Country Life 21st June 2023

Miss Katie Underwood

Katie is the head of North American property within commercial risk solutions at Aon UK. She is engaged to James Warren, whom she will marry at St Andrews Church, Miserden, Gloucestershire, in September, and is the daughter of Adrian and Serena Underwood of Slad, Gloucestershire. Katie follows in the footsteps of her mother (née Barrington), who appeared on the Frontispiece on October 13, 1977.

Photographed by Alex Bradbury

Contents June 21, 2023

A Glanville fritillary butterfly alights on valerian (Andrew Fusek Peters)

COVER STORIES

80 Flights of fancy

The myriad patterns and colours of Britain’s butterflies glitter in Andrew Fusek Peters’s photographs. He talks to Ben Lerwill

88 The man who bought Stonehenge

In 1915, Sir Cecil Chubb paid £6,600 for the famous stone circle, reveals Bernard Bale

124 From field to dinnerparty fork

Feeding friends with food grown in your own garden is a delight, finds Natasha Goodfellow

130 Why treasure is a universal word

London’s new Treasure House Fair deserves to be a triumph, believes Huon Mallalieu

THIS WEEK

68 Skye Gyngell’s favourite painting

The culinary director chooses a graphic work full of energy

70 Ode to June

Jamie Blackett swelters on the farm, where greenfinches fly and the meadow shimmers

72 Medieval beauty

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, US, resides a rare assemblage of church buildings, reveals Jeremy Musson

78 Native breeds

Kate Green falls for the teddybear Greyface Dartmoor sheep

90 Life, the universe and everything

Does cave art hold the answer, asks Robin Hanbury-Tenison

94 Let it go to your head

Ever-smart and ever-enduring, the Panama is the only hat for summer, says Harry Pearson

98 Legend of his time

As the 24 Hours of Le Mans race turns 100, Simon de Burton talks to its greatest star, Jacky Ickx

102 The good stuff

Time for tennis, says Hetty Lintell

104 Interiors

Summer inspiration and the importance of provenance

116 Keeping the faith

Through turbulent centuries, the gardens of Stonor Park, Oxfordshire, remained tranquil. James Alexander-Sinclair visits

128 Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson dabbles with dill

136 A colourful life through a lens

Lucinda Gosling on the distinctive work of Madame Yevonde

142 Oh, what a circus

Michael Billington admires political drama and Big Top tricks

EVERY WEEK

58 Town & Country

62 Notebook

64 Letters

65 Agromenes

66 Athena

110 Property market

114 Property news

122 In the garden

140 Books

144 Bridge and crossword

146 Classified advertisements

150 Spectator

150 Tottering-by-Gently

A summer invocation: the moon rises, ‘flooding with sheeny light’ the ancient Callanish Standing Stones on the Isle of Lewis

David Clapp/Getty

Future

On a wing and a prayer

BUTTERFLIES make us happy. From the spring emergence of the striking sulphur-yellow brimstones, the appearance of our many native species builds to a summertime crescendo of sheer winged beauty. With a staggering palette of colour and patterns that only Mother Nature could conceive, butterflies are the most recognised insect of the tens of thousands of invertebrates that reside in the British Isles. There are 59 species on our islands: 57 residents and two migrants, the painted lady and the clouded yellow.

T hey have brightened our world for 56 million years and all possess family names: skippers, yellows, whites and blues, aristocrats, fritillaries, coppers, hairstreaks and browns. Most active at 12˚C and above, they can often be seen sunning themselves, wings outstretched, ahead of a busy day. And each day is precious, as most butterflies only live for

about two to four weeks. Seriously affected by extremes of weather, these day-flying marvels are excellent indicators of our countryside’s health and, as photographer Andrew Fusek Peters laments (‘Flights of Fancy’, page 80), 80% of our species have decreased in abundance or distribution since 1976.

W hen these delicate creatures flit from flower to flower in search of life-giving nectar, proboscis coiled ready to probe deep into an attractive flower to find the hidden ambrosia, their journey is the product of a long, miraculous process. Butterflies have a niche lifecycle; most are dependent on a particular plant on which to lay their eggs, knowing that, when the eggs hatch into caterpillars (the larval stage), they will have sufficient food to reach the next stage.

If the food plant disappears, so do they. This was the poor white-letter hairstreak’s fate, when, in the 1970s, Dutch elm disease wiped

out so many trees. The voracious appetite of the larvae (which look like squishy tubes) sees them grow quickly; a hairy, black mass of peacock larvae can demolish nettles, as can the cabbage grower’s nightmare, the brassicachomping white. Caterpillars pupate into a chrysalis, which eventually splits to allow the next generation to embellish town and country. The large blue—whose lifecycle sees it mimic an ant larvae’s pheromones in order to enter a nest, where it’s fed by its hosts or devours the ant pupae—has successfully been reintroduced to its former haunts. Recently, however, butterfly conservationists have been alarmed by illegal releases of previously extinct blackveined whites, which, having been bred in captivity, could carry disease and threaten already fragile numbers of native butterflies. However, if you need cheering up in late summer, find a butterfly bush (buddleia) and marvel at the spectacle in front of your eyes.

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Editorial Editor-in-Chief Mark Hedges

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Edited by James Fisher

A goddess joins the cavalry

ON June 14, history of an equine nature was made in the gardens of Clarence House, when Lt-Col Tom Armitage, commander of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, presented new drum horse Willa Rose to The Queen. The 18.2hh Shire is the first mare to bear the silver kettle drums in the Household Cavalry’s long history and joins fellow drum horses Atlas, Apollo and Perseus.

Thus a Queen on earth named a Queen of the heavens in a short ceremony, witnessed by members of the Household Cavalry, whose business it is to care for the drum horses, and Huw Murphy of Dyfed Shire Horse Farm (‘My rural heroes and heroines,’ July 13, 2022), who bred this ‘gentle giant’. It was also the moment that Dyfed Willa Rose was given a new name: Juno, wife of Jupiter, king of the gods in the Roman Pantheon. Juno’s groom stepped forward to receive a headcollar inscribed with the new name and Juno herself received a well-deserved peppermint or two.

To record the mare’s place in history, artist Mandy Shepherd, who has inherited her late father David Shepherd’s talent for painting animals, presented The Queen with a portrait of Juno that captures the mare’s towering presence. Her power is a vital quality; as a drum horse in the Life Guards, given the rank of major, she will carry kettle drums weighing

52kg (115lb) each on ceremonial occasions; Blues and Royals drums are 50kg (110lb).

Mr Murphy talked about the mare’s exceptional temperament and recalled her apprenticeship on his Pembrokeshire farm, giving carriage rides to children, being driven through the streets of Cardigan to cheering crowds and meeting visitors, including two very special guests in 2018. It was on that day that The Queen (then the Duchess of Cornwall) met Willa Rose and her week-old foal, as well as driving Apollo and naming a colt Merlin.

Three years later, the Household Cavalry came calling and whisked the eight-year-old mare, chosen for her calmness and gentle nature, off to Hyde Park Barracks in Knightsbridge, London SW7, where she has been in training, completing the usually five-year course in two. For Willa Rose, her life as Major Juno has just begun, but it began in style: leading the parade down The Mall to Horse Guards as part of The King’s Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour) last Saturday. A gentle giant, indeed. Carolle Ann Doyle

The New English Art Club’s annual exhibition opens on Friday at the Mall Galleries, London SW1. It will see some 400 paintings, drawings and prints for sale that ‘represent the UK’s very best figurative, observational and painterly work’. Topics include everyday life, such as Jenny Wheatley’s Looking out from the Salon. Until July 1 (www. mallgalleries.org.uk)

They’re not so dozy R

ARE hazel dormice have been reintroduced into Derbyshire’s National Forest in a joint project by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES), the National Trust and others.

It’s hoped that the reintroduction of the 38 dormice will help prevent the extinction of this native species, the numbers of which have declined by 51% since 2000.

The PTES and others have released ‘healthy, captivebred dormice’ each year into well-managed woodlands, of which the National Forest is the latest. The charity estimates that, since the programme began in 1993, more than 1,000 dormice have been reintroduced to 25 different sites in 13 counties.

The introduction took place in a National Trust-owned woodland, where the ranger team, as well as volunteers, will be responsible for the care of the snoozy mammals and the long-term management of their habitat. The animals were bred by the Wildwood Trust, a member of the Common Dormouse Captive Breeders Group, before an eight-week quarantine and health checks. After reintroduction day, the dormice are left to acclimatise quietly to their new surroundings from their nest boxes, which are placed in larger mesh cages filled with foliage, food and water. After 10 days and a final health check, the doors will be opened and they will be free.

Good week for Hours of history

A prayer book belonging to Thomas Cromwell has gone on display at Hever Castle in Kent. The 1527 Book of Hours was included in Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Cromwell, painted in 1532–33, and is thought to be the only object from a 16th-century portrait to survive

Beautiful recycling

M&S has launched cosmeticpackaging recycling at 40 of its UK stores, with the possibility of a larger-scale rollout. The UK recycles about 5% of beauty and cosmetics packaging, as many councils do not collect it from home Guardian your assets

Kathryn Bradley-Hole, former C

Wake up and smell the roses of the Côte d’Azur JOIN

OUNTRY L IFE

Gardens Editor, and contributor Kirsty Fergusson on a tour of the gardens of the Côte d’Azur, where the allure of the French Riviera has long been acknowledged by garden enthusiasts throughout the world. British travellers in particular have been spellbound by the exotic perfumes and colours, not to mention the benign climate, with many settling here to create gardens of distinction. In this exclusive tour, we visit some of these remarkable gardens, such as Les Colombières (above ; ‘Mediterranean masterpiece’, January 25 ), as well as exciting contemporary sites: Gold-medal winning designer James Basson will join us to show us two of his creations for private gardens.

Our two carefully chosen hotels are the newly restored Maybourne Riviera near Menton and the five-star Château Saint-Martin, with its wonderfully comfortable rooms, fine dining and gardens and panoramic views of the shores of the French Riviera.

The tour costs £5,590 per person, with a single supplement of £1,700 (levied by the hotels). To book, telephone 01858 459002, visit www.box woodtours.co.uk or send a deposit of £450 per person to Boxwood Tours, 1 West Street, Buckingham, MK18 1HL.

‘The ongoing success of our annual dormouse reintroductions is the result of a rare partnership and many passionate volunteers who together work tirelessly to help us bring dormice back from the brink and ensure their ongoing survival,’ says Ian White, dormouse and training officer at PTES.

‘Well-managed woodlands and hedgerows are key to restoring populations, so releasing dormice into such habitats is crucial for the species’ long-term recovery.

The National Forest is home to a huge array of woodlands suitable for dormice, so we hope that this is the first of many reintroductions in this part of the country.’

‘The National Trust has been custodian of this ancient woodland since 1985... we’ve sympathetically managed it so it supports an array of native wildlife, which we’re thrilled will now include hazel dormice,’ says countryside manager Jon Lewney. ‘This diverse woodland, home to oak, hazel and honeysuckle, will provide lots of secure places for them to forage and nest. With the help of our volunteers, we’ll monitor the population over the coming months and years to ensure the dormice remain healthy. In time, we hope they will breed and disperse into nearby woodlands to create a wider, self-sustaining population.’

The Guardian has banned all gambling advertising across its outlets, on the grounds that it advertises a service that could cause ‘addiction and financial ruin’

Uber commitment

The company will add a carbon calculator to its app, enabling users to measure the amount of CO2 emissions they can avoid by choosing electric vehicles

Bad week for Wildfire woes

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service has issued a Scotlandwide warning of ‘very high’ wildfire risk, asking visitors to exercise ‘extreme caution’. The warning comes after ‘devastating’ fires (Agromenes, page 65

Derwent dries up

Conservationists warn of catastrophic effects for wildlife after the river in the Lake District dried up for the third year in a row. It is hoped river-restoration projects will promote resilience against extreme weather in future years

Sticky

toes

Norwich City Council carried out additional street cleans after people complained of getting their shoes stuck to pavements. The residue was excess sap from aphids feeding on leaves AEW

Town & Country

Working for waterways

FIXING the nation’s waters will be a collective effort, it was agreed at a landmark summit hosted by the charity Supporting Wounded Veterans (SWV) last month. The Rivers’ Forum was chaired by former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind and saw more than 60 attendees, from organisations such as the Environment Agency, the NFU, Severn Trent Water, the Canal & Rivers Trust and Wildfish. The summit was hailed a success, with one attendee saying that ‘in order for me to reach this many people, at this level, for a deep discussion on the problems as I see them, would have taken me 400 emails, hundreds of phone calls, meetings that lasted half an hour, with very little progress’.

They can then collect that information and pass it on to people who need to have this.’

Many topics were discussed, including whether new-build homes could adopt more ‘in house’ sewage systems; if learning about river health should be included in school curriculums; improvements to Nature-based flooding solutions, such as ‘sponge cities’, where urban development creates more green spaces to soak up water; and why there is no legal requirement to maintain septic tanks.

Although much has been written about the efforts of water firms to stop releasing sewage into waterways, one of the main takeaways from the forum was a need for a larger-scale monitoring system. Sir Malcolm told COUNTRY L IFE : ‘We have totally inadequate, national reliable information as to the scale of the problem and where [it] exists. You need to know not only the general problem, but what is happening where. What pollutants are going into which rivers and how much is that changing, day by day, week by week, year by year?’

He also identified how it was important for volunteers to assist with collecting that data and how groups, such as SWV, could contribute. ‘Whatever system is used, it needs people to supervise and monitor it. They don’t need to be great specialists, [they] can be members of the public who take a special interest in rivers or bodies of water near their home.

Sir Malcolm praised farmers from the Wylye Valley in Wiltshire, who have created a laboratory in a stable to test pollution levels in the River Wylye. ‘The group said “we’ll examine the pollution in the rivers in our locality” and if it’s done properly, they feel they can identify not only what the pollutants are, but which farm they have come from’. Sir Malcolm added that ‘the forum concluded unanimously, and that included the water companies present, that we can try and do that [monitoring] in a more professional way’.

Sir Malcolm called for the water companies to match their words with actions. ‘As we see in so many quarters, people can take responsibility, admit to problems and not much actually changes,’ he said. ‘That has to be the anxiety with the rhetoric coming out of the water companies—will it be matched by the investment and at a rate that can actually make a difference in a finite number of years?’ He noted that the Government and environmental agencies need to enforce and potentially legislate for the work to be undertaken,

as well as suggesting that water companies foot a large part of the bill. ‘I think they have acknowledged that they have been at fault with the level of investment they have presided over. Some contribution towards these costs should come from what would otherwise be used for dividends and bonuses,’ he said. Speaking after the forum, Andrew Fairburn of Severn Trent Water said: ‘Although it’s fair to accuse the water sector of having been slow off the mark, [it] is now investing hugely to tackle pollution and help clean up rivers. But even if water companies succeed in stopping all harm from their operations, rivers won’t be materially better than they are today, as there are many causes of pollution to be addressed. These issues require big societal changes and we all have a part to play.’

The conclusion from the forum was an optimistic one, with many present saying how they appreciated the work by SWV to put the event on. SWV founder Gilly Norton said ‘it has enabled CEOs and leaders from all sectors to meet on neutral territory to collaborate’. A second forum is already planned for next year and delegates will provide feedback in four months time on the results.

‘Victor Hugo wrote that “more powerful than the march of mighty armies, is an idea whose time has come”,’ concluded Sir Malcolm. ‘Where we are fortunate, with regards to river pollution, is that we already know the answers, we’re not looking for rocket science. We know the answers: investment, by the water companies in particular; it’s who pays for that investment, how quickly it can be produced.’

National Trust Images & James Beck; Alamy; Getty; Will Pryce/Country Life Picture Library; John Boe/SWV; Royal Mail

He called for the water companies to match their words with actions

Our rivers need help, from volunteer monitors, water companies and the Government

Country Mouse

The race of life

HORSES, and racing in particular, are the reasons I ended up editing this magazine. It was not an obvious route to the top. I was studying the form book and yearling pedigrees when most budding C OUNTRY L IFE journalists were reading Austen or Pevsner.

Royal Ascot, this week, is the biggest meeting of all. I used to go every day in my twenties and it required heroic stamina. We tended to finish the day in the In & Out Club when it was in Piccadilly and catch the train back to the races in the morning. At the time, I was living in Newmarket, working at Tattersalls and riding out two lots at dawn every day. Horses were my life.

Could you find Nessie?

AREWARD of £25,000 has been offered to anyone who can provide definitive proof of the existence of ‘Nessie’, the Loch Ness monster. The money was promised by entrepreneur Dave Fishwick, when he opened the refurbished Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit earlier this month.

The centre is located in the old Drumnadrochit Hotel where, some 90 years ago, the manager Mrs Aldie Mackay reported seeing a ‘water beast’ in Loch Ness. Ever since, thousands of people have descended upon the loch hoping to catch a glimpse of the monster—so far, it has eluded all attempts at capture

MV Windrush arrived in the UK 75 years ago tomorrow. To celebrate, Royal Mail has released a new set of stamps that showcases the contributions of the Windrush generation. The artworks were designed by five black British artists (Bokiba, Kareen Cox, Tomekah George, Alvin Kofi and Emma Prempeh) and the illustrations depict their interpretations of themes such as arrivals, education, carnival, protest and food. The eight stamps are available to buy now (www.royalmail.com/ windrush). Royal Mail will also be applying a special postmark from June 21–26 that will read: ‘MV Empire Windrush, Port of Tilbury, 22nd June 1948’

or photography. Any readers with evidence of Nessie’s existence are urged to contact the COUNTRY LIFE news desk at their earliest convenience.

‘We are absolutely delighted that Mr Fishwick shares our enthusiasm and passion,’ said Juliana Delaney, CEO of Continuum, which owns the Loch Ness Centre. ‘As we look to open our doors, guests will have the opportunity to learn about the legend and search the famous loch themselves, armed with further knowledge. We wish everyone luck... we know we will be watching the iconic loch ourselves. As the Loch Ness Centre says: “Keep Looking”.’

That sense of freedom and wonder came flooding back when I spent a morning on Andrew Balding’s gallops at Kingsclere in Hampshire last week. Park House Stables was the home of the legendary Derby winner Mill Reef and now hosts the current 2000 Guineas winner Chaldean. I felt a buzz return. I have a lot to thank those Thoroughbred stars for.

After Tattersalls, I spent a stint working in horse racing in Australia, before returning to England and deciding that it was time to look for a ‘proper’ job.

I never did get that proper job, but, without horses, I wouldn’t have been offered a position at Horse & Hound. The rest is history. MH

Town Mouse

A little list

ASCHOOL adventure camp in Devon has created an oasis of calm at home this week. There were detailed packing instructions for the camp, with a list of clothing for every kind of weather, including waterproofs and gloves, and a note of the need to leave electronic devices behind. Following the list to the letter created some ill-feeling during the process of packing, but I thought that everything had been done correctly.

Soon after departure, however, all the waterproofs and warm clothes were revealed hidden in a cupboard. Given the weather, I felt forgiving. Next day came digital notification of mobile-phone use in Devon. There will be more high words at home when the adventure week is over.

The camp has offered a window of time for a trip to Ireland. Dublin has been a few degrees cooler than London, but still consistently hot and sunny. Everyone seems to be enjoying it. Waiting on a train platform, one cheerful, loquacious and perspiring fellowtraveller entered into conversation and almost prayerfully concluded every other sentence with ‘...but I won’t complain about the heat’. In the cool of the evening, as the sound of the traffic receded, the streets were full of the sound of conversation and music. It has been a golden visit. JG

Town & Country Notebook

Quiz of the week

1) Nanki-Poo is a character in which Gilbert & Sullivan operetta?

2) What was the world’s first postage stamp, issued in the UK in 1840?

3) Arborists specialise in the care and maintenance of what?

4) The ruins of which Welsh Abbey became Romantic symbols and inspired both Wordsworth and Turner?

5) What’s the name for a male duck?

Word of the week

Wastrife (adjective)

Wasteful

100 years ago in June 23, 1923

Edited by Carla Passino

Cabinet of curiosities by David Profumo

MY collections embrace rarities, objets de vertu, kitsch and memorabilia, but this glass electrical insulator (I think from Virginia, about 1968) is a prime example of functional beauty—you can admire the adroitness of its mass-produced design, and its singular ‘beautility’. Back in the 1850s, they were originally devised to prevent the current in telegraph cables from grounding out during wet

Time to buy

weather and have since appeared in an impressive spectrum of shades and shapes, which are popularly repurposed as everything from shot glasses to light fittings. I bought mine for a fiver in a flea market and it sits here as a paperweight on my desk, where the pale Scottish sunlight plays through it, as delicious as a Fox’s Glacier Fruit.

