COUNTRY LIFE 速
FEBRUARY 10, 2016
EVERY WEEK
Poultry in motion Funky, feathered friends
Exclusive Where the Great Fire of London started Let the countryside play Cupid PLUS London property focus
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COUNTRY LIFE VOL CCX NO 6, FEBRUARY 10, 2016
Miss Ella Mountbatten Ella, aged 19, is the eldest daughter of Lord Ivar Mountbatten of Bridwell Park, Uffculme, Devon, and Penelope, Lady Ivar Mountbatten of Bridwell Lodge, Uffculme, Devon. Educated at Sherborne School for Girls, Dorset, Ella is studying for a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Bristol. Photographed by Hamish Mitchell at Bridwell Park, Devon
Jon Millar; Scisettialfio/Dreamstime; Condé Nast Inc; Zuma Press Inc/ Alamy Stock Photo
Contents February 10, 2016
Not your average chickens (Corbis Images; Ardea.com) Daffodils
‘Potato equipment has saved the daffodil industry’ Going for gold in Lincolnshire, page 54 Exhibition
‘A centurylong cocktail party of the most fascinating people’
Robin Creighton—here with daughter Lara and two Sebrights—has applied to Guinness World Records as the country’s most successful breeder of show poultry (page 60)
This week 44 Roger Scruton’s favourite painting
34 Town & Country
The writer and philosopher chooses an intriguing Giorgione that’s full of mystery and ambiguity
First chance to buy Linley Hall effects and rhubarb on the rise
46 Parish Church Treasures
38 Notebook 40 Letters 41 Agromenes 42 My Week
John Goodall investigates a Classical tomb at the Church of All Saints, Wing, Buckinghamshire
48 Living chivalry John Goodall traces the extraordinary story of St John’s Gate, the London headquarters of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem
54 A drop of golden nectar The Lincolnshire flatlands of Walkers Daffodil Fields are ablaze with blooms in spring, finds Jacky Hobbs
Let’s get to it: Vogue, page 86
60 Cover story Dance of the funky chickens Kylie O’Brien explores some of the breeds of poultry that are so spectacular they scarcely seem real
65 Another man’s treasure David Profumo falls for piscatorial paraphernalia
Rural romance
‘Double the number had found their soulmate, compared to townies’ Does fresh air make you frisky?, page 68
66 Cover story X marks the spot Dorian Gerhold identifies the exact location of the oven that started the Great Fire of London, 350 years ago
68 Cover story Love in a cold climate Jonathan Self celebrates the way in which the countryside has inspired some of our greatest love stories
Wendy Holden develops a passion for local panto
59 In The Garden Mark Griffiths urges us to search out winter irises
80 Property Market Penny Churchill wonders how much value an illustrious owner adds
82 Property News Arabella Youens surveys the changes in store for Earls Court
90 Art Market A rare chastity belt and a baculum surprise Huon Mallalieu
92 Performing Arts
72 All right, petal?
Geoffrey Smith finds it easy to fall for the charms of February
Olivia Williams discovers that the future looks rosy for the New Covent Garden flower market
94 Books
74 Perfectly preserved Simon Hopkinson is transported to the promised land by a feast of salt cod and gésiers
76 The power behind the painting Ruth Guilding explores an exhibition of British works that have been collected by Sir Alan Bowness
86 Glamour parade Philippa Stockley is seduced by a dazzling show of Vogue photography in celebration of the magazine’s centenary
32 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Every week
The Romanovs 1613–1918
96 Bridge and Crossword 98 &ODVVLÀHG $GYHUWLVHPHQWV 104 Spectator Living in London doesn’t suit Lucy Baring and her family
104 Tottering-by-Gently
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Anyone who had a heart W
HEREVER you go over the next few days, it will be difficult to escape a symbolic expanse of red, pointed at the bottom with a double cusp at the top. The heart has become the universal symbol of love and, as St Valentine’s Day approaches, stationers, confectioners and jewellers make all they can of it. And yet what a strange thing it is. For a start, it looks little like the lump of muscle that is an actual human heart—the symmetry of the symbolic heart might suggest two chambers, but, in the human body, they’re not ranged side by side, but front and back. Since William Harvey discovered the process by which blood circulates around the body in the 17th century, we have known that the heart isn’t truly the seat of feeling—it’s far too busy being a pump to have time for anything sentimental—but the idea persists. The Ancient Egyptians rated the heart more highly than the brain. The latter was discarded during mummification, but the heart was preserved in the chest cavity of the deceased because it would be weighed against a feather to see whether its late owner was worthy of the afterlife. To the
Greeks, the heart was the home of the soul. As every schoolboy knows, the Aztecs put a gruesome value on the heart, which they tore out of their enemies (and others) in human sacrifice. The sacrificial heart also became one of the central images of Christianity. From the Middle Ages onwards, it coexisted with the secular idea of the heart pierced by Cupid; indeed, the two concepts reinforced each other—as can be seen from the angel with the arrow in Bernini’s Ecstasy of St Teresa, in which the sacred fuses with the erotic. The association of the heart with St Valentine has as much to do with cheap printing and the Penny Post as it does with the 3rd-century saint. Valentine’s Day cards, introduced in the 1830s, took hold so quickly that, by 1850, Dickens could have fun with the volume of romantic correspondence passing through the General Post Office on February 14 in the first issue of Household Words. However, a paradox remains: the heart as a symbol of romantic love really got going during the Enlightenment, the very time when we were supposed to be ruled by the head. No wonder, though, that we still treasure it. Neuroscience can tell us an astonishing
amount about the operation of the brain, but not even the most brilliant of medics can explain how love works. It is one of the great mysteries of human existence, rightly—in defiance of all logic—seated in its traditional place: the heart.
