RSPB. Bees and other species pollinate about £700 million worth of crops each year; farmers would be forced to spend some £1.8 billion on manual pollination each year without them.

To avoid this ‘bee-mageddon’, the RSPB has come up with six things you can

Good week for Short-necked surprises

24 short-necked oil beetles, one of the UK’s rarest inhabitants, were found during a conservationproject launch event at Balranald Nature Reserve on North Uist. Their presence is an indication of a healthy biodiverse system Bee-utiful

this fund to have the impact needed, it must be accessible, broad and with a long time frame and it must be implemented alongside work to address other issues including regulation, recruitment and waste disposal costs. We will work with the Abattoir Sector Group and Defra’s Small Abattoir Working Group in progressing solutions.’

Eleanor O’Brien, managing director at National Craft Butchers, said: ‘Alongside funding, the Government needs to implement flexibilities that already exist within regulation... that will help smaller abattoirs to increase productivity, expand and thrive. Without this two-fold approach, the small abattoir sector will continue to stagnate, with severe consequences for farmers, animal welfare and supply-chain diversity and resilience.’

The South Downs National Park is celebrating flourishing numbers of bees thanks to a wildlife-corridor initiative, the size of 163 football pitches, that has encouraged an ‘enormous increase in biodiversity’ Blackadder

A new series of 12 stamps has been released to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first airing of the classic British comedy Blackadder. The stamps, which feature scenes from all four series, are available to pre-order now and cost £19.60

Holidogs

A poll by the London North Eastern Railway found that one in four dog owners in the UK refuse to go on holiday without their dog. 59% now opt for a ‘staycation’ so the dog can go with them

Bad week for

Hole in the head

A runner has been left with claw marks on his head after being attacked by a buzzard in Friockheim, Angus. The birds of prey lay their eggs in mid April to May, a time when their territoriality is enhanced

Death on the Lim

do to create a wildlife friendly garden at home. These include planting wildflowers, such as lavender, heather and honeysuckle, to create a ‘riot of colour that’s great for bees’ and introducing a ‘bee hotel’, which will offer a space for them to nest. The RSPB also notes that avoiding pesticides, letting weeds grow in certain areas and providing a water source will help boost bee numbers.

For more information on how to help our pollinators, visit the RSPB website (www.rspb. org.uk) or the United Nations World Bee Day page (www.un.org/ observances/bee-day).

The River Lim in Devon/Dorset has been declared ‘ecologically dead’ after a three-fold increase in the amount of sewage pumped into it in less than a year. South West Water is ‘striving to improve’ White-tailed targets Police have launched an investigation after two dead white-tailed eagles were found in Ballymena, Co Antrim. There were no obvious signs of injury and suspicions were raised due to the unlikely site AEW

Local abattoirs are vital for animal welfare and viable farms

Town & Country

Trailblazing female artist Rena Gardiner produced about 40 books and pamphlets about her native Dorset and elsewhere during her lifetime (1929–99). One of those books, Portrait of Dorset: The South-East, was originally published as a limited edition of 30 copies back in 1960, but has recently been reprinted by the small imprint Design For Today. Described as her ‘masterpiece’, the book features 190 pages of lithographs and drawings (such as Lulworth Cove, right ), as well as an essay about Gardiner (£75, www.designfortoday.co.uk). Dorset is also the inspiration for landscape artist Henrietta Hoyer Millar, whose latest exhibition opens tomorrow at the Long & Ryle gallery, London SW1. Titled ‘Into the Light’, the show will feature a new body of work that focuses on light (including The Secret Garden, left ) and how it transforms the landscape (www.longandryle.com)

The upward chicken

MY partner just popped them on me one day, and they are handled lots so they don’t seem bothered,’ says contortionist Pixie Le Knot (real name Jennifer Keith) of her rehomed hens. ‘They love perching so they cling on and settle into it.’ Miss Keith signed up to become a volunteer for the British Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT) in 2022 after rehoming six chickens. The BHWT was established in 2005 by Jane Howorth with the intent of rehoming former laying hens, as well as improving hen welfare across the commercial and domestic sectors. June 1 will see the start of the BHWT Volunteer Week and Miss Keith is one of many current volunteers hoping to see new faces get involved. ‘People are so shocked when they spend time with them,’ she says. ‘I work with kids who are sometimes a bit scared of them, but they soon realise that chickens want to be held and they are actually better than “traditional” pets, such as rabbits and guinea pigs,

For more information on the BHWT and volunteering opportunities,

Hug a Henry Moore

FIFTY years ago, Sir Robert and Lady Sainsbury donated their art collection to the University of East Anglia and asked a young, unknown architect named Norman Foster if he might create a ‘radical alternative’ to the traditional art museum. The result was the Sainsbury Centre in Norfolk, a now Grade II*-listed building containing works of art from Henry Moore to Alberto Giacometti. To celebrate its anniversary, the centre is growing its alternative reputation by becoming ‘the first museum in the world to recognise art as being alive’ and by inviting visitors to interact with its collection in a ‘fundamentally different way’. What this means in practice is that visitors will be able to hug Moore’s Mother and Child, lie down and talk to a Giacometti portrait, experience being on display in a showcase, having written a 50-word label about themselves, and dance with Tang dynasty ceramics. ‘Visitors... will be told that they are here to meet art as a living entity, they can select their own journey from either an experiential, analogue or digital pathway.’

‘As living beings and a physical presence of the incredible people and cultures that created them, the art... can help reframe and answer the most important questions people have in their lives,’ said executive director Jago Cooper. ‘It is not a museum to only learn more about artists such as Francis Bacon or movements such as Modernism. It is a place of experience, to witness the effects of substance abuse, understand why people kill each other and visualise the origins of a globalising world. We have developed the environment, experiences and a new approach to help set visitors on this journey.’

Where art is alive: visitors will be encouraged to interact with the art at the Sainsbury Centre in Norfolk as never before

The fading glory of glass

HISTORIC stained-glass windowmaking is now on the Heritage Crafts Red List, it has been revealed. Those at the British Society of Master Glass Painters (BSMGP) have known that the craft has been threatened for some time, but this is the first official recognition that the skill is in danger.

‘Obviously, there are mixed emotions on receiving the verdict from Heritage Crafts that this important strain of our craft is endangered,’ said Steve Clare, BSMGP chairman. ‘On one hand, it confirms our view that, despite our efforts to encourage the next generation of artists and craftspeople to join, we are now at dangerously low levels of professionals to protect the UK’s heritage of stained-glass making. On the positive side, we hope that this announcement will allow the society to shine a light on the problem and to galvanise others to help us create a renaissance in the use of stained glass and, therefore, to provide a future living for apprentices coming into the craft.’

The organisation has pointed out that a loss of skills, ageing practitioners, the decline in educational opportunities

An author by another name

and courses and the scarcity and rising costs of raw materials have all had an impact on the craft. For example, skills in designing and cartooning for stained glass take time to develop and ‘traditionally, these skills are passed from master to apprentice’. The BSMGP and Heritage Crafts believe there are only a ‘handful’ of studios left in the UK capable of this highly specialised work. However, the BSMGP is determined not to let the skill die out. ‘In 2023, stained glass is seen by so many as an art of a bygone era and simply a median for churches or doors in Victorian properties,’ says Deborah Parkes, BSMGP council member and head of projects. ‘My job is to inspire homeowners, as well as architects and interior designers, to look again at its potential. The vision is for a virtuous circle—a renaissance in stained glass will create more demand for the skills of artists and associated craftspeople, allowing the dwindling number of accredited professionals to take on apprentices and encourage more young people to enrol on courses.’ For more information, visit www.bsmgp.org.uk

In the April 26 issue of COUNTRY LIFE, we referred to the author of the account of the 1937 coronation of George VI by her maiden name, Dorothy Maltby, when her name at the time was Dorothy Wells. We apologise and would like to correct the record.

Country Mouse Rare glimpses

WE saw a live hedgehog last week. Unfortunately, the increasingly rare mammal was crossing one of Andover’s numerous roundabouts—did the town planners there and at nearby Basingstoke have some sort of competition to see who could fit in the most? We circled around for a second look. It had been squashed.

A happier sighting was at dusk when a barn owl appeared, while the mayflies performed their final yo-yo dances in the trees and the sun slid away. The owl methodically criss-crossed the meadow as if it was trying to colour in the whole field with its pale shadow. I watched it for 20 minutes. Occasionally, the slow, gliding wing beats were interrupted as it rose higher into the sky like an angel ready to pounce. I didn’t see it catch anything to feed its young waiting in the church tower.

Barn owls and tawny owls do not get along. They are like squabbling factions of the same political party. The larger brown owls are known to predate on the white owl’s nests. This is a shame, as, back at home, we live in tawny-owl central and the ultimate flourish to my wildflower meadow of a hunting barn owl coursing across it on a summer’s evening is unlikely to happen. MH

Town Mouse Feeling the funnies

THEpast week has been filled with travel and included some memorable moments, from being drenched to the skin in five minutes on the tour of a Scottish wind farm to being piped into a splendid dinner. Going away massively complicated domestic arrangements and demanded a great deal of texting within the family. It’s a medium of communication in which the language used by the children respectively to address parents and friends—a distinction that is normally strictly maintained—becomes confused. A parental enquiry, therefore, briefly expressed in sentences with punctuation in a single message, about the time of homecoming might get a response in three separate messages such as this: ‘Hey Daddy… I’m gonna be back… Bout hour and twenty.’ Not all messages are so clear. Is ‘feeling the funnies’ an acceptable excuse for missing activities after school?

As this column goes to press, meanwhile, preparations are underway for one of the children to go on a Duke of Edinburgh hike. Old camping equipment has been rescued from cupboards and there is a rising nervousness about the distance to be walked and the discomforts involved. It’s hard to offer much encouragement, however, because making light of these things belittles the whole enterprise. I’m holding my peace, confident they’ll love it. JG

Town & Country Notebook

Quiz of the week

1) Artist Andy Scott designed which giant sculptures that stand by the Forth and Clyde Canal extension in Falkirk, Scotland?

2) Which is the most northerly town in mainland Britain?

3) In which year did the Black Death reach medieval England?

4) In Gulliver’s Travels, what creatures were the Houyhnhnms?

5) What’s the name of a badger’s home?

Word of the week

100 years ago in May 26, 1923

Edited by Carla Passino

Cabinet of curiosities by David Profumo

ALTHOUGH it’s many years since I reluctantly quit my 40-a-day habit, I retain a fondness for tobacciana—the accessories associated with smoking that range from cigarette cards to pocket cases (my Trussardi example of the latter, in walnut and silver, bought on Capri in 1985, remains a pride and joy). This cream Bakelite dispenser—the Coronet model from Rolinx, with faux-croc Levant grain inserts—was designed by Maurice H. Robin in the 1950s and features a pleasing

Time to buy

Hope Cove

Seashells candle, £18, The Salcombe Candle Company (www.salcombecandle company.com)

roller-shutter mechanism, derived from a pencil box, that automatically reloads the five arms with ciggies (‘compact’ size only, three inches maximum) whenever it is closed. Such elegance, compared with the industrial paraphernalia of vaping. Follow David on Instagram

@david_profumo

HACKING is a lost art; very few modern horsemen know what a good hack is, or how to utilise his paces if, perchance, one should come their way. The day of the hack seems to have gone; as a method of getting about in comfort, the horse is extinct: he is now merely a means of joining in certain sports. The hack probably achieved his greatest popularity when the Route de Roi (Rotten Row) was the fashionable gathering of the London season. Neither time nor money was grudged at that period for a perfect hack. Those were the days when the famous Marquess of Anglesey rode his hack 19 times from Piccadilly into Albemarle Street before it took the corner to his perfect satisfaction.—Aniseed

Cheese and chutney gift set, £20, Godminster (www.godminster.com)

Spanish Flowers in a Vase signed print with printed edge, £60, Jessica Russell Flint (www.jessica russellflint.co.uk)

Riddle me this

They only number 26, but together can form millions; they do not speak, but can tell entire stories. What are they?

1) ‘The Kelpies’ 2) Thurso 3) 1348

4) Intelligent horses 5) Sett. Riddle me this: The letters of the English alphabet

‘The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid’

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

In the spotlight Basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus)

A mysterious submarine returns to our coastal waters each summer, a huge creature that long pre-dates the dinosaurs, but, being perfectly fit for purpose, has had no need to remodel itself in the millions of years it has slowly trawled the temperate oceans. Wide-open jawed, with vertical tea strainers for cheeks, Cetorhinus maximus, the gentle basking shark, is the second-largest fish in the oceans (the largest being the whale shark, another docile filter-feeder in tropical seas). Although seaside-holiday sightings of a dorsal fin above the waterline are guaranteed to clear

Unmissable events

May 26–August 16

‘Constable: The Dark Side’, The Gallery at The Arc, Winchester, Hampshire. Chiaroscuro takes centre stage in this exhibition that examines how the Suffolk painter used it in his landscapes (0370 779 6833; www.arcwinchester.org.uk)

May 27–29 Medieval Festival

—A Skirmish, Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex. Travel back to the 15th century to see the Lancastrians battle the Yorkists and discover medieval forging, leather work, weapons

swimmers from the shallows, basking sharks are completely harmless and follow the plankton blooms created when warm waters of the Gulf Stream mix with nutrient-rich Arctic currents, straining off the tiny marine creatures entering their yard-wide open mouths. Cornish, Irish and Hebridean coasts count among their popular feeding grounds, although it’s now understood that winter migration is usually to deeper waters (to a depth of up to some 3,000ft), serving up different planktons at depths where temperatures are more stable.

Wines of the week

White scent-sation

Cantina di Gambellara, Monopolio Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, Veneto, Italy, 2022. £14.35, Alexander Hadleigh, alc 13% This Pinot Grigio comes from the calcareous, volcanic hills in the small Gambellara commune to the east of Soave village. The wine is focused and intense, with a super-fragrant character: white peach, white flowers, wax and honey waft from the glass.

Crunch time

Altano, Reserva Branco, Douro, Portugal, 2019. £14.75, Fareham Wine Cellar, alc 13.5%

A well-crafted blend of Viosinho, Gouveio, Rabigato and other white varieties from a Symington vineyard in Provesende. Fermented in oak and left on the lees until bottling; subtle creaminess and spice add complexity to the lychee, peach and pear fruit. Pleasant, crunchy bite, a vibrant acid lift.

and armour, plus fire eating and artillery demonstrations. One to do with the children (01903 882173; www.arundelcastle.org)

May 27–October 1

‘Quentin Blake: Birds, Beasts & Explorers’ ( pictured ), Compton Verney, Warwickshire. Exhibition featuring works from the beloved illustrator’s personal archive (01926 645500; www. comptonverney.org.uk)

Book ahead

June 2-3 Petworth Festival: June edition, venues across Petworth, West Sussex. This addition to the main July festival includes music, theatre (traditional and immersive) and Gyles Brandreth’s take on the late Queen (01798 344576; www.petworthfestival.org.uk)

June 6 Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, Aylesbury Waterside Theatre, Buckinghamshire. Pauline Black and Arthur ‘Gaps’ Hendrickson will be special guests at this live concert (www.joolsholland.com)

Llysdinam, Newbridge-on-Wye, Powys LD1 6NB. May 29, 2pm–5pm Successive generations of the Venables-Llewelyn family have been opening this garden in aid of the National Garden Scheme since 1928. Much in the garden today would be familiar to visitors from then: the wonderful views out to the Wye Valley, the impressively productive walled garden and the rhododendrons and azaleas in May. But this is also a garden that moves on and rejuvenates, as evidenced in much of the planting.

The maestro’s touch Raats, Dolomite Cabernet Franc, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2020. £12.50–£16.95, Amps, Handford, Lekker Wines, SA Wines, The Fine Wine Co, Wine Direct, alc 14% ‘Wow, super-good value!’ were the first words I wrote on tasting this—and not surprising, with Cabernet Franc maestro Bruwer Raats behind it. A 10% addition of Malbec gives lovely plushness and 14 months in oak add a gentle smoky depth, but the flavours are all Franc: inky-blue and blackberries, blood plums, herbs and graphite freshness. Have a nosey

CVNE, Cune Gran Reserva, Rioja, Spain, 2015. £19.99, Majestic, alc 13.5%

Enticing nose of sweet cedary oak and ripe, spicy black fruit, hints of blueberry and black cherry. Rich black fruit melds with brighter plums, herb and spice notes weaving through.

For more, visit www.decanter.com

Glyn Satterley/Country Life Picture Library/Future Plc; Alex Mustard/naturepl.com; Quentin Blake 2007

Letters to the Editor Mark Hedges

Ode to an oosik

Letter of the week

Dr Livingstone, I presume?

IN 2001, my family and I visited Zanzibar from Oman. Thanks to a generous Omani neighbour, Thuwayba, we were given the keys to the Stone Town house they had owned for generations, the proud possessor of a magnificent carved door much admired by all that passed by. Perhaps best of all, we were also told where to go to see David Livingstone’s medical bag (‘The world’s my oyster’, May 10). We found the bag in a nondescript corner of a small Stone Town museum, tucked away at the back of a simple display case. Only a handwritten luggage tag, ink faded over the years, betrayed its origins.

For an expatriate Scottish family, the sight of that bag reminded us of home and him.

Sue Bullen, by email

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

The fly doctor

MANY years ago, we used to fish the River Nadder in Dinton, Wiltshire, and, one balmy evening, we decided to fish in the mill pond next to the mill where we were staying, which was always fun. It was about 8pm when my husband came to me with an enormous fluffy Grey Wulff in his index finger (Country Mouse, May 17 ).

We sat in A&E waiting for all the more urgent cases to be seen—a fly in a finger could not really be considered lifethreatening—and, at midnight, we were ushered in to see the doctor. His first words on looking at the finger were, ‘what a lovely fly’. He then proceeded to call in all the nurses who were on duty to admire the said object: until one of them said to my husband: ‘Shall I hold you down while we take it out?’ I leave the rest to your imagination!