Follow David on Instagram

@david_profumo

IN what main way is American civic building better than our own, and in what way do we score in domestic work? The success of American town building lies chiefly in its impersonal character. It is reserved and remote, grand in scale, elegant, if rather frigid, in detail. What is wrong with our own urban building is that, as architects, we are too desirous to express in it our own individuality, too anxious to make our buildings different in shape, colour and texture from those of our neighbours. In the country, however, all this is reversed. The qualities—except the overloading with ornament, which is never successful—that make a failure of our town buildings make a success of our country ones. We want a country house to have individuality and character, and that is what our best English architects can be relied on to achieve.—

The Gardener’s Set, £35, Norfolk Natural Living (www.norfolknaturalliving.com)

Sign of

Orange-squeeze

kombucha, £16.79 for 12 cans, Remedy Kombucha (www.remedydrinks.co.uk)

Riddle me this

It’s in the church, but not in the steeple; in the parson, but not in the people; in the oyster, but not in the shell; in the clapper, but not in the bell. What is it?

C. H. Reilly

(www.tinkerandfix.co.uk)

1) ‘The Mikado’ 2) The Penny Black

3) Trees 4) Tintern Abbey 5) Drake Riddle me this: The letter ‘r’

‘How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?’

The

Four, Arthur Conan Doyle

The Frank Tool Roll, £34.95, via Tinker and Fix

In the spotlight

Linnets (Carduelis cannabina) and redpolls (Carduelis flammea and Acanthis cabaret)

Wines of the week

Fickle fortune

Ecker-Eckhof, Roter Veltliner, Wagram, Niederösterreich, Austria, 2022. £15.50, NY Wines, alc 12.5%

This ancient grape is unrelated to Austria’s Grüner Veltliner— and rarely seen due to its fickle nature in the vineyard. But this is a tasty example that offers real interest at this price: exotic papaya and honeydew melon, juicy pear and a gently spiced creamy length.

Pretty in pink Contesa, Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo, Umbria, Italy, 2022. £8.95, The Wine Society, alc 13.5%

That chatty and tuneful little finch, whose chest is softly smudged with a rosy-crimson waistcoat, is most likely a male linnet in his breeding plumage. Formerly abundant almost everywhere, the UK population has fallen steeply since the 1970s, as widespread use of herbicides on crop weeds and autumn crop sowing have reduced their survival opportunities. Some help has been at hand, however, as linnets have found a lifeline in bird feeders and nyjer seeds. Nesting is usually low down among protective gorses, brambles, ivy

Unmissable events

June 21–July 21 ‘Renoir & Pissarro: Different Views’ ( pictured ), Connaught Brown, London W1. This celebration of the two French artists considers the similarities and differences in their work (020–7408 0362; www. connaughtbrown.co.uk)

Until October 29 ‘Maggi Hambling: Origins’, Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk. This exhibition explores six decades of Hambling’s work and her connections to her native Suffolk (01787 372958; www.gainsborough.org)

or other shrubby material, where the nest of tightly woven grass and twigs nurtures a clutch of light-blue eggs with reddish speckles. Linnets and redpolls can be very difficult to tell apart, both having seasonal dabs of crimson on their foreheads and chests; often, however, it will be easiest to consider their location and the time of year. ‘Lesser’ redpolls spend much of their time up in the trees and are more prevalent in the North of England, Scotland and Wales; the slightly larger ‘common’ redpolls are chiefly winter visitors and actually quite scarce.

Fun, fun, fun: this bubblegumhued rosé is as exuberantly flavoured as it looks, with ripe and juicy red cherry, strawberry and redcurrant fruit. The 2.7g/L residual sugar is barely discernible, so the only sweetness you’ll find here is fruit sweetness. Super-drinkable.

Wine not?

June 24–September 17 ‘The Natural World—The Artwork of George, Eileen and Eva Soper’, Pannett Art Gallery, Pannett Park, Whitby, North Yorkshire. The first exhibition since Pannett Art Gallery (Town & Country, May 31) became

the new permanent home of the Sopers’ artwork (01947 600933; www.pannettartgallery.org)

June 30-July 7 London Art Week, venues across London. More than 50 galleries and dealers will sell artwork and stage an array of exhibitions, including one of paintings by John Miller (at David Messum’s) (https://londonartweek.co.uk)

July 1 Sense and Sensibility, Chawton House, Alton, Hampshire. Laura Turner’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic. Other dates available at different venues (www.chapterhouse.org)

Hodnet Hall, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 3NN. June 25, 10am–5pm Hodnet was one of the National Garden Scheme’s founding gardens, opening for the charity in its first year, 1927. It remains as impressive today as it was then— some 60 acres with outstanding trees and woodland plants and a memorable succession of planting around a series of descending lakes and streams. You will happily spend all day in this remarkable landscape.

Sainsbury’s, Taste the Difference Garnacha, Campo de Borja, Aragón, Spain, 2021. £8, Sainsbury’s, alc 14.5% This bargain red is made for Sainsbury’s by Scotsman Norrel Robertson MW. Old-vine fruit from the foothills of the Moncayo mountains creates a juicy fruit bomb. Packed with red cherries and berries, it’s dangerously drinkable.

Pop the bubble

Celler Can Descregut, Reserva Corpinnat Brut Nature, Catalonia, Spain, 2019. £17.58, Jascots at Home, alc 11.5% Lots of aromas fighting for position here: scorched lemon and green apple melding into smoky, bready, flintiness. Toast and candlewax notes edge their way in on the palate, too. Impressive concentration and intensity at the price.

For more, visit www.decanter.com

Glyn Satterley/Country Life Picture Library; Alamy; Renoir, La Cueillette des fruits

Letters to the Editor Mark Hedges

Letter of the week

Time’s up

WE enjoyed the article about London’s Victorian train stations and the threat to Liverpool Street Station (‘The end of the line’, June 7 ). The image included the large square station clock (right) that was made by my greatgreat-grandfather, J. J. Stockall of Stockall & Sons, Clerkenwell, in about 1900. It was so large that four men could have lunch inside it, including Stockall on the day of its inauguration. It was the largest electric clock at the time and weighed three tons. It was removed at some stage many years later and the family rumour is that it ended up in a restaurant in New York, but we have no details about this.

Mrs Chris Neil, Shropshire

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

Never outfoxed

For your viewing pleasure

YOUR article on heritage railways (‘Let’s pull together’, May 24) states that only two Pullman observation cars were built, citing the one on the Devon Belle In fact, the first was the Maid of Morven, which ran on the Caledonian and later London Midland and Scottish Railway’s line to Oban, being withdrawn in the 1930s, 10 or more years before the Devon Belle cars were introduced. David Pearson, West Yorkshire

Biological misstatements

BEING an old, curmudgeonly retired zoologist and the recipient of my most recent issue of C OUNTRY LIFE, I was disappointed to read Country Mouse (May 24) use predate rather than prey on to describe predator-prey interactions. Predate has a temporal meaning, not the one intended. A similar error, often found in studentexamination answers, is the singular of ‘species’. No, the singular is ‘species’, ‘specie’ describes coinage.

Dr

Graeme Watson, Victoria, Australia

Flight path

Fishing vows

DAVID PROFUMO’S vow to ‘commit more fishing this year’ made me laugh out loud (Reel life, May 10). It reminded me of a farming friend who ‘could feel another shed coming on’. I suspect the wives of both men roll their eyes.

Nicola M. J. Stainlay, New South Wales, Australi

McWhirter, Rutland

YOUR Chelsea Flower Show coverage was a treat for those unable to visit and brought back memories for those able to make the annual pilgrimage. This year, the planting reigned supreme. We tried to buy some Digitalis ‘Silver Fox’ (left), exhibited in many of the gardens, but they had sold out. Not to be deterred, we bought seeds and heard expert advice on care from the nurserymen in the Great Pavilion (much easier to transport home on the train, too). We planted them out this weekend and look forward to seeing them flower in due course. RHS Chelsea lives on in our own garden! Lizzie

YOUR correspondent Charles Francis (Letters, May 17 ) might be surprised to learn that I not only have sparrows in my tiny garden, but I am also woken regularly by the dawn chorus. My birds range from blackbirds to great tits to wrens, among others. I live in central London, underneath the Heathrow Airport flight path.

Frances Luczyc Wyhowska, London

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Well spotted

THE recent call to action to identify the unpublished photograph (The way we were, June 7 ) of a post mill and house (above) had an ambiguous caption suggesting it was taken ‘near Walberswick, Suffolk’. In fact, the house is very much within the village of Walberswick and is now called ‘Three Ways’.

It is situated on the corner of the village’s main thoroughfare, The Street, and Millfield Road, a private stretch where plots were sold for the development of holiday villas in the early 1900s. The post mill has long since gone, having been destroyed by a fire (probably) caused by a lightning strike.

There are three Arts-and-Crafts houses in Millfield Road, developed by local architect Frank Jennings, and if any readers are interested to learn more about the history of the area, there is a fascinating book titled The People of Millfield Road, which was recently written by local resident Edward Wright.

Andrew Waters, Cambridge

No smoke without fire

LAST week, firefighters from around the country had gathered in Wales when their training sessions were cut short and what was to have been practice was turned into fearsome reality. They watched as specialists from the South Wales Fire and Rescue Service tackled a wildfire near Merthyr Tydfil. The blaze raged on Rhigos Mountain and, despite the use of helicopters to douse the flames, it continued, threatening to engulf other woodlands and a nearby wind farm. Heavy machinery was brought in to create fire breaks and controlled fires lit to encircle the main blaze and stop it spreading. Techniques that have long been necessary in California, US, were being employed in the UK—testament to the changes to our weather that have become increasingly common.

This was only one of four outbreaks in Wales over that weekend. Homes near Newbridge were threatened, as was the village of Blaengarw and a woodland estate at Blaenavon. As the battle was being joined in the Principality, another serious outbreak was being fought in Scotland near Inverness, where weeks without rain had left the landscape tinder-dry.

It is not surprising that the Meteorological Office has put out wildfire warnings throughout the country—almost unprecedented so early in the year. It’s a salutary warning. In 2022, there were more than 24,000 wildfires in England between June and August; already, June’s temperatures worldwide have reached record levels. Last year’s witheringly hot summer may well be set to return. Then, of course, the attention of our urban nation was concentrated on the frightening fire in Wennington on the edge of London. The view of a street of burnt-out houses brought home the reality of wildfires to townspeople who had never conceived of this

affecting them. Now, the dramatic pictures of heavy drifting smoke in New York in the eastern US—carried south from Canada— have dramatised the effect that fire can have, even in the most metropolitan of areas. Fires across rural Canada have engulfed more than 11.6 million acres and we are warned that they may be a continuing feature throughout the summer. Already, firefighters from around the world are flying in to supplement the exhausted crews that have been trying to get some control over the blazes.

This steady increase in the number of wildfires is a predicted result of climate change. However, 2023 may be out of the ordinary because of the effect of El Niño. It came as a surprise to many of us that last year— which broke all the records—would have been even hotter had the natural ebb and flow of weather not been at its lowest point. El Niño’s little sister, La Niña, which comes in intervening years, tends to restrict the effects of global warming, where El Niño exaggerates them. It is that which has worried climate scientists this year. Although they cannot tell in advance how strong it will be, they know that El Niño has already begun its development and they warn that we may well, albeit temporarily, exceed the 1.5˚C increase in temperatures that is the sign that the world is on the edge of climate disaster.

For country people here in the UK, the concern is magnified because of our lack of preparedness. It seems that most fire authorities have dismissed 2022 as a freak year, unlikely to be repeated. As a result, few have taken any major steps to update equipment or training. The Government, too, has shown little sign of proportionate response. It means that all of us—residents and visitors alike—are going to have to be ever more vigilant and disciplined if some rural areas are not going to suffer terrible damage.

The wildfire warnings across the country are almost unprecedented so early in the year

JUNE 28

The flowers that flourish in the cracks, a Roman villa reborn, the beetle that could pull a bus, a Sussex utopia and international properties to lust after, in Portugal, Perugia and through a great photographer’s lens

Elitism in the Arts is a good thing

ONE of the charges that cultural institutions are particularly sensitive to at the present moment is that of elitism. In large part, that’s simply because Government funding for Arts initiatives of all kinds is tied so closely to their breadth and depth of appeal to society at large. Merely to be perceived as elitist as a cultural organisation can threaten your financial security. The sensitivity, however, has a more positive root cause. If you believe—as Athena does—that the Arts in their myriad forms are both universal and enrich the lives of everyone they touch, there can be nothing wrong in encouraging as many people as possible to engage with them; the more people that get involved—either actively or within audiences—the better.

That said, although the Arts should strive to make themselves widely accessible, performing them is necessarily a relatively exclusive undertaking and the fear of elitism can make us nervous of acknowledging this.

Added to all this, by long convention, some of the Arts assume outward formalities that lend performances a sense of occasion. Athena doesn’t have strong opinions about their importance, but she does think it unfair when they are condemned as marks of elitism. In the world of Classical music, for example, an orchestral musician or singer will often appear in black tie or evening dress. To state the obvious, that doesn’t necessarily make the individual prosperous. Indeed, as highly skilled individuals (a handful of celebrities aside), classical musicians surely have a claim to be among the most poorly paid professionals in any walk of modern life.

We might all enjoy attending a play, exhibition or concert, but that’s not a comparable commitment to declaiming, daubing or performing ourselves. Those who become involved as amateurs in the Arts are usually conscious of the gulf that further separates their own endeavours from those of a professional actor, painter or musician. Put simply, a brilliant performance that’s really worth watching is necessarily the product of a huge cumulative investment of time and money, not to mention exceptional innate talent. Something similar could be said of the best curatorial skills, which are similarly rooted in expertise and understanding.

There are striking analogies to be drawn between the world of the Arts and sport in these respects. The latter likewise commands huge audiences and is understood to be of benefit in countless ways to society at large. It further engages large numbers of people both as amateurs and professionals, these last distinguished by their exceptional skills founded on talent, training and investment. Yet in the case of sport, high achievement is actively celebrated and the word ‘elite’ freely applied in a positive sense. That’s because it lies at the heart of sport as competition. Perhaps it’s time we valued it more in the sphere of the Arts.

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

1924

December 6

Published

Caricatures by Swedish artist Einar Nerman of Sir Charles Hawtrey and Lottie Venne, two of a host of performers depicted ‘almost life size’ on paper sheets inserted into the frames of the abandoned ballroom at Devonshire House, Piccadilly, as it awaited demolition. Why the drawings were created—they can be dated 1922–23—is not clear.

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

In the case of sport, high achievement is actively celebrated and the word “elite” freely applied

My favourite painting Skye Gyngell

All My Loving by David Spiller

Skye Gyngell is the culinary director at Heckfield Place hotel, Hampshire, and founder of Spring Restaurant in Somerset House, London W2. She was previously head chef at Petersham Nurseries Café, which was awarded a Michelin star in 2011

There are so many really wonderful and fascinating paintings at Heckfield–it’s almost impossible to choose–but I think the painting that defines the hotel more than any other, for me at least, is the David Spiller in the drawing room. Guests have a really visceral response to it and it adds so much life and personality to the room, which is otherwise incredibly tranquil and calm. It has an energy about it that everyone seems drawn to, including me!

All My Loving, 2013, mixed media on canvas, 72in by 60¼in, by David Spiller (1942–2018), Heckfield Place, Hampshire

Charlotte Mullins comments on All My Loving

AT the heart of David Spiller’s graphic canvases are songs about love. Until his death in 2018, he spent his days in a large studio in south London using the floor as his easel, stencilling lyrics and cartoon characters onto raw canvas, adding graffiti and pops of colour. Spiller grew up in Kent and studied at Sidcup Art School and Beckenham College of Art. He was awarded a place at the Slade School of Art when he was 20 and was taught by Frank Auerbach and William Coldstream. He then spent the next two decades teaching, until a chance trip to the Cologne Art Fair in 1985 fired him back up as an artist. He moved to New York for a year, then to Germany,

living in Berlin and exhibiting widely. His breezy pop palette and one-liner lyrics made his paintings popular, as did the cartoon icons he stencilled on: Felix the Cat, Minnie Mouse, Popeye and Olive, Donald Duck.

Each painting is built up of layers, from the blocks and circles of flat colour to the lettering. Interspersed are areas of graffiti and gestural abstraction. It’s as if we get everything that is occupying his mind at that moment, from riffs on recent art history to his favourite songs and television shows. In this painting, Miller referenced The Beatles’s 1963 song All My Loving, as well as a line from the chorus of Rod Stewart’s Young Turks : ‘Young hearts be free tonight/Time is on your side.’

David Spiller/Todd-White Art Photography

Farming life

Jamie Blackett

Ode to June

OUTSIDE are endless variations of those seascapes interpreted by modish Galloway artists as bold horizontal lines in oranges and blues. Emerging into bright sunlight, I am hit by the drone of bees on escallonia and glimpse a thrush darting into the valerian, leaving a glistening snail shell half opened. Walking across the bay, a mallard duck comes low overhead and pitches into the shallows, then, as I enter the water, skims across the lapping tide to sit further out, as if to make room for me, before lifting and flying high over the sycamores where the sand ends and the green jungle begins, then turns to one of the ponds, back to her babies. The shore is emptier of birds now, but sightings are more intimate. A party of shelduck circled slowly over my head recently; I could spot the parents and hear them gently encouraging their young, who gabbled excitedly in higher pitched tones—

Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus out for a training flight and chattering on the intercom.

Enjoying the sunshine on their backs: a smartly liveried shelduck escorts her young

In farmyards, the sparrows and starlings are in endless conversation. Last week, I was confused by hearing the first bars of a curlew’s song, then realised it was a starling taking the mickey. Perhaps it was a secret signal to warn of my approach? It’s ‘rhodi time’ here and, yet again, I forgive the invasive ponticums along the drive, long on my hit list, but now a dazzling orgy of Wimbledon purple and green. Last night, the dogs went mad, straining on their leads, and we saw two badger cubs crossing the ride. How I love June.

It’s been a month of plusess and minuses. On the plus side, we have many more greenfinches, which seem to be recovering from their own pandemic, and many of our glorious ash trees, which I had thought were all on death row after last year’s dry spring, look as if they will be with us for a good few years yet. Some have no dieback at all.

On the minus side, the milk price is well back, which makes one rather suspicious of news items blaming higher food prices for inflation. We are scratching our heads, wondering whether we delay the next stage of farm-infrastructure investment in case there is another dairy ‘crash’ and a period of belt tightening. I guess that’s how recessions happen, when confidence wanes. Now we have a drought, or what passes for a drought in south-west Scotland. Our cereal crops are not getting the rain they need at the vital grain-filling stage and as for the potatoes… Meanwhile, show time causes my summer languor to be pierced by speaking events. Our friends Pedro and Sarah turn their beautiful park at Dalswinton into a bovine vision of the Field of the Cloth of Gold for Scotland’s Beef Event, the first since Brexit cast its shadow. It seems surreal giving a speech about the need to defend the beef industry, in a sun-kissed meadow, where fat cattle laze under beech trees, as elsewhere farmers are being thrown under the net-zero bus. The Scottish Government and supermarkets failed to show up, reinforcing insecurity.

It’s also peak gardening time and the Chief Horticulturist is in a state of high excitement. Sunday afternoons are spent in straw hats at quietly competitive tea parties beside

friends’ herbaceous borders under the aegis of Scotland’s Garden Scheme. We made a pilgrimage to the Chelsea Flower Show, where I was delighted to see that the wilder look now in fashion meant that many of the show gardens looked like our woods. I was able to gloat that my laissez-faire approach to gardening was ahead of its time.

The lawn has been a bone of contention with the CH. When I extended no-mow May into no-prune June, she was tight-lipped. Gardener Ross giggled, shrugged his tattooed shoulders so that his ponytail wobbled and cackled ‘I’m no’ getting involved’. We decided only to mow the bit near the house: it is now like straw, but my ‘wildflower meadow’ shimmers with seedy grasses and has been bright with drifts of speedwell, cuckoo flowers, hawkbits and yellow pimpernels. The boathouse swallows are feasting on insects above it.

The kitchen garden, over which the CH has supremacy, is a bantam-free zone and in full production. We bit the bullet and erected a reassuringly expensive hen run beyond my office, where they are erupting into one of their inexplicable group shouts as I write.

Jamie Blackett farms in Dumfries & Galloway. His book ‘Red Rag to a Bull: Rural Life in an Urban Age’ is out in paperback (Quiller)

The days are languorous, as what passes for a drought hits Dumfriesshire, bringing with it plusses and minuses

I was confused by a curlew’s song, then realised it was a starling taking the mickey

Medieval beauty

The Cloisters, New York, US

Part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Photographs by Will Pryce

THE Cloisters is an outpost of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (‘the Met’) that sits in Fort Tryon Park, on the northern end of Manhattan Island in the US. There is nothing quite like the building, which was begun in 1935 and is still one of the world’s most memorable museums. It displays European medieval artworks, carvings, stained glass,

metalwork, earthenware and manuscripts in an immersive architectural

tapestry,

One of the most important museums of medieval art in the world could only have been created in 1930s America, as Jeremy Musson discovers

Fig 1 above: Crowning glory: the 1930s neoRomanesque tower inspired by St-Michelde-Cuxa, France. Fig 2 right: The reassembled 15th-century cloister from the Carmelite monastery of Trie-sur-Baïse, France

evocation of the Middle Ages that could only have been designed in 1930s America (Fig 1)

Timothy B. Husband’s Creating The Cloisters (2013) offers an authoritative history of this remarkable building, which reassembles sections of four medieval cloisters, a chapter house (Fig 4) and a Romanesque chapel to create a series of halls, courts and enclosed green gardens. Entering the museum, visitors embark on a progress through Romanesque and early- to late-Gothic architecture.