Frances Presley, Surrey

ITHOROUGHLY enjoy David Profumo’s cabinet of curiosities. In the 1960s, my father was stationed in Alaska for a year with the US Air Force. He brought home several souvenirs, including a 14in-long curved rod of what we thought was polished wood, capped on each end with ivory carved animal heads. He told us that it was an Eskimo club, which would be used similarly to a Native American’s tomahawk. Many years later, I discovered its true identity as an oosik (Notebook, April 5 ) and had the fun of revealing to my mother and siblings at our Christmas gathering that, for more

than four decades, my father had had a walrus penis bone hanging proudly on the wall of their home. My mother had never known and was mortified as my father sheepishly admitted that he had known what it was all along.

Sean Tierney, Virginia, US

The wool pack

ITHOROUGHLY enjoyed Charles Harris’s history of the Cotswold ‘golden fleece’ and woollen industry (‘All’s wool that ends wool’, May 10). Factual, insightful and interesting. It prompted me to dig out my old Puffin copy of The Wool-Pack by Cynthia Harnett, a little known, but beautifully written and evocative story set in Burford from 1493, full of wicked guild swindlers who try—and fail—to get the better of the local Cotswold wool merchants and farmers. It brings Mr Harris’s historical facts alive in an engaging way and I’m sure C OUNTRY L IFE readers would enjoy it, too. Tom

Barry, Oxfordshire

Nest place

FURTHER to my published missive (Letters, April 19) concerning the family of robins nesting in my kitchen, I thought you might like to receive a happy update: all four eggs hatched and they are thriving.

Bryony Hill, West Sussex

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Point of balance

LTHOUGH I agree the weighty coronation issue was somewhat taxing on the arms (Letters, May ), I can now only assume it was to get us all in training should we be called upon one day to hold aloft a sword for hours, like the goddess that is Penny Mordaunt (left, with the 8lb Sword of State).

Heather Tanner, Suffolk

Worth the weight

MIKE JOHNSON’S problem of reading the coronation issue of C OUNTRY L IFE in bed might be solved by receiving the magazine electronically. Regardless of the size of the issue, my iPad never gets heavier. Mind you, dropping it on to your toes, corner first, can cause quite a bruise, as I know to my cost!

Peter Bull, British Columbia, Canada

MAY 31

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Another fine mess

OH dear—it’s Defra yet again. The accident-prone Government department has already angered every countryside organisation. None, however, has been as damning as the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which is perhaps the most powerful select committee in Parliament. It has highlighted what we have all suspected: Defra is, literally, incapable of doing its job. Its civil servants are drowning in paperwork simply because its IT systems are so outdated they can’t handle the load—14 million transactions a year are dealt with manually. No business anywhere in Europe could possibly operate on this basis, let alone one that is responsible for a £5.62 billion turnover every year.

This isn’t something that has just happened and it can’t be laid at the door of the present Secretary of State.

Thérèse Coffey has been i n charge for only six months and, by all accounts, has been getting some sort of order out of the chaos. That doesn’t make her best friends with the farmers, but it does distinguish her from recent predecessors—notably Liz Truss and Theresa Villiers—whose interest in the job was limited and passing. The real blame lies with a succession of prime ministers for whom this was an unimportant backwater—a place to park ministers on the up or on the down.

Yet Defra is responsible for food, air quality and water safety, animal disease and welfare, the natural environment and agriculture. It oversees the Food Standards Authority (FSA), the Environment Agency (EA) and Natural England (NE). It is charged with stopping sewage getting into rivers and onto beaches and for protecting us from the floods and storms that climate change makes ever more likely.

This failure to recognise the importance of Defra is a reflection of the urban concentration of the UK Parliament. The Conservatives have taken the countryside for granted

and Labour has had little electoral reason to champion rural affairs. However, this month’s local-council elections may well have begun to concentrate political minds and, at his Food and Farming summit last week, Rishi Sunak began the attempt to stop the rot. The Prime Minister represents a largely rural constituency and is well respected by his local farmers. He is known to be very dissatisfied at the failure of Defra ministers to engage with the countryside. The PAC report comes as a clarion call for necessary reform.

load

What ought Defra to do? The report says it must identify the cost to its clients of its failures and produce a clear statement of the measures that will be put in place to correct them. However, in its response, Defra made much of the £750 million it has secured to update its computers and provided little else in the way of detailed proposals That all sounds pretty hollow after the select committee had specifically identified this update as likely to be wasted expenditure because the department has still not decided how it will be organised in the future.

Which all points to radical reform. First, Defra must give back independence to the FSA, the EA and NE, fund them properly and insist they put their own houses in order, untrammelled by continual departmental interference. Next, responsibility for adaptation to climate change should go with the rest of the subject to the Department of Net Zero. Defra would then appoint a Minister of Agriculture, exclusively responsible for farming, and a Minister for the Environment. Both would report directly to the Defra Secretary of State who, meanwhile, would be charged with preparing the ministry to become the Department of Land Use, taking in planning and infrastructure, from the Department for Levelling Up and the Treasury. The new ministry would, therefore, become a key player in Britain’s growth, instead of being treated as a sideshow.

Defra’s IT systems are so outdated they can’t handle the

Athena Cultural Crusader

Sorry, Scotland is shut right now

ATHENA has just returned from a delightful trip to Scotland. The weather was beautiful and the whole experience uplifting, in all but one respect. Every time she visited a place cared for by Historic Scotland (HS), there was an unwelcome surprise. Since 2021, this state body, which calls itself ‘the lead public body established to investigate, care for and promote Scotland’s historic environment’ has closed or reduced access to roughly one-quarter of the 300 or so archaeological sites, castles and churches that it manages, ostensibly for health-andsafety reasons (Athena, March 9, 2022).

The organisation’s website proclaims progress with re-opening sites. That’s perhaps true, but it nevertheless seems hopelessly slow. Added to which, Athena has yet

to visit a single closed site with any workmen actively undertaking repairs. Instead, the repeated experience is of miles of unsightly steel barriers shutting off the site, with tatty generic signs meaninglessly regretting inconvenience. It’s as if these properties are being conveniently mothballed.

Athena). Here, the graveyard was littered with metal fences. Attached signs from HS identified the enclosed monuments as ‘unstable gravestones’ and warned that they ‘are the property of the burial plot owner. If your family plot is affected by safety closures, please contact us to discuss the condition of the memorial and arrange repairs if necessary’. How many years, Athena wonders, will all this clutter remain?

Take, for example, her visit to Bothwell Castle outside Glasgow on a weekday shortly before 3pm. The whole site was fenced off and there was a scaffold on a small section of the castle walls protected by police alarms. There were visitors, but no one else present. Is site closure really a proportionate response to such limited repairs and, if so, what justifies the inactivity?

Next was Dunblane Cathedral, maintained by the state for the use of the Church of Scotland (the monument to the tragic shooting in the town particularly impressed

When Athena thought things couldn’t get any worse, she tried to visit Stirling Castle. This is a building that has received £21 million in recent years from the Scottish Government. May is a busy month for tourists, yet she found it closed for filming. Next morning, she tried again and was apologetically told that, without an online booking, it was impossible to visit and that, anyway, most of the castle was still closed. Athena knows exactly what HS would urge in its defence: poverty both of resources and funds. In response, however, she would question the organisation’s focus and priorities. She would also question who holds its officials to account and press for meaningful timetables of repair. Isn’t this the statutory body that stands in judgement over the wider treatment of historic properties? Wouldn’t it be appropriate, therefore, if it could properly manage its own?

The way we were Photographs from the C OUNTRY L IFE archive 1907

The farmyard at Brympton d’Evercy, Somerset, with a granary elevated on staddle stones to deter rats. The buildings look derelict rather than picturesque, which is probably why the photograph was not used. Nevertheless, the surface of the courtyard has been sufficiently well worn to be clear of weeds and require repair with rubble infill.

Every week for the past 125 years, COUNTRY LIFE has documented and photographed many walks of life in Britain. More than 80,000 of the images are available for syndication or purchase in digital format. To view the archives, visit www. countrylifeimages.co.uk and email enquiries to licensing@ futurenet.com

Is site closure really a proportionate response to repairs and what justifies the inactivity?

My favourite painting Christopher

Chatterton by Henry Wallis

Jackson

Poor Chatterton. This is not only a wonderful picture, but a lesson to artists. Try not to die in a garret. In the wake of lockdown, the image of isolation seems pertinent. Outside of poetry and painting, my work now is helping young people with their careers. I never pass this painting without thinking on the virtues of compromise in life. It’s a macabre picture, with marvellous details: the expensive-looking trousers, especially. It has a tranquil sympathy that tells us that other options were available. The hero of the picture isn’t Chatterton; it’s the pot of flowers on the windowsill

Charlotte Mullins comments on Chatterton

ARED-HEADED man lies lifeless on a narrow bed, his arm grazing the floor, a phial of poison nearby. His right shoe has tumbled to the ground, but the rest of his body is clothed, his breeches glowing in the last of the day’s light. There is no money for a candle, no rug and the paint is peeling. The attic room’s small window is open and London’s skyline can be seen in the yellowing light. A fragile pot plant outlives the young man, its single bloom tender on a fragile stem, and his poetry lies in shreds across the floor.

Henry Wallis painted the 18thcentury poet Thomas Chatterton in 1856, exhibiting the painting at the Royal Academy to great acclaim. It was the holy grail of a Pre-Raphaelite painting, one that was true to Nature

both in how it captured the scene and in how it conveyed emotion. The room was a re-creation of Chatterton’s Brook Street attic, where he killed himself by drinking arsenic aged 17. No surviving portraits of Chatterton exist, so Wallis had free rein to conjure a ‘likeness’ that simultaneously conveyed the poet’s melancholy, his emaciated body and his romantic appeal as a doomed hero.

Wallis used novelist George Meredith as his model. His flame-red hair contrasts with his waxy white skin and blue breeches. These are the colours of British identity, of the Union Flag. The painting offered a sideswipe at the then government and its lack of support for young artists, by suggesting that the country was culpable for this death.

Christopher Jackson is a poet, artist and member of the Finito Education management team. His latest book of poetry, An Equal Light, is out now

Chatterton, also called The Death of Chatterton, 1856, oil on canvas, 24½in by 36¾in, by Henry Wallis (1830–1916), Tate Collection

Gather your wits

There is a Shakespeare quote for every occasion, from a clever put down to the vagaries of modern politics and even wellness mantras, finds Agnes Stamp

PUBLISHED seven years after his death, Shakespeare’s First Folio is the first collected edition of his works. Of the 36 plays it contains, 17 were printed during his lifetime in variously good and bad smaller quarto editions, one was produced after his death and 18—such as Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, Macbeth, Julius Caesar and The Tempest —had not yet been published at all.

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s First Folio, which falls this year, we have rounded up some of the best lines from the lesser-known corners of Shakespeare’s catalogue that continue to have an immediate, easy resonance with modern life.

‘Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life’ by Ben Crystal and David Crystal (£16.99, Chambers) will be published on May 25

Henry IV, Part II

The perfect motto for avid clock watchers

A succinct reflection on a universal human experience

The Rape of Lucrece

Food for thought for the fame-hungry Instagram generation

‘We are Time’s subjects, and Time bids be gone’

‘Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken’

The Sonnets

First-class fodder for wedding speeches

‘Why should the private pleasure of some one

Become the public plague of many more?’

‘Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind’

King Lear

A line that clearly applies to modern politics

‘Grief makes one hour ten’

Richard II

‘Let us not burden our remembrances with A heaviness that’s gone’

The Tempest

Don’t dwell on the past

‘What cannot be eschewed must be embraced’

The Merry Wives of Windsor Learn to accept the inevitable

Antony and Cleopatra

A worthy alternative to the overused exhortation ‘think outside the box’

Venus and Adonis

Resonates with those in the initial stage of new, lustful love

Othello

A reminder that we are responsible for our own wellbeing

Confirmation

‘Better three hours too soon than a minute too late’

Troilus and Cressida

A simple, yet effective insult in most instances

Much Ado About Nothing

When romance isn’t for everyone—or for those who simply prefer dogs

‘Make not your thoughts your prisons’

‘The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none’

The Merry Wives of Windsor Sage advice for senior pet owners

‘I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me’

‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners’

‘Self-love... is not so vile a sin As self-neglecting’

Henry V

A mantra for the modern wellness movement

‘Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows’

‘When I was at home I was in a better place, but travellers must be content’

As You Like It

Gentle reassurance for the homesick

‘Men judge by the complexion of the sky

The state and inclination of the day’

Richard II

that the British obsession with the weather dates back to at least the first Elizabethan era

The original Nature boy

Shakespeare wasn’t only the greatest playwright of our history, he was an avid ornithophile, a green man and a master of transposing the true power of Nature onto the page, says John Lewis-Stempel

SHAKESPEARE was in love with Nature. When Dr Johnson praised the Bard as ‘the poet of nature’, he meant Shakespeare’s penetration of the human condition, the vaulting ambition of Macbeth and the paranoid insecurity of Hamlet, but the honorific might equally be applied to Shakespeare’s feeling for natural history. After all, this is the playwright who, in Measure for Measure, agonised for the smallest of creatures:

And the poor beetle that we tread upon, In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great As when a giant dies.

Nature was his inspiration, because he was born a Nature boy, the grandson of farmers, and he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, then a small country town. His knowledge of our wild fauna and flora, from ‘the quarrelous Weasel’ (Cymbeline, Act III, Scene 4) to Romeo’s recommendation of plantain as healing herb (Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 2), is so marked in his apt metaphors, similes and descriptions that it can only have come from personal observation as he played and rambled in the fields, woods and streams of the Midlands. Shakespeare understood insect metamorphosis (Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene 2), and the partiality evinced by serpents for basking in the sun:

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;

And that craves wary walking.

He recognised the functions of various types of larvae, be they silk-moth cocoons (Othello, Act III, Scene 4) or carrion maggots (Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2). And is there a better picture of the interior of a hive than in Henry V ?

For so work the honey bees, Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;

Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;

Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home

The young Will, we may surmise, had a hands-on closeness to Nature. Legend accords him the role of deer-robber from the estate of Sir Thomas Lucy. So sure is Shakespeare’s depiction of falconry, a popular Elizabethan sport, that, in the words of the

Above: The man who knew Nature. Facing page: Wonder in the woods: Bottom and Titania

The young Will, we may surmise, had a hands-on closeness to Nature. Legend accords him the role of deer-robber

pre-eminent Shakespearian scholar Caroline Spurgeon, ‘there is evidence of personal experience’. Who but a falconer could write of Macbeth’s guilty anguish: ‘Come seeling night, scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day.’ ‘Seeling’ is the falconer’s term for covering the eyes of a bird to keep her quiet on the perch or on the gloved fist until it’s time to fly.

When we join the Bard, whether we are going to ‘a bank where the wild thyme blows/ Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows’ or down to the sea ‘whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege of watery Neptune’, we walk with a naturalist. His audiences at The Globe would have gleaned even more than we do from his works, which are rooted in a reading of Genesis that placed animals alongside humans in a greater vision of belonging. For Elizabethans, the boundary between man and animal was thin and porous; Shakespeare’s most famous stage direction, ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’, humanises the fur-clad creature. Shakespeare’s teeming Nature references came to be regarded post-Enlightenment as abstract theatrical devices, whereas for the crowd at The Globe they added a dimension of sensory comprehension. Of feeling.

agonies

If Shakespeare had a predilection for Nature, his relationship with it was nonetheless not a nostalgic one. Throughout his oeuvre, he depicts the countryside as it truly is: contradictory and complicated. The Bard’s rural landscape in As You Like It, the Forest of Arden, is idyllic, with highborns playing at being wooing, fluting shepherds and shepherdesses. It is a morally pure ‘golden world’. Duke Frederick on simply coming to ‘the skirts of this wild wood’ and ‘meeting with an old religious man’ (Act V, Scene 4) is reformed from his malfeasance. However, the same dreamy, pastoral glades contain a rampaging lioness, hunted deer and the fool Touchstone injecting the empty-belly

realty of shepherding. The woods in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are emphatically magical, ruled by fairie monarchs and replete with the mischievous pranks of Puck. Yet, who, on entering a wood on Midsummer’s Eve, has not found wonder?

Nature in King Lear, meanwhile, is neither pastoral nor otherworldly. It is an omnipotent, oppressive storm-lashed wilderness, into which the King is turned out by his daughters. Lear’s mental state erodes before our eyes as he drifts around the desolate heath under ‘wrathful skies’ and

Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,

Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never Remember to have heard: man’s nature cannot carry

The affliction nor the fear.

King Lear’s health is the cruel reminder that Nature can exacerbate, as well as soothe, human agonies and that we poor humans are numberless ant-like things signifying nothing. Even less cheery is Macbeth and the meeting of the Weird Sisters on ‘a blasted heath’ in the Scottish wilds. Although the supernatural in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is nominally

King Lear’s health is the cruel reminder that Nature can exacerbate, as well as soothe, human

There is nothing friendly about the Scottish king’s ‘blasted heath’, captured in Macbeth and the Witches by Joseph Anton Koch

Alamy; Getty; Bridgeman Images; Illustrations by Emma Earnshaw

King Lear and His Madman During the Storm, 1836, by Louis Candide Boulanger

Shakespeare the environmentalist

‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin…’ (Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 3). Was William Shakespeare the first Green? He wrote at the commencement of the Anthropocene (the era when humans fundamentally altered the ecosystem) and his plays worry away at the damage done to earth by nascent industry. In Henry IV, Part I, a courtier finds it a ‘great pity’ that ‘this villainous saltpetre should be digg’d/Out of the bowels of the harmless earth’. New fuel-intensive industries such as iron-forging for Hamlet’s ‘brazen cannon’ made deforestation England’s first major environmental crisis. Overfishing, the draining of wetland for agriculture and the fur trade are all critiqued and the period’s unusually volatile weather —the plays rip with tempests—is uncomfortably reminiscent of our own time. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the fairies note with alarm that ‘the seasons alter’, as we do, too. However, Shakespeare offers salvation; characters tend to change for the better when in relationship with Nature, as Duke Senior recognises in the Arden Forest, where, away from the court, he: Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

benevolent, in Macbeth, it is downright dangerous. However, the take-away from both plays is that Shakespeare’s Nature contains a spiritual element. You might even say that he worshipped Nature, as well as loved it. You could even charge him with pantheism.

Certainly, the boy from Stratford adored birds. Of all natural phenomena Shakespeare mentions, it is avia to which he refers most often. The plays and poems fly and wing with images derived from birds; 64 different types of birds can be found spread over 606 occurrences in the Bard’s writing. From osprey to turtle dove, to martlet and starling, the occupants of Shakespeare’s Aviary are tasked with dramatic purpose. Turmoil in the kingdom is announced when a lowly owl (Macbeth) brings down a powerful falcon (King Duncan).

masque performed on Prospero’s island and Juliet are awakened in their marriage bed by birdsong. Juliet asks Romeo: ‘Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark, that pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear.’ Romeo, who is facing execution for killing Juliet’s cousin Tybalt, correctly identifies the morning bird as the lark and escapes out of the window before he is discovered by her family. Discerning the right species, lark or nightingale, was a matter of life and death. Romeo, like his creator, knew his birds.

For the naturalist Bard, falconry was pre-eminent among pastimes

’Tis unnatural, Even like the deed that’s done.

On Tuesday last,

A falcon, tow’ring in her pride of place, Was by a mousing owl hawk’d at and kill’d.

(Act II, Scene 4)

A lark is used to mark time in one of the Bard’s most poignant scenes, when Romeo

Love of birds in ‘this blessed plot’ called Britain is very old, and dates back to the Anglo-Saxons. But it was cemented into our consciousness by the avia in the Bard’s plays, which are the foundation texts of British identity. To this day, we use Shakespearean bird idioms in everyday conversation. ‘At one fell swoop’ and ‘wild-goose chase’ both derive from the Nature-lover from Stratford.

In the eve of his career, Shakespeare paid for the right to commission a coat of arms for his family. Atop the arms, ‘tow’ring in her pride of place’, he installed a falcon. Of course he did.

Peace amid The Tempest: the nymphs’

Making a modern castle

Castle Drogo, Devon, part II A property of the National Trust

Photographs by Dylan Thomas

THE construction of Castle Drogo was a task of daunting complexity. As we heard last week, Lutyens conceived a gargantuan modern castle for his client, Julius Drewe, on a remote and exposed site (Fig 1) . The original plans were considerably reduced in ambition, but the project still required scores of masons, carpenters and labourers for 20 years. Considering that four of those coincided with the First World War, the miracle is that it was ever finished. In this, the hero of the piece is John Walker, Drewe’s agent on site, without whom Drogo would not have been built.

A Yorkshireman, Walker had previously been Clerk of Works at various country houses, including Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, which, from 1905, was being rebuilt after a fire. He appears at Drogo in 1912 and his work over the next 17 years can be followed through the copies of his letters kept in the castle. Each time Walker wrote to Drewe, Lutyens or a supplier, he put his freshly handwritten letter in a press that took a faint copy by a chemical reaction on very thin paper— a method that had been used since the midVictorian period and was being replaced, in the age of the typewriter, by carbon paper. The copies were later bound together in fat letter-books. There are about 6,000 letters.

In the second of two articles, Clive Aslet looks at the challenges of building a 20th-century castle and the recent work of the National Trust to restore it

Fig 1: The newly restored castle, which enjoys spectacular views of Dartmoor

Everything on the estate fell to Walker’s care, down to organising the celebrations at Drewsteignton for Adrian Drewe’s coming of age and, similarly, for the election of another Drewe son, Cedric, as an MP. The main focus of his energy, however, was the building work and an early task was recruiting masons at 8½d per hour for time worked (they had to pay their own railway fares and lodgings).

The techniques that were employed by masons on Dartmoor had changed little for centuries. This appealed to Lutyens’s abiding love of the Arts-and-Crafts style. Admittedly, greater attention was given to aesthetic effect than would have been typical in other works. Each course of granite was marked on the architect’s scale drawings. Outside, the predominant finish was pitted or ‘rustic punched’,

with the window and door surroundings being more smoothly worked. Originally, Lutyens had envisaged that only rough granite would be used, but gave fresh orders on returning to Delhi in India, without asking Drewe. The client exploded when he found out. ‘To my mind… the building should be continued to your preDelhian instructions. What might have happened to us if you had also seen the Pyramids as well makes us quake to think about.’

Lutyens had, as ever, faith in his superior judgement. ‘The big lumpy blocks are right for the lower courses but quite impossible to carry them up… it would mean a barbaric building worthy of a small municipal corporation… I am very keen about your castle and must “fight” you when I KNOW I am right.’ He got his way. The exchange raises the interesting possibility of Indian influence

on Drogo: it is tempting to think that the schematised vault over the stair shows the influence of the Great Stupa at Sanchi, which Lutyens knew from his work on the Viceroy’s House; there is, similarly, a sole, mysterious column in the service corridor downstairs that seems of abstracted Indian form.

With such precise demands to satisfy, the quarry was another constant anxiety for Walker. The choice had fallen on Blackinstone, but the granite blocks were delivered in the wrong sizes, in the wrong order and incorrectly dressed. He fell out with the quarry foreman, a Mr Crabb: when Crabb retired, he wrote to the quarry urging that the job would not be given to Crabb’s son, who might be as bad, if not worse. He and Lutyens were forced to turn additionally to the quarries of Merrivale, Pew Tor and Drewe’s own small quarry on Whiddon Down. The two are

Fig 2 above: Joseph Armitage’s lion and the family motto ornament the castle’s front door. The sculptor went on to design the oak-leaf symbol of the National Trust in 1935

I am very keen about your castle and must “fight” you when I KNOW I am right

never placed adjacent because of a difference in colour. The use of granite throughout the castle gives the interior (Fig 8) and exterior (Fig 6) a similar texture and character.

Transporting the great blocks of granite by ‘motor trolley’ from Moretonhampstead station played havoc with the rural roads. There were accidents—one man lost part of a thumb—and strikes; being away from home, the men needed to be entertained with whist drives and sports days. Driving rain meant days lost. The local council complained that the necessary permissions had not been obtained. Masons and granite cutters could go on strike. When some large

Fig 3 above: A vaulted corridor with its bold mouldings highlights the massive construction of the castle. Fig 4 right: Part of the intricate and newly restored roof

boulders were needed to add a rugged look to the base of the walls, it was Walker who had to source them.

Work slowed during the First World War. Drewe encouraged single men to enlist and gave them a bounty that would cover the cost of their kit. When the Devon War Agricultural Committee complained that too many able-bodied men were still at Drogo, Drewe responded that 40 had already left to sign up. Several of their names appear on the war memorials of local villages. In 1917, the Drewes’ eldest son, Adrian, was killed in Flanders. A bronze figure of Victory was commissioned to stand before his portrait, in a shrine-like room full of his possessions. Walker had already closed work on the castle, as he wrote to the sculptor Joseph Armitage, ‘until the word peace is said’.

It was Armitage who carved the splendid Venetian-looking lion over the entrance (Fig 2) . A member, as Lutyens was, of the Art Workers Guild, he has turned out to be a highly appropriate choice, as he went on to design the oak-leaf symbol of the National Trust. The Drogo commission, however, was not without incident: two drawings were rejected, one (at full size) because it had been made too big. These difficulties were overcome and, in 1920, the relief was put in place. Other carving was intended for the entrance hall: ‘The idea,’ as Walker put it to Lutyens’s assistant John Thomas, ‘was to have Lizards & such like things crawling about especially on the stops of chamfers, not crests or Coats of Arms… I am writing Mr Palliser [another sculptor] who, if he knows about

the Small Crawling things, may know how to sketch some designs for Mr Drewe to see.’ They were never carried out.

At last, in 1925, the family could move into part of the castle. Two years later, the furniture and many of the staff from their beloved Wadhurst Park were moved to Devon and the Sussex house was sold. However, the castle still needed a chapel. This Lutyens provided in the undercroft that had originally been intended to support the abandoned great hall. It was a typically ingenious solution (Fig 7 ) , which placed the pews and organ

from Wadhurst on a higher level than the chancel; the latter was placed in a projection between two of the cyclopean buttresses, where it could be lit both by stained glass, again from Wadhurst, and a concealed window. The congregation looks down from the shadows onto a chancel that is bathed in light. This work was completed in 1930, the year before Drewe’s death. The organ is now being restored, thanks to a grant from the Lutyens Trust.

Wanting a proper castle, Drewe had insisted on solid walls—if not granite all the way through, then with the gap between the two

Fig 5: The arms, motto and Bayeux Tapestry-like scene set over a fireplace celebrate the Drewes’ supposed connections with the Norman invasion of England in 1066

Fig 6 left: The kitchen skylight is hidden within a small courtyard. Fig 7 right: The chapel belfry resembles a Lutyens war memorial

thick outer granite skins packed hard with rubble. This would prove unfortunate in the battle against lashing rain. Much more problematic, however, was the roof, in which Lutyens employed a new and untried product— asphalt—laid over reinforced concrete. If only he had stuck to the use of pitched roofs, as originally proposed, a deal of care would have been avoided. The 28 separate roofs may have provided a splendid adventure playground, but they were not best suited to keeping out water. Ominously, in January 1917, Walker had wired the roofers Salter Edwards and Co about a leak in the nursery: the pieces of asphalt had not been properly jointed to one another. Leaks would prove a depressing leitmotif in Drogo’s subsequent history.

The National Trust was well aware of these problems when it bravely accepted the family’s

gift of Castle Drogo in 1974, not much more than 40 years after its completion. As well as being poorly fitted, the asphalt cracked under the extremes of the Dartmoor weather, which can be baking or freezing according to season. Attempts to mend the problem, by removing the stone flags from the roof and putting down a screed of concrete, did no good. In time, the hundreds of glass panes in the windows became loose in their lead cames, allowing water to get in there, too.

A major programme of repair in the 1980s provided intermediary relief and then, from 1996, the firm of Inskip and Jenkins was employed to take a root-and-branch approach, which culminated, in 2013, with a campaign to install a modern waterproofing membrane across all the roofs and undertake 40 miles of repointing, taking out the sand-and-cement

mortar that had been mistakenly applied under the family ownership and replacing it with breathable lime mortar (Fig 4)

During this work, the top courses of the walls, to a height of 4ft–5ft, were removed, numbered and placed alongside the drive. All the windows were also removed. Keeping the original glass, the gun-metal window frames were blasted to expunge layers of paint and dirt; the lead cames were replaced and the glass covered in ultra-violet filters to protect the contents of the castle.

When Drogo could at last emerge from the white tent of scaffolding that had encased it for nearly a decade, attention turned to its representation. To re-create the family atmosphere that Drogo had under the Drewes, the carpet in the entrance hall was rewoven by Axminster, using C OUNTRY L IFE photographs for reference. In the drawing room, the Venetian-glass chandeliers bought by Julius and Frances Drewe on their honeymoon were taken down, cleaned and mended. Drewe’s electric tablecloth in the dining room—he was a lover of gadgets— has not been repaired: patches to old linen suggest frequent singeing, but an equivalent system of table lights has been installed. The uplighters that originally added a touch of Art Deco drama to the niches of the staircase are being reinstated. Research into the Murrieta contents have revealed some treasures of previously unnoticed worth: a Char de Triomphe tapestry made for Louis XIV is one of only five in the world.

As a solid and indestructible family seat, which would be so soundly built as to require next to no maintenance, Drogo was a failure. In 1916, Basil Drewe found that the genealogical research that had so excited his father was largely bogus, undermining the premise on which Drogo was built (Fig 5) . Nevertheless, the castle succeeded in linking the Drewe name forever with Dartmoor. In the Home and Colonial Stores, Julius Drewe had a partner called Musker. His taste was for racehorses, rather than architecture. Today, he has been forgotten. If only he had asked Lutyens to build him a castle.

Acknowledgements: The Lutyens Trust

Fig 8: One of the main stairwells. These domed and arcaded spaces are like works of sculpture, creating wonderful spatial effects as the visitor walks up and down the stairs

The 28 separate roofs may have provided a splendid adventure playground, but they were not best suited to keeping out water

Native breeds Exmoor Horn

Did you know?

Both ewes and rams are substantially horned, with the ram’s spiralling impressively around the attractive face

THE Exmoor National Park’s sturdy native sheep is surely a breed for 21st-century farming. Developed from the local horned sheep that had been around on the moor for centuries, the Exmoor Horn combines the hardiness to withstand bleak, wet weather and sparse grazing on exposed hillsides with the ability to produce high quality meat and wool, thus having both conservation and commercial value. It has a gentle, bear-like face—aficionados describe it as a sheep that ‘looks you in the eye’—and is one of the least flighty hill breeds to deal with; when a ewe is crossed with a Bluefaced Leicester ram (Native breed, April 12), it creates one of the best mule types—a prolific breeder

with little foot or teeth trouble that produces fastfinishing lambs and wool of a good length.

The sheep’s stronghold remains the West Country, e specially Exmoor, where it is a source of great local pride, a s much a part of the landscape as the Exmoor pony and red deer, with well-filled classes at the county shows and Exford Show, held in the centre of the moor (August 9).

In the 19th century, the Exmoor Horn was a prime supplier of mutton to London restaurants until the meat fell out of fashion. In 2004, the then Prince of Wales, a loyal supporter of upland farmers, launched the Mutton Renaissance campaign, with the Exmoor Horn one of the prominent breeds. KG

Alamy

EVERY day, across all corners of the countryside, alarms ring out at ungodly hours as a vast army rises to donate that most precious of commodities—their time—to one of Britain’s 170-plus heritage railways. Whether to serve refreshments, pull ancient points levers, tend floral displays, blow whistles or sandblast ancient, rusting components back to life, they do it free of charge and for the love of trains.

All of the ‘lost lines’—which were mainly, although not all, victims of the cuts by one Dr Beeching, a short-term chairman of British Railways (BR)—have been reclaimed by enthusiasts steadfastly keeping them open in the face of redevelopment and a frail economy. There may be comical comparisons with The Titfield Thunderbolt, a 1953 film in which villagers fought against a BR closure, but their hard work is not whimsy. The heritage railway trade is estimated to attract some £400 million annually to the UK economy.

A few lines—which would have been lost forever had it not been for the enthusiasts— have even recently been reincorporated into the national network. The Okehampton to Exeter line on Dartmoor was officially returned to the Great Western Railway fold in November 2021 after decades as a heritage line. Only last month, more than half a century since its tracks were unceremoniously torn up, the mainline track from Wareham, Dorset, was reconnected to the picturesque Swanage Railway. A victorious Peter Frost, who as a teenager in 1976 dedicated his free time to restoring the tracks, was proudly in charge of the first train to run along it.

Heritage lines still face an uncertain future, however, due to the prevailing financial pressures that are affecting everything else; coal prices have rocketed and passenger numbers have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Yet, with the camaraderie that exists between more than 22,000 volunteers nationwide and more people realising heritage trains offer a pleasant and nostalgic way to watch the landscape go by, it has to be hoped they will ride the storm.

Stogumber station’s army of volunteers: (from left) Jean Hilton, Jenny Preston, Steve Stone, Phil Hall, Andy Feltham, Bob Preston, Steve Wilcox and Vik Simpson

Enthusiasts are steadfastly keeping “lost lines” open in the face of redevelopment and a frail economy

Let’s pull together

We all love to see a heritage train chugging through the landscape, but without the extraordinary volunteer dedication, many would be rusting in the sidings. Melanie Bryan selects some nostalgic journeys and Kate Green finds her local Somerset line thriving

Photographs by Millie Pilkington

Full steam ahead in Somerset

WHEN, in the spring of 2021, the irrepressibly cheerful hoot of a train on the West Somerset Railway (WSR) rent across a sleeping landscape, it was a reassuring signal that life was returning to normality post-lockdown.

The WSR, at nearly 23 miles, is the longest heritage railway line in Britain and a muchloved local institution that delights locals and visitors alike as it chugs, wheezes and whistles merrily through tranquil pastures and woodland between Bishop’s Lydeard (a service centre from where there is a link to the mainline) and the seaside resort of Minehead.

Some of us remember when it ran all the way into Taunton and was a regular form of public transport with which to get from A to B, but it fell foul of the Beeching Report and was eventually closed in 1971, after which I rode along its silent, grassy track to the blacksmith and to Pony Club rallies in Williton. The transformation into a tourist attraction was tortuous, beset by financial and technical problems and even union mutterings from those fearing it would affect business on bus routes.

The breakthrough came in 1989, when Evening Star, the last steam engine built for BR, in 1960, was available for hire. Now, the line carries some 200,000 passengers, mostly between April and October, plus at Christmas time, and there are regular gala days when

fans line the scenic bridges with their cameras. None of this would be possible without a band of some 900 willing volunteers.

One of these is Phil Hall, the friendly, humorous station master at Stogumber, whom I met for tea one Sunday afternoon when he was on duty, accompanied by his wife, Janet, and a spaniel puppy. They were regular visitors to the WSR when, in 2018, Mr Hall, a train enthusiast since childhood, suddenly said: ‘I’m bored with this—I know the name of every sleeper—and I’d rather do something.’

prettily on my visit, planting has been done with butterflies in mind and an enchanting pair of nuthatches were running up and down a bird feeder. ‘I love the peace,’ says Mr Hall.