The design and construction of the building in its park setting were funded by John D. Rockefeller Jnr (d.1960), one of the foremost philanthropists of the 20th century, who gave away more than $537 million to such diverse undertakings as the National Parks service and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, as well as, in France, the restoration of Versailles, Fontainebleau and the cathedral at Reims after the First World War. The Cloisters alone received about $16 million.

Created to transport the visitor into the Middle Ages, The Cloisters also recalls the shifts in American identity during the 1930s, evoking cultural links with Europe, the triangulation of America’s business confidence and wealth against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Rockefeller’s investment was made with a distinct view of the benefit of art to wider society; it was shaped by the ambition of American artists trained in Paris and by historicist designers who drew on

European models to transform institutional and educational foundations across the US.

Rockefeller’s speech at The Cloisters’ opening, in May 1938, emphasised beauty as ‘one of the great spiritual and inspirational forces of life’. He wanted visitors to be inspired and to ‘go out to face life with new courage and restored faith because of the peace, the calm, the loveliness they have found here’.

The sculptor George Grey Barnard, who had trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, played a key role in the germ of the idea of The Cloisters. He was introduced to Rockefeller by Beaux-Artstrained architect William Welles Bosworth, who commissioned a fountain from Barnard for the grounds of the Rockefellers’ home overlooking the Hudson. Bosworth designed the 1916 neo-Classical campus for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and, in 1924, he moved to Paris to run the ‘Comité Franco-Américain pour la restauration des Monuments’, overseeing Rockefeller’s funding of post-war restoration work.

The Cloisters project could be traced to when Barnard, living in France between 1905 and 1913, began acquiring fragments of medieval architecture, with a view to selling them to collectors, such as Isabella Stewart Gardner, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Most of his purchases came from dealers and, in 1906, L. Cornillon of Paris and Antoine Lambrigot of Carcassone sold him parts of

the early-13th-century cloister of St Guilhemle-Désert, Occitanie. By early 1907, Barnard had acquired three more substantial parts of medieval cloisters, one from Trie-surBaïse (Fig 2) and another he believed came from the Cistercian abbey of Bonnefont-enComminges—actually from the Franciscan monastery at Tarbes. In 1923, René Albert Gimpel noted of Barnard that he was ‘an excellent American sculptor’, who is ‘very much engrossed in carving himself a fortune out of the trade in works of art’.

His architectural buying spree nearly came unstuck with the acquisitions of parts of the 12th-century cloister of St Michel-de-Cuxa, near Prades. This, as had so many monasteries,

Fig 3: The apse from the ruined church of San Martin at Fuentidueña, Segovia, Spain

had closed during the French Revolution and remained in disrepair until it was reoccupied and refounded as a Cistercian house in 1919. At that point, the cloisters had already been divided up and sold to private owners. Barnard’s purchase of one section of the cloister (which had already been relocated to a private garden) in 1907 was challenged by the French authorities and he cannily presented it to the French nation, at the same time making sure his earlier acquisitions were shipped to the US. As he wrote in a letter to his wife, ‘they just got out in the nick of time’. A different attitude would prevail now.

The fragments made an early US appearance within a theatrical ‘cloister museum’ on Barnard’s property on Fort Washington Avenue (not far from The Cloisters). Having undertaken a lucrative engagement as adviser on a European art-buying trip, he was able to furnish his museum with 120 crates of ‘valuable and choice things’ that arrived from Paris in January 1914. By the end of that year, Barnard opened his museum to the public, and began to change American attitudes to ‘the spirit of Gothic’. He liked to show his visually enticing ensemble by candlelight in a church-like atmosphere, enhanced by

patinated walls. Natural light was diffused by fabrics. Barnard wrote in his guide that the display illustrated the ‘spirit of the Christian religion’ in the 13th century, a time when it ‘pushed upward and outward like a winged angel in its flight from earth’.

In April 1916, Barnard, was again in need of funds and he wrote to Rockefeller offering to sell him ‘one hundred Gothic objects’ to create a unique and sacred place of beauty and peace. He suggested a plot of land near his own studio that could be ‘as separate as an island’. He did not mention that a substantial number of the objects were actually

Fig 4: The 12th-century Chapter House originally from the former Cistercian abbey of Notre-Dame-de-Pontaut, Aquitaine, France

in the hands of a Paris dealer. Although Rockefeller had no special interest in medieval art, he was encouraged by his adviser, Bosworth, to trust Barnard’s aesthetic sense. He bought the lot.

At first, the items languished in a store on the Rockefellers’ country estate; some pieces, such as the portal of the Château de La RocheGençay, were installed in the garden there. In 1922, Barnard drew Rockefeller’s attention to the famous ‘Unicorn Tapestries’ (made in about 1495–1505), then being shown in the Anderson Galleries in New York. Barnard described them as ‘the most beautiful and rare Gothic tapestries in existence’, adding that there was ‘nothing equal to them in the Louvre’. Rockefeller bought them for $1.1 million, afterwards displaying them in his house at 10–12 West 54th Street. In 1925, Barnard wished to sell the rest of his collection of medieval sculpture and architcture. Rockefeller first ascertained that it would be welcomed by the Met, then offered to buy it on the museum’s behalf. After some awkward horsetrading by Barnard, the sale was made.

Joseph Breck, the Met’s curator of decorative arts, became the first curator of The Cloisters. Given how far removed Barnard’s approach had been to that of a museum professional, he was initially alarmed by Breck’s approach. The introduction of electricity, for

example, provoked him to complain that his carefully staged display in which ‘candlelight quivered on the faces of the saints’ was lost. However, after small improvements, Barnard’s cloister-museum reopened to the public on May 3, 1926, now in the hands of the Met.

Russell Pope, whose office produced an idea inspired by Kenilworth Castle (as a young man, Rockefeller had visited on a bicycling tour of England). However, in 1931, Rockefeller dismissed Pope’s office and called in Charles Collens, of Allen & Collens Architects, a wellknown Gothic Revival church architect.

Work on the new buildings and landscape park of the museum, meanwhile, got under way. Rockefeller acquired extensive neighbouring properties on the then relatively undeveloped Washington Heights, for which Frederick Olmsted Jnr prepared a landscape design in 1930. Rockefeller also bought 700 acres on the other side of the Hudson to preserve the views, extending the area protected by J. P. Morgan in the public interest some three decades before.

A new location for the purpose-built museum, meanwhile, was identified on the higher, northern part of the Heights, with good views over the Hudson. Rockefeller first commissioned a design for the building from John

In a letter to Collens, Rockerfeller reiterated that the character of the museum should be that of ‘an old fortification’. He recognised that ‘both cloisters, a chapel and other rooms or buildings would be appropriate to a fortified monastery’ and encouraged the architects to take a generous interpretation of medieval (instead of Gothic). Above all, he felt the site chosen meant that it should be ‘something picturesque and romantic in outline rather than a highly sophisticated type of building’.

The high-minded Breck laid out a logical vision for the museum’s planning, stating that ‘the visitor should be introduced to an atmosphere in which all rooms are carried out in the period of architecture characteristic of the exhibits’ (Fig 5). Collens produced plans to match this clearly worked-out vision, with a key inspiration coming from an image in a book on French architecture, showing the 12th-century church of St-Géraud de Monsempron with later additions.

In 1931, Rockefeller paid for Collens to make a European study tour of medieval

Fig 5: Eyes on the medieval world: a view to the double lancet window of 1275–1300, from a church in La Tricherie, Poitou-Charentes, France

He felt it should be “something picturesque and romantic in outline”

architecture, during which he amassed photographs and sketches. It took in Monsempron, with its splendid Gothic chapel integrated into a Romanesque structure. The initial inspiration of the Géraud tower he found ‘too uninteresting’, so he looked to the Romanesque tower of the monastery at St Michel-de-Cuxa, near Prades, where the most significant section of cloister had come from and which became the centrepiece of the plan.

Collens artfully arranged the spaces and halls, integrating them and extrapolating new and evocative spaces. For instance, the main Cuxa cloister was rebuilt on a more extensive scale than the original, the original arcade pieced out with the new work; Collens also absorbed details from other notable medieval and Romanesque structures into his mix (Figs 6 and 7) and showed a sensitivity to the traditions from which the various fragments came.

Rockefeller kept the project on the road despite the Great Depression and, in September 1931, appointed Collens the architect of the scheme, working under a Building Committee that included both Rockefeller and his son. An eighth-of-an-inch scale model was prepared for the committee.

Curator Breck played a critical role in refining the proposal, providing sketches in his own hand and ideas for the cloister gardens. The design—with Breck’s many improvements —was finally approved in May 1933. That August, travelling in Europe, Breck tragically died of a heart attack at the age of 48, but work to the new museum continued. The resulting ensemble is a historicist masterpiece in the setting of a picturesque park.

Builders Marc Eidlitz & Son created a seamless composition of old and new. Extensive ramparts, evoking Carcassone, underline

the drama of the setting. Granite was quarried in New London, Connecticut, for new external work and Doria limestone from Genoa, Italy, for the interiors.

In 1935, Rockefeller agreed to donate the ‘Unicorn Tapestries’ and suggested two rooms be remodelled to receive them. The old ‘cloisters’ museum devised by Barnard was closed soon afterwards in December 1936 and the Met took control of the new building in October 1937, which then opened to the public with the collections installed in May 1938. The American architectural critic Lewis Mumford wrote in The New Yorker that it was ‘one of the most thoughtfully studied and ably executed monuments we have seen in a long time’. The French art historian Germain Bazin called it ‘the crowning achievement of American museology’.

The Cloisters has undergone important changes since its first opening. In 1948, the ‘Unicorn Tapestries’ gallery was divided to accommodate the rare late-Gothic ‘Nine Heroes’ tapestries. The loan by the Spanish government of the apse of the ruined church of San Martín, Fuentidueña (Fig 3), prompted a reconfiguration of the exhibition space that reopened in 1961. More recent updates have incorporated new technology and modern practices. All these changes, however, have respected ‘the contemplative atmosphere’ and ‘spiritual resonance’ of the original ensemble, so the magic conceived in the 1930s still prevails. Visit www.metmuseum.org

Acknowledgements: Timothy B. Husband

Fig 6: The 1937 Gothic Chapel, with the double tomb of the Count of Urgell and his wife

Fig 7: A 13th-century doorcase from the former Abbey of Moutiers-St-Jean, France

Native breeds Greyface Dartmoor

Did you know?

Confusingly, the area has a Whiteface Dartmoor sheep, also known as the Widecombe Whiteface after the moorland village that is its stronghold

THE wild, boggy expanses and granite tors of Dartmoor have been the centre of controversy this year, most recently over Natural England’s edict to hill farmers to reduce dramatically the number of grazing animals (this is now under review). The local sheep, the Greyface Dartmoor, might be one of the solutions, as it has been suggested that it leaves a lighter hoofprint than some, although it is not a hill breed.

The cuddly Greyface Dartmoor, with its teddy-bear face, appealing black smudges on the nose and placid temperament, is descended from the local sheep that grazed the lower ground around the moor. It was ‘improved’ in the 19th century by crossing with Devon and Cornwall

or Leicester longwools, hence the lustrous, ringletted fleece, which can be used for making blankets, carpets, cloth and tweed. It is said to eat less and yet produce more wool for its body weight than any other sheep breed and it is hardier than most longwools, surviving heavy snowfall unscathed. The breed produces a high-quality lean meat when crossed with a terminal sire.

The Greyface Dartmoor was classified ‘at risk’ in the Rare Breed Survival Trust’s 2023 Watchlist, but its status is up for review this year as numbers are improving sufficiently for it to be nearing the threshold when it is no longer classified as rare. The breed society, which has more than 360 members countrywide, was formed in 1909. KG

Flights of fancy

Capturing images of British butterflies dancing through the air like petals on the breeze has been a labour of love for photographer Andrew Fusek Peters, as he tells Ben Lerwill

NOTHING encapsulates the beauty and fragility of our native wildlife more vividly than our butterflies. They dance through the British spring and summer like petals on the breeze, silent, bright and exquisite. For Shropshirebased wildlife and landscape photographer Andrew Fusek Peters, each one is a miracle. ‘I love their elegance and aerial eloquence, as well as their symbolism and their hope,’ he rhapsodises. ‘They are phenomenal.’ This enthusiasm is thrillingly showcased in Mr Fusek Peters’s new book, Butterfly

Dawn light sparkles on the wings of a common blue butterfly, as it flits through dew-beaded Millichope Meadows, Shropshire

Safari, which charts his five-year journey to capture images of all 58 of our native species. The timescale involved tells its own tale as to the rarity of many of these butterflies, some of whose flight sequences are photographed here for the first time. Familiar garden visitors share the pages with far scarcer insects, their colours glimmering and their features often shown in ultraclose-up detail. If you’ve never marvelled at the intricate mosaic of scales that is the

wing of a marsh fritillary or been able to trace the individual body hairs of a speckled wood, you’re in for a lepidopterous treat.

Almost all butterfly species live for mere months, sometimes only weeks, and the book makes for an absorbing guide to this ephemeral world. Mr Fusek Peters’s story, however, is not a routine one. ‘I grew up in north London. Then, in the 1970s, when I was eight or nine, I was sent away to a school on the edge of the city,’ he recalls. ‘It was a place

of great cruelty and bullying, but it was also where I started to understand that Nature could be healing. If you woke up for a midnight feast, you could walk across the fields and be in the countryside.’

Mr Fuzek Peters went on to become a children’s author before, relatively late in life, discovering a gift for Nature photography. Despite winning awards for some of his early images of birds and landscapes, it was only in 2018 that his love affair with butterflies

began, when a bowel-cancer diagnosis saw him spending six weeks at home before an operation. ‘It was late summer,’ he reminisces, before explaining how the garden of his family home, a converted village chapel, was aflutter with commas, red admirals and painted ladies. He was struck not only by their grace, but also, having done some further research, the fact that there seemed to be precious few photographs showing them in flight. ‘I looked at one and I thought, it’s a butterfly, half of the name of this insect indicates that it flies, and yet 95% of the images I see don’t show that. Let’s try to work this out.’

Initially, he had some success. However, the photographer also soon learned that this time-consuming and serious undertaking would require huge amounts of patience and persistence. ‘With butterfly-in-flight photography, you want it to fly upwards into the plane of focus you’ve pre-focused on, but, in 9,999 shots out of 10,000, that doesn’t happen,’ he laments. In spite of the many challenges, the images he captured and shared were strong enough for a publisher to persuade him to work on a British butterfly project.

‘The next few years were an absolute delight, but I had to ask for an extra summer of shooting to find the last 14 species.’ With the help of friends, fellow enthusiasts and serendipity, he met his goal.

The results in the book are the fruit of his half-decade odyssey. They showcase a huge range of different UK locations—a meadow brown is shown on Mr Fusek Peters’s terrace, a grizzled skipper on the side of his shoe, a Scotch argus in the Scottish Borders, an adonis blue on the Isle of Wight—with each species’s images accompanied by a text detailing how and where they were photographed. The butterflies are variously

You want it to fly upwards into the plane of focus, but, in 9,999 shots out of 10,000, that doesn’t happen

Left: A ghostly presence: the photographer found this wood white butterfly in Bury Ditches in Shropshire, where it was sheltering from rough weather on a forget-me-not. Above: Nature’s finest embroidery, otherwise known as the wing of a heath fritillary

Three British rarities

High brown fritillary

One of the UK’s rarest butterflies— and not to be confused with the similar dark green fritillary—this orangewinged beauty can be seen at a scattering of sites in Devon, Exmoor, Wales and north-west England, such as Arnside Knott in Cumbria

Large blue

Declared extinct in the UK in 1979, the species has been successfully reintroduced at a small number of sites, such as at Daneway Banks in Gloucestershire and Green Down in Somerset

Purple emperor (below)

This striking, but elusive butterfly spends much of its time in the treetops, feeding on sap and aphid honeydew. Population decline means it is now only found in parts of central and southern England, including Oversley Wood in Warwickshire

shown feeding, resting and in flight. In some of the most remarkable shots in the book, a marbled white is seen emerging from its translucent pupa into the Shropshire air. Mr Fusek Peters’s butterfly devotion hasn’t ended with the book’s publication, however, nor has his self-confessed perfectionism. ‘I was photographing an orange-tip yesterday,’ he tells me. ‘If they move a millimetre forward or a millimetre back, the eye isn’t sharp. And, if the eye isn’t sharp, the image doesn’t work.’ His wildlife obsession can also prove hazardous, as evidenced by the thick bandage around his left index finger. ‘I toppled off a planter two weeks ago trying to photograph wrens,’ he says ruefully, holding up the dressing. ‘I saved the camera, but the heavy-duty tripod closed around the end of my finger and basically took it off. I was screaming. It’s not my shutter finger, but it’s quite a pain.’

Above: A green hairstreak pauses to display its emerald undersides on Llanymynech Rocks, Powys. Below: An orange tip in rare detail, taken in the photographer’s garden

The joy he takes in capturing spectacular images is infectious—‘I think of my memory cards as vaults; after a good day’s shooting, I feel like I’m bringing home treasure’—and he hopes passionately that Butterfly Safari furthers the conservation cause. ‘We’ve seen an 80% decline in butterfly species in the past 50 years. I always hesitate to say this, but I don’t want my book to be an epitaph. Already, we have to go to these tiny, fragmented habitats for some species. This is how disgracefully we’re treating our landscape. I love butterflies.

They really go for it even if they only live for a couple of weeks. I look at that as a lesson for our own lives—we’ve got to just go for it each day and do the best we can.’

‘Butterfly Safari’ by Andrew Fusek Peters is out now (£30, Bird Eye Books; www.birdeyebooks. com). To help safeguard our butterflies, join or donate to Butterfly Conservation (01929 400209; www.butterflyconservation.org)

We’ve seen an 80% decline in the past 50 years. I always hesitate to say this, but I don’t want my book to be an epitaph

No less beautiful for being the UK’s most common butterfly, a green-veined white flies over forget-me-nots at Oakeley Mynd, Shropshire

The man who bought Stonehenge

STANDING solemnly over Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge has witnessed millennia unfold and change the beautiful landscape that surrounds it. Perhaps it was the air of mystique that shrouded the site for centuries—from tales of long-forgotten ancestors to speculations about giants and aliens—that captivated and persuaded Sir Cecil Herbert Edward Chubb to put in a bid for a plot of land he could never develop.

Sir Cecil, then Master Chubb, was born in the village of Shrewton, only four miles west of Stonehenge. His beginnings were somewhat humble. His father was the village saddler and harness-maker, as had been his grandfather. Although becoming the next generation of saddlers was an excellent prospect for young Cecil, he had an academic bent and worked his way into Bishop Wordsworth’s, a local grammar school. Such was his progress that he became a student teacher there when he was only 14. Suddenly, his future was, indeed, looking very bright—and not only because of future career opportunities. He loved cricket and, during a match between his school and Fisherton House Asylum,

he met his future wife, Mary Finch—after which he loved cricket even more.

His ethos of working hard and playing as hard as cricket allows served him well and opened the door to Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a double first in Science and Law and left with Master of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees. Embracing law, he became a successful barrister, amassing a considerable fortune. However, the then Mr Chubb also had other interests—he owned racehorses, bred Shorthorn cattle and became involved with the Fisherton House Asylum. Located in Salisbury, it had belonged to Dr W. Corbin Finch, an uncle of his wife, whose focus was to bring relief and help to poorer mental patients.

After the death of Dr Finch, Mary inherited Fisherton House and its asylum. Financial difficulties suggested closure until a limited company was formed and Sir Cecil took over the reins as chairman. Under his guidance, the asylum became the largest mental hospital in Europe—later, it would also offer support for those who suffered at the hands of the First World War—and Sir Cecil became famous for his philanthropy. However, his

On a whim in 1915, Sir Cecil Chubb made a bid for a plot of land that would never get planning permission. Bernard Bale looks at the life of the barrister who gave Stonehenge to the nation

Alamy; Country Life Picture Library

Monumental purchase: Sir Cecil Chubb

A bid of £6,600 is all it took to become the new owner of Stonehenge in 1915

celebrity would truly explode the day he took part in an auction: September 21, 1915.