In ‘real life’, the Halls run a flooring business based near Bath, but they have moved to west Somerset, purely to be near Stogumber station. Their devotion seems typical of the heritagerailway world; Mr Hall’s annual ‘cutting back’ group includes three railway photographers, some of whom come from as far afield as Warwickshire. The steam locomotive Lady of Legend chugged through Stogumber on that afternoon (a re-created ‘Saint’ Class No 2999 based in Didcot, Oxfordshire, for those in the know) and the assembled company, including a photographer with a library of 75,000 locomotive pictures, broke into technical speak about numbers and levers.

Mrs Hall ‘loved that little station with the tea garden’—Stogumber—so the pair offered their services to the then station master, Bob Preston, who is still in charge of maintenance, including the restoration of the cattle dock.

Parts of the station surrounds were covered in oppressive vegetation, which was, says Mr Hall, ‘right up my street’. He is a long-time member of Butterfly Conservation—he has photographed all British species for the charity—and got involved in their habitat-restoration projects. Bluebells and wild garlic were flowering

During the winter, a landslide caused by an impacted potato field nearly derailed the Christmas timetable—it is this that pays the wages of WSR employees—but, within a day, it was back on track. ‘It was an incredible effort,’ observes Mr Hall. ‘We have a nice atmosphere on this line and everyone who loves the trains wants to put something back’ (www.west-somerset-railway.co.uk) KG

Seaside special: The Dartmouth Steam Railway at Goodrington Sands, Devon

Everyone who loves the trains wants to put something back

Above, from left: West Somerset Railway runs from Minehead to Bishop’s Lydeard; volunteer driver Merv Hebditch; Stogumber station

Above left: All aboard for the next West Somerset Railway service. Above right: Jean Hilton and Jenny Preston at Stogumber with station master Phil Hall. Below left: The railway is kept shipshape by some 900 volunteers. Below right: Mr Hall checks everything is on track

Alamy

Let the train take the strain

Bodmin and Wenford Railway, Cornwall

THIS 13-mile line, originally opened in 1834, from Bodmin Central via Bodmin Parkway (through which the GWR Paddington-Penzance mainline runs) to Boscarne Junction, is convenient for a stroll or cycle along the Camel Trail (a former railway track turned into a wide, traffic-free leisure path along the Camel Estuary) or an amble along another former line, now bridleway, to the Camel Valley winery (www.bodminrailway.co.uk).

Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company, Devon

ONE of the few heritage lines run entirely by a paid workforce and thus a rarity. Depart from Paignton to spend the roughly half an hour and seven miles gliding through the English Riviera, past the sandy beaches and colourful huts of Goodrington Sands, beneath Agatha Christie’s Greenway retreat and along the Dart Estuary to Kingswear, for a swift ferry ride into Dartmouth. Return by train or on the company’s even more ancient paddle steamer along the River Dart to Totnes and bus link to Paignton (www. dartmouthrailriver.co.uk).

Swanage Railway, Corfe, Dorset

IT took only seven weeks to demolish this line in the 1970s, but 30 years for volunteers to re-lay it. Park at Norden car park (and visit the mining museum there) and be transported back to the English Civil War at the majestic ruins of Corfe Castle or, in the other direction, to Wareham. If you’re lucky, the Devon Belle —one of only two Pullman observation carriages ever built, the other is on the Dartmouth line—will be in the running order. Grab a plush, if rather bouncy, seat for a panoramic view of the Purbeck Hills and Swanage’s sandy bay (www.swanagerailway.co.uk).

Watercress Line, Hampshire

THIS 17-mile line (opened in 1865, closed in 1973) through agricultural land between Alresford and Alton originally conveyed, together with passengers, its namesake, a local crop, to London markets. It passes through Jane Austen country and, indeed, the first chairman of the Mid-Hants line was her nephew, Edward Knight. Many of the locomotives were rescued from a scrapyard in Wales and have been restored by volunteers (www. watercressline.co.uk).

Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, Kent

AN eccentric, one-third-size line that transports you 13½ miles along the coast from the Cinque Port of Hythe to the shingle-strewn National Nature Reserve at Dungeness. It was built in 1927 as a novelty by racing drivers Capt J. E. P. Howey and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s owner Count Louis Zborowski—he ordered the locomotives, but was killed before seeing the project finished—and was requisitioned during the Second World War. There’s a wealth of interest close to each of the seven stations, including catacombs, Martello Towers, lighthouses and even a vast nuclear-power station. Squish into Gladys, the miniature bar car, for a cheeky gin and tonic (www.rhdr.org.uk).

Severn Valley Railway, Shropshire and Worcestershire

THIS iconic Midlands railway, originally a loop on the Shrewsbury-Hartlebury line, was the star of the 1976 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’s ghostly rail tale, The Signalman. However, it has now launched an urgent Survival Fund, with accompanying events programme, to raise £1.5 million. The service runs between Kidderminster and Bridgnorth via the Georgian town of Bewdley and the arboretum at Arley. Father Christmas is an annual passenger (www.svr.co.uk).

North Yorkshire Moors Railway, North Yorkshire

THIS grande dame of the heritage world, 18 miles long and with a 550strong volunteer force, celebrated its 50th anniversary last month. It runs through

wonderfully dramatic scenery between the market town of Pickering and the Gothic seaside delights of Whitby (www.nymr.co.uk).

Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, West Yorkshire

THE five-mile line through Brontë country is forever synonymous with Bernard Cribbins playing Albert Perks in The Railway Children (1970), filmed here. It has operated as a heritage line since 1968 and runs from the market town of Keighley to Oxenhope, stopping at Haworth. The Haworth Haddock, an evening journey with fish-and-chip supper, is not to be missed (www.kwvr.co.uk).

Talyllyn Railway, North Wales

SOME of the Revd Wilbert Awdry’s books about Thomas the Tank Engine were famously inspired by this charming little narrow-gauge railway, originally built to carry slate, which chugs from the pastel-coloured seaside town of Tywyn to Nant Gwernol, passing the romantic ruins of Castell y Bere and the Dolgoch Falls. Special events include the Awdry Extravaganza (for children) and the Welsh Gin Train (not for children). Enthusiasts are spoilt for choice in Snowdonia with the small, but perfectly formed Corris, the dinky Fairbourne and scenic Ffestiniog trains within an hour’s drive (www.talyllyn.co.uk).

Strathspey

Railway, Scotland

THIS short, but scenic railway plays host to Flying Scotsman this September, as one of the most recognisable steam trains continues her centenary tour. Trains travel from Aviemore, through the Cairngorms National Park to Boat of Garten, where keen birders can disembark in the hope of spying

a Scottish crossbill, osprey or even a capercaillie, before following the Spey to Broomhill, which starred as Glenbogle station in the BBC’s Monarch of the Glen. The nearly 10-mile line runs parallel with the traffic-free Speyside Way. An extension to Grantown on Spey is planned (www.strathspeyrailway.co.uk).

Wells & Walsingham Light Railway, Norfolk

BILLED as the world’s smallest public railway, this charming line—which trundles between Wells-next-the-Sea and the Saxon abbey village of Walsingham—was the brainchild of a British naval officer with a childhood love of trains. Lt-Cdr Roy Wallace Francis (1922–2015) saw active service on a series of hazardous Arctic convoys during the Second World War, surviving the torpedoing of HMS Edinburgh in 1942. He later established a boat-building company on the Norfolk Broads and rekindled his interest in railways, taking miniature steam trains to fairs and building a line in his garden. In 1976, at the request of Norfolk County Council, Francis

built the 10¼in-gauge Wells Harbour Railway to alleviate traffic congestion in the town, but sold it in 1979 to finance the construction of the Wells & Walsingham Light Railway.

It was officially opened on April 6, 1982, and the 30-minute route follows the course of the old Great Eastern line for four miles, chuffing across the Holkham estate and past the Iron Age hill fort at Warham. When we rode the train last September, with our labradors, Nimrod and Mole, plus my sister-in-law’s collie Charlie (dogs are welcome, except when trains are especially busy and priority is given to 76 human passengers), we saw brown hares, grey partridge and pink-footed geese. Those travelling on the longest 10¼in narrow-gauge steam railway in the world can choose to sit in either covered or openair carriages, hauled by one of two miniature Garratt locomotives, aptly called Norfolk Hero and Norfolk Heroine. We all (including the dogs) thoroughly enjoyed the journey (www.wwlr.co.uk). PL

Most trains welcome dogs and bicycles

Above: Flying Scotsman crosses the viaduct below Corfe Castle on the Swanage Railway in Dorset. Left: A ticket to ride the Talyllyn Railway in Wales. Below left: Wells on Sea station serves the ‘world’s smallest public railway’, the Wells & Walsingham Light Railway

Earning their stripes

In a collection of barns on a Somerset farm, Paula Lester finds that one family’s dedication to Cornishware–known for its blue and white stripes the world over–is ensuring the pottery celebrates its 100th birthday in style

SAID to be inspired by Cornwall’s expansive cerulean skies and the crests of the crashing waves, the distinctive blue and white stripes of Cornishware have long set it apart from any other crockery adorning kitchen worktops or displayed on Welsh dressers across the land.

Legend has it that the idea for the range’s concentric rings, now considered a design classic, was conceived in 1923 by Frederick Parker, general manager of the Derbyshirebased T. G. Green pottery, when he was on the factory workers’ annual two-week holiday to the county. Since then, the striking and straightforward style has become so recognisable that the company’s 10oz mug is one of the 50 most iconic global designs of the 20th century on display at the London Design Museum.

‘It was pretty radical at the time,’ observes Cornishware’s managing director, Charles Rickards. ‘We have a book that shows other designs of the era, which were dainty, delicate floral patterns, so I’m sure this would have been seen as bold and different—the genius is in its simplicity.’ Mr Rickards’s eldest daughter, Rebecca (brand and marketing director at the firm, which is now based on the family farm at Batcombe, near Shepton Mallet in Somerset), concurs: ‘It’s a timeless design and, in 100 years’ time, I think stripes will still be in fashion.’

The uncomplicated nature of the motif is undoubtedly attractive, yet deceptive. I was lucky enough to have a go at decorating a bowl and can attest that, although incredibly satisfying, painting the stripes is not as easy as it looks, especially as it’s vital that the paint is neatly applied to the raised ridges only. Skilled painters can each ‘hand band’ up to 300 items a day. However, as it takes three to five months’ training to do this, I am extremely proud of the red and white-striped

cereal bowl that Cornishware kindly glazed and sent to me after my visit. Red is one of the rainbow of cheerful shades into which the original blue-and-white colourway has evolved—others include sunshine yellow, adder green, pink, tin grey, orange, black and, most recently, blackberry.

Cornishware enjoyed a boon during the pandemic, when time at home saw it double

its sales, but the course of this long-lived brand hasn’t always been plain sailing. Incorporated in 1864 by Thomas Goodwin Green, the T. G. Green pottery was one of the most successful of its time, although its founder, who died in 1905, never witnessed the rise of his company’s most popular range. Nevertheless, he fostered a production model to rival some of the best in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire—the pottery capital of the UK—combining modern and traditional methods to make pieces that became household staples.

After the First World War, with the disappearance of paid cooks, Parker’s design was poised to take full advantage of the growing demand for decorative kitchenware. Always the bestseller, the range experienced another renaissance in the 1960s, when art student Judith Onions refined the lines of the tea and coffee service that’s still made to her specifications. If you’ve wondered why a Cornishware handle is so comfortable to hold, thank Onions.

By the 2000s, however, things were not going so well. Increased competition from China, where production and labour costs were—and still are—far lower, coupled with decaying Victorian infrastructure and banks’ unwillingness to invest in increasingly unprofitable British firms, meant that Cornishware twice went into administration. ‘To give you an idea of what’s happened, in the 1950s —when the UK was the centre of world ceramic production—150,000 people were employed in the potteries. Today, it’s 8,000–10,000,’ explains Mr Rickards. Fortunately, the second time that Cornishware went bust in 2007, Mr Rickards, an entrepreneur and devotee of the brand, stepped in, with Paul Burston and Perry Haydn Taylor, to save it.

He says he’s not artistic—although the pieces of pottery he made as a seven year old at Clayesmore School in Dorset under the

courtesy of Cornishware

From its beginnings in the blue and white of Cornwall’s rolling surf, the company has expanded into a range of cheerful hues

It would have been seen as bold and different–the genius is in its simplicity

Steady does it: the author tries her hand at applying paint to a bowl’s raised ridges

Proving you can change your stripes: the brand has branched out into other two-tone products, from aprons to rolling pins

tutelage of Richard Geary suggest otherwise —but Mr Rickards’s business experience has proved invaluable. He set up a medical courier company at the age of 19, then a removals firm, yet he also knew a thing or two about ceramics, thanks to his involvement in an importation business and a French porcelain firm that supplied Chinese crockery to the Costa Coffee and Caffè Nero chains.

Initially, Mr Rickards tried, but failed, to find a British firm to make Cornishware and, reluctantly, moved production to China. Nonetheless, the father of five (four girls and a boy) says he’d always had half an idea of developing the barns on the family farm in Batcombe to bring the manufacturing process to the West Country. In 2017, once the brand was back on its feet, Mr Rickards did exactly that.

As he predicted, the outbuildings of the handsome farmhouse—previously owned by the Knights of St John since the 12th century—are an ideal base for the company, which, in its centenary year, is going from strength to strength. At first, with a staff of only five, biscuitfired blanks made at the famous Royal Stafford pottery in Stokeon-Trent were painted, finished and glazed in Somerset. However, a steady rise in profits and canny reinvestment—culminating this year in the construction of a slip-casting unit—has seen

From Somerset with love: how Cornishware is made

• Clay (historically known as kaolin) is purchased from the St Austell quarry called The China Clay Pits, dubbed ‘The Cornish Alps’ by locals, which has been at the heart of the UK porcelain industry since the mid 18th century

• The clay is liquified and poured into plaster-of-Paris moulds (right)

• Once set, pieces of pottery are carefully removed from the moulds, sponged down and ‘fettled’ (the process of cleaning or trimming the rough edges)

• Each item is slowly air dried to prevent cracking

• Next comes the first ‘bisque’ or ‘biscuit’ firing, before the original T. G. Green ‘backstamp’ is applied to the bottom of each item

• Cornishware’s army of decorators paint stripes onto pieces as they spin on a potter’s wheel driven by a pedal, much as a sewing machine is powered

the workforce grow to 30, many of whom join as apprentices through nearby Yeovil College.

When asked how it feels to have brought a piece of British heritage back from the brink, Miss Rickards—a graphic designer and Falmouth College of Art graduate—confesses that the company feels like a ‘family member’. For her father, it was an opportunity to put his skills to good use. ‘It would have been so sad to see a beautiful product like Cornishware fall by the wayside,’ he admits. ‘We’ve had amazing support from those who love the brand and that’s a really powerful force.’

Not that the firm is resting on its laurels. ‘We’re introducing products to mark our 100 years, such as coronation mugs and planters (‘Not just for mugs’, April 26 ),’ reveals Miss Rickards. ‘We’re also bringing back the vintage rolling pin and the little spice jars.’

New wares, such as a stripy Christmas bauble, are constantly being dreamt up, too, although Miss Rickards is still amazed by how well they go down with Cornishware fans. ‘When we launched them last year, we sold 1,600 baubles in only 18 minutes, but the volume of traffic crashed the website,’ she adds with a rueful smile. Cornishware (01749 880992; www.cornishware.co.uk) will have a stand at the Royal Cornwall Show, Wadebridge, June 8–10 (www.royalcornwallshow.org)

• When the wax is dry, pieces are then dipped into a vat of paint. ‘Dippers’ learn to hold their hands like spiders within the mugs and other items, knowing precisely how much pressure to apply so that the colour only reaches the top rim and doesn’t spill inside

• All the items (painted and dipped) are fired again, at which point they shrink by 10%

• Once checked for imperfections (seconds are sold at a discount), pieces are put on a conveyor belt to the glazing barn, where they are dunked in pink-tinged glaze and then left to dry. This process makes items shiny, tough and, for modern kitchens, both water- and dishwasher-proof

• As it’s not possible to paint items with a handle on a wheel, these must be waxed, then dipped in paint. The waxing method, which can take a year to perfect, involves brushing melted wax onto the white areas so that the paint doesn’t adhere to those parts

• Finally, the pottery undergoes a third firing for up to 16 hours, before heading to the enormous packing shed at the top of the old dairy yard, from where it’s either sold direct via the website, through 23 John Lewis stores or 100 independent retailers

Pioneering cook Elizabeth Raffald penned early recipes for Yorkshire puddings, piccalilli and Christmas cake

Move over Mrs Beeton

IF you were to imagine a key contributor to our national cuisine, the 18th-century cookery-book writer Elizabeth Raffald is unlikely to be the name that first springs to mind. Some people may perhaps think of Mrs Beeton, but not of Raffald—yet her impact cannot be overstated: her influential cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper, first published in 1769, ran to 30 editions. She was a household name and her then cutting-edge dishes are now our quintessential British ones, but, today, she is an obscure figure.

Born in 1733, Raffald mastered the art of confectionery by the age of 25; at the time, being a confectioner meant, as it does today, working with sugar to make a range of sweets and syrups, but it also included baking fancy breads, cakes and all manner of what we now call pâtisserie. She spent the first 16 years of her professional life in domestic service, the majority of which took place in the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire coun tryside, but her final three years of service were the most important: she worked as housekeeper in grand Arley Hall, Cheshire. There, she spun golden webs of sugar from superheated caramel and developed complex and showstopping edible sculp tures. After marrying and moving to Manchester in 1763, Raffald took the town by storm: she opened two high-class food and confectionery shops selling a range of fancy foods, including her fantastical decorations; launched a personal-chef business cooking for the well-to-do; opened Manchester’s first servants’ register service (essentially an

employment agency); set up a finishing school for young ladies; and published a full directory of all businesses in her Manchester and Salford Directory (for two towns containing 20,000 people, this was no mean feat). During this time, she was constantly either pregnant or nursing; she reputedly gave birth to 16 daughters. She also had a reputation for being an effective exorcist—the words industrious and indefatigable don’t really do her justice.

Raffald’s impact on food culture could have stopped at Arley and Manchester: with her talents and connections, she was a pillar of the community and highly regarded there until well after her death, but, with the success of her book, her influence spread to every corner of the country. It is by far her greatest achievement. Into it, she distilled her knowledge and skills as housekeeper, caterer and confectioner. Her book contains many firsts, several of which have survived the test of time and become part of Britain’s food culture, including macaroni cheese and Eccles cakes (although she called them ‘sweet patties’ and added the meat

of boiled calves’ feet—something omitted today!). Despite not being the first to write a recipe for ‘portable soup’—a block of reduced, concentrated and dried meat stock that could be dissolved in hot water—she was the first to produce it commercially, which was very handy when on the hoof. For this reason, she is considered the inventor of the modern stock cube or Cup-a-Soup.

Yet her most significant invention is the wedding cake, called a ‘bride cake’ in her book. What was unique? That it was a cake at all, for starters, as bride’s pies had been the tradition. These were large mince pies laced with brandy, Champagne, spices and dried fruit. It had been customary to break

Left: The author’s attempt at Raffald’s bacon and eggs in flummery.

Right: The Eccles cake was a Raffald invention

Credited as ‘the mother of the modern wedding cake’, the 18th-century housekeeper, caterer and confectioner Elizabeth Raffald should be better remembered for her great contribution to British cuisine, contends Neil Buttery

Alamy; Getty; Neil Buttery

She is considered the inventor of the modern stock cube or Cup-a-Soup

Arley Hall in Cheshire, where Elizabeth Raffald created showstopping edible sculptures

the pie over the head of the bride for luck, but Raffald instead made a large fruit cake, much more appropriate in a time when displaying one’s civility was of paramount importance.

Her cake—and this is the real innovation— was covered in a double layer of marzipan and royal icing, a flourish of hers that has endured 250 years. Today, royal wedding cakes are still made to this design and not only for weddings either, for this is now the archetypical Christmas-cake recipe.

She wrote seven editions of her book in her lifetime, the last completed in a pokey coffee house in the dodgy end of the Shambles district of Manchester; she had gone bankrupt, her tavern having folded because of mismanagement by her alcoholic, spendthrift husband. She died of a stroke in 1781 at the age of 47, but her book lived on. Endlessly reprinted, it became the recipe book to gift to new brides and her cake became the one to be cut after the wedding ceremony itself.

Not forgotten: Manchester celebrates the cook with a plaque near the site of her inn

Flicking through its pages, her recipes for exciting contemporary foods read to us now like a traditional cookbook: jugged hare, ice cream, omelette, piccalilli, Yorkshire pudding. Why don’t we know her? Well, let’s turn again to Mrs Beeton and her 1861 Book of Household Management, a book so comprehensive and skilfully marketed that a housewife required no other. Not only that—Beeton’s behemoth was full of recipes taken from female authors’ books that preceded her, including Raffald.

Eventually, Raffald faded away, but her recipes, plagiarised by more people than Beeton alone, were cooked up all over the country; her food was now ubiquitous. Most fittingly perhaps, she is still present at weddings and Christmastime, when her cake— her crowning glory—is the edible centrepiece of the days we now hold most dear.

Dr Neil Buttery is author of ‘Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper’ (£20, Pen & Sword History)

Cook like it’s 1769

Raffald’s insightful instruction was the secret to her success. She took the time to describe accurately the subtle cues one needed to look out for to cook a dish well. Here are a few of her kitchen hacks: she was frequently poetic and, to modern sensibilities, rather shocking.

• Add yeast only when the liquid is so clear ‘it summer-beams and blinks in the tub’ was her advice for making wine

• For anyone wishing to spin a sugar web, Raffald advocated placing ‘a pan of water on the fire to keep the heat from your face and stomach, for fear it should make you faint’

• On serving rabbit: ‘When… roasted, draw out the jaw bones and stick them in the eyes to appear like horns’

• When preparing a pig for roasting, she recommended: ‘Stick your pig just above the breastbone, run your knife into the heart; when it is dead… rub it over with… its own blood’

Mrs Beeton drew on Raffald’s recipes and her books dominated due to skilful marketing

Interiors The inside track Giles Kime

Armless fun

The slipper chair might have its roots in the 18th century, but it owes its compact, convivial appeal to Billy Baldwin, a giant of 20th-century American interior design

WE can recognise and give credit where credit is due, to the debt of taste we owe Europe, but we have taste, too,’ said Billy Baldwin, the most inventive and distinctively American of American decorators, who pioneered a style that married comfort and simplicity like no one else. It was a skill that served him well; he ‘did’ for the Kennedys, Paul Mellon and, famously, for Cole Porter at his Waldorf Towers apartment.

Forty years after his death, Europe owes a debt to Baldwin. Although the slipper chair originated in bedrooms of the 18thcentury haut monde as a place to perch when putting on shoes, he reinvented it for American beau monde 200 years later (Greta Garbo and Barbara Hutton were also clients). The masterstroke was making it big enough to perch comfortably, but also—like the best occasional furniture—easy to move around according to the occasion. ‘Small women and football linebackers find it equally comfort able,’ he said admiringly of his brilliance.

As demonstrated by Emma Burns and Philip Hooper, co-managing directors of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, in their drawing room at last year’s WOW!house, the slipper chair is key to creating a crisply elegant interior that isn’t heavily burdened with upholstery (this year’s show kicks off on June 5, at Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour; www.dcch.co.uk). If not imposing symmetry, they also fit neatly and discreetly into otherwise redundant gaps. Among the other attractions of the slipper chair is that it can be dressed up and down at a whim; reductivist chic at one extreme and gathered excess at the other, via discreet kick pleats. Compared with curtains and sofas, slipper chairs require far less fabric. According to the US magazine Architectural Digest, Baldwin was notably thrifty in his choice of fabrics, favouring cotton and linen— although, apparently, Diana Vreeland was not; she opted for a scarlet floral. The slipper chair offers yet more evidence that, when it comes to furniture, interior designers tend to know best.

Small women and football linebackers find it equally comfortable

A pair of Billy Baldwin-inspired slipper chairs in the elegant Colefax and Fowler drawing room displayed at WOW!house last year

The new Gibbings Slipper chair from Julian Chichester

The Rattan Lily slipper chair in Tulips and Butterflies Mutka silk, £5,550, Soane Britain (020–7730 6400; www.soane.com)

Scallop upholstered slipper chair in Colette Green linen with white piping, £3,014, Nina Campbell (020–7591 5795; https://shop.ninacampbell.com)

Small but perfect

Madeleine armchair in Hugo Millet linen with Pale Oak legs, £725, Neptune (01793 934011; www.neptune.com)

Slipper chairs for every setting, selected by Amelia Thorpe

Slipper chair in Zanzibar Raspberry linen with loose pleated skirt, £2,772, Penny Morrison (020–7384 2975; www.pennymorrison.com)

Astell chair, £2,350 plus 4½m of fabric, David Seyfried (020–7823 3848; www.davidseyfried.com)

Brewster chair in Basketweave Oatmeal linen, £3,939, George Smith (020–7384 1004; www.georgesmith.com)

Apadana armless chair in Blood Orange velvet, £995, OKA (0333 004 2042; www.oka.com)

The Minety one-seater sofa bed in Heritage Collection Seal linen cotton, £1,611, Willow & Hall (020–8939 3800; www.willowandhall.co.uk)

Slipper cushioned chair in Milas embroidered linen, £3,275, Vaughan (020–7349 4600; www.vaughandesigns.com)

Cub lounge chair, £1,150, Andrew Martin (020–3887 6113; www.andrewmartin.co.uk)

Bateman chair, £3,540, plus 7m fabric and fringe, cord and rosettes, Dudgeon (020–7589 0322; www.dudgeonsofas.com)

Property market Penny Churchill

The kraken wakes

Heaven on earth: Imposing

DESCRIBED by its previous long-time owner Sir Christopher Ondaatje as ‘the most beautiful spot on earth’, magical, Grade II-listed Glenthorne House at Countisbury, near Lynton, Devon, occupies a spectacular coastal location where Exmoor meets the sea on the north Devon/west Somerset border, with panoramic views over the Bristol Channel towards Lynmouth, Porlock Bay

and Wales. For sale through the Exeter office of Savills (01392 455743) at a guide price of £7 million, the imposing stone house— an intriguing mix of Georgian and Victorian Gothic with a dash of Tudor—stands in 77 acres of deep combes and ancient woodland that run down to the shore, in sharp contrast to the heather moors of Exmoor at the top of the cliffs and the rocky beaches at the

bottom. The site on which the house stands is reputedly the only piece of flat land between Porlock and Lynmouth.

The original Glenthorne estate was created by the Revd Walter Stevenson Halliday, the son of a Scottish naval surgeon and banker who made a fortune during the Napoleonic wars and died in 1829. Having inherited his father’s fortune, he set out to invest

After what seems like the longest winter ever, the West Country market has suddenly gone into overdrive

Glenthorne House, near Lynton, Devon, boasts breathtaking panoramic views over the Bristol Channel. £7m

in a country estate and eventually settled on Countisbury, where he gradually bought the entire parish, some 7,000 acres in all.

Having identified the perfect setting for his new house, it took him the best part of a year to create the zig-zag, 2½-mile drive leading down to it. Stables were built at Home Farm to house working horses, a track was cut to the shore and a landing stage built for materials

to come in by sea. Only then could work start on the house, which is built of the pinkish local limestone, dressed with Bath stone and roofed with Cornish slate (C OUNTRY L IFE , January 16 and 23, 2019).

The original building was finished in 1831, followed in 1839 by new kitchens, staff quarters and a large conservatory. In 1846, the front of the house was extended into the

hillside with the addition of a library wing and a new master-bedroom suite above. The three-bedroom house at Home Farm was built in the 1850s. According to its Historic England listing, Halliday was ‘much influenced in the design of the house by the buildings illustrated in P. F. Robinson’s Rural Architecture, or a Series of Designs for Ornamental Cottages (1823)’. The last

Top: Tranquil Sector Hall in Devon. £3.5m. Above: Elegant Trethill House in Cornwall. £3m

Property market

of the Hallidays to live there was Benjamin Halliday, who inherited in 1968.

In 1983, a snippet in C OUNTRY L IFE advertised the sale ‘for the first time in its history, of Glenthorne with 18 acres of gardens, woods and paddocks, access to the foreshore and views across the Bristol Channel to Wales’. The following year the house, by then in a poor state of repair, was bought by Sir Christopher, who drafted in a team of 35 builders and craftspeople to renovate the entire 12,468sq ft living space in a massive, military-style operation that took only seven months to complete. Home Farm was acquired some years later.

The present owners, who bought Glenthorne some five years ago, have further upgraded the house, enhancing many of the building’s original features and modernising the kitchen and bathrooms. Accommodation laid out over three floors includes a reception hall with a vaulted ceiling, five main reception rooms, a gun room, a kitchen/breakfast room and utilities on the ground floor; the principal bedroom suite, six further bedrooms, three bathrooms, a study and studio on the first floor; and four bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. Extensive cellars and storage are housed on the lower-ground floor.

Now fully restored, Home Farm provides further staff or guest accommodation, including a large kitchen, four reception rooms, an office, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, with an adjoining stone barn currently used as a gym. The two-bedroom Gardener’s Cottage has been unoccupied for some time and requires complete refurbishment.

from the Jurassic Coast at Lyme Regis. The immaculate late-Georgian/early-Victorian country house dates from 1838 and is for sale as a whole or in two lots through the Sherborne office of Knight Frank (01935 810062) at a guide price of £3.5m for Lot 1, comprising the sunny, 6,160sq ft, eight-bedroom main house, the one-bedroom coach house, and the two-storey stone barn, outbuildings and summer house set in some 30 acres of lake, gardens and parkland; Lot 2, priced at £250,000, is available by separate negotiation and comprises 28 acres of pasture and woodland copses, 13 acres of which are currently let to a local farmer.

In total contrast to the rugged splendour of Glenthorne, tranquil, Grade II-listed Sector Hall, near Axminster, east Devon, sits in 58 acres of parkland, woods and farmland at the end of a long drive surrounded by the rolling countryside of the Axe Valley, near the county border with Dorset and a short hop

Across the River Tamar in south-east Cornwall, Oliver Custance-Baker of Strutt & Parker’s country department (020–7591 2207) is handling the launch onto the market of elegant Grade II-listed Trethill House at Sheviock, near Torpoint, which sits in 35 acres of delightful gardens and grounds overlooking the Rame Peninsula between the sea and the Lynher River, a tributary of the Tamar. He quotes a guide price of £3m for the charming, late-Georgian villa, built between 1836 and 1840, then extended with a bay to the left in the later 19th century.

The imposing Glenthorne House is an intriguing mix of Georgian and Victorian Gothic with a dash of Tudor

A sweeping drive showcases idyllic grounds en route to secluded St Breock Place in a quiet hamlet near Wadebridge, Cornwall. £3.5m

In the late 1700s, the Trethill estate was owned by Capt Samuel Wallis, a distinguished naval officer and Pacific Ocean explorer who made the first European landfall on Tahiti in June 1767. On Capt Wallis’s death in 1795, the estate passed to his cousin, Ann Wallis, who died in 1836, leaving the estate to her eldest son, the Revd Samuel Wallis, a gentleman scholar and founding fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. Wallis immediately commissioned the Plymouth-based architect George Wightwick, a former assistant to Sir John Soane, to build him a new villa in the picturesque Italianate style.

Trethill House offers more than 6,700sq ft of accommodation on two floors, including a reception hall, five impressive groundfloor rooms, including a drawing room and dining room with original fireplaces and far-reaching views over the grounds, a fine library, a sitting room and a study. The kitchen boasts an Aga, modern integrated appliances and space for a large breakfast table. A substantial cellar could be developed into further accommodation if required.

Two staircases lead to the first floor, and six good double bedrooms, including the principal bedroom suite that has a large bathroom en suite, plenty of natural light and a balcony from which to admire the coastal views. There are also three family bathrooms. Further accommodation is available in the detached coach house, which provides garaging, stabling and equestrian facilities on the ground floor, with a twobedroom apartment on the first floor. The grounds combine beautiful landscaped gardens, meadows and lawns, mature woodland, streams and waterfalls, and a number of paddocks suitable for grazing or exercising horses. A wide variety of flora and fauna includes more than 150 magnolias and a scattering of bluebells, interspersed with well-placed seating areas from which to admire the views.

Far from the madding crowds of surfers that descend on Padstow, north Cornwall, in their droves and wetsuits between May and September, the peaceful hamlet of St Breock, a mile from Wadebridge on the edge of the Camel Estuary AONB and six miles from Padstow, once stood on the site of a palace and deer park owned by the Bishops of Exeter until the Dissolution. Here, Sarah-Jane Bingham-Chick of Knight Frank’s Exeter office (01392 423111) is handling the sale, at a guide price £3.5m, of secluded St Breock Place, an imposing, Grade II*-listed former rectory set in more than seven acres of lovely gardens, grounds and woodland. The house dates from the late 17th century with earlier origins, and was extended in the early to mid 18th century.

In 1790, it was the home of the rector of St Breock, the Revd John Molesworth, and his wife, Catherine (née St Aubyn), of the St Levan family from St Michael’s Mount, who married that year.

In the past, the 6,795sq ft house was configured as two separate homes, each with its own kitchen and front door, a Georgian wing and an older, 16th-century section at the rear. Built of the local stone under a Delabole slate roof, St Breock Place is approached through formal granite posts up a sweeping drive to a gravelled parking area. The idyllic, south-west-facing garden has been designed to take full advantage of the elevated setting and cleverly planted to

provide colour and interest throughout the seasons. The main entrance hall leads into the dining room and through to the southfacing drawing room and library. The welldesigned kitchen is roomy and rustic, with a stone floor, a central island and a fouroven oil-fired Aga. The first floor houses the principal bedroom suite, two guest bedrooms with bathrooms en suite, three further double bedrooms, two family bathrooms and a playroom/sitting room. The main house is served by two high-speed broadband connections, with additional living space provided in the two-bedroom stone coach house on the eastern boundary, which has its own entrance and private garden area.

Imagine your toes in the water

Falmouth-based agent Jonathan Cunliffe (01326 617447) and Savills Auctions in London (020–7824 9091) have joined forces in a bid to find a taker for the ultimate renovation project, that of Water’s Edge at 48, Trefusis Road, Flushing, one of the most valuable and exclusive addresses on the south Cornish coast. With spectacular views across the world’s third-largest natural harbour, the house offers direct water frontage via a set of private steps that wind down to the beach, and its own boathouse, below.

For sale for the first time in 33 years, Water’s Edge is one of only nine Edwardian-style, detached, south-facing houses with water frontage on this exclusive road. Built in the 1920s and now in need of complete refurbishment, the 4,235sq ft house, which is unlisted, sits at the top of its elevated, one-third-of-an-acre plot, looking out over sloping gardens to Falmouth harbour and beyond, with scope to create terracing to maximise the views and grounds. It is currently laid out over three levels with accommodation including four reception rooms, a master suite and five double bedrooms. An auction date has been set for May 31, with offers over £2m being considered prior to auction.