Held in Salisbury’s New Theatre by Messrs Knight, Frank & Rutley in conjunction with Messrs Eden, Baines & Kennaway, this was no ordinary sale—because Lot 15 was Stonehenge. The story of how the ancient monument came to the market was incredibly sad: the site had belonged to the Antrobus family since the 1820s, but its only male heir, Edmund Antrobus, a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, was killed in action in Kruiseik, Belgium, during one of the first battles of the First World War. As happened with other prominent families at the time, the estate, including Stonehenge, was put up for auction, which was duly advertised in a September 1915 issue of C OUNTRY L IFE

When auctioneer Sir Howard Frank started the bidding for Lot 15 at £5,000, there was a rush of hands to offer a higher price. When it reached £6,000, however, the pace slowed considerably and Sir Howard had to work hard to tempt more bids. The hammer came down at £6,600—about £680,000 in today’s money and still a snip for such an incredible piece of British history—and Sir Cecil was the new proud owner of Stonehenge.

Historians up and down the country have disputed the reasons behind the purchase for years. The most popular story goes that it was a romantic gesture towards his wife.

However, she was unimpressed. ‘It’s said that Mary wanted Cecil to buy a set of curtains at the auction and he came back with something rather different,’ notes Stonehenge curator Heather Sebire. Others argue that Sir Cecil was appalled to think of Wiltshire’s culture potentially being lost to an American millionaire. However, Sir Cecil himself suggested that the decision to buy a circle of prehistoric standing stones was a mere whim. ‘I started to feel uneasy that someone from out of the area or even out of the country would perhaps buy it and try to move it, so I made a bid,’ he said after the purchase. Whatever his reasons, his affection for Stonehenge was undisputable: ‘I was born close to it and during my boyhood and youth visited it at all hours of the day and night, under every conceivable condition of weather —in driving tempests of hail, rain and snow, fierce thunderstorms, glorious moonlight and beautiful sunshine,’ he once stated. ‘Stonehenge,’ he added, ‘is perhaps the best known and the most interesting of our national monuments and has always appealed strongly

to the British imagination. It always has had an inexpressible charm. I became the owner of it with a deep sense of pleasure.’

Although Sir Cecil may have been unhappy at the thought of losing Stonehenge to the Americans, he was only too willing to share it with those who had a real claim to its heritage: on October 26, 1918, he gave the ancient monument to the people. He did, however, insist on some clauses, including that the public would have ‘free access to the premises… on the payment of such a reasonable sum per head not exceeding one shilling for each visit’ and that the site would be as much as possible maintained in the condition it was at the time. In appreciation of his ‘patriotic and public spirited gift’, he was made the first baronet of Stonehenge in 1919 by David Lloyd George.

Fifteen years later, in September 1934, Sir Cecil died of a heart condition. He lies in a fairly simple grave in the Devizes Road Cemetery in Salisbury. Not far from it, however, Stonehenge still stands, treasuring its mysteries—and now also paying tribute to the man who gave it to the nation.

Under the hammer: Stonehenge advertised for sale in COUNTRY LIFE on September 18, 1915

It has an inexpressible charm. I became the owner of it with a deep sense of pleasure

Life, the universe and everything

INO longer believe in an afterlife, at least not one as expressed by the usual images of Heaven and Hell, and most thinking people probably don’t either. However, I do believe that I will live forever as part of the vast molecular system of which I am composed. My ‘soul’, or whatever lives on, will not be preoccupied with the petty issues of politics and family, but with eternity. I find our increasing awareness of the complexity of life on earth and our gradual recognition that understanding everything is still far beyond the capacity of our human brains—which are often described as the most sophisticated organisms ever produced—rather comforting,

as it explains for me why we cannot yet come to terms with what happens after death. The idea that we really may be part of something so much bigger and more complex than we can imagine and that all may be revealed when we return to our basic organic material accords well with our growing realisation that we don’t really exist anyway and are merely an accumulation of molecules surrounding a passage, through which nourishment passes. When that relationship ceases through accident, illness or old age, the molecules continue to live, pushing up the daisies or entering the atmosphere and becoming something else. Suddenly, it all seems less worth worrying about; instead,

we should enjoy every second of what we have. Let’s face it, we would be hard put to imagine a better world than the one we have, when it is working properly and we are not wrecking it. Sitting on a cloud playing a harp sounds pretty pale compared with living in the Garden of Eden Nature provides us with, if given half a chance.

About 30,000 years ago, something remarkable happened to the human brain. Perhaps it happened long before that, as it seems to have been the same size as it is now for perhaps 200,000 years since we evolved into Homo sapiens. Yet, 30,000 years ago, we started recording our existence, demonstrating our

Does the meaning of life hide in our mystical relationship with our world, as captured by the cave art of prehistoric men, asks Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Paleolithic drawings can be seen in caves at Lascaux in France (above and facing page, top half ) and Altamira in Spain (bottom half )

awareness of self by painting and engraving sensational pictures deep underground. To reach the deepest and earliest of these, such as Lascaux and Altamira, often involved crawling through up to a mile of convoluted narrow passages into large natural caverns. No one knows why our ancestors felt it necessary to go to these inaccessible sites, lit only by flickering tapers, to paint their pictures, but the whole operation must have had a deep spiritual meaning. The sites must have held special significance, too, as the art is spread over thousands of years. People surely made those arduous journeys time and again over the millennia for a reason—and that seems to have been spiritual. The extraordinarily beautiful depictions of mammoths, bison, wild horses, bears and human figures, one even clad in a skin and playing a flute, must have meant something and the only conclusion I can draw is that it was part of a ritual. Many images show men confronting animals with their arms upraised and, apparently, in a trance. These are probably shamans under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Isn’t it amazing that only now, millennia later, is the study of these and the potential their use may have for medicine and mental health becoming respectable?

There is an extraordinary similarity in descriptions from all over the world of the shamanistic experience. From the Western European caves, where they were first depicted, to the anecdotal accounts of shamans in Siberia and all through the Americas; from the Paleolithic Age, perhaps 2.5 million years ago, right up to recent times—and even in remnant communities today—shamans have described flying through the air, communicating with, and sometimes becoming, spirit animals and generally experiencing a quite different reality from the familiar world around us. I have seen this myself many times when visiting remote tribes in South America and South-East Asia.

When I contracted covid, I was heavily drugged and put in a coma for five weeks. The result was that, mercifully, I have almost no recollection of all the nasty things being done to me to keep me alive. What I do remember is the hallucinations I experienced as a result of the drugs. I saw long, green snakes slithering over the foot of my bed, brown bats crawling up the lead to my saline drip and a tawny jaguar that I could reach out and stroke. These illusions did not scare me,

as I realised that I was in the same place as all those shamans I had watched over the years; I found it interesting and rather comforting.

What the cave art of southern France and northern Spain reveals is that humans were, perhaps for the first time, seeking to make sense of the world around them. Up to this point, as far as we know, we were simply rather clever animals, who, for a few hundred thousand years, had been making our way in the world by being a bit more skilled at using tools, hunting and perhaps manipulating fire. Very gradually, we were eliminating the competition—similar species, such as the Neanderthals—and setting off on the long road to world dominance, which we have now achieved with a vengeance. These were huntergatherer societies, which depended largely for their survival—as, indeed, has almost every other species of life—on killing for food. Perhaps what marked out humans as different was that we began to find this disturbing. Perhaps the mystical relationships people who had entered the spirit worlds of animals had developed with their hosts made them uneasy about slaughtering them. Hunting was and still

is surrounded with taboos and prohibitions. The Bushmen of the Kalahari feel a deep empathy with their prey and so, I have found, did all the tribal people I have known. There is a love and need relationship between man and his prey. I have watched a Mentawaian hunter on the island of Siberut off the coast of Sumatra praying with a loving intensity to the spirit of the deer he intends to kill the next day, urging it to succumb to its fate and fall to his spear. Animal sacrifice has been a central rite of nearly every religious system in antiquity and this must have come from prehistoric hunting ceremonies, continuing to honour a beast that gave its life for the sake of humankind.

For the next 20,000 years of our existence, until settled agriculture became the norm, this was how we saw the world and these pictures are the only indication of what people were thinking and what we were worshipping. It seems that religion and art were inseparable from the very beginning.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison is an explorer, a Royal Geographical Society gold medallist and an author. His most recent book is ‘Taming the Four Horsemen’ (2020)

These pictures are the only indication of what people were thinking and worshipping

Cave art is early evidence of humans attempting to make sense of the world around them

Let it go to your head

THE Panama hat is the symbol of elegant British summer living, synonymous with Pimm’s and strawberries, blades feathering, the rattle of batting collapses and the ripple of sympathetic applause at Wimbledon as a plucky British player bows out in the early rounds. Sported by the art historian abroad and the detective on a Nile cruise, it is also the hat a man wears when day-dreaming of driving an open-topped roadster along the Corniche with Grace Kelly in the passenger seat. Although the trilby suggests pipe tobacco and fly-fishing in the autumn rain, the Panama carries the whiff of Cuban cigars, white smoke rising before a silhouette of ancient ruins against a dimming orange sun. It is both practical and fantastical. It has panache. It also has the wrong name.

‘The first thing to know about Panama hats is that they don’t come from Panama,’ explains hat maker Mavi Tzaig. Who knew that the name of Britain’s most popular summer headgear is a geographical misnomer? Just as French horns and Capri pants originated in Germany, so the Panama, in reality, comes from Ecuador.

Mrs Tzaig, along with her Ecuadorean mother, Jenny Frohlich, runs The Panama Hat Company, the UK’s largest importer and maker of Panama hats. ‘When the Conquistadors arrived in Ecuador, the indigenous people wore hats made from the fibres of a palmlike plant (Carludovica palmata),’ Mrs Tzaig continues. ‘The hats were brimless and looked like the tocado that were then fashionable among Spanish nobility, so the Spaniards called the plant paja toquilla (hat straw).’

It’s the special Ecuadorian straw that lifts Panama hats above the competition. ‘The straw has incredible flexibility,’ notes Mrs Tzaig. ‘It’s wonderful to work with. Hat makers will tell you that paja toquilla is the cashmere of the straw world.’

In the 18th century, the Ecuadorean weavers started adding brims to their hats. Known locally as sombrero de paja toquilla, they were sent up to Panama, from where they were shipped around the globe. Travellers traversing the Isthmus of Panama to avoid a lengthy and hazardous voyage around Cape Horn bought the imported hats to shade them from the tropical sun.

Tens of thousands were carried up to California during the 1849 Gold Rush. The notion that the hats originated in Panama became fixed in the heads of Europeans and North Americans. The Ecuadoreans did their best to reclaim the Panama for themselves, presenting one of their finest hats to Emperor Louis Napoleon of France at the Paris World’s Fair in 1855. The trend-setting French monarch was delighted and wore his new headgear as he sauntered along the prom in Biarritz. If he told people where it came from, however, nobody took much notice.

Napoleon III spent the last years of his life in exile in Chislehurst, Kent. Perhaps he brought his fashionable Panama with him. However it got to Britain, by the first decade of the 19th century, the hat was a feature of the British season and the sums gentlemen were spending on high-quality Panamas were so extraordinary that they made newspaper headlines.

The quality of the hat is defined by the fineness of the straw used to weave it. ‘The best Panamas are woven from straw that’s as fine as cotton thread,’ Mrs Tzaig points out. ‘The finer the straw, the higher the density of the weave. Really high-quality hats can have as many as 3,000 weaves per square inch.’

Such superior-quality Panama hats, The Strand magazine informed its readers in 1902, were as ‘rare as blue diamonds’ and cost the same as a ‘small farm’ (nowadays, they are more akin to the price of a family car). These Panamas, the writer claimed, could carry water as securely as any tin bucket and be rolled so thinly they would ‘pass through a wedding ring’ or be ‘tucked in a top pocket like a pencil’. Such treatment is not recommended by Mrs Tzaig. ‘There are a lot of old wives’ tales about Panamas,’ she remarks. ‘My mother says hats that have been rolled up sit on your head like a boiled chicken!’

Of course, that lived-in look is something many people favour. ‘A lot of British people don’t want their Panama to look pristine. They want it to look lived-in. It adds character,’ observes Mrs Tzaig. ‘In fact, we’ve been commissioned in the past to make hats that are frayed around the edges and misshapen.’ It’s the millinery equivalent of buying pre-ripped denim.

The man who made the Panama fashionable in Britain would not have opted for anything so self-consciously eccentric. In the early years of his reign, Edward VII reputedly paid £90 to a Bond Street hatter for a topquality Panama. His Majesty then caused gasps of astonishment from the throng at Goodwood when he arrived for a day’s racing clad not in the traditional tails and top hat, but in his swanky new Panama and a light linen suit. It was the male equivalent of Coco Chanel’s jersey dresses torpedoing the iron-clad Victorian

Benedict Cumberbatch (left) joins the sea of Panamas at Wimbledon (right)

As supple as an Olympic gymnast and as uncrushable as the bulldog spirit, the Panama hat has long been a staple of the British gentleman’s summer attire, says Harry Pearson

The Panama hat is both practical and fantastical. It has panache. It also has the wrong name

silhouette and revolutionised men’s summer fashion in much the same way. When Edward VII died in 1910, the now traditional black band was added to the British Panama as a mark of respect to the man who had done most to popularise it here.

The Panama process

The enjoyment of the new lightweight headgear was not confined to men. Because, although it was the chosen summer headwear of bristly individualists, such as Ernest Hemingway, the Panama hat had gender fluidity. In 1904, The Gentlewoman excitedly praised the Panama for being ‘without distinction for both sexes… Angelina may borrow Edwin’s and Edwin may borrow Angelina’s’. Although whether Edwin was sufficiently secure in his masculinity to follow the magazine’s suggestion and trim his Panama with a silk ‘Assyrian-printed scarf’ is another matter.

Many traditionalists dismissed the Panama as a trendy fad that would fade as rapidly as a summer tan. They were wrong. By 1909, The Gentlewoman was describing the hat as ‘the first indispensable of outdoor country life’. No

foreign import has become a fixture of British life so fast—not even the Aga, or the Labrador.

The reasons for the Panama’s popularity are easy to discern. Other straw hats are brittle. They can be destroyed forever by a careless foot or misplaced backside. The Panama is as supple as an Olympic gymnast and as uncrushable as the bulldog spirit. The hat’s resilience, along with its racy elegance, saw it outstrip main summer rival the straw boater to such an extent that, by the 1960s, Sir Hardy Amies could waspishly observe of the latter that it is, ‘best left to fishmongers and Harrovians’.

The Panama is versatile, too. Although most hats are categorised by their shape, the Panama

If the hat fits

President Theodore Roosevelt The 26th President of the US helped cement the hat’s association with Panama by donning one when visiting the Panama Canal construction site in 1906

Dirk Bogarde the English actor’s whitesuit-and-Panama-hat combination in Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice are the classic look of the aesthete abroad

Mick Jagger Sir Mick (left) helped give the Panama some raunchy rock ’n’ roll uplift when he was photographed wearing one around the time that the single Angie became a worldwide hit

The King Following in a long line of Panamawearing British monarchs, the then Prince of Wales paired one with a pair of aviator sunglasses to great sartorial acclaim during the 1994 tour of Australia

Joanna Lumley The English actress (right) is Mavi Tzaig’s favourite Panama wearer. ‘She wears her hats with real style, neither too formal nor too casual. She really rocks a Panama,’ Mrs Tzaig says, approvingly

The straw used to make Panama hats is harvested in the cloud forest and dried in the equatorial sun. The strands are then hand-woven around a wooden block to create the crown of the hat. Next, the brim is added. This is followed by the unique process in which the straw is turned back toward the crown and woven into a loose band around the outer edge of the brim. Once woven, the hats are pummelled to make them supple, washed in rainwater, hand-ironed back into shape and, finally, trimmed and left out in the sun to dry. The colour of the Panama is naturally that of Jersey cream, although some are bleached to milky whiteness using sulphur from Andean volcanoes.

is defined by the special straw it’s made from. ‘The original hat—with the high crown and central ridge favoured by Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill—was modelled on the bowler hat,’ Mrs Tzaig explains. ‘But different styles were soon designed, made and adopted.’ Hercule Poirot even wears a Panama version of his trademark homburg when solving crimes in sunnier climes.

Well looked after, a quality Panama hat will last a lifetime. Mrs Tzaig’s advice: ‘Always hold your hat by the brim. Never pinch the crown. Store your Panama in a place that’s not too dry. Once a year, leave it on the bathroom sink while you bathe, so it absorbs the steam.’

My mother says Panama hats that have been rolled up sit on your head like a boiled chicken!

Legend of his time

THE term ‘gentleman driver’ is usually used for an amateur, but wealthy car fan who has the time and money to indulge a passion for motor racing. At the highest level of motorsport, however, there is one driver who is widely acknowledged as being among the greatest true gentlemen who ever turned a steering wheel —the Belgian star Jacky Ickx.

Although 78 years young and officially retired from professional racing (since 1985), his motoring life remains hectic. Earlier this month, he took to the 8½-mile Le Mans circuit in a variety of fire-breathing cars as a special guest at the centenary of the celebrated 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s oldest endurance race. First run in 1923 to prove the resilience of both car and driver, it became famous for the exploits of the celebrated ‘Bentley Boys’ —a group of affluent British motorists who drove the marque’s cars to victory, keeping Bentley’s reputation alive—notably in 1929, when the marque took the first four places. Soon, the race became synonymous with the heroic exploits of its protagonists (Raymond Sommer drove solo for 20 hours in the 1932 event after team-mate Luigi Chinetti became ill) and the 1950s saw Le Mans become a place of pilgrimage for British motorsport fans, thanks to the successes of Jaguar’s famed C and D Types and Aston Martin’s DBR1.

The 1960s, meanwhile, resulted in a hardfought rivalry between Ford and Ferrari—

inspiring the cult 1971 film Le Mans starring Steve McQueen that majored on the passions, dangers and uniquely changing atmosphere of a race that can run to as much as 3,000 miles as it passes from afternoon to evening, dusk to night and from dawn back to day.

Despite its perils and uncertainties, Ickx won the event a remarkable six times between 1969 and 1982, a record that remained unbroken for 23 years until Denmark’s Tom Kristensen achieved the seventh of his nine victories. What is perhaps most surprising about Ickx’s stellar career, however, is that he harboured none of the typical schoolboy aspirations to become a racing driver. Quite the opposite.

‘The two things I really dreamed of becoming as a boy were a gardener or a gamekeeper,’ he reminisced at the London boutique of watch and jewellery brand Chopard, for which he has been an ambassador for almost 35 years. ‘I spent a lot of time alone during my childhood and I was always happy to be outside, surrounded by the peace of Nature—but there is often a big difference between where one feels one should be and where one ends up.’ Ironically, ending up as a racing driver was a direct result of Jacky spending school days gazing out of the classroom window and contemplating the draw of the countryside. ‘I had a hard time at school and always tried to sit on the farthest bench in the classroom, near a window. Every year, I had to face the moment when it was time to hand the results of my lack of work to my parents—and I always dreaded it.’ In about 1961, perhaps in a fit of despair at their son’s glacial academic progress, his parents offered the donkey a carrot in the form of a 50cc motorcycle. It was a specialist machine designed for trials riding, a form of off-road competition that asks riders to traverse ‘sections’ strewn with natural obstacles without touching their feet down. Having been labelled ‘lousy at everything’ by his teachers, the young Mr Ickx displayed finesse in the tricky art of trials and became one of the best junior riders in his category. ‘Suddenly, instead of being last I was first,’

Jacky Ickx won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times between 1969 and 1982. As the gruelling endurance race turns 100, Simon de Burton talks to ‘Monsieur Le Mans’ and finds that motorsport wasn’t the first career choice for the famous driver

Facing page: Jacky Ickx victorious at Silverstone in 1985. Above: Winning Le Mans in 1969

Getty; Alamy; Sebastien Agnetti/Chopard

The legendary driver with his daughter, Vanina, who is steering in his wheelmarks

he says, recalling victory in only his second event. Over five further seasons, he won the Belgian 50cc championship and a place in the Zündapp works team, for which he rode in major long-distance trials such as the International Six Days and the Scottish Six Days.

‘I felt a sort of detachment about the whole thing which, I believe, alleviated any stress and provided me with the confidence and composure necessary to succeed. For me, it was more of a hobby than a passion.’

Inevitably, Mr Ickx’s talent for off-road motorcycling led to racing small-capacity machines on track—which, equally inevitably, he took to like a duck to water. At the age of 18, he was tempted onto four wheels by an invitation to drive a BMW 700 coupe in a hillclimb at La Roche-en-Ardenne, an occasion that ended in an ignominious meeting with a tree.

his first Grand Prix and, two years later, he was competing in Formula 1 as a works driver for Ferrari, ending the season in fourth place. Before retiring from Formula 1 in 1979, Mr Ickx achieved eight wins and 25 podiums, but it was in 1969 that three years of success in endurance racing revealed his true motorsport metier and led to his first victory at Le Mans driving a Ford GT40.