Properties of the week

James Fisher

Cornwall, £3.5 million

When it comes to Waterhouse, we may as well start with the awards. Winner of the Best New Build in Cornwall in 2020? Yes. Winner of the Green Apple Award for Building and Construction 2020? Sure is. Winner of the Cornish Buildings Group Award in 2020? Absolutely. With panoramic views of the Camel Estuary, this passive house is set in the heart of the action just east of Rock and is a standard-setter for design and sustainability (EPC rating of B). With four bedrooms and four bathrooms, Waterhouse is more than merely a holiday home and offers some 4,600sq ft of living space, mostly to an open-plan layout, all finished to a high standard and with the latest tech. I could go on about the recycled-paper insulation, ground-source heating or private filtered water supply, but, really, just look at that view (top). JB Estates (01208 862601)

Somerset, £1.5 million

Wrapped in woodland on three sides, it would be easy for new owners of Combe Edge House to simply forget that the outside world exists. When entering the home, which is approached via an elegant ‘in-and-out’ driveway, a grand enclosed porch leads through to a spacious entrance hall with fireplaces. The interior is gracefully decorated, with the reception rooms featuring woodburning stoves, a generous kitchen and garden room and five large bedrooms. Outside, the property boasts three-quarters of an acre of gardens, mostly set to lawn, but with the aforementioned woodland on either side, a pond and a waterfall. The situation is ideal, too, with all the feel of the countryside, but only three miles from Bath city centre. Knight Frank (01225 325993)

Give it a west Devon, Cornwall and Somerset are as desirable as ever

Devon, £2.85 million

South of Exeter, and only a few minutes’ drive from the River Exe to the east, sits glorious Oxton Mere, a Tuscan-style villa set in 19 acres of the best West Country-side. Privacy and seclusion are the name of the game here, with the house standing in splendid isolation at the bottom of a valley and with no near neighbours. The property, which is south facing, benefits from a flexible interior layout finished to a supremely high standard, with highlights such as a double-height entrance hall, a Shaker-style kitchen/dining area and seven bedrooms in total. Outside, the gardens extend to almost 20 acres and include formal areas, terraces for entertaining, paddock and woodland, and a picturesque two-acre lake stocked with rainbow and brown trout, as well as carp. Further accommodation is provided in the coach house and annexe, whereas further outbuildings include timber barns and a double garage. Savills (01392 455755)

Devon, £1.995 million

A mere seven minutes’ walk from North Sands Beach near Salcombe stands the impressive Hanger Mill, once (you guessed it) a mill and now a glorious five-bedroom family home on the extremely desirable south Devon coast. Dating from 1760 and listed Grade II, the interior is awash with period features, such as exposed timbers, high ceilings and stone fireplaces. Benefiting from lashings of natural light throughout, the property can only be improved by its wonderful gardens, which feature lawns, shrubs and borders, as well as woodland and an orchard. Naturally, a stream runs along the western boundary and the original leat is still evident in the grounds. Salcombe itself is well within walking distance, and additional land may be available via separate negotiation. Luscombe Maye (01548 843593)

Cornwall,

In the heart of the charming village of Manaccan, itself only a mile from the famous creekside Helford village, Woodbine Cottage is a spectacular Grade II-listed thatched cottage that wouldn’t look out of place on the cover of this very magazine. The property occupies a beautiful village setting with rolling fields to the rear, and offers a wealth of charm and character throughout, such as exposed beams, stone fireplace and, of course, the elegant thatched roof. With lawned areas to the front and side, there is plenty of space for entertaining, and a nearby pub provides a great option for extended partying without worrying about your glasses getting broken. Lillicrap Chilcott (01872 273473)

£675,000

Shared economy

The ideal of owning a home overseas can be quashed by mundane realities. From fractional opportunities to resort homes with shared facilities, Agnes Stamp finds alternatives

UNLESS fluent in the native tongue, organising builders in Portugal, making an emergency call to a plumber in Greece or navigating the French legal system can be exasperating, especially if the project management is being executed from a British base. Alternative ownership opportunities offer turn-key solutions to the hassle of property maintenance and are ideal for those without unlimited holiday time. Co-ownership (also referred to as fractional ownership) feels more like a personal investment in a home than a timeshare and can allow access to multiple international locations, perfect for those who can’t commit to a specific country. For individuals who value a sense of community, safety, and a wealth of services in beautiful settings, resort ownership is an appealing alternative.

Abruzzo, Italy, from €95,500 (about £84,500)

Situated in the medieval hill town of Casoli, with panoramic views of the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic Sea, Palazzo Ricci is a fractional-ownership concept that resides in an exquisitely renovated 18th-century palace. Marrying the perks of staying at a hotel with home ownership, the fully-furnished one-, two- and three-bedroom residences enjoy 10,000sq ft of beautiful private gardens and an elegant outdoor pool. Inside, Roman baths, a games room, gym, spa and a bar keep residents entertained. Palazzo Ricci (00 39 348 724 5032; www.palazzoricci.club)

Alcácer, Portugal, from €3.79 million (about £3.35m)

Only one hour from Lisbon and 15 minutes from the sleepy fishing villages of Melides and Comporta, Spatia Melides is a secluded 170-hectare (420-acre) estate with direct access to the sandy beaches of Pinheirinho. The spacious and airy three- and four-bedroom residences benefit from a 24-hour concierge, valet, maintenance, housekeeping and security service, as well as private pools, outdoor kitchens and fire pits. Shared five-star resort facilities include a hammam spa, sauna and steam room, a fully-equipped gym, pilates and yoga studio, indoor and outdoor pools. Savills (020–7409 8135; www.savills.com)

Set on a vast 26,156sq ft plot with panoramic views of the Quinta do Lago lake and North Atlantic ocean, this fully-furnished, seven-bedroom, 10-bathroom modern villa benefits from spectacular facilities, including an indoor pool, 20m outdoor pool, private spa and fully-equipped gym. Residents can entertain in the glass wine cellar, cinema room and bar with indoor/outdoor living areas and enjoy access to the five-star Quinta do Lago resort facilities (located in the protected nature reserve of Ria Formosa), including the North, South and Laranjal golf courses and extensive multi-sports complex. (00 35 128 939 2754; www.quintadolago.com)

Sciacca, Sicily, from €2.39 million (about £2.18m)

Surrounded by 230 hectares (570 acres) of secluded olive groves in south-west Sicily, the open-plan three- and four-bedroom private villas of the Verdura Resort overlook the shimmering blue Mediterranean Sea. Each villa benefits from a fully-equipped kitchen, a 60sq m infinity pool, pergolashaded terraces (which make perfect reading nooks) and full access to the shared fivestar resort facilities, including spa, gym, beach, tennis courts, two championship golf courses, bars and restaurants and concierge assistance. Knight Frank (020–7861 1553; www.knightfrank.com)

Europe,

Allowing access to not one, but four luxury homes with local charm, August’s Signature Collection is a creative solution for roving Europhiles who enjoy year-round destination holidays. With residences in Mallorca, Chamonix, Tuscany and the south of France to pick from—each comfortably sleeping 8–10—this concept curates the best of city, rural and alpine living. August Collection (020–3973 9120; www.augustcollection.co.uk)

Agios Nikolaos, Crete, from €700,000 (about £619,000)

Set into the dramatic hillside, each of the Elounda Hills residences enjoys unobstructed views of the Mirabello Bay and the Aegean Sea beyond. The 55-hectare (138-acre) resort aims to become the leading ultra-luxury, sustainable destination in the Mediterranean, encompassing optimised renewable energy sources, water and waste recycling, plastic-free zones, ‘fish-to-fork’ dining and colourful botanical gardens. The two-, three- and fourbedroom open-plan apartments enjoy a range of boutique marina perks, including seasonal mooring for superyachts, a private beach club, health and wellness centres, bustling restaurants and bars. Elounda Hills (00 30 698 045 5044; www.eloundahills.eu)

Algarve, Portugal, €20 million (about £17.7m)

€425,000 (about £376,000) for 1/17 share

Pastoral care

The garden of Little Benville House, Dorset

The home of Mr and Mrs Bacon

The transformation from dark Victorian shrubberies to open views is brilliantly handled, says George Plumptre

Photographs by Marianne Majerus and Bennet Smith

DORSET is a county where you can still discover large tracts of unspoilt rural landscape. As residents love to say, it is ‘on the way to nowhere’ and it is unusually free from intrusion by major infrastructure: no cities, only a handful of medium-sized country towns; no proximity to airports; almost no large-scale industry; no motorways and the two major through-roads run along the north side and the south coast.

The surroundings of Little Benville House, set on a rural lane between the village of Evershot and the small town of Beaminster, are quintessential Dorset. They were also a decisive factor in Gavin and Jo Bacon’s decision in 1994 to purchase the property. For many years, as they pursued busy careers, the potential they had discovered lay dormant. But, in 2007, they completed an ambitious extension to the house, transforming it from a traditional vernacular L-shape to something longer and more spacious. Mrs Bacon is managing partner of the admired architectural practice Allies and Morrison and she clearly brought her professional expertise to bear in the fusion of old and new.

Over the years that followed, the Bacons turned their attention outside. They described the garden they took on as ‘a long, dark tunnel of Victorian shrubberies’, which stretched south from the house. Enclosed as it was, there was no relationship with the wider landscape; the Bacons knew this relationship

would be the key to the garden’s success. However, as with the house, they wanted to do things properly. As Mrs Bacon said to me when I visited: ‘We knew we should not just meddle about, we needed a master plan.’

Serendipitously, they saw and admired the Royal Bank of Canada garden at the 2014 RHS Chelsea Flower Show that made 27-year-old designer Hugo Bugg the youngest-ever winner of a Gold medal—and on his debut. The garden particularly inspired them because it had a highly relevant and topical theme—global water challenges—and a masterly balance of modern, contemporary style and planting that suggested the merging of garden and landscape. Mr Bugg was approached, he visited Little Benville later in 2014 and a fruitful partnership was born that has been responsible for the garden and which continues today.

Mr and Mrs Bacon knew they wanted designs for the new garden to do two things, ‘to create a garden that fitted with the new house; and to give the garden some overall structure’. Mr Bugg knew immediately that success would come from a design that connected with the wider landscape and which created subtle links both visually and in the planting.

The fusion between garden and landscape is ever-present

Preceding pages: The spacious new dining terrace at Little Benville House overlooks the contemporary lawn to the landscape beyond.

Above: Raised planting beds mark the edge of the garden and are separated from the wildflower meadow by a simple mown-grass strip

Top: Stone steps drop down into the wildflower meadow, with Leucanthemum vulgare, Trifolium pratense, Plantago lanceolata and camassias. Above: Clipped yew pyramids, Taxus baccata, link the meadow to the more structured garden and echo the trees beyond

There were certain key features to connect with, some close, such as the ancient moat that lies in the pasture beyond the garden’s southern boundary. Others were more distant, such as Melbury Woods, which clothe a typical rounded Dorset hill a few miles away to the north-east. With open boundaries to the south and east between the garden, which extends to nearly two acres, and the adjoining pastures that make the total seven acres, the fusion between garden and landscape setting is ever-present and integral to the peaceful, rural atmosphere with which the garden is now infused.

The balance between the gentle pastoral openness and the subtle layers of orderly detailing—both in the hard landscaping and the planting—makes the garden truly contemporary. The juxtaposition of neat squares and

rectangles of mown lawn and areas of meadow grass—which seem to bring the landscape into the garden—is particularly effective and is enhanced by their immaculate finish.

The most impressive piece of hard landscaping is the ha-ha with its deep retaining stone wall, which separates the main area of meadow grass and the tennis court (deliberately sunk so as to be out of sight from the house) that extends towards the garden’s south-east corner. The tennis court presents one of the

garden’s best views across the next-door meadow to the line of handsome, domed oak trees that frame the countryside beyond.

Beguiling as the garden’s boundaries and views might be, its structural relationship is with the house. From sheltered paved areas for sitting out flanked by beds of planting, it extends south to areas of meadow and orchard on the boundary with the moat pasture. The central feature is a generous sweep of lawn, with one side a shady woodland bed filling what was once the Victorian shrubbery and the other a sunny hot border against a wall, behind which lies the vegetable garden. Across the lawn, the woodland bed is shaded by a large oak and other trees. The colours are more muted and the planted area extends to the main area of meadow and tennis court on the far side.

The most impressive piece of hard landscaping is the ha-ha

Notably successful is the repeat use of some plants—each of which has a distinctive, but varied shape—in different areas, which visually draws the garden together. One such trio includes tall Veronicastrum ‘Lavendelturm’, bushy Gillenia trifoliata and fine Nectaroscordum siculum with its umbels of flowers.

The most striking repetition is three trios of symmetrical clipped yew obelisks, two in the west garden and one at the far end of the main south lawn, which add a brilliantly sculptural element to views across the garden. Such understated subtlety threads through the garden, effortlessly disguising the skilful arrangement of spaces and detailing, the thoughtful retention of integral trees and the carefully chosen palette of plants.

Built to last

The limited use, but unfailingly high standard of the hard landscaping demonstrates emphatically the benefits of doing this properly. The key elements are narrow paving stones, which are used to edge some areas of lawn, and low retaining walls built with local stone, which edge others. The retaining wall around the tennis court and the immaculately inserted series of steps—in one place set into the lawn of the west garden—provide the most subtle of architectural touches. The walls are all

properly finished with coping stones and all steps are broad and shallow, making them almost seamless to walk up and down.

The overall effect is a distinctly modern balance of understatement and visual impact that gives the garden a clear architectural unity. The longer you are in the garden, the more you realise that its easy accessibility— however you progress around—is framed and signposted by the hard landscaping. This element of a garden project can always seem expensive, but the message from Little Benville is do not stint: doing it properly will always bring long-term benefits.

Left: Clipped box forms contrast with looser plantings of euphorbia and grasses. Right: Sage and chives soften the hard landscape in a mixed herbaceous planting

In the garden Anna Pavord

Stop the clock

THE best gardening days start with many possibilities, but no fixed plan. These are the days when I can wander out, stopping perhaps to pull a few weeds from the gravel in the yard (never all of them at once—that would be too oppressive a task) and make for the bank, where there are always things to be done. And they will be done, but the point is that they don’t necessarily have to be done today.

Gardening gives us an opportunity to escape the clock. When we garden, we can for a while leave behind an agenda constructed of appointments, timetables and telephone calls and allow ourselves to be taken over by a completely different calendar, a huge and pre-ordained one, circumscribed by the weather and, in particular, the seasons.

This isn’t a conscious process. When I stop to admire the brilliance of moss, slowly spreading soft feelers over the roughness of a stone trough, I don’t say: ‘Fancy that, I’m part of the great diurnal round.’ Instead, I move to cut back the viburnum that is getting in the way of the moss. But these rare, uninterrupted gardening days will perhaps end with a heart-stopping view of the new fronds of shuttlecock fern silhouetted against the sky or coriander seedlings in the greenhouse, humping themselves with inexorable determination through the compost in their pot. Slow gardening. We ought, if we can, to give ourselves more time for it.

We ought, because the point of gardening should not be a mad rush to get the whole thing done, but a more unhurried, relaxed enjoyment of the act of doing it. A garden, as the late, great John Sales used to say (for 30 years he was in charge of gardens at the National Trust), is a process, not a product. We flail about, perhaps with a vague image in mind of the setting we are trying to make for ourselves, planting here, cutting back there, but, meanwhile, each of the constituents of the garden will have its own purpose, its own destiny and will be marching to its own beat. We live in a trashy age, used to quick results, and bits of quickness in a garden, such as nasturtiums, to which I’m devoted, are heartening and fun. But my favourite things are slow: hollies, magnolias, walnuts. It’s only now in our present garden that I’ve been

Horticultural aide-mémoire Prune camellias

Evergreen shrubs such as the camellia require no routine pruning and, indeed, their elegance is at risk from people who feel an unjustified urge to chop away at things. Nonetheless, there comes a point when shoots begin to get in the way and the question arises of how to remove them without sacrificing next spring’s flowers. Act now, after the completion of flowering and before next year’s flower buds form. Either cut out the offending shoot altogether back to the trunk or trace its line back to a point where no offence is caused and cut to an outward-facing bud. SCD

able to plant magnolias, for the clay, on which I’ve gardened all my life, is here replaced by greensand, just on the acid side of neutral.

in the evening, glass of wine in hand. ‘Thank you very much.’

Magnolia x wieseneri is the most mesmerising of the 10 magnolias I have planted, the creamy flowers intoxicating with their scent, but chiefly compelling because of the time they take to reveal their beauty. It’s a lowish, wide-growing thing, wider indeed than it is high, and the flower buds, sitting upright on the branches, are already evident in March. Through April, they start to swell, protected not by hard woolly coats like the buds on the Yulan (M. denudata), but by two soft, silky coverings, a pale-pink beige. Bud burst begins in May, not in a slam, bang moment, but slowly. First the outer petals drop, then after a few days, the inner ones. Finally, as the flower expands (it can be about 6in across), the centre is revealed: a boss of deepred, velvety stamens of hypnotic splendour. ‘Thank you,’ I say, wandering up to this prodigy

Slow gardeners learn to acknowledge and appreciate what happened on their patches before they arrived. There may be a big old holly on the boundary or a huge pear tree. These fascinated me when I travelled on suburban trains in and out of London, for I would see these aged, elegant beauties blossoming in the small back gardens of houses that had surely arrived much later on the scene. The pears are survivors from the market gardens that used to feed the city and they remind us that, on the right root stock, they can last for 200 years.

Of course, it’s not always possible to indulge in slow gardening, but it is one of the excellent compensations of getting slower oneself. We can take time to watch a brilliant beetle clambering over a clod of earth. We can give due attention to the foliage of tree peonies, not quite bronze, certainly not green, astonishing in their diversity. Bit by bit, we can tune ourselves into a different, more resonant key.

The Seasonal Gardener by Anna Pavord, published by Phaidon, is out now

Next week Companion planting

Go with the flow: savour the slow reveal of the beautiful, creamy blooms of Magnolia x wieseneri

Alamy

On the right root stock, pears can last for 200 years

Kitchen garden cook Carrots

by Melanie Johnson

More ways with Carrots

Harissa, carrot and sweet-potato rösti with pomegranate and feta

Grate two large carrots and a sweet potato. Sprinkle with salt and leave for 15 minutes. Squeeze out in a clean tea towel and then mix with a beaten egg, chopped parsley, a teaspoon of harissa and a chopped spring onion. Pan-fry dollops of the mixture in vegetable oil for a few minutes on each side or until golden. Serve with feta crumbled over the top, a scattering of pomegranate seeds and some peppery rocket.

Olive oil and carrot Swiss roll with cream-cheese filling

Method

Preheat your oven to 160˚C fan/ 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4 and line a Swiss-roll tin—about 23cm (9in) by 33cm (13in)— with baking parchment. Whisk together in a large bowl the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, salt and sugar. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and olive oil, then stir them through the dry ingredients. Add the grated carrots and gently fold them in. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 15–20 minutes or until cooked through.

Dust a clean tea towel with icing sugar. When the cake is cooked, invert it onto the sugared tea towel. When the

cake is still warm, very gently use the tea towel to roll it up from the long side. Leave it in the tea towel to cool completely. Make the filling by beating the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together and then add the icing sugar gradually to reach the consistency of a thick, spreadable filling. (You may need a little less or a little more than 250g.)

Once the carrot roll is cool, gently open it and add the filling. Roll it back up again and dust with icing sugar or add more decorative icing to the top if desired, then serve. This will keep for a few days in an airtight container.

Ingredients

100g self-raising flour

1tspn cinnamon

½tspn ginger

A pinch of nutmeg

A pinch of salt

125g light brown sugar

3 eggs

1tspn vanilla-bean paste

40ml mild olive oil

2 medium carrots, grated

For the creamcheese filling

250g cream cheese

50g unsalted butter

1tspn vanilla-bean paste

About 250g icing sugar

Carrot, orange and pistachio salad with orange-blossom dressing

Using a vegetable peeler, peel two large carrots into ribbons and add them to a bowl with a handful of rocket. Cut the peel from an orange, slice it across into juliennes and add to the carrots and rocket. Toss through a handful of chopped pistachios and then make a dressing by whisking together the following: four tablespoons of olive oil, two tablespoons of apple-cider vinegar, one tablespoon of soured cream (or substitute mayonnaise if convenient) and half a teaspoon of orange-blossom water. Serve on toasted sourdough with grilled halloumi or as a side dish to grilled chicken or fish.

Melanie Johnson

Sweet, with a delightful crunch–don’t peel away the flavour from home-grown summer carrots

Where the wild orchids sing

FROG, bird’s-nest, bee, fly, monkey, late spider, lizard—if you think these are ingredients for a potent Hallowe’en brew, think again: welcome to Britain’s fascinating array of wild orchids. Orchids are the most diverse, most highly evolved flowering plants on the planet. With more than 30,000 species (compared with 6,399 mammalian ones), the vast majority are native to tropical zones. It was these that wealthy Victorians feverishly imported at great cost from the jungles of Asia and the Americas. Ever since, tropical orchids have overshadowed Britain’s native flowers, to the extent that many people today simply do not realise that we play host to more than 50 species.

The first of Britain’s native-orchid flowers appear in early spring. On a few cliff tops along England’s south coast, stumpy plants with small lime-green leaves open fuzzy brown flowers surrounded by a corona of five light-green ‘legs’. Centuries ago, herbalists thought these blooms looked sufficiently like little fat-bellied spiders to call the plant the early spider orchid and the name has stuck. To me, they look more like little paper models of strange lime-and-chocolate lollipops quivering in the breeze. In fact, their complex combination of shape, colour

The green-winged orchid ( Anacamptis morio) is at home in traditional meadows

The enchantingly beautiful native orchid is, tragically, one of Britain’s most endangered wildflowers, but it’s still possible to see them if you look in the right places, says Ben Jacob

and texture—as well as a scent mixed from more than 100 different chemicals—has nothing to do with spiders (or lollipops). Rather, it evolved to perfectly mimic those of a female solitary bee, which tricks newly emerged male bees into attempting to mate with the flower. In this process (known as ‘pseudocopulation’), the bee pollinates the plant.

The orchid saviour

Britain’s orchids are in decline—some are seeing a gradual slide towards extinction and others a recent population collapse. This is a consequence of a shift made about two centuries ago from millenniaold forms of land management to industrialisation. Over this period, clearfelling of ancient woodland, ploughing grasslands, draining marshes, urbanisation and the proliferation of chemicals in the earth, water and air have occurred on an unprecedented scale. Many of these factors have been enabled by feeble environmental legislation.

then, as I describe in my book The Orchid Outlaw, a curious sequence of events woke me to the plight of these fascinating plants. I decided to save them. I heavily researched native orchids, turned my kitchen into a micropropagation lab, my backyard into an orchid nursery, embarked on night-time raids of building sites to rescue orchids that would otherwise get crushed and started my own (unofficial) orchid reintroduction programme.

Away from southern cliffs, the first flowering orchid of the year is usually the early purple orchid. Its spires of blooms rise like flamboyant mauve hyacinths among bluebells, primroses and cowslips on old hedge banks, unsprayed verges, ancient woodlands and in meadows. At about the same time, in traditionally managed meadows—like huddles of dainty green-and-white-striped bonnets —the green-winged orchid’s flowers arrive.

As summer progresses, in select parts of the country, amid wild thyme, milkwort, kidney vetch and swaying meadow grasses, the air humming with choirs of bees and crickets, flickering with the wings of butterflies and

To them can be added the phenomenon of climate breakdown, which affects the emergence of pollinators, flowering periods, the setting of orchid seed and the suitability of certain habitats. For a long time, I wasn’t really attuned to these issues,

day-flying moths, the full spectrum of Britain’s orchids bloom, enchantingly beautiful, as if forged by Fabergé. There are elusive bog orchids no taller than your thumb; many species and varieties of marsh orchids— early, southern, northern, pugsley’s, heathspotted, Irish, common-spotted and frog —producing bouquets of speckled pinks, magentas, crimsons and even, in the case

Sometimes, my actions were legally questionable. I’m not normally a lawbreaker, but given that all current data shows that existing policies, legislation— and even conservation efforts—are largely failing to reverse orchid population decline, I decided to help in my own way. After all, I was not going to stand by as the land my ancestors had shaped, fought and died for slowly lost an exquisite part of what makes these islands special.

of the frog, green trimmed with russet. The military orchid, burnt, man, lady and monkey prefer well-drained meadows and clearings where they display flowers shaped like little people with stumpy limbs and hoods or caps over their heads (why this shape?

We do not know). The spectacular lady orchid resembles a cloud of little women in burgundy skirts and bonnets being swept

Facing page: Pollinator friendly: marsh fritillary butterflies (Euphydryas aurinia) rest on a heath-spotted orchid (Dactylorhiza maculata).

Above: One of Britain’s first-flowering varieties is the early purple orchid (Orchis mascula), found in ancient woodlands and meadows

The common twayblade was one of the first orchids recorded in English (in 1548)

up into the sky on a breeze. The common twayblade may have unassuming columns shaggy with pale-green flowers, but do not let appearances deceive you: it was one of the first orchids ever recorded in English (in 1548) and it can outlive a human by decades. In the shady depths of beech forests, the otherworldly bird’s-nest (named after its scruffy, nest-like rhizomes) lives underground without sunlight, only sending its spikes of bonecoloured flowers into the daylight. Our two species of butterfly orchid—the increasingly rare lesser butterfly and commoner greater butterfly—have flowers like winged serpents sculpted by Dalí out of lemon meringue. They are pollinated by night-flying moths attracted to their lily-like scent and the ethereal glow they produce by moon and starlight. In contrast, the lizard orchid has been said to smell of goat and can have yard-high banners smothered in twisted petals like lizards’ tails.

As summer progresses, Britain’s helleborines bloom. Some of these are woodland plants, others prefer northern limestone habitats; some have flowers like blunt-tipped, five-pointed stars drooping from tall stems, others have slender, snaking stalks and graceful flowers that open like birds in flight. Found in only a handful of guarded locations, the critically endangered red helleborine is one of the rarest plants in Britain.

When summer segues into autumn, the last of Britain’s wild orchids, autumn lady’stresses, raises its little spires hung with pale, honey-scented bells and offers its nectar to incongruously large bumblebee pollinators. Charles Darwin studied the way bumblebees pollinated these flowers and how this orchid has a very clever mechanism for ensuring cross-pollination. By doing so, these native flowers proved his theory of coevolution: the flowers would not look or operate that way without the presence of bumblebees. Similarly, without their pollinators, orchids such as the early spider would not have evolved to look, feel and smell as they do.

creation of new generations that these plants and their ancestors have engaged in for about 66 million years. Unfortunately, it is a process increasingly disrupted by human action. This is making the sight of orchids on these islands increasingly uncommon.

When winter arrives, autumn lady’s-tresses die down and the next generation of the species that flowered earlier in the year start to appear, waiting out the winter as low leaf-rosettes until, in spring, the process of flowering and seed-setting begins again. It is a cycle of growth and rebirth and the

As did all our flora, orchids evolved to inhabit ecosystems specific to these isles, such as ancient beech forests, bogs, heaths, woodland clearings, marshes and meadows. Humans have made these habitats fragmented and rare. One species of orchid, summer lady’s-tresses, went extinct in Britain in the 1950s. Another, Irish lady’s-tresses, died out in the 1990s. The gorgeous lady’s slipper, with its sun-yellow pouch and burgundy braids, clings on in the wild as a single plant. The banana-scented ghost orchid has not been seen for 13 years. Has it gone forever? Perhaps. Apart from a few concerned scientists, conservationists and enthusiasts, these disappearances receive little attention. For this reason, raising awareness of Britain’s orchids is more than about saving some beauty in the wild; it is about protecting and preserving the rich tapestry of our natural heritage for future generations.

The author’s book ‘The Orchid Outlaw: On a mission to save Britain’s rarest flowers’ (£20, John Murray Press) is out now

The banana-scented ghost orchid has not been seen for 13 years. Has it gone forever?

Left: The endangered red helleborine (Cephalanthera rubra), one of Britain’s rarest plants. Middle: The twisted petals of the lizard orchid (Himantoglossum jankae). Right: The spectacular lady orchid (Orchis purpurea), likened to ‘little women in burgundy skirts and bonnets’

Jonathan Buckley; Ross Hoddinott/naturepl.com; Getty; Marianne Majerus Garden Images; Alamy; Linda Pitkin/naturepl.com

Where to see wild orchids

Few experiences can be as fulfilling as wandering through areas of Britain’s ancient land glimpsing how these islands would have looked to our ancestors. This is Britain as it is meant to be: a rich, interconnected palette of life

The New Forest Heaths and bogs within this outstanding example of preserved land are great places to find the tiny bog orchid, pink clouds of heath-spotted orchids, the exquisite bee, heath fragrant, and the increasingly rare lesser butterfly

Braunton Burrows, north Devon

The slacks between the huge dunes in this UNESCO Biosphere Reserve are home to large numbers of early marsh orchids. Their densely packed flowers carpet the sand in a spectrum from white to brick red; marsh

helleborines also blossom alongside well-named pyramidal orchids and scarce marsh fragrant orchids

Kenfig/Cynffig, South Wales

A dune habitat where the early purple orchid starts the season, followed by pyramidal orchids,

bee, chalk fragrant, commonspotted, early marsh, broadleaved helleborines and marsh helleborines. Later in the summer, autumn lady’s-tresses produce their spirals of small bell-like blooms. The jewel in the crown here is the rare fen

orchid with its pale-green, skywards-facing flowers

Hartslock Reserve, Oxfordshire

Overlooking the Thames are some good examples of England’s ‘little men’ orchids: the jumbled candy-floss limbs of the monkey orchid, a few lady orchids, and a growing number of lady/monkey hybrids, unofficially known as ‘lonkeys’ (left)

Upper Teesdale, Co Durham

An area arguably unmatched for British flora, it boasts early purple, chalk fragrant, common twayblade, common spotted, northern marsh and early marsh, lesser and greater butterfly, and the scarce darkred helleborine

Feoch Meadows, Ayrshire

One of Britain’s best examples of traditional meadowland, where orchids include the lesser butterfly, greater butterfly, heath fragrant, the increasingly scarce frog orchid and the rare small white

Left: The rare ghost orchid (Epipogium aphyllum) is possibly extinct in the UK—it was last seen 13 years ago. Middle: The flowers of the man orchid (Orchis anthropophora) resemble people with stumpy limbs and a hood. Right: Autumn lady’s-tresses (Spiranthes spiralis)

Time, please

THOMAS TOMPION, wrote Sacheverell Sitwell, seemed ‘to be marked as head of his profession in the mere music of his name, as its syllables chime slowly and solemnly upon the ear’. I hope that readers with longish memories will forgive me: I see that I’ve used this quotation several times before, once in my very first COUNTRY L IFE saleroom column. Unfortunately, Sitwell added, not all his wonderfully composed clocks chimed with his music. One of a number made for William III had to be removed from the King’s bedroom at Hampton Court, as its ‘involved ticking disturbed the repose of the monarch’.

I was looking at that first article to see how prices for clocks by the greatest English makers have moved over the years and the answer seems to be: hardly at all. In the early months of 1990, Asprey, then a major dealer in the field, paid about £150,000 each for two fine Tompion table clocks, one of which was numbered 531, dating it to about 1710. In today’s money, that would be just over £436,200 each. At the time of writing, I am aware of eight Tompions on the market with dealers, with one more recently sold, and the top published price among them is £395,000.

In 2015, Jonathan Carter of Carter Marsh & Co in Winchester,

Hampshire, secured the sale of an unequalled collection formed by Tom Scott, a self-made multimillionaire who had a reputation both as a hard-nosed businessman and a philanthropist. He had turned his attention to clocks as seriously as any of his other interests and had the largest group of Tompions ever assembled. As co-author with Richard Garnier, Mr Carter published The Golden Age of English Horology: Masterpieces from the Tom Scott Collection

For the new Treasure House Fair (which I shall preview here on June 21), Mr Carter has assembled a choice group of 19 ‘Great Age’ clocks and one watch dating from the 1670s to 1750: eight by Tompion (of which one is presold and one ‘price on application’), five by Joseph Knibb, four by Daniel Quare and three by George Graham. At £650,000, the most expensive for which a price has been published is one of the Knibbs, a silver-mounted ebony phase II grande sonnerie table

clock with tic-tac escapement, dating from 1678–79 and known as the ‘Hamburg Knibb’ after a previous owner (Fig 1)

At the other end of the scale, the 1750 gold-cased pocket watch by Graham, Tompion’s son-inlaw and successor, is offered at £22,000 (Fig 4) . The ‘price on application’ Tompion is a silvermounted ebony two-train grande sonnerie striking and repeating table clock of about 1677 known as the ‘Silver Tompion’ (Fig 3) (www.cartermarsh.com).

Ben Wright, the clock specialist of Tetbury, Gloucestershire, has a single-owner collection to offer now and the 16 items also include a Tompion, priced at about £175,000. Charmingly, Mr Wright records that cataloguing Tompion No 155 (Fig 7 ), of about 1689, has given him great pleasure: ‘This is not a flamboyant all-singing, alldancing Tompion, but underneath its reserved ebony veneers and beautiful mounts hides a clock of great character and intelligence.’

A splendid assemblage of clocks is a tribute to its collector’s zeal and a new book revives an admirable tradition

Fig 1 far left: The ‘Hamburg Knibb’ by Joseph Knibb. With Carter Marsh & Co. Fig 2 above left: A brass lantern clock by John Knibb. With Ben Wright. Fig 3 above right: The ‘Silver Tompion’. With Carter Marsh & Co. Fig 4 left: A 1750 George Graham pocket watch. With Carter Marsh & Co

in London, where he was made free of the Clockmakers’ Company in 1682. In the case are signatures and dates in ink by craftsmen who restored it in 1811 and 1863. The latest item here, from about 1800, is an obelisk-like eight-day longcase astronomical clock (Fig 5) . As well as small dials for seconds, minutes and hours, it has a larger dial with a wealth of astronomical and astrological information concerning both the sun and the

moon. This 6ft 3½in-high ‘almanack’ is unsigned and described as ‘probably English Provincial’. The collection was assembled over three decades and Mr Wright has been charged with its dispersal by the collector’s widow. It will be on sale from the beginning of June, with the online catalogue and details available from www. benwrightclocks.co.uk.

This clock has a particularly beautiful backplate engraved with scrolling fronds, birds and a squirrel. It is, says Mr Wright, ‘the earliest recorded example of Tompion’s new style of “userfriendly” dial’ which made the clock easier to maintain; it could be wound, regulated and silenced from the dial rather than the back.

Mr Wright has six examples by Joseph Knibb: two walnut longcase clocks, two table clocks and two miniature lantern clocks, as well as a rare small brass lantern timepiece dating from about 1690 (Fig 2) by his younger brother John, who was based in Oxford rather than London. Also a rarity is a month-duration ebony-cased table clock made by Nicholas Massy (or Massey) in the 1690s (Fig 6). The son of a watchmaker, he was a Huguenot who settled

Pick of the week

A book that came out last September (and I should have noticed before) has made me rather nostalgic. Forty years ago, Alice Munro-Faure’s Capturing the British Landscape (Paul Holberton, £60) would not have seemed unusual. Many biographies of second-rank 19th-century British painters were published in those days and I have several shelves of them. Now, after a longish time, one more can be welcomed to their company, this lavish and deeply researched volume on Alfred Augustus Glendening (1840–1921) and his painting descendants.