His next five wins in the famously gruelling race—in which speeds regularly exceed 220mph—came in 1975–77 and in 1981 and 1982. A total of 22 drivers have been killed at Le Mans since it was first run in 1923, as well as 83 spectators, who died at the 1955 event when Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes-Benz 300SLR launched into the crowd. ‘To succeed in motor racing, you must put all ideas of bravery, courage and doubt out of your mind,’ he believes. ‘If you achieve that and you are doing what you want to do, you are not a hero, you are just a free person. But winning is not only about the driver, it’s about the people in the shed who build and maintain the cars. I have huge respect for them... if you have a good car, winning is easy.’

The Le Mans legend

In 1969, Jacky Ickx staged a protest against the dangerous ‘Le Mans start’: drivers would run across the track, jump into their cars and speed off, often without fastening their safety belts. To make his point, Mr Ickx walked to his car, strapped himself in and set off last. He still won In 2000, Mr Ickx raced in the Paris-Dakar with his daughter, Vanina, as co-driver. She is a racing driver, too, and has competed in the German Touring Car Championship and the GT1 World Championship—oh, and she has also completed the Le Mans 24 Hours five times Every other year since 1989, he has been Chopard co-president KarlFriedrich Scheufele’s navigator in the Mille Miglia (the classiccar rally in Italy). The pair met when Mr Ickx approached the latter at the Nürburgring circuit in 1987—to complain about his wife’s faulty Chopard necklace

Experiencing the thrill of motor racing, was enough to get him hooked and successes in touring cars again led to his talent being spotted. ‘The key to my story was [driver and constructor] Ken Tyrrell. He had seen me driving a Lotus Cortina in Hungary and asked if I would be interested in testing a Formula 3 car. But I explained that I couldn’t because I was in the Army doing my national service.’

Tyrrell waited patiently for a year before approaching Mr Ickx again, this time inviting him to drive a Cooper at Goodwood. ‘I spun it five times and eventually crashed.’ By the end of 1966, Tyrrell had entered Mr Ickx into

Speaking of winning, what does Mr Ickx regard as his finest Le Mans victory? ‘For motorracing fans, that was the 1969 event because no one believed the car was capable of winning and the distance between me and the secondplaced car was only 120 metres after 24 hours of racing. But, personally, 1977 was the best race. My own car was withdrawn with engine problems, leaving me as the reserve for the second car. We were in 42nd place, it was raining and it was foggy. But I believe it’s possible to not only sublimate one’s self, but also to sublimate others—in this case the rest of the team, we went from being certain losers to outright winners.’ He fails to mention the

He is believed to be the only person to own a full set of 35 Chopard Mille Miglia watches. A new model is made each year (left, 2022) Mr Ickx has lived in Monaco for the past 42 years, but doesn’t keep a single item in his home that relates to his illustrious motorsport career. He doesn’t use a car in the principality, preferring a scooter or walking Porsche honoured Mr Ickx’s 75th birthday with a special edition of its 911 sports car. The Carrera 4S Belgian Legend Edition is painted in X-Blue with white trim around the side windows, replicating the livery of Mr Ickx’s racing helmet

fact that his 11-hour stint behind the wheel was the equivalent of completing five grand prix races back to back, during which he broke multiple lap records. But as anyone who knows him will tell you, gentleman Jacky has always worn his achievements lightly.

The first of Bentley’s six wins at Le Mans, with John Duff and Frank Clement, in 1924

To succeed, you must put all ideas of bravery, courage and doubt out of your mind

The good stuff

Aceing the trend

With Wimbledon almost upon us, Hetty Lintell shows how to hone your

Decker Off-Court striped cotton-jersey cardigan, £126, Varley (www.net-a-porter.com)

Chevron pleated tennis skirt, £155, Tory Burch (www.toryburch.com)

SRC socks, £21, Sporty & Rich (www. sportyandrich.com)

The Roger Spin sneaker, £130, On Running (www.on-running.com)

Style update

Bright ideas to inspire this summer, selected by Amelia Thorpe

Summer siesta

Designed for lazing away a sunny afternoon, the Toulouse Blue Stripe hammock, £199 from Weaver Green, is made from recycled plastic bottles. Machine washable, hardwearing, water and mould resistant, it can be left outside all summer long (01548 431092; www. weavergreen.com)

Rus in urbe

As well as two stores in Norfolk, Birdie Fortescue currently has a pop-up shop in Chelsea selling her distinctive range of furniture and accessories for both inside and out. It will be at 324–326, Kings Road, London SW3, until January 2024 (01328 851651; www.birdiefortescue.co.uk)

The power of print

For a burst of sunshine, try this framed limited-edition Bloomsbury Yellow cotton paper print, £84, by Molly Mahon, queen of block printing in joyful colours (01342 825700; www.mollymahon.com)

Design masterclass

Fans of Nina Campbell will be pleased to know that online learning platform Create Academy now offers A Definitive Guide to Decorating, her first-ever course, in which she shares more than half a century of decorating experience. With more than four hours of video lessons, it costs £147 (www.createacademy.com)

Nostalgic touch

There’s something comforting about the plump shape and nostalgic words (including ‘Please return to casting shop’ on the reverse) on the Flowers of Burleigh Casters jug, £300, handmade in England, from Pentreath & Hall (020–7278 2772; www.pentreath-hall.com)

Interiors

Are you being served?

New from the Invisible Collection comes ClubRoom, an online boutique offering a delectable range of home accessories, decorative objects and furniture by an ever-changing roster of designers and makers. The Ivy tray by Hastshilp costs £145 (www.theinvisiblecollection.com/clubroom)

Paper style

Contemporary craft

Another Country has a new showroom in Dorset at Unit 5, Chaldicott Barns, Shaftesbury, showcasing its contemporary and sustainable wood furniture inspired by British country, Shaker, Scandinavian and Japanese design (01747 445695; www.anothercountry.com)

Botanical charm

Sofas & Stuff’s second RHS fabric range includes this charming Meadow Flower design, based on an undated ink drawing of a plant from Gertrude Jekyll’s Designs for Carvings scrapbook held in the RHS Lindley Library. The viscose linen union, £75 per m, is printed in Lancashire and is available on all bespoke sofas, chairs, beds and footstools from Sofas & Stuff (0808 178 3211; www. sofasandstuff.com)

Bold and beautiful

Upholstered in embroidered suzani fabric from Uzbekistan and trimmed in bullion fringe, the Tashkent sofa, £4,650 from Kelling Home, is designed to add exuberant character and impact to any space (01328 830449; www.kellinghome.com)

Natural beauty

The Vasco coffee table, £3,072, allows the classic distinction of the Viola marble top to shine, from Julian Chichester (020–7622 2928; www.julianchichester.com)

Pick of the crop summer jugs

Thistles jug, £160, Petra Palumbo (01463 782594; www. petrapalumbo. com)

Fast earning a reputation for decorative hand-block printed fabrics, Hare’s Tail is now launching its first collection of wallpapers, printed in the UK on textured paper to echo the soft hues of the fabric collection.

Lucy’s India in Cherry, £220 per 10m roll, is shown here (www. harestail.co.uk)

Skye McAlpine Tavola (www. skyemcalpinetavola.com)

Sofia water jug, £78, The Colombia Collective (www. thecolombia collective.co.uk)

Sam Walton

Pearls of wisdom

What Jackie Kennedy’s $35 necklace tells us about price and value

THOMAS WOODHAM-SMITH , co-founder of the Treasure House Fair that opens its doors in the grounds of Royal Hospital Chelsea tomorrow, recently related a story about a necklace of fake pearls that was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, in 1996 for $212,000, a 6,000% increase on the $35 paid at Bergdorf Goodman in the 1950s. Better still, the necklace was later copied 130,000 times, grossing the owners a total of $26 million, and it is now stashed away in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington. The reason for its mesmeric appeal? It formerly belonged to Jackie Kennedy.

In an age when old things are—more than ever before—seen as little more than a quick and easy way to add a ‘vintage vibe’ to a space, there’s something thrilling about knowing a piece’s history. Finding those with a story, however, will require more than a rummage through a website. It’s a search where a good dealer is vital and there will be plenty of those at Mr Woodham-Smith’s Treasure House

Fair, which will fill the significant vacuum left by the demise of Masterpiece, held at the same location.

In the consuming world of antiques there are, at one end of the scale, pieces by celebrated names created for the celebrated owners of celebrated houses that, in some cases, no longer exist. But it doesn’t all have to be

Yet even at a modest level, the scantest details can be enough to give an item an added dimension. If one has no knowledge of a piece’s provenance, then knowing the approximate age and aesthetic tradition in which it sits can be transformative. Is a piece of lustreware Leeds or Sunderland? Or a Windsor chair comb back or sack back? Is an armchair Howard? Subtle nuances can make a huge difference, as demonstrated when a pair of Qing Dynasty imperial jars bought for £20 in a charity shop recently sold for almost £60,000 at Roseberys (Art Market, May 31).

Holland, Hope or Sheraton; for trophy hunters, sales such as that of the late Duchess of Devonshire’s possessions in 2016 offered a hunting ground for more offbeat items, such as an Elvis Presley phone that had been installed in the Blue Drawing Room at Chatsworth during her time there. Kicking yourself?

But, as Lord Darlington pronounced in Lady Windermere’s Fan, price and value are two very different things. For people with a love of antiques, the history of an object—particularly a beloved piece that has passed from one generation to the next—can hugely enhance the latter. But not always the former. The Treasure House Fair runs from June 22–26 at Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3 (www.treasurehousefair.com)

There’s something thrilling about knowing a piece’s history

Star quality: Jackie Kennedy’s $35 fake pearls sold at auction for $212,000 dollars in 1996, a remarkable increase of 6,000%

Heaven in Hampshire

A 200-acre estate steeped in history and a prime angling opportunity light up the property market this week

LAST week saw the launch onto the market of the pristine, 206-acre Woodcote Manor estate with its handsome, Grade II*-listed manor house, set in a private wooded valley overlooking its own historic park, farmland and the surrounding South Downs National Park, half a mile east of the village of Bramdean, five miles from the Georgian market town of Alresford and 10 miles from Winchester. The sale is being handled by Geoff Jones of Savills in Winchester (07870 387700) and Crispin Holborow of the Savills country department (07967 555511), who quote a guide price of £15 million for the impeccably restored estate as a whole.

The manor of Woodcote dates from the late 12th century, although the remains of a Roman villa in the grounds suggest that this was already a place of importance in ancient times. According to the Victoria County History (1908), the manor was acquired by the Venables family between 1663 and 1667 and remained with them until the death of Catharine Venables in 1789, when it descended to her kinsman, Edward Hooper of Hurn Court, a former MP for Christchurch, who only visited it occasionally and left it on his death to the Earl of Malmesbury. In 1809, the Earl sold Woodcote to a speculator called Lipscombe, who, when Mr Greenwood

of Brockwood was deliberating on the purchase, bought the place and felled the timber. Greenwood, however, apparently ‘repented of his mistake and eventually bought the manor without the timber at the price he had demurred to give for the estate, which remained in the Greenwood family until September 29, 1900, when Mr Ulick Burke, the then lord of the manor, purchased it’.

According to Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows, Woodcote Manor was the home of Sir Francis Seymour Haden, an eminent former surgeon and a notable painter of etchings, from his retirement in 1887 until his death in 1910. A few years before he died, he sold Woodcote Manor

Penny Churchill

Woodcote Manor forms the heart of an impeccably restored 206-acre estate in a private valley near Bramdean in Hampshire. £15m

to his friend and fellow artist, the American illustrator, Edwin Abbey, who died in August 1911, leaving the house to his widow, who sold Woodcote Manor to the Bowes-Lyon family during the First World War.

The Bowes-Lyons were succeeded at Woodcote by the Knatchbull family and then by the Tudor-Owens family, who sold it in 1958 to the Mortons, who lived at the manor and farmed the surrounding land. The present owner, Richard Peers, bought Woodcote Manor with some 100 acres of gardens and parkland from the Mortons in 2003, and doubled his acreage four years ago with the purchase of a further 100 acres of adjoining farmland.

As have many historic country houses, Woodcote Manor has evolved over the years from a 17th-century Jacobean house built around a 15th-century hall house, the exposed timbers of which can be seen in the kitchen and family room. The Queen Anne-style south front was added in 1911 by the eminent architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, who made other important additions to the house, including the impressive reception hall with

its grand proportions, oak panelling and decorative ceiling. He also designed the charming, three-bedroom Gardeners Cottage, listed Grade II, which stands in a private location to the south of the manor, with separate road access, and is currently let on an assured shorthold tenancy.

During their 20-year tenure, Mr and Mrs Peers have completely rejuvenated the 14,133sq ft manor house, re-roofing and re-plumbing throughout, upgrading electrical and heating systems and reconfiguring the interior to create a better flow of rooms for comfortable family living. Having started out with a rambling country house with 13 bedrooms and one bathroom, they now have a supremely elegant country home, which boasts six fine reception rooms, a splendid master suite, five en-suite guest bedrooms, three family bedrooms and bathrooms and two staff flats.

Outside, exquisite mature gardens, partially laid out by Gertrude Jekyll in the 1920s, envelop the property, and include an 18th-century walled garden created by William Greenwood in 1817. The present owners have created a second estate entrance and added a proper Victorian glasshouse, where Mrs Peers has reared a variety of exotic plants and trees, including an avocado tree grown from the stone of a fruit bought at Tesco. Extensive outbuildings include a substantial coachhouse, a former water tower, a squash court and a stable block, all of which have planning consent for conversion to residential use.

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales (1870) describes the parish of Bramdean

as ‘a resort of sportsmen’ and the land at Woodcote Manor, currently farmed under a farm business tenancy that expires in 2025, lends itself well to equestrian and country sports and, in the past, has been the setting for a small family shoot.

The chalkstreams of Hampshire are renowned for the quality of their trout fishing and fishermen from around the world will be galvanised by the chance to acquire idyllic, Grade II-listed Bransbury Mill in the hamlet of Bransbury, near Barton Stacey, halfway between Winchester and Andover, which comes with 1¼ miles of double-bank trout fishing on the River Dever, one of the main tributaries of the iconic River Test.

George Clarendon of Knight Frank in Winchester (01962 677234) is handling the sale, at a guide price of £5.95m, of the substantial, red-brick former grain mill first mentioned in Domesday, the earliest part of which dates from the 18th century. The house was extended in the 1900s to create a charming, five-bedroom family home set in more than 22 acres of gardens, orchard

Bransbury Mill boasts a prime spot on the banks of the River Dever in Hampshire. £5.95m

Outside, exquisite mature gardens, partially laid out by Gertrude Jekyll in the 1920s, envelop Woodcote Manor

Property market

and water meadows, with further accommodation available in the nearby four-bedroom Stable Cottage.

Mark Merison of Merison Sporting in Devizes (07720 078253), which has access to some of the finest salmon and trout fishing in the UK, is overseeing the sale of his late parents’ house, where he has been closely involved with the fishing operation run for the past 31 years by river-keeper Chris de Cani, a local legend. The Bransbury beat enjoys a substantial stock of wild brown trout with no restocking needed, thanks to judicious and sensible over-winter feeding. There is also a small pond with four hides for flighting duck, predominantly mallard, but also gadwall and teal.

The adjoining meadows have been sympathetically managed to maximise biodiversity and are a riot of colour from native wildflowers from spring through to autumn. More than 40 different species of tree provide spectacular colour in both the woodland and meadows, which are a haven for a rich variety of wildlife.

Enthusiastic sailors will be whizzing down the motorways to Lymington in Hampshire, where Toby Turnage of Knight Frank (01590 630591) and Lindsay Cuthill of Blue Book (07967 555545) quote a guide price of £8m for the beautifully restored St Leonard’s Grange, which stands in almost 11 acres of immaculate gardens and grounds on the banks of the Beaulieu River, 3¾ miles southeast of Beaulieu.

Above: Historic St Leonard’s Grange stands in 11 acres of immaculate gardens and grounds near Beaulieu in Hampshire.

£8m. Right: An impressive backdrop to the property is formed by the Grade I-listed ruin of a 13thcentury chapel

The Grange was historically part of a network of outlying farms created to help support the monks of the Cistercian Beaulieu Abbey, founded by King John in 1204 and demolished by Henry VIII’s men at the Dissolution in 1537. All that can now be seen of the original St Leonard’s Grange is the romantic, Grade I-listed ruin of the 13th-century chapel that forms an impressive backdrop to the Grade II-listed main house, which dates from about 1700 and incorporates the remains of the medieval grange and its 16th-century successor, which was remodelled in the 19th century. The house was built during the

reconstruction of 1900 of part ashlar stone and mellow red brick from the kilns in Beaulieu, with all the windows at the front having a sunny morning aspect with delightful views looking down to the Beaulieu River, where the current owners can see their yacht on her mooring. The house is a superbly comfortable family home, offering more than 6,000sq ft of accommodation on three floors, including five good reception rooms, a splendid family kitchen with exposed timbers (probably brought up from the Beaulieu shipyards), a spacious master suite, five further bedrooms and five bathrooms.

The price of buying in a conservation area, such as Bath, continues to rise

Paying a premium

THE premium for living among England’s architectural conservation areas has risen in the past three years, with buyers now expecting to pay 31% more than average to live in one, the latest research from Savills has revealed.

Defined as places ‘of special architectural or historic interest as deserving of careful management to protect their character’, conservation areas make up 2.2% of England, encompassing about 10,000 properties. Savills’s analysis has shown that properties in these areas are worth about £400,000 on average, compared with an average price of £305,730 in non-conservation areas. Perhaps unsurprisingly, London has the largest premium for its conservation areas, with Savills concluding that you are likely to pay 48% more to live in one. This is more than twice that of the second-placed region, the North-East, where the supplement stands at 20.3%.

When analysing the data at a more local level, the differences are even greater, with the local authority of Trafford in Manchester seeing a whopping 152.9% extra for living in a conservation area when compared with a nonconservation area. The key areas for Trafford are Altrincham, Hale and Bowden, with Altrincham having recently topped the list for ‘best places to live’ in the UK and Bowden being dubbed ‘Manchester’s millionaire village’. Another example would be Bath and its environs, which has 35 conservation areas and sees a local conservation premium of 47.5%.

Art Deco delight

REGARDED as one of the finest examples of Art Deco design in Europe, Devon’s Burgh Island Hotel (above) recently hit the market with Knight Frank at a guide price of £15 million. As well as inspiring two Agatha Christie novels, Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None, the property is rumoured to have hosted a meeting between Winston Churchill and Dwight Eisenhower before D-Day and even played host to Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor and The Beatles. Accessible by foot or car at low tide, or by a unique sea tractor at high tide (as seen in the ITV adaptation of Evil Under the Sun, starring David Suchet, which was filmed at the island), the property features 25 rooms, spa facilities, helipad and tennis court. Originally built in 1929, the property was restored in the 1990s.

‘It is rare for a hotel of such character and heritage to come to the open market,’ says Knight Frank’s Matthew Smith, partner in the hotel agency team. ‘Burgh Island Hotel is a spectacular example of Art Deco architecture, it’s steeped in amazing history and provides guests with a sophisticated and distinctive experience. In recent years, the buildings have received considerable investment. It operates as a thriving business that generated in excess of £6 million turnover in its most recent financial year.’

We throw around the term ‘chocolate-box cottage’ a lot in the pages of this magazine, but here is a chance to own one of the original 12 Cadbury’s Chocolate Box Cottages that were featured by the confectioners in the late 19th century. Weavers, situated in Stradishall, Suffolk, is listed Grade II and lives up to the moniker, featuring a thatched roof, established front garden, timber frame and four bedrooms. £799,950 with Jackson-Stops (01638 662231)

Alamy; Getty

Now solar panels are hot property

SOLAR panels have gone from ‘eyesore’ to adding kerb appeal, according to sustainable-energy website The Eco Experts, with new data suggesting that 69% of UK adults would like to purchase a home with solar panels installed. Unsurprisingly, millennials and Gen Z are the most enthusiastic, with 74% of respondents in those groups saying that they would be likely or very likely to buy a property with solar panels fitted. It makes sense from a financial point of view, too, it adds, with data suggesting a ‘solar-panel premium’ could increase the value of your home by 4.1%.

With energy prices having soared over the past year, homes that produce their own sustainable energy have become increasingly sought after, as they can save households £608 a year on average on their energy bills.

‘It’s magnificent to see solar panels swing from neighbourhood eyesore to desirable,’ says The Eco Experts editor Charlie Clissitt. ‘The energy crisis has had a big part to play in this, but solar panels have also come a long way aesthetically—most solar panels are sleek, black and modern looking. We regularly speak to consumers who have bought a property specifically because it has solar panels.’

Grounds for optimism

IDOUBT I am the only person who has found themselves thinking, when walking home from a football, rugby or cricket match: ‘Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to live next to the stadium?’ As the milelong queue at Twickenham station or Wembley Park confronts you, that urge can become almost overwhelming—plus, think of the money you could make by renting out your car-parking space.