As far as I am aware, no book, lavish or otherwise, has been devoted to him before. Perhaps, as the author suggests, that may be because, although his paintings were well received and reviewed, he did little to make himself stand out among the post-Constable and Cox generation of painters of British mountains, lochs, wealds, harvest cornfields and sweet-flowing reaches of the Thames. His background was comparatively humble and he was largely self taught, but he made a good living until the early 20th century turned against tranquil landscapes. However, the publisher’s claim that his social advancement would have been almost impossible before the Victorian era would earn a loud ‘Harrumph!’ from Turner’s ghost. In fact, despite the triumph of Modernism, Glendening’s work never quite disappeared and is still popular. I am pleased to discover here a 1988 quote of mine, to the effect that good landscapes such as his will always find a market in England. Long may that continue—and their painters attract such good biographies.

Next week Tea view

Fig 5 above and right: An early 19th-century eight-day astronomical clock. With Ben Wright

Fig 6 left: A rare month-duration table clock by Nicholas Massy.

Fig 7 above: The charming Tompion No 155. Both with Ben Wright

Edited by Kate Green

The king of Westminster

Henry lll: Reform, Rebellion, Civil War, Settlement (1258–1272)

David Carpenter (Yale, £30)

HENRY I II died in his palace at Westminster on November 16, 1272. Four days later, he was buried in the next-door Benedictine abbey, gloriously rebuilt under his patronage and consecrated as recently as 1269. Henry’s body, dressed in coronation robes, was initially laid to rest in the ancient tomb of St Edward the Confessor, situated before the high altar and the sanctuary’s magnificent Cosmati pavement, where Charles III was crowned on May 6 this year.

long-awaited—and truly outstanding—biography of Henry III. The first volume (2020) covered more than 40 years of the reign, from the King’s minority through to the last years of his personal rule. In contrast, this second volume, of much the same size, covers only 14 years.

Middle Ages

As David Carpenter tells us, Henry had doubtless instructed that he was to be buried in the robes, as he had never forgotten the significance of the great ceremony at the start of his reign. Unlike our new King, for Henry, the unique status conferred by the coronation set him apart from—and above— all his subjects. Indeed, it took the political revolution of 1258 to change the otherwise natural order of things, with the King henceforth being ruled by his subjects rather than ruling over them. It is with this momentous and baronially led reform of the realm that Prof Carpenter picks up the story in the second part of his

Prof Carpenter is not conscious of having written at a different pace: it is simply the fact that the later years of Henry’s reign ‘are the more packed with incident’.

By 1258, at least seven great magnates were convinced that Henry was incapable of personal rule. He had reduced the country to an ‘imbecilic state’, they thought. As political revolution and reform gradually escalated into civil war, the King’s brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, increasingly took centre stage. It is understandable, then, that the narrative in the core chapters here is driven by the high point of de Montfort’s career. For the author, he was ‘one of the most remarkable men ever to dignify and defile the English political scene’.

Prof Carpenter demonstrates his enviable talent for weaving

an accessible and well-balanced account of this intense and dramatic phase in English history, drawing on his command of a huge range of both primary and secondary source material. In spite of his claims that he remains ‘an academic rather than a popular historian’, there is humour, as well as lively anecdotes, throughout: Henry would not, we read, have journeyed out to Ruislip on the Piccadilly line in April 1265!

Nowhere, perhaps, is the measured and gripping pace of the author’s writing better in evidence than in his accounts of de Montfort’s success at the Battle of Lewes (1264) and his brutal death a year later at the Battle of Evesham. The picture he conjures of poor Henry, glimpsing in terror through the eyepiece of a helmet as he was surrounded by the roars and clash of arms at Evesham, is particularly evocative.

Other than this one extremely tense moment, Henry’s personality in all its various guises percolates through the entire volume. He was deeply pious, of course, but also inherently lazy, with

a political judgement that so often left much to be desired. Fundamentally, as one obituary noted, Henry ‘above all kings before him loved the beauty of the house of God’. For Prof Carpenter, Westminster Abbey indeed ranks among the King’s greatest achievements, breathing ‘Henry’s spirit’. (We are treated to several personal insights from the author on the art and architecture of the Abbey, including up-to-date views on the dating of the Cosmati work.)

Prof Carpenter is quick to acknowledge the work of earlier historians who have studied the 13th century, not least those who have focused on de Montfort. Nevertheless, one gains the distinct impression that there cannot be a single original document that he hasn’t looked at himself. In short, this volume completes a truly magisterial account of the longest reign of the Middle Ages. It is a work of which the author should feel deservedly proud, and one that anybody with an interest in British history will enjoy reading.

David Robinson

Spirit of a king: Henry III’s tomb lies in Westminster Abbey, ranked among his greatest achievements

This volume completes a truly magisterial account of the longest reign of the

Orwell: The New Life D. J. Taylor (Little Brown, £30)

GEORGE ORWELL, ‘a plum for a practising psychoanalyst’ in the assessment of a 1930s publisher, is, for the second time, D. J. Taylor’s biographical subject—his previous life of Orwell won the Whitbread Prize in 2003.

Two decades on, Orwell: The New Life is more than an updating of its excellent predecessor. Significant new sources have facilitated a wholesale re-examination of the journalist and novelist whose dystopian visions, impassioned libertarianism and determined, questing refusal to embrace, or be defined by, any ‘smelly little orthodox[y]’, make him a maguslike romantic figure: a man who, despite his early death at the age of 46 in 1950, continues to shape attitudes globally both to politics

The Swimmer: The Wild Life of Roger Deakin

Patrick Barkham (Hamish Hamilton, £20)

IN the aftermath of the Great Storm of 1987, the charity Common Ground distributed postcards with illustrations by David Nash and smart slogans such as ‘A fallen tree is not a dead tree’ and ‘Don’t chop them up’ to counteract a media-orchestrated rush to ‘put right’ the damage.

The storm helped kickstart the late 1980s green movement, but Common Ground’s inception stemmed from an earlier generation of thinkers and activists. Roger Deakin, who helped found it in 1982, had been battling farmers intent on turning Suffolk’s landscapes into prairies for years. Common Ground’s core motivation, the importance of the local,

and to writing. This is a full, richly detailed, admiring, illuminating account that nevertheless retains a sprightly, sometimes ironic pithiness; one girlfriend, for example, is ‘a potential companion on the ice rink and a reliable sounding board for his opinions about books’. With a wealth of contextual information and access to extensive archival material, Mr Taylor assuredly traces his subject’s picaresque progress.

He was born Eric Blair into a family of mixed ‘dull Scottish’ and ‘substantially more exotic’ French heritage. He grew into a ‘tall, gaunt young man’, who, after Eton, eschewed Oxbridge to become a colonial policeman in Burma—in one contemporary’s view ‘no different from any other conventionally minded servant of the Raj’. After a change of heart, he altered his name to George Orwell, became a journalist, scourge of governments and politicians and, for his myriad admirers, a modern prophet, whistleblower for a Big Brother culture of surveillance, curtailed

small-scale and relatively mundane, remains one of the most underappreciated aspects of conservation to this day.

Deakin was an inspiration to many, yet published only one book in his lifetime. Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain (1999) stirred interest in wild swimming and was praised for its topographical descriptions. Wildwood (2007), published soon after his death from a brain tumour aged 63, only added to his status.

The Swimmer is termed a creative biography. Patrick Barkham has delved into Deakin’s notebooks, letters and journalism to thread together an ‘in-his-own-words’ life of an elusive, brilliant, but sometimes exasperating character who had a finger in many pies, from music, films and advertising to selling furniture, self-sufficiency and environmentalism. Yet he wrote in one of his notebooks: ‘You

1930s, he was a dead ringer for Stan Laurel.

Few lives are easily distilled: among the strengths of this account is its celebration of Orwell’s elusiveness, even as it conveys to the reader so much about its subject. Mr Taylor treats the inevitable human contradictions of Orwell’s existence with sensitivity, interesting on the impact of his childhood and suggestions of caste loyalty retained lifelong, including an affection for ‘well-to-do middle-class people with their dullness and Philistinism, their integration and essential goodness’.

freedoms and pervasive anxieties. He fought in the Spanish Civil War, even handed in deploring aspects of both Communism and Fascism.

In 1944, he wrote an epochchanging political allegory in Animal Farm and then, shortly before his death, 1984. Unsurprisingly, one friend celebrated his ‘rather heroic attitude to life’. Yet, for an East End housewife who encountered him in the

In Mr Taylor’s hands, Orwell’s is a consistently literary life, shaped by reading and a conviction of the power—for bad as well as good—of the written word, a man whose enthusiasms embraced minor English and French 19th-century novelists and, especially, the work of George Gissing. Undoubtedly, time will yield further biographies of Orwell, but Mr Taylor’s second life will surely remain a beacon.

Matthew Dennison

Restless nature: Roger Deakin inspired interest in wild swimming

could spend a lifetime studying a hedgerow, or a pond.’

He read English at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where his tutor was the ever-entertaining Kingsley Amis, and moved to Suffolk in the late 1960s, when he bought the tumbledown Walnut Tree Farm. He plunged into rural culture and became friends with a naturalist

of a more rooted temperament, Ronald Blythe. On one occasion, when they were joined by Richard Mabey, the conversation became so animated that Blythe fell in the Stour. This entertaining book, interspersed with comments from those who knew Deakin, reflects the rather restless nature of its subject.

Jack Watkins

Illuminating: D. J. Taylor’s Orwell is a beacon among biographies

The good stuff

Up the river

Hetty Lintell is ready for riverside days with her choice of accessories for Henley Royal Regatta (June 27–July 2)

Yellow duck silk tie, £69, Oliver Brown (020–7259 9494; www.oliverbrown.org.uk)

Drinks box cooler, £159, Fieldbar (www.fieldbar.com)

High Catalina Dali espadrille in Denim, £149, Penelope Chilvers (020–7221 2363; www.penelope chilvers.com)

Men’s classic boater, £225, Lock & Co (020–7930 8874; www.lock hatters.com)

Linen blazer, £2,340, Brunello Cucinelli (020–7287 4347; www.brunello cucinelli.com)

474261; www.the

Bridge Andrew Robson

YOU should always be alert to the possibility of affecting the outcome of a deal in your favour. On the first of this week’s deals from the English Premier League at East Midlands Bridge Academy in Spondon, Derby, half the Easts remained silent during the auction.

useful defensive motto, ‘With trump length, lead length.’ Declarer had to be very clever to withstand the Club attack—watch.

Dealer South J1084 4 K82 J9852

AK32 Q987 Q965 6 Q95 AJ53 A1073 KQ

South West North East

1 Pass 4 (1) Pass

4 (2) End

Crossword

A prize of £25 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Crossword No 4781, Country Life, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR, by Tuesday, May 30. UK entrants only

ACROSS

8 Walked way taken on horseback (6)

9 Flavour of article written in house (7)

12 Back favourite’s pace (4)

13 Assistant rotates fruit by second half of clearance display (10)

15 Thin fabric covers pancake (5)

16 Flowers for those in love with themselves? (8)

17 Six seconds of force (3)

18 Purist to change to overtake (8)

20 Start at film studio (5)

23 I get spoilt when operating on flap in throat (10)

DOWN

2 Last sovereign (7)

3 Instrument depicted in hobo exhibition (4)

4 Lethargic mole goes around meadow (6)

5 I take dip in water alternatively also when entering coastal regions (8)

6 Study vehicle for builder (10)

7 Serious error by undertaker? (5,7)

10 They are what it means to be ruled (5)

11 Cop out with chemistry experiment for this type of test (12)

14 I let cretin pour unit of liquid (10)

16 Check bite (3)

South West North East Pass 1 Pass 2 Pass 2 Pass 2NT Pass 3NT Dbl(1)

End

With East mute, West tried the nine of the unbid Hearts opening lead. Declarer won dummy’s King and at trick two led a Club to the Knave. West won the King and switched to the seven of Spades, but it was trop tard. Declarer guessed to duck the Spade in dummy to use the power of the nine-eight in hand (it didn’t matter) and East won cheaply with the ten and exited with a second Heart. Declarer won dummy’s Ace and led the King of Diamonds. East won the Ace and led a third Heart but declarer could win the Queen-Knave, cash the Ace-Kingten and long Club then cross to the Queen of Diamonds. Nine tricks and game made.

Half the Easts did not meekly pass over Three Notrumps. They doubled—calling for a Spade lead, dummy’s first-bid suit, naturally hoping their Ace-Queen-ten was sitting over dummy’s King-Knave. West duly led the seven of Spades to East’s ten (when declarer ducked in dummy) and switched to the nine of Clubs. Declarer (with no way home) finessed the Knave. West won the Queen and reverted to the four of Spades. East was soon bagging his Queen-Ace of Spades and Ace of Diamonds and that was one down—doubled to boot.

On our second Spondon deal, West put into action that very

1) Splinter bid, showing a good Heart raise with Club shortage.

Holding four trumps, West kicked off with Ace and another Club, a bright start. Declarer won in hand, discarding a Diamond from dummy and, sensing the Hearts were splitting badly for this defence, sensibly stayed off the suit and instead started establishing his side suit.

At trick two, declarer led a low Diamond and, when West played low, inserted dummy’s nine (judging West may have risen with the King if he held it). East won the King and followed his partner’s defence, leading a third Club.

Ruffing the Club in hand and discarding another Diamond from dummy, at trick five declarer led the Knave of Hearts out of hand, a good shot to retain control. West rose with the King and, you’ve guessed it, led a fourth Club.

Declarer discarded a Spade from dummy (preserving the Heart length) and ruffed in hand. He then cashed the Ace of Hearts, receiving the not unexpected news that West began with Kingten-low-low. Although he had no Hearts left in hand to pick up West’s remaining ten-low, declarer crossed to the (bare) Queen of Diamonds, returned to the Queen of Spades, and led winning Diamonds through West.

If West ruffed, dummy could overruff, draw West’s last Heart and cash winners. If West refused to ruff, at trick 12, dummy would hold Queen-nine of Hearts over West’s ten-low. Game made via an elegant Trump Coup.

24 Journalist has tip (4)

26 Rice dish knight returns to German (7)

27 Dominates battle in initial duty free shopping (6)

28 Princess has turn with firework (9,5)

17 Expert musicians conduct our visit (8)

19 Heads are not up to see black coat? (5)

21 Appropriate horse bit (7)

22 Pepper twister (6)

25 Graduates on a high at party (4)

SOLUTION TO 4780

ACROSS: 1, Squadron leader; 9, Outnumber; 10, Larva; 11, Disowning; 12, Arena; 13, Contestable; 17, Established; 22, Ozone; 23, Discovery; 24, Biter; 25, Stanhopes; 26, Representation. DOWN: 2, Quartet; 3, Almanac; 4, Oculist; 5, Langouste; 6, Armenian; 7, Eternal; 8, Cleanse; 14, Oblivious; 15, Equerry; 16, Falconer; 18, Skittle; 19, Surgeon; 20, Doublet; 21, Portico.

The winner of 4779 is J. E. Fletcher, Westerham, Kent

4781

Spectator Jason Goodwin

The glory of the garden

BY the time you read this, G&T Garden Tours’s inaugural week, visiting some of the best gardens in the west of England, will be over, Instagram loaded with flowering Itoh peonies and cascading roses. The months of planning seem to be paying off. Touch wood.

Like any garden, a tour needs structure, or underpinning—it requires a design. That’s partly in the succession of gardens—private, intimate, grand—and partly in the manor where we stay, with its English garden, church, ancient doors, pargetting on the ceiling and mullions at the window, plus arresting paintings by its owner, Peter Hitchin, and a way-out zebra pattern on the landing ceiling.

Structure comes from Caroline and Claire cooking up a storm every evening and Hailey’s cakes arriving on the tea table. Darcy sees that table laid; Emily puts away breakfast. Although Goodwin and Tiffin, who give their initials to G&T, is an affiliation of teetotallers, we take advice

where it is offered, and our tour sommelier, Johnnie Boden, chose our wines—Margaux, Burgundies and English fizz. He presented them with such charm and authority that nobody minded that they were, with that one exception, French and not—like many of our guests—New World. Those elements are the equivalent of hard planting and paths, the sculpted yew and a distant obelisk, through which a garden scrambles.

Even if you can draw it all out on squared paper, what makes a garden is serendipity. A gardener grows two plants together and a stray seedling springs up between them to complete the picture; the paths remain the same, but each year brings a surprise. I think gardeners, like sailors, are essentially harmonious. Some in our group are old friends, others have never met before; they come from the four corners of the earth and what unites them isn’t only an interest in plants, but curiosity about the world and a capacity for surprise. And jokes.

Annie Tempest

Few of our overseas visitors could have expected the Cerne Giant to be so, well, so giant, or to find the meat-eating plant Puya chilensis in a Dorset combe, hoping for a stray sheep to become impaled on its spikes. Nor could they guess they would drink

doesn’t matter,’ we felt a sense of the oracular. The poet and traveller James Crowden, who knows everything about cider, stood under the Kingston Blacks in Tiffin’s orchard and recited a poem, fresh from his mind, which moved one visitor to unexpected tears.

from a spring that St Augustine summoned or be engaged in vigorous horticultural conversation by the châtelaine of the Abbey.

Julian and Isabel Bannerman, who conjure gardens from rough grass and words from deep places, drew us in with talk of church bells, roses in trees, of planting yew high. When, glass in one hand, cigarette in the other, Julian nudged a plant with his foot and said: ‘Can’t remember its name,

These were things unplanned, which set the event tingling like a sudden summer breeze. I saw a hand-drawn sign in the village by the leftovers from a plant sale. There was rudbeckia and a deepblue buddleia, a horse chestnut 2ft high and even a pink and slightly battered peony (plant in November, said the note), which were all exactly what I lacked. I left contemplating the tour and the treasures—the nut walks and bearded irises, tall buttercups and bluebells—and drove through a land that seemed to have been fashioned by a gardener’s hand, where cow parsley and red campion billowed from the verge and blossom tumbled from the trees.

Next week Jonathan Self

Few visitors expected the Cerne Giant to be so, well, so giant