Well, according to research by www.betting. com, although living close to a Premier League ground might be convenient, it could also have a negative effect on the price of your home. Those keen for an easy walk home from Liverpool’s Anfield or Everton’s Goodison Park, for example, might be shocked to find out that, on average, properties close to those grounds are worth more than £100,000 less than those in the surrounding city. Although they recently concluded a historic treble, Manchester City fans wishing to live close to the Etihad Stadium will have to accept that their home will be worth 44% less on average than those elsewhere in Manchester. Of course, a lot depends on which stadium you live next to. Living near Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge in London, for example, is a wise move, with

property prices 11% higher on average than the rest of London. Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in north London will also add some value to your home, as well as Nottingham Forest’s City Ground and the Brentford Community Stadium in west London. But it’s not only Premier League teams that can influence local house prices. Many football fans will have been following the success of Wrexham, which finally won promotion back into the Football League this year under the stewardship of Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. It seems that the Welsh club’s rise through the football pyramid is also providing a boost for property in the area, with research by estateagent comparison website GetAgent showing an 89% increase in searches for ‘properties in Wrexham’ compared with last year. Indeed, Mr Reynolds himself has recently bought a property in the neighbouring village of Marford.

‘Cultural events have an undeniable impact on us and how we live our lives, so it’s been really interesting to see exactly how big an effect Wrexham’s recent sporting win has had on the desirability of the town, for buyers and tourists alike,’ says Colby Short, CEO and co-founder of GetAgent.

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts begins today and will see some 200,000 people descend on the small Somerset village to watch hundreds of bands perform across four days. For those who might be keen to attend next year, but want to miss out on the horrors of camping, then perhaps Abbotts Sharpham, with its 270 acres, might be worth looking at. On the market with agents Carter Jonas Rural at a price of £8 million, the estate is the current home of Mulberry founder Roger Saul, dates from the Bronze Age and features a 15th-century manor house, cottages, a deer park, orchards, an organic farm and a mill.

With Carter Jonas (01823 428590)

Table-topping: homes near Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge cost 11% more than the rest of London

Keeping the faith

The garden at Stonor Park, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

The home of Lord and Lady Camoys

From their first mention in the late 14th century, the gardens of Stonor Park have gone through as many ups and downs as the family that still lives there. Today, after decades of careful work, they are in top form, finds James Alexander-Sinclair

Photographs by Jason Ingram

THE Stonor family has been in this lovely bit of the Chiltern Hills for an extremely long time. The drive winds through ancient trees and up steep grassy slopes (which afford excellent, albeit hazardous and hair-raising, sledging opportunities) until the house and chapel are revealed. Quite a lot of country houses have chapels: Stonor Park goes one better. Not only does it boast a remarkable example, but it also possesses an ancient stone circle, around which pagans frolicked about 5,000 years ago.

The chapel was built in the 13th century (using one of the ancient stones as a foundation) and has been in use as a Catholic chapel ever since. If you remember that for at least 250 years of that period Catholics were not exactly encouraged (and at times hounded), then that shows pretty extraordinary commitment to faith and house. There are not many advantages to a couple of centuries of persecution and crippling fines, but it does mean that Stonor Park retains a great deal of its original character. No billionaire ancestors to demolish chunks

and build Gothic extensions; instead, it is a house that has gently and stoically evolved over the past 800 years.

Like everything at Stonor, the gardens have a lot of history—the first record of a garden on this site occurs in the late 14th century, when there is mention of new spaces, fruit training and the creation of smaller enclosed gardens around the house. During the 17th century, ‘upper and lower courts’ had been created to the south and energetic tree planting continued in both gardens and parkland. Fast forward to Victorian times, when the

family was not immune to the influx of new plants imported from all corners of the Empire—American natives, rhododendrons, conifers, peaches and pineapples. In the 1930s, the two pools that command the pleasure garden today were converted from existing greenhouse irrigation tanks and joined by the use of ‘fashionable’ crazy paving (another trend awaiting 21st-century rediscovery) to create an elegant terrace. Come the 1950s, a mass of roses, water lilies

and iris were planted, but, soon afterwards, the gardens went into a steep decline.

In 1978, Lord and Lady Camoys returned to the house. The family had moved out during the Second World War (when the house was let to the National Benzole Company) and there were all sorts of shenanigans in the post-war period when times were hard. As a result, they moved into a house that was not in the best condition, with a garden where lost glories had been conquered by

ground elder and couch grass. The original layout consisted of a pleasure garden and (unsurprisingly) a massive kitchen garden, but it had been simplified over the years. The work involved in wrenching the garden back from the depredations of disuse to the calm and interesting place it is today should not be underestimated. Imagine, for a moment, the challenges of taking on this long neglected garden and, at the same time, juggling a handful of small children, a houseful of builders,

Previous pages: The 1930s ponds viewed from the terrace. Above: The first record of a garden here dates back to the 14th century

a husband toiling in the city, trying to keep the roof in good repair and a curious public wandering through the drawing room on open days. Such was the situation in which Elisabeth Camoys found herself when she became châtelaine of Stonor Park.

Taking inspiration from a 1686 painting that hangs in the house showing the walled garden divided into a regular grid pattern, she transformed and redesigned the gardens. The majority of the structural plants were placed by her—many of them nurtured from seedlings and cuttings. The next generation stepped up in 2016, when the current Lord Camoys moved in with his young family. His wife, Ailsa, took over the day-to-day running

of the garden (working closely and affectionately with her mother-in-law) and has both preserved and progressed the planting, initially with the help of the legendary Chris Marchant (formerly of nearby Orchard Dene nursery). Ailsa trained at the Inchbald School of Design and worked alongside the great designers Tom Stuart-Smith, Todd Longstaffe-Gowan and Jinny Blom, so she knows her onions and the work that she has done (together with her sensational and ever-cheerful head gardener Catherine Stanger) means that this is a garden that simply keeps getting better.

Today, the garden is divided roughly into two large areas separated by two strips of

mature woodland. Walking out of the house, you look up the hill across the sweeping lawn towards the two 1930s ponds. Interestingly, because of the topography of the park, the house seems almost cosy from this side, as it has relaxed into the hill and appears to be only one storey high. To the right is a deep shrubbery leading to a handsome Japanese summerhouse (built by the 5th Lord Camoys). On the left of the lawn stand a lilac walk, wild box, magnolia and a huge Rosa ‘Kiftsgate’ that hangs louchely from a vast yew—in summer, it sparkles with a cumulus of white flowers.

Having climbed the steps and reached the park wall, the long borders that constitute the melody of the garden spread out to either side

The 400ft-long border made by Elisabeth, Lady Camoys. Modern touches include statuesque Cyanara cardunculus and sanguisorba

of you. This is Elisabeth, Lady Camoys’s piècede-resistance —an almost 400ft-long border of repetition and revelation—roses, irises, peonies, a cherry trained against the wall, another rose, a phygelius, some penstemons. A good flowerbed should have moments of heart-quickening allegro contrasting with stretches of soothing adagio: this has all that in barrow loads. Among the classics, Ailsa has added unexpected surprises: blocks of Veronicastrum lavendelturm, architectural Cynara cardunculus and clusters of sanguisorba. These inject a spice of modernity to the borders that is most obvious in the far west ones, which Ailsa planted in 2016 using a collection of different plant combinations found elsewhere in the gardens.

From here, you look down—ideally from the vantage point of a bench under an arch of Rosa ‘Albéric Barbier’—the avenues of Irish yew that divide the Old Kitchen Garden. To either side are large squares of shrub planting surrounded by areas of long grass into which Lady Camoys planted bulbs—camassia, alliums and narcissi. Ailsa added the cherryred Tulipa ‘Jan Reus’, which adds zip to the proceedings. There is also a sensational view from here across the park to the steep hill opposite, where deer graze among mature trees.

No decent garden is ever finished and team Stonor has plenty in its sights: trees to maintain, plants to plant, improvements to plan, vegetables to grow and pots to propagate. There is talk of a new-look laburnum walk,

planting the trees in the park so that they reach over the wall to arch elegantly across the path. At one point in the 18th century, there was an octagonal seat at the very top of the garden (a couple of stone pillars remain patiently waiting among the trees), which the team is keen to restore. There is no rush; I am confident it will happen in its own good time. After all, the Stonors have been here for a long time and every generation has left a mark on house and landscape. This is a family that has gone through a great deal over the centuries and, as a result, is firmly rooted in the earth of Stonor Park. The place feels comfortable, settled and at peace with itself, no matter what turmoil there is in the rest of the world. For opening times, visit www.stonor.com

Above: In spring, foxgloves and ox-eye daisies are left in place to loosen the border. Below: Stonor gets its name from the prehistoric stone circle that dates back 5,000 years

In the garden Mark Griffiths

Flower songs

THE garden is culture’s cornucopia, supplying the other Arts with inspiration and ingredients in profusion. In return, this—our—art form, which, for all its importance, is all-too impermanent, is saved from oblivion, memorialised in an ever-growing legacy of images, objects, words and melodies.

Since its reopening in 2017, the Garden Museum has made this symbiosis one of its greatest strengths and most powerful attractions. At its gloriously remodelled Lambeth headquarters, it stages regular exhibitions of, and lectures on, gardeninspired art. In Suffolk, it has acquired Benton End, the former home, garden and workplace of Sir Cedric Morris, and it is striving to revive the property in the spirit of that magical painter and magician-like plantsman.

Then there’s the museum’s two-day Literary Festival, which, each year, is held at a different great country house with gardens to match. This year’s festival, on June 23 and 24, will be hosted by Lady Emma Barnard and her husband, James, at Parham House, West Sussex. At it, music will join the museum’s multigeneric programme in the form of ‘A Bouquet of Flower Songs’, a recital by the sublime lyric soprano Charlotte de Rothschild. Her performances aren’t to be missed and especially in the UK, where they are rare for the simple reason that she is perennially on tour and introducing overseas audiences to classical English

The grounds of Parham House in West Sussex will play host to the Garden Museum’s two-day Literary Festival on June 23 and 24 song and to music’s tributes to gardens—a mission for which she is uniquely qualified.

She grew up at Exbury in Hampshire, amid the great gardens created by her grand-father, Lionel de Rothschild, and developed by her father, Edmund. Among the loveliest of the thousands of plants that adorn these 200 acres are two hybrids that were bred there: a rose quartz pink rhododendron and a snowwhite camellia. Edmund named them both ‘Charlotte de Rothschild’ in celebration of his daughter.

She, too, is still to be seen at Exbury: Miss de Rothschild is a director of the gardens and active in the role. ‘But make no mistake,’ she hastens to tell me, ‘I’m no gardener—just a lifelong lover of plants and gardens. I don’t plant

Horticultural aide-mémoire Clip a box hedge

Box hedges have come under the cosh lately through no fault of their own, but remain a familiar feature of our gardens. They should be clipped annually, about now. Box is one of the loveliest of all hedges to trim because of its smooth surface, which yields readily to the shears. Put a sheet at the base to catch the clippings. Cut the far side first, then the near, standing back to have a look before finishing with the top. Run a stiff broom along the top afterwards to shake out any loose bits. Tidy up and hoe the base. SCD

or design or paint them. I can’t. I sing about them instead.’ After studying in Salzburg at the Mozarteum and in London at the Royal College of Music, Miss de Rothschild embarked on a career as a professional singer. By her mid twenties, she was performing with major choirs. Then her mother, who, from the start, had emboldened her to pursue her vocation, died.

neglected examples of the art of song. ‘I really began with my ancestor Mathilde de Rothschild (1832–1924). She was taught by Chopin and went on to become a prolific and remarkably successful composer in what, back then, was very much a man’s world. At the start of the 20th century, her songs were loved and widely performed; by its end, they were all but forgotten. Examining the scores, I decided that she more than deserved a revival.’

‘I stopped singing,’ she tells me. ‘I thought my career was over. But, after a while, I began to consider something said to me by the soprano Ruth Packer, who had been my teacher at the Royal College. She suggested that I should concentrate on songs and explore the repertoire.’

In the four decades since she accepted her teacher’s advice, she has sought out, studied, performed, recorded and so rescued from obscurity many unjustly

The outcome was The Songs of Mathilde de Rothschild, a twoCD set issued in 2013. Of its 50 or so songs, some existed in published form and others survived only in manuscripts, which Miss de Rothschild found in a family attic. All are performed by her with accompaniment by the eminent pianist Adrian Farmer, whose playing, like her singing, is by turns contemplative, rhapsodic and brilliantly virtuosic. Since then, their collaboration has resulted in recordings that have become the standard renditions of such British songwriters as Norman Peterkin and C. Armstrong Gibbs. ‘As well as those projects,’ says Miss de Rothschild, ‘I create anthologies of songs that are related in theme, but from different periods, by different composers and in different languages. Luckily, my favourite theme by far is also the richest: across time and continents, gardens and the plants that grow in them have inspired poets and composers to give of their best.’ She certainly does that, and it is the best. Let us hope that her recital at this year’s Garden Museum Festival will be the first of many. For further information, visit www.gardenmuseum.org.uk and www.charlottederothschild.com

Next week Russell Page

Mark Griffiths is editor of the New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening

Clive Nichols/Jacky Hobbs; Alamy

A pink rhododendron and snow-white camellia are named after her

From field to dinner-party fork

Illustration by Kateryna Kyslitska

LEARN how to ‘Grow your own dinner party’ read the invitation to lunch at Sarah Raven’s beautiful garden at Perch Hill in East Sussex. As an enthusiastic, but objectively ungifted, vegetable grower, I jumped at the chance to see how much more I could squeeze out of my small London plot. Granted, I’ve had some success—courgettes, chard and rocket usually produce a reasonable harvest. Nonetheless, my annual crop of roughly seven tomatoes, two tiny carrots and a handful of blueberries barely makes a meal for me, let alone any guests. How lovely would it be to invite friends around for a garden supper of home-grown produce, each ingredient picked only moments before they arrive?

This is something Ms Raven believes is eminently achievable, no matter what size your garden, and she’s spent the past 30 years trialling the crops and varieties that will give the best results. For her, that means those that produce the most, as well as being easy to grow, full of flavour, hard to find in the shops and, importantly, attractive. ‘If you’re going to go to the bother of growing tomatoes, of course they have to taste delicious,’ she advises. ‘But grow a mixed palette of colours and it looks so much nicer on the plate.’ This approach is evident at Perch Hill. On my visit in mid April, lines of frilly kale, richly coloured rainbow chard and spinach ‘Rubino’ are interplanted with bright tulips. Patches of parsley, chamomile and broad

Embracing seasonal, home-grown produce is always preferable, but how easy is it to grow your own supper party, asks Natasha Goodfellow

beans are already growing strongly, and, in the greenhouse, coloured lattices of salad leaves contrast with the feathery fronds of Florence fennel and the ripening pods of the first peas.

‘I can’t really be doing with potatoes and carrots,’ admits Ms Raven. ‘Once you’ve eaten them, they’re gone, although a single plant of mizuna can provide leaves for six or seven months of the year. That’s why I’m obsessed with cut-and-come-again varieties [in which picking leaves or fruit stimulates more production]—I want to do a planting and then pick and pick and pick.’ With two main sowings (largely under glass) in April and late August/ early September, Ms Raven can do exactly that, ensuring a year-round supply of fresh, interesting produce that is entirely dinnerparty worthy. The proof, as they say, is in the eating and our lunch begins with a lipsmackingly delicious tempura of baby veg and herbs garnished with edible tulip petals. A succulent tagine of squash (stored over winter), served with mixed leaves including aniseed-flavoured chervil and fleshy winter purslane, follows, with a moreish ice-cream meringue cake and poached rhubarb to finish.

Admittedly, Ms Raven’s quarter-acre vegetable plot is sizeable—however, she says that even a 12ft by 4ft bed or trough could achieve something similar. ‘I’d always grow a couple of cut-and-come-again lettuces, Swiss chard and courgettes, as well as sage, basil and kale —all wonderful fresh or in tempura.’ A cordon

of ‘Sungold’ tomatoes, a row of ‘Nairobi’ peas (‘the sweetest, crunchiest and most prolific by a mile in our trials’) and a teepee of ‘Blue Lake’ climbing beans would complete the planting, with a frill of nasturtiums (she likes ‘Tip Top Mahogany’) to provide both edible leaves and flowers. If space allowed, a cold frame, if not a greenhouse, would be invaluable to give plants the best possible start.

Aaron Bertelsen, for many years the gardener and cook at Great Dixter in East Sussex and now director of his own company providing lectures and advice for fruit and vegetable growers, agrees that space need be no limit to your dinner-party ambitions. ‘In smaller gardens, it pays to think vertically—so many things can be trained against walls,’ he recommends, citing apricots, figs and plums as good candidates. ‘Berries are fantastic, too— potted gooseberries, blueberries and currants are all heavy croppers and you don’t need that much fruit for a delicious fool or sorbet.’

If space is not an issue, then the world is your oyster mushroom and you can start

In smaller gardens, it pays to think vertically–so many things can be trained against walls

to think about asparagus (‘the caviar of the vegetable garden,’ enthuses Ms Raven), pumpkins, globe artichokes and rhubarb, which is good for a shady spot and can be overplanted with tulips and narcissi. Don’t imagine you’ll be growing absolutely everything, however—some crops, such as maincrop potatoes, cabbages and brown onions, take up so much space for so long and are so cheaply available in the shops that they are rarely worth the trouble.

Sarah Raven’s garden fritto misto

Serves 10-12

Ingredients

750ml sunflower or groundnut oil

Handful crinkly kale

Handful first asparagus spears

Handful baby courgettes

Handful pea pods

Handful sage leaves

Handful calendula flowers

Sea salt and black pepper

For the tempura batter

150g plain flour

100g cornflour

10g baking powder

Sparkling water

Salt and pepper

Method

Growing your own protein, should you wish to do so, is also a challenge. Although, in his own 33ft by 49ft garden, Mr Bertelsen has triumphed with edible lupin seeds and amaranth, using the dried, ground seeds as a nutritious addition to his bread dough or, sprouted, added to salads. Ms Raven, meanwhile, suggests sunflower seeds or, at a push, nuts, although she warns that the squirrels are likely to be the chief beneficiaries. ‘We have a whole grove of hazels and have never had a nut,’ she laughs. Instead, if you don’t keep your own chickens or other livestock, then Ms Raven recommends a visit to your local farm shop to seek out organically reared meat to complete your meal. ‘Organic meat contains about 50% more beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, lower concentrations

First make the batter. Sift the flour into a bowl with the salt and pepper and then make a dip in the centre. Use a balloon whisk to mix in the cold water until the batter coats your finger.

Pour the oil into a deep pan so that it reaches roughly one-third of the way up the side. Heat the oil until it reaches about 170˚C (when a cube of bread turns a golden brown colour in under a minute). Dip the vegetables and leaves into the batter, a few at a time, and then into the hot oil until pale golden and crisp.

Drain on kitchen paper and eat hot, sprinkled with salt and pepper.

Of course, tomatoes have to taste delicious, but grow a mixed palette of colours and it looks so much nicer on the plate

of saturated fats and is, overall, a nutritionally healthier option,’ she says. ‘Shopping locally not only reduces the air miles of your meal, making it a more environmentally conscious choice, but also allows you to share with your guests the exact farm their meal has come from.’

Whatever you serve, the success of your home-grown supper party will depend on how healthy you manage to keep your plants, a process that begins with the soil. ‘I put on lots of leafmould and well-rotted manure to condition the soil and help grow strong plants and then I keep a sharp eye out for any pests or diseases,’ explains Mr Bertelsen. Some pests, such as aphids or blackfly, can simply be squashed or blasted with a hose, and Ms Raven recommends doing all you can to attract garden birds and beneficial insects. ‘Bright yellow and orange flowers, such as Calendula ‘Indian Prince’, seem to draw in lacewings and ladybirds, which are the best natural predators of aphids,’ she says, adding that ‘putting up nest boxes and planting ornamental bird-feeder plants such as panicum will mean you have mature birds looking for animal protein—slugs and snails —for their young in spring.’

Of course, you’ll have to feed and water your plants, too (especially if they are in pots), and many will need additional care in the form of protection from weather or pests (brassicas), tying in and pinching out (cordon tomatoes), earthing up (potatoes and leeks) and, once the crop matures, regular harvesting. It does, therefore, pay to be selective about what you plant, as Ms Raven advocates: ‘Choose what you love to eat and focus on that.’

‘A Year Full of Veg: A Harvest for All Seasons’ by Sarah Raven (£24.30, Bloomsbury Publishing) is out now

Aaron Bertelsen’s tomato tart Serves 8

Ingredients

For the pastry

350g/12oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

Pinch of salt

175g/6oz cold butter, diced

1 egg

2–3tbspn cold water

For the filling

4tbspn wholegrain mustard

8 large tomatoes (about 850g/1¾lb in total), sliced quite finely

2tbspn grated Gruyère cheese

2tbspn olive oil

Salt and pepper

Oil or butter, for greasing

Method

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Add the egg and, using a knife, stir in just enough cold water to bind the dough together.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and shape into a ball. Cover with cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes, or ideally one to three hours, before using.

Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4. Grease a 30cm (12in) loose-bottom tart pan.

Roll out the pastry (dough) on a lightly floured work surface until it is large enough to line your tart pan. Spread the mustard on the bottom of the pastry case. Place some sliced tomatoes around the edge of the case, making sure they overlap, and then fill in the middle. Sprinkle the cheese over the tomatoes, season, then drizzle with the oil. Place the tart on a baking sheet and bake on a low oven rack for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and carefully slip off the outer ring, leaving the tart sitting on the base. Return to the oven on the baking sheet for another 5–10 minutes, so the sides get really crisp.

Recipe taken from ‘The Great Dixter Cookbook’ by Aaron Bertelsen (£24.95, Phaidon)

Kitchen garden cook Dill

by Melanie Johnson

More ways with Dill

Lemon and dill hummus with olives

Drain a can of chickpeas and simmer with fresh water in a saucepan for about 15 minutes. As the skins float to the surface, scoop them out. Drain and tip into a food processor with two cloves of garlic, the juice from a lemon, four tablespoons of tahini, four tablespoons of olive oil and a small handful of dill. Process until smooth. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil, fresh dill and olives and serve with a selection of crudités and crackers.

Swedish fish soup with dill and saffron aioli

Method

To make the saffron aioli, add the egg yolks to a bowl with a pinch of mustard powder. Whisk together and then add the oil a drop at a time until thickening and then drizzle in, slowing as you continue to whisk constantly. Add the saffron water, grated garlic and lemon juice. Taste to check the balance of flavours and adjust as needed.

To prepare the soup, heat a large saucepan and add a splash of olive oil. Cook the leek, sliced fennel bulb, fennel seeds, carrot, garlic, potatoes and tomatoes over a gentle heat until beginning to soften, then add the saffron strands and fish stock. Simmer until everything is cooked through.

Add the fish and simmer for about three to four minutes

Ingredients

For the saffron aioli

2 egg yolks

A pinch of mustard powder

300ml mild olive oil

A pinch of saffron in a splash of hot water

1 clove garlic, grated

Lemon juice as needed

For the fish soup

A splash of olive oil

1 leek, halved and thinly sliced

1 fennel bulb, outer layer removed and thinly sliced

½tspn fennel seeds

1 large carrot, diced

2 cloves garlic, grated

before pouring in the double cream. Finally, add the lemon zest and a squeeze of lemon juice, then stir through the dill.

300g new potatoes, diced 2 large tomatoes, dropped into boiling water, then peeled and diced

A pinch of saffron

600ml fish stock (buy, make your own or use vegetable stock)

200g salmon, in cubes

200g cod (or other firm white fish)

200g prawns

100ml double cream

1 lemon, zest of, plus a squeeze

A bunch of dill, cut into fronds

To serve, rye bread or tunnbröd (flatbreads) if you want to keep it authentically Swedish

Serve the fish soup with a dollop of aioli in the centre, more dill to garnish and bread on the side.

Beetroot, apple and cucumber salad with dill dressing Dice two green apples, five cooked beetroot, half a peeled cucumber and one small red onion, then pour over two tablespoons of olive oil, three tablespoons of apple-cider vinegar, two tablespoons of soured cream and one teaspoon of horseradish cream. Add a small handful of dill fronds, mix to combine and serve. Delicious with salmon or smoked mackerel.

Melanie Johnson

Delightfully fresh and citrusy, dill adds an almost grassy note to dishes

Why treasure is a universal word

The new Treasure House fair carries the hopes of the art and antiques market

HARRY VAN DER HOORN and Thomas WoodhamSmith show a confident swagger in the naming of their fairs: Treasure House opens at Royal Hospital Chelsea, London SW3, tomorrow as a replacement to their previous Masterpiece, which fell victim to the turbulence of recent years. A ‘talking head’ I used to know would say ‘ah well, only the next 24 hours will tell’—but all parties in the art world will be wishing success to this new venture. The prospect of London without a major summer art and antiques fair was deeply worrying, as testified by the enthusiasm with which this initiative was welcomed.

Mr van der Hoorn is the owner of Stabilo, which builds elegant stands for TEFAF Maastricht and the Frieze autumn fairs in London, as well as Masterpiece, which he founded in 2009 with Mr Woodham-Smith, a longexperienced antiques dealer. He comments that the new name points to continuity as well as quality: ‘Our choice of title reflects the wide range of disciplines and masterpieces in the fair, each piece a treasure in its own right. From my perspective, and I speak as a Dutchman, “Treasure” is a word that is understood throughout the world and “House” is a mark of respect to the Grosvenor

House Fair, a fair that inspired so many of us over the years.’

It is a demonstration of trade confidence that 43 of the 55 exhibitors previously appeared at Masterpiece. As Brexit is cited as one of the reasons for the disappearance of other London fairs, it is remarkable that 10 overseas dealers are braving the expense and paperwork to take part, plus

four more that are partly London based. As I’m bandying statistics, let me record that there will be one fifth-generation business, Fileman Antiques of Steyning in West Sussex, at least three thirdgenerations and seven seconds. Perhaps, as it rises from Masterpiece’s ashes, Treasure House should take as its symbol the ho-ho bird, often seen on carved 18th- and 19th-century chinoiserie mirror frames. Despite the terminology, ho-ho birds originated in Japanese mythology, where they represented good fortune, longevity, fidelity and wisdom. They are a confection of phoenix, pheasant, heron, stork and bird of paradise. The Japanese phoenix is not a singular creature as in Western bestiaries, which is why a splendid pair of chinoiserie pier glasses (Fig 2) to be offered by Ronald Phillips of Conduit

Street, W1, can be topped by two each. The design is based on one that was published in Chippendale’s 1754 Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director and these were made in about 1765.

The variety of furniture on offer is represented by pieces brought by Godson & Coles, still proudly ensconced on what used to be known as the Brown Mile of the Fulham Road, and by Geoffrey Diner from Washington DC in the US. The first, which is described as ‘exceptionally rare’, is a George I burr-walnut and giltwood bombé bureau-cabinet with brass mounts (Fig 3) , dating from about 1725. It is 8ft 3in high and would make a dramatic statement in any room. The second is a complete contrast, except in material and quality. Diner’s bench (Fig 1) , described as ‘conoid’ because of its twist, was made in about

Fig 2: Pair of chinoiserie pier glasses based on a Chippendale design. With Ronald Phillips

Fig 1: Black-walnut ‘conoid’ bench by George Nakashima. With Geoffrey Diner

Fig 3: Rare 8ft 3in-high George I burr-walnut and giltwood bombé bureau-cabinet with brass mounts, about 1725. With Godson & Coles

1973 by the Japanese-American George Nakashima (1905–90), who learned to use traditional Japanese tools when interned during the Second World War and became one of America’s most influential furniture designers. This bench is in American black walnut with hickory spindles.

A similar ancient-to-modern pairing in animalier sculpture is provided by Charles Ede of Mayfair and the Univers du Bronze. Mr Ede has a 5½in-high 1st-century AD Roman bronze statuette of a stag (Fig 4) ; the Parisian gallery has an appealing 8¼in-high silver owl, titled Dame Blanche as a spirit of the night (Fig 5), by François Xavier Lalanne (1927–2008). Univers du Bronze also has a Lalanne bronze monkey, perhaps inspired by his time as a guard in the Louvre’s Egyptian galleries.

Sumptuous silver is to be found with Shrubsole of New York, including a 13in-high George III silver-gilt cup and cover (Fig 6) after a design by William Kent, which was marked by Thomas Heming in 1761. When Koopman moved from the Silver Vaults to Dover Street, W1, the silver specialist diversified into fine jewellery, such as an Art Deco tutti frutti and gem-set macaw

brooch by Boucheron, 1937, but it still offers spectacular pieces, including a massive Chinese punch bowl (Fig 7), made by the Shanghai smith Da Ji for retailer Luen Wo from about the turn of the 20th century.

Most of the picture galleries among the overseas exhibitors deal in international modern and contemporary art, but the British dealers even the balance with

a good showing of homegrown 20th-century works. Among them are a lovely Charles Ginner view of Chideock, Dorset (Fig 9) (Richard Green); a strong 1919–20 floral still life by Duncan Grant (Piano Nobile); Sickert’s 1908 The New Home (Offer Waterman); and a 17in by 13in pen-and-ink portrait of Rudolf Nureyev dating from 1969 by David Hockney (Christopher Kingzett). This

Our choice of title reflects the wide range of disciplines and masterpieces, each piece a treasure in its own right

Fig 4: Roman bronze stag, 5½in high. With Charles Ede

Fig 5: Silver owl, 8¼in high, Dame Blanche as a spirit of the night. With Univers du Bronze

Fig 7: Chinese punch bowl made by Da Ji. With Koopman

Fig 6: George III silver-gilt cup and cover, marked by Heming in 1761. With Shrubsole

last not only captures, in the dealer’s words, ‘Nureyev’s fierce intelligence and, even in repose, the nervous energy of his presence’, but, unusually, it conveys his physical strength, better indeed than do most photographs. Notable older British works include

Breakfast with Nelson

the

Next week We never closed

The Battle of the Nile on August 1, 1798, was arguably the pinnacle of Admiral Nelson’s career. His capture of Corsica in 1794, prominent role in the 1797 Battle of Cape St Vincent and loss of his right arm in Tenerife later that year had already made him something of a national hero, but then the length of his seemingly fruitless search for the fleet carrying Napoleon and his army to Egypt had dented his reputation. By the time he located the fleet in Aboukir Bay, east of Alexandria, the army had already been disembarked and Admiral Breuys’ ships appeared to be in a good defensive position protected by shoals. However, a way through was found, and the action, which continued through the night, culminated in a tremendous explosion that blew apart the French flagship L’Orient Only two of the 13 French ships of the line and two frigates escaped the battle. Napoleon’s campaign was ultimately doomed; from then on, the British Fleet dominated the Mediterranean.

Nelson’s first port of call after the victory was Naples, where the Bourbon king Ferdinand IV and his wife, Maria Carolina, a sister of Marie Antoinette, welcomed him ecstatically, as did Lady Hamilton, who noted that the Queen fainted with joy at the news. He arrived on September 22, in time to celebrate his birthday, as well as the victory, but the respite was short-lived. He pressed Ferdinand to march on Rome, then occupied by the French, and, when that failed, he organised the evacuation of the royal family and the Hamiltons to Sicily, as Naples was itself occupied and a republic proclaimed. After a blockade and counter-invasion, the Bourbons returned and Nelson encouraged bloody retribution against the revolutionaries. This earned further royal gratitude, but hatred among many Neapolitans.

Among the honours and gifts showered upon him, the Queen ordered a porcelain breakfast service ( pictured ) for her hero. This

was commissioned from the Real Fabbrica Ferdinandea and consisted of a ormolu-mounted tray, hot-water and milk jugs and a cup and saucer. It is painted with the fiery end of L’Orient and a previously unknown profile portrait of Nelson that was evidently based on a drawing from life. It does not show his recent wound over his right eye, but his hair is still cropped after the surgery.

The service descended through the Brymer family of Ilsington House, Dorset, until 1968. It is not certain when they acquired it, but their antecedent, Alexander Brymer (1745–1822), made a fortune as a naval prize agent based in Nova Scotia, and supplied wine and spirits to the Navy. He was a ‘a hard, grasping man’ to some, but, in the 1860s, the historian of the province eulogised him: ‘It is not always that the prudence and industry that elevate the commercial man to wealth are united with honour, humanity and generosity, as was the case with Mr. Brymer’. For once, the word ‘historic’ is justified; the service will be a star of the fair, priced at £180,000 on the stand of E & H Manners of Kensington Church Street, W8.

39¼in by 49¼in A Bay Arabian Belonging to Robert Gregory MP (1775) by Stubbs (Fig 8) , with Rountree Tryon. The fair runs until June 26 (www. treasurehousefair.com).

Fig 8 above: A Bay Arabian by Stubbs. With Rountree Tryon. Fig 9 right: A view of Chideock, Dorset, by Ginner. With Richard Green

A colourful life through a lens

AT first glance, there seems little to connect the Hon Christian Methuen and Miss Rachel Johns, who respectively appeared on the Frontispiece of this magazine on May 1, 1915, and August 29, 1974. The common denominator, despite nearly 60 years’ difference, is that they each had their picture taken by the same photographer. Her name was Madame Yevonde. Theirs were the first and the last Yevonde portraits to be published in COUNTRY L IFE , bookending the extraordinary career of a pioneering photographer.

When the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) reopens this month after a three-year, £41 million refurbishment (‘A fresh face’, June 7 ), it will position Yevonde firmly centre stage with a major exhibition celebrating her life and work. Integral to this story is Yevonde’s long association with magazines such as C OUNTRY L IFE , which gave her a platform and a vital source of income.

of a career in which several women were making their mark. Connell’s studio in St John’s Wood was too far from Yevonde’s home in Bromley to be a practical option, so Yevonde instead wrote to the leading portrait photographer of the period, Lallie Charles, who specialised in immortalising Edwardian

beauties. She began an apprenticeship in which she was rarely allowed near a camera, but where she gained valuable insights into the business, the art of promotion and how to foster client loyalty. Observing a decline in demand for her mentor’s delicate, overexposed and unashamedly feminine photographs, after 2½ years, Yevonde jumped ship and set up on her own, finding a studio at 92, Victoria Street in London and financing the venture with money given to her for her 21st birthday by her father.

Initially, she photographed acquaintances of her father or the parents of school friends with variable results (her younger sister, Verena, was also a regular model). However, after she was introduced to a theatrical agency by a friend, she was able to give complimentary sittings to actresses and dancers, women who had beauty, poise and confidence before the camera and for whose photographs magazines such as The Sketch and The Bystander were always happy to pay. Nonetheless, her first published picture—which appeared in The Sketch on April 1, 1914—depicted an aristocratic sitter, Lady Helen Vincent, wearing a fashionable aigrette headdress. By the end of that month, another image,

Born in Streatham, London SW16, on January 5, 1893, and christened Yevonde Philone Cumbers, she was the elder daughter of Frederick Cumbers, a manufacturer of printing inks. She grew up in a prosperous and liberal-minded middle-class household and her teenage years were dominated by her activism in support of the suffrage cause. She marched, lobbied and attended meetings; she even sold The Suffragette newspaper, but recoiled from the idea of breaking the law and the associated horrors of prison. Nevertheless, suffrage values fostered an independent streak and led her to believe there should be more to life than marriage and children.

When she spotted an advertisement in The Suffragette from the photographer Lena Connell, who was looking for an assistant, she was prompted to explore the possibility

Suffragette and groundbreaking photographer Madame Yevonde was as adept at capturing COUNTRY LIFE Frontispiece subjects as she was at creating conceptual art with high-society models sporting rubber-snake headdresses, says Lucinda Gosling

Her long list of sitters included members of the Royal Family. But she remained down to earth

Picture pioneer: Madame Yevonde in a 1937 self-portrait with a Vivex One-Shot camera

Above: The Hon Christian Methuen (left) and Miss Rachel Johns (right), Yevonde’s first and last Frontispiece images. Facing page: Mask (Rosemary Chance) by Yevonde, 1938

of Scottish actress Laura Cowie, appeared in The Tatler. Aged only 21, Yevonde was beginning to fill her address book with celebrity names and see her work credited in the smartest magazines. The following year, she began to supply photographs to COUNTRY LIFE , with early sitters including Lady Blanche Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, and Viscountess Curzon, one of the most celebrated beauties of her day and a regular customer of Yevonde through the years. Almost 40 years later, then known as Countess Howe —as she became, following her divorce and remarriage—she appeared in C OUNTRY L IFE photographed by Yevonde, magnificent in the historic robes and gown she wore for the coronation of Elizabeth II.

The 1930s marked the creative pinnacle of Yevonde’s career when she discovered and began experimenting with colour photography,

using the Tri-Colour Vivex process. Hugely enthusiastic about its potential, she employed it to great effect, most famously in her series of portraits of Society beauties known as the ‘Goddesses’. Inspired by the Olympian Ball at Claridge’s in February 1935, she recruited a cast of well-known women—among them Lady Bridget Poulett, Mrs Charles Sweeny and Mrs Bryan Guinness (the former Diana Mitford)—and with the addition of costume, props and makeup produced her own subversive, surreal and colour-drenched take on classical mythology.

Urban sophisticates cavorting in leopard skin or wearing headdresses of rubber snakes were not particularly to the taste of COUNTRY L IFE readers, but it was a mark of Yevonde’s versatility that she was able to switch from conceptual art to more conventional portraiture with ease. C OUNTRY L IFE wanted strong, simple, but arresting images for its Frontispiece.

Although they were perhaps less adventurous in approach than the pictures used by The Sketch or The Bystander, plenty nonetheless demonstrate her virtuosity as a photographer. Lady Anne Coke (now Lady Glenconner) looks ravishing in a satin gown in 1954; her sister, Carey, cool and elegant, appears as a frontispiece six years later. Debo, Duchess of Devonshire (another Mitford sister) was featured in October 1951, suitably patrician in an 18th-century-style gown, as befitted the chatelaine of Chatsworth in Derbyshire.

Yevonde’s long list of sitters included artists, writers, politicians, peers and performers, as well as several members of the Royal Family. But she remained down to earth and refused to take herself too seriously. Even her pet cats would sometimes find their way in front of her lens. She never stopped working and, by the 1960s and 1970s, with The

Poet Edward James, photographed in 1933

Madame Yevonde’s remarkable list of Society clients included Lady Elizabeth Paget (left) and Debo, Duchess of Devonshire (right)

Sketch and The Bystander long since folded, continued to have her photographs published in C OUNTRY L IFE every month—dagger collars and flicked hair replacing the pearls and Marcel waves of her heyday.

The NPG has named its exhibition ‘Yevonde—Life and Colour’. It rightly reminds us of her place in the photographic canon as a trailblazer for colour, embodied by those glorious goddesses. But beside the fearless innovation and creative vision, the show also reveals a charming, spirited, hard-working and business-savvy woman whose success came from grabbing opportunities—and life—with both hands.

Lucinda Gosling is a contributor to the catalogue ‘Yevonde—Life and Colour’ by Clare Freestone. The exhibition runs at the National Portrait Gallery, London WC2 (www.npg.org.uk), June 22–October 15

Sneak Peke: Madame Yevonde’s penchant for dogs

In 1933, a Yevonde photograph of Viscountess Weymouth and her Pekinese appeared in COUNTRY LIFE (right ). The breed had acted as a kind of talisman throughout Yevonde’s career. In an interview she gave to former Vogue editor Alison Settle in 1938, The Technique of Being Photographed, Yevonde offered ideas designed to relax a nervous sitter, including some canine companionship: ‘They can bring their dogs and be taken with certain dogs. Terriers dislike being taken, and have not the patience for a sitting but Pekinese are perfect sitters, entirely photogenic. When a Peke comes to the studio he expects to be photographed and would be greatly hurt if he were left out.’

It was a fondness that may have been kindled when a teenage Yevonde went for her interview with Lallie Charles. There her suitability was decided by Charles’s Pekinese, Chang, who, after a cautious sniff, signalled his approval with a wag of his tail. She and Chang subsequently bonded when she was tasked with taking him for his daily walk in Green Park. Lady Curzon sometimes brought her Peke to the studio and within the Yevonde archive is a photograph of June Gwynne’s Peke, who backs up Yevonde’s claims by sitting obediently, ready for his close-up.

Above: A striking portrait of actress Vivien Leigh. Right: Lady Warrender as Ceres

Edited by Kate Green

They put the world on track

The Coming Of The Railway: A New Global History, 1750–1850

David Gwyn (Yale, £25)

IN April 1807, wealthy travellers enjoyed the scenic pleasures of Swansea Bay along a rail track originally opened for industrial purposes. It was the world’s first-known railway passenger service and similar opportunities were soon offered in the West Country and Scotland. Those lower down the social scale used these horse-drawn trains for working purposes, including taking goods to market. Such examples are little known because popular railway histories usually begin with the dawn of the so-called railway age, represented by the opening of the Stockton-Darlington railway in 1825 and the first regular steam locomotive passenger service, between Liverpool and Manchester, five years later. However, David Gwyn argues that the previous 80 years are as much part of the story. Here, he sheds light on the early wooden and iron railways and their role in shaping the rapid expansion that followed.

The iron railway truly made the modern world, writes the author, but he eschews the great-inventor interpretation of events, showing that developments proceeded on a cautious trial-and-error basis; he avoids a nationalistic ‘who got there first’ approach. Handpropelled vehicles running on wooden rails operated in the mining heartlands of central Europe from at least the late medieval period. Britain’s first industrial railway was installed at Caldbeck, Cumberland, by miners from Augsberg, Bavaria, in the 1560s. However, Britain’s position as the leading economic power of the 18th century undoubtedly placed its engineers at the forefront of subsequent technological developments; the names of Richard Trevithick and George Stephenson loom large.

The explorer and botanist Joseph Banks was the first person

to describe an ‘iron road’, when passing through Shropshire in 1768. He was referring to a four-mile track that connected iron furnaces around Coalbrookdale. The rails consisted of a strap of cast iron laid on top of wood, but, by the late 1780s, rails made entirely of cast iron were being used in collieries at Merthyr Tydfil. Although lacking the glamour of steam locomotives, cast-iron rails were ‘the single most fundamental development in railway history’, primarily because their greater strength made mechanical traction a possibility. They were used for tracks at iron foundries and coal mines and as feeders for the expanding canal network, being thus integral

to the Industrial Revolution. However, although it enabled the transportation of heavier loads, cast iron was also brittle; heavy early steam locomotives tended to break the rails. It was wrought iron, used experimentally from 1805, stronger and more malleable, which went hand in hand with the development of more efficient locomotive power and made for a smoother ride.

Yet engineers and investors did not engage in a headlong rush into the age of steam locomotives. Fixed steam engines were considered more efficient for some time after 1815, given that locomotives still struggled to handle even the slightest of gradients. When George

and Robert Stephenson built the Hetton Colliery railway in 1822 (the first in the world built entirely for mechanical traction), they used fixed steam engines for haulage over steeper track sections.

Even so, the period between 1815 and 1834 was transformative. In 1815, there were barely 30 locomotives at work, all in the UK. By the 1830s, there were hundreds in use, from Pennsylvania in the US to the Ural Mountains. A world accustomed to nothing faster than a galloping horse now learnt of machines travelling at 35mph, even 60mph. At the Rainhill trials of 1829, held near Liverpool to test the advantages of locomotive operation, Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, ‘the most famous locomotive ever built’, emerged triumphant, achieving a top speed of 30mph. It was enough for the LiverpoolManchester line directors to commission more steam locomotives. Developments in the immediately following years in England, Wales, France and the US established the steam locomotive as ‘a mature technology’. The Liverpool and Manchester railway was joined by the Baltimore and Ohio and the Charleston and Hamburg in the US as the world’s first three mainline railways, to be followed by countless others. As Mr Gwyn writes in this authoritative, superbly footnoted account, speed, space, landscape and time would never be the same again.

Jack Watkins Alamy

David Gwyn charts the ‘trial-and-error’ emergence of the railways

A world accustomed to nothing faster than a galloping horse learnt of machines travelling at 60mph

The Way of the Hermit Ken Smith with Will Millard (Macmillan, £16.99)

STRICTLY speaking, Ken Smith is not a hermit, in that he listens to the radio, uses shops, likes a pint at the pub and he was, at one stage, on the dole, but, by 21st-century standards, his lifestyle is extraordinary and humbling. In 1974, he was set upon by drunken thugs and left in a coma; unsurprisingly, this put him off people. He took off for the Yukon, learned to survive in the wild—and felt alive.

North American winters may be colder, but living wild in the UK, even in the Highlands, isn’t as easy as it sounds. ‘I was under absolutely no illusion that I couldn’t just disappear into the countryside

Saying No to a Farm-Free Future

Chris Smaje (Chelsea Green, £14.99)

ABALEFUL effect of the internet is that book titles must ‘say on the tin exactly what the book is about’ in order to facilitate word searches. This one (in its initial form), takes the titular biscuit: Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, the Case for an Ecological Food System and Against Manufactured Foods, why Techno-Fixes Can’t Save the Climate, Feed the World or Restore the Environment. However, in fairness, the wordy title is appropriate, as ‘Saying No’ harks back to an earlier tradition of pamphleteering, when intellectuals perfected the essay to argue for change or, as in this case, to demolish another’s argument and propose their own doctrine. There is no better target than eco-modernism, in my view the most pernicious creed on the planet right now. If you haven’t read Regenesis, George Monbiot’s

here, build a house on some random patch of land and start hunting, trapping and growing wherever I liked,’ he writes.

At first, Mr Smith lived chiefly in bothies, which are, strictly speaking, for one night only. He was disillusioned to find that fellow residents would burn all the firewood and even the furniture; on one occasion, he cleared up 50 needles. It was a bitter winter and he nearly died walking the 18-mile round trip through deep snow and burns to the shops in Kinlochleven.

In the spring of 1985, Mr Smith fell in love with steep-sided Loch Treig in Lochaber, a place many would find forbidding, with its ‘seemingly abyssal sheet of black that sucks water into a bottomless shadowland’. He felt, however: ‘A real change for the good was happening. There was something about this land that told me just to hold on a while longer.’ He built a lean-to shelter on its banks and,

then, serendipity. He asked the owner of the Corrour estate if he could build a log cabin on his land, a request that was eventually granted and, with it, the kindly bonus of employment as a gillie.

Mr Smith, 75, is still there, with his off-grid log cabin, outside bathtub and veg patch, from which he has to shoo pine martens. He has survived cancer and other illnesses, is very much part of

the estate and local landscape and has selected a burial plot with a view—‘the bracken up there is absolutely heaving with ticks; but you know, you can’t have it all’. He conveys the impression, however, that he has had it all; the discomfort has been worth it for the peace. Huge credit, too, to the ghostwriter Will Millard, who has created such a coherent, engaging narrative. KG

requirements of lab food and exposes the contradictions, although he doesn’t pursue it to its logical conclusion, which is that if we become so clever at energy generation that we can manufacture synthetic food harmlessly, we will no longer be using fossil fuels, so the problem it is intended to solve will have gone away.

polemic on the subject, which is the object of Mr Smaje’s iconoclasm, it essentially boils down to ridding the world of farmers, corralling the population into cities where we will all eat food created in laboratories as the countryside is rewilded. If you think this sounds bonkers and scary, then pinch yourself and look at the plight of farmers in the Netherlands.

Mr Smaje, author of the blog Small Farm Future, is a Somerset smallholder with an academic background in social sciences who brings scholarly rigour to bear in demolishing the eco-modernist manifesto, which emerges as a globalist corporate capitalist system that seeks to exploit technological possibilities to create monopolies. He analyses the comparative energy

Where I part company with Mr Smaje is in his proposal for what he calls agrarian localism. He conflates farming at scale with ‘industrial farming’ and implies a need for land reform to secure land for ‘landless would-be agrarians’. It’s hard to see how a regenerative farm where 700 dairy cows can walk from their pastures to be milked by two men would be better turned into 700 small farms needing 700 men.

But as Mr Monbiot and Mr Smaje contest competing revolutionary philosophies, down on the farm there is quiet evolution as farmers rapidly bodge up ‘techno-fixes’ to cure many of the planet’s ills and secure a carbon-benign, biodiverse future.

Jamie Blackett

Saying No adds a scholarly voice to the debate on farming’s future

Ken Smith built a log burner underneath his bath to heat the water

PATRIOTISM , as Dr Johnson famously said, ‘is the last refuge of a scoundrel’. Peter Morgan pushes that idea to its limits in his grippingly intelligent play, Patriots, which opened last year at the Almeida and which has now transferred to the Noël Coward Theatre. If anything, the play has gained even greater resonance with time: when we hear Vladimir Putin denounced as ‘a nationalistic dictator interested in rebuilding a Russian superstate’, we feel a chill of recognition.

The words are spoken by the billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky, whose rise and fall lies at the heart of the play. A mathematical genius in his youth, Berezovsky uses his financial acumen to make a massive fortune and buy political influence in the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s. He not only controls Boris Yeltsin, he instals in the Kremlin a little-known ex-deputy-mayor

Oh, what a circus

of St Petersburg, Putin, whom he sees as a useful puppet. ‘We just need a nice grey executioner of our wishes,’ he tells Yeltsin’s daughter, who sharply replies that the word is ‘executor’.

This leads to a scene at the start of the second act that Shakespeare or Schiller would have understood, as it is about the shifting dynamics of power. It is now 2000, Putin has become president and Berezovsky marches into the Kremlin outraged at the idea that he and his fellow oligarchs should be seen as subordinate to politicians. I was reminded strongly of the moment in Richard III when the kingmaker, Buckingham, comes to claim his due and is brusquely rejected. Not unlike Buckingham, Berezovsky ends up in exile, but the playwright’s point is that both he and Putin see themselves as patriots: Berezovsky seeks to save his beloved Russia through buccaneering capitalism, Putin

through a reclamation of lost territory and global power.

As he did in Frost/Nixon, Mr Morgan builds his play around two strong male characters who are here superbly played. Tom Hollander captures all the bustling energy and unflinching arrogance

and stiff gait of the minor official are replaced by the steely authority and confident stride of the newly installed president. There is firm support from Luke Thallon as Roman Abramovich and Josef Davies as Alexander Litvinenko and Rupert Goold’s production is a model of clarity and speed.

of Berezovsky, but also the pathos of an ardent Russophile ending his days in the Surrey countryside. Will Keen is even more extraordinary as Putin. We see how he is transformed by power: the half-executed gestures

On a different scale, I was equally impressed by Les Enfants du Paradis, the latest iteration of Giffords Circus (now on its 23rd summer tour) and which I caught in the grounds of Chiswick House. What elevates this circus above all others is that it has a built-in narrative and, under Cal McCrystal’s direction, combines breathtaking skill with boisterous comedy: also, there are no animals on display except a troupe of polkadotted ponies. The physical feats are amazing: the Skating Medinis do dizzying twirls on a drumshaped platform, Romy Meggiolaro juggles prodigiously with her feet

The idea of misused patriotism is the theme of an intelligent play that features Putin’s rise to power and Giffords is still the best circus in town

Breathtaking skill and boisterous comedy are a winning combination for Giffords Circus in its touring version of Les Enfants du Paradis

Rachel Louise Brown; Manuel Harlan; Marc Brenner

The stiff gait of the minor official is replaced by the steely authority and confident stride

(the word for which is ‘antipodism’) and Les Garcons Abyssinia dive through more hoops than a cornered politician.

It is Tweedy the Clown, however, who supplies most of the fun. At one point, he extracts a tiny violin from a monumental case and proceeds to murder Danse Macabre. Later he does a ventriloquist act in which the doll is gradually dismembered, finds an accordion inconveniently stuck down the front of his trousers and hurls pails of water everywhere before being comprehensively doused. Over the years, I have laughed inordinately at this anarchic droll and my only sadness is that, next year, he plans to take a well-earned rest from this best of all circuses.

There is a circus scene in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Aspects of Love, first seen in 1989 and now elegantly revived at London’s Lyric Theatre. I found it quietly pleasurable and if I enjoyed the second half more than the first, it was for two reasons. Initially this story of the vagaries of love, based on a David Garnett novel, moves restlessly between Montpellier, Pau, Paris and Venice and only settles down after the interval. Also, I could only see half the stage in the first act because I was stuck behind a very tall man who turned out to be the show’s co-lyricist, Charles Hart—a change of seats

in the second act did wonders for my appreciation.

The second act contains the best number: not the much-touted Love Changes Everything, but a beguiling foxtrot, The First Man You Remember, which is one of Lord Lloyd-Webber’s finest tunes. There has been much tut-tutting from critics at the fact that in the second half we see an 18-year-old girl falling for a much older man, but, given that such things happen, I can’t for the life of me see why they should not be represented on stage. All that said, there are

high-class performances from Michael Ball as an ageing sophisticate, Laura Pitt-Pulford as the impoverished actress he marries and opera singer Danielle de Niese as his Venetian mistress. John Macfarlane’s painterly designs are visually ravishing and Jonathan Kent’s production captures the romantic melancholy at the heart of this wistful, somewhat under-rated musical.

The show’s implicit message is that passion takes many different forms. That idea also lies behind Brokeback Mountain staged

@sohoplace and based on a 1997 Annie Proulx short story and a 2005 film. I haven’t read or seen either, so, coming fresh to this version by Ashley Robinson, with songs by Dan Gillespie Sells, I found its account of the hidden love between two cowpokes in rural Wyoming in the 1960s very touching. After their initial encounter, the two men marry and have children and continue to meet, but can never be open about their relationship given the rampant homophobia of the times.

The show makes its points quietly. Two young American actors, Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges, convey the frustration of thwarted passion, Jonathan Butterell’s production has a refreshing stillness and Eddi Reader as the Balladeer performs the accompanying songs with the right soulfulness. It is not a breastbeating or propagandist show, but it suggests that we are better off living in a world that is more honest and open about sex and affairs of the heart.

‘Patriots’ until August 19 (0344 482 5151); Giffords Circus on tour until October 1 (01453 800200); ‘Aspects of Love’ until November 11 (0330 333 4812); ‘Brokeback Mountain’ until August 12 (0330 333 5963)

Hidden love: Mike Faist as Jack and Lucas Hedges as Ennis in the touching Brokeback Mountain

Power games: Will Keen as Vladimir Putin and Tom Hollander as Boris Berezovsky in Patriots

Crossword Bridge Andrew Robson

A prize of £25 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Crossword No 4785, Country Life, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR, by Tuesday, June 27. UK entrants only

ACROSS

1 Stand up to deliver basin (8)

9 Orpheus’ wife says ecru dye runs (8)

10 Slightly sooner (6)

12 The French leave out lacy copy in tempest (7)

13 Three times go back to study—and repeat (7)

14 Seems conkers are used as red herrings (12)

17 Being ready with homework for a socialist by headland (12)

22 I turn to couple to adopt (7)

23 Row about stray dog (7)

24 Quaint second half of singular chant (6)

25 Exchanges for money small enclosure at sporting contest (8)

26 Tiny me subject to deep hatred (6)

27 Quick to hold electric light during festival (5,3)

DOWN

1 Winner to gag rascal (6)

2 Tidy wood (6)

3 Retirement place (7)

4 Entrance to part of castle for old queen and cricketer (6-6)

6 Three months in this part of town (7)

7 Competitors allowed to enter various heats (8)

8 Kids about difficult part of computer (4,4)

11 Way to describe current activity when nervous to donate? (7,5)

15 Assistant turned up with little taste (8)

16 Transcribes ambivert word for word (8)

18 Opposed once more to way (7)

19 Shouts for small lotions (7)

20 Moaned when heard point of view (6)

21 Shoddy attempt to enclose tree (6)

I’VE two more instructive deals for you from the Soloway Knockout Teams at last year’s US Fall Nationals in Phoenix, Arizona. On our first, you are declaring Three Notrumps on the eight of Spades lead. Plan the play.

Dealer West K10952 8 A87 Q874

North-South J64 AJ J9542 K95 AQ3 Q643 K103 A103

South West North East

2 (1) Pass Pass 2NT(2) Pass 3NT End

1) Weak Two—skimpy, and would think twice if vulnerable. At the favourable vulnerability, however, the bid is fine.

declarer can always succeed). Plan the play.

SOLUTION TO 4784

ACROSS: 1, Crocodile tears; 8, Attest; 9, Bandana; 12, Hint; 13, Minute hand; 15, Reach; 16, Demijohn; 17, Fir; 18, Underdog; 20, Elgar; 23, Harvestman; 24, Trio; 26, Rosette; 27, Turban; 28, Dog in the manger. DOWN: 2, Rotunda; 3, Crew; 4, Detail; 5, Labourer; 6, Tangerines; 7, Standing room; 10, Alamo; 11, Thoroughbred; 14, Charleston; 16, Dig; 17, Fortieth; 19, Darts; 21, Garbage; 22, Bantam; 25, Bran.

The winner of 4783 is Mr A. Hill, Keyworth, Nottinghamshire

The kneejerk play may be to win the Queen (East playing low), finesse the Knave of Hearts (marked on the bidding) and run the nine of Diamonds. No good— West wins the Queen and leads a second Spade (to the nine and Ace). When you next force out the Ace of Diamonds, East wins and cashes three Spades—one down.

At the table, declarer made no mistake, ducking the first trick (key play). Happy his eight of Spades had struck gold, West continued with a second Spade (nothing works better). This time, declarer won the Queen, then finessed the Knave of Hearts to run the nine of Diamonds to West’s Queen. Now spade-less (because of declarer’s trick-one duck), declarer won West’s Heart return with the Ace and peacefully forced out East’s Ace of Diamonds. Game made.

Let’s be honest, it would be so easy to miss the trick-one duck. If your Spades were three low facing Ace-King-low, it’d be much easier. Somehow the Knave and (especially) Queen cloud the need for the duck.

Declarer was in similarly good form on our second Phoenix deal. West led the eight of his partner’s Clubs v Four Spades, East beating the Knave with the King and trying a hopeful Ace (not best, but

South West North East 1

4 (2) End

1) Pre-emptive.

2) Pugnacious, but his secondary Diamond fit and lack of defence suggests both sides can make a large number of tricks in their contract.

Declarer ruffed the second Club and led a Spade to the Ace, both opponents following. At trick four, he led the King of Hearts, leaving West with an uneasy choice.

At the table, West ducked the Heart. Declarer now led the promoted Queen of Clubs and dropped his remaining Knave of Hearts. West ruffed and tried the Ace of Hearts (nothing better). Declarer ruffed, cashed the King-Queen of Spades (exposing the fiveone split), finessed the Queen of Diamonds and could claim, leading out the Queen-ten of Hearts, dropping two Diamonds (although he could have repeated the Diamond finesse after ruffing a—winning—Heart). Game made.

Say, at trick four, West beats the King of Hearts with the Ace, then leads a second Heart. Declarer wins the Knave and cashes the King of Spades, East discarding. Abandoning Spades, declarer finesses the Knave of Diamonds, ruffs a winning Heart (discarding a Diamond works fine too) and finesses the Knave of Diamonds (East discarding).

Declarer now cashes the Ace of Diamonds (felling West’s king), to reduce his hand to the Queenten of Spades and a red card (a Diamond) while West is down to Knave-low-low of Spades. Declarer leads any card from dummy, playing the Diamond from hand. West ruffs, but at trick 12 has to lead from his Knave-low of Spades round to declarer’s Queen-ten. That’s 10 tricks and game made.

Spectator Jason Goodwin

Signs of the times

IMAGINE, for one moment, that you are not a wise and gentle reader of COUNTRY LIFE, but foolish and hot-tempered, and find yourself waiting in line at a dispensary. The chemist says something you find hard to understand, to which, gentle reader, you react with fury. Inchoate rage seizes you by the throat. As the red mist descends, your eye falls on a notice pinned to the wall. ‘Our staff,’ it reads, ‘have the right to work free from the threat of verbal or physical abuse.’ The mood changes; your fists gently unclench and the vicious remark that had been on the tip of your tongue melts like a parma violet.

I’ve been thinking recently about these signs, because they’ve been popping up everywhere I go and there is something about them— as illustrated above—that doesn’t feel quite right. There was a time when public notices were straightforward. They either told you something or warned you off. Many hours have I spent on trains, as a child, wondering at what point

in the 1970s inflationary cycle the cost of pulling the emergency cord on a train (Penalty for improper use £50) would be outweighed by the satisfaction of bringing a whole train to a shuddering halt.

cord was for use in the event of a robbery, say, or a heart attack. Grandees hoping to alight as the train sped through their estates, ne’er do wells evading the police or small boys with illicit dreams of power would be done for £50.

Other people must have wondered, too, because eventually the fine was raised to £1,000, but at least it was a grown-up sign, speaking, as it were, man to man. It didn’t wag a finger. It didn’t ooze sanctimony. It didn’t even need to spell out the meaning of improper use—flossing? gymnastics?— because we all understood the message. The communication

Most signs seemed like this. No bombing or diving, it said at the baths. No hawkers no ball games it said on the wall of the estate. Some of the tersest notices were put up in cast iron by the Ministry of Works. Danger keep children under control was a good one; so, too, is Visitors are warned to take every care to avoid accidents, fixed to a castle in Wales. Next to it, a more prolix modern sign might remark that ‘Ancient monuments can be dangerous’ and show various stylised figures undergoing a series of calamities, slipping and falling and banging their heads, as if the word ‘accident’ required illustration.

Now, signposts have sprung up in our neck of the woods, advertising the distance to local landmarks—not in miles, but in

minutes. As well as ignoring cyclists, riders and the disabled, the reduction of a ramble to a time capsule fosters a depressing view of being outdoors. What of loitering and lingering? What of the flowers of the wayside and the hill views? The sign-erecting quango sees none of that, only a bustling to tick off the approved Sehenswürdigkeit in the allotted time.

That, I suppose, is what makes me uneasy about the sententious declarations that have appeared all over public transport, in doctors’ surgeries and at passport control, insisting that staff have the right to work without fear, etc etc. They push us, the public, into a nether world of anger and violence. They do nothing to deflect fury, only pretending to tell us something we already know; they are redundant, except as a sop to the staff, who might do better to have that other irritating sign fixed to their side of the wall: Keep calm and carry on

At least it was a grown-up sign. It didn’t wag a finger. It didn’t ooze sanctimony

Next week Jonathan Self