Keeping the faiths
B
RITAIN owes much to the Georgian grandees who spent an aristocratic gap year on a Grand Tour. Their purchases form the basis of many collections, but even with a flexible credit card, what could they buy today? Luxury brands are the same the world over. Removing antiquities from their countries of origin is controversial, however well-meaning. Perhaps the best souvenir the young can bring back is ideas and insight into alternative cultures and how they have evolved. The ‘Faith After the Pharaohs’ exhibition, which closed at the British Museum last weekend, threw a spotlight on periods of cultural overlap—for example, when Roman emperors were depicted as pharaohs— which art historians once dismissed as debased. Not only are they fascinating, but evoke eras in which many faiths could coexist—generally in peace.
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Country Life, February 10, 2016 33
Town & Country
Edited by Kate Green
T
HE historic contents, some dating from Charles l’s time, of Linley Hall, former home of the Conservative whip Sir Jasper More, are to be auctioned at Christie’s King Street, London SW1, on March 9, COUNTRY LIFE can reveal. The house, near Bishop’s Castle in Shropshire, was designed for More’s ancestor Robert More, also an MP, between 1743 and 1746 by Henry Joynes, whose distinguished career included being resident clerk of the works for Vanbrugh at Blenheim Palace and working with Hawksmoor at Oxford, Whitehall and Kensington Palace. Linley Hall was sold last year. Correspondence and drawings that survived there show Joynes to have been able and original and the house itself demonstrates how well he succeeded in blending the Baroque of Vanbrugh with the cooler Burlingtonian Palladianism that replaced it in fashion (COUNTRY LIFE, September 7 and 14, 1961). Sir Jasper, author of The Saving of Income Tax, Surtax and Death Duties and the Shell Guide to English Villages, as well as the privately printed A Tale of Two Houses, died in 1987; this is the first time Linley’s contents have come to the market.
He and his wife, Clare Coldwell, who had no children, inherited property from branches of their families, some with seats in Shropshire and neighbouring counties, therefore Wootton Hall in Warwickshire and, importantly, Netley Hall near Shrewsbury also contribute contents to the sale. The latter was the seat of the Edwardes baronets, one of whom, Sir Henry Hope Edwardes, was a great collector of French Second Empire furniture. From Netley come the most important pieces of English furniture in the sale: four chairs and two window seats (one a later replacement) almost certainly provided by the leading cabinetmaker Mayhew & Ince. This attribution is supported by the firm’s estimate and account books, which appear to describe them. There were originally 10 armchairs, ‘very neatly carv’d & gilt in the best Burnisht Gold, double stuft with best curl’d hair, in Linen, carv’d with Damask and finisht with the best Double Burnisht Nails Complete at 3½ Gs. Each’. The four remaining chairs are estimated to £25,000 and the window seats to £8,000. The most expensive lots among the furniture and pictures are likely to be a Louis XIV mantel clock of about 1700 with a movement
Left: Louis XIV mantel clock (estimated up to £100,000) Below: Set of four George III giltwood chairs (£25,000)
by Isaac Thuret in a case attributed to the great André Charles Boulle (up to £100,000), and a view of a Dutch town with a religious procession by Jan van der Heyden (1637–1712), to £80,000. It’s anticipated that two items from the library will be the most expensive of the 200 lots. An illuminated manuscript on vellum, Le chevalier délibéré, 1547, by Olivier de la Marche could make £300,000. De la Marche, who died in 1502, was a partisan of the Dukes of Burgundy and this was a chivalric lament after the deaths of Charles the Rash and his heiress Mary handed the duchy to the Habsburgs. Then, with an estimate of £80,000 to £120,000, there is Charles I’s copy of the second edition of Italian poet Tasso’s Godfrey of Boulogne ‘done into English heroicall verse’ by Edward Fairfax, 1624, which was dedicated to the King. He in turn gave it to Sir Thomas Herbert who, although a Parliamentarian, became the King’s friend when attending him in captivity. It is inscribed ‘Dum spiro spero [while I breathe I hope] CR My Booke’. Huon Mallalieu www.countrylife.co.uk
Martin Parr/Magnum Photos. Courtesy Martin Parr and The Hepworth/hepworthwakefeild.org; Country Life Picture Library; Paul Hobson/Naturepl
First chance to buy Linley Hall effects
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Good week for Clean air Britain’s greenhouse-gas emissions dropped by 8% in 2014, with less use of gas for heating and less coal in industry, according to DECC’s latest figures; transport and agricultural emissions were slightly up, however Photography The Science Museum Group and the V&A are combining to create the world’s biggest collection on the art of photography with nearly one million images
Bad week for
Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb
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EST YORKSHIRE’S Rhubarb Triangle—the area between Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell, the epicentre for early forced-rhubarb (the crop has EU Protected Geographical Indication status)—is a major theme in an exhibition of photographs by Martin Parr currently on show at the Hepworth Wakefield Gallery (until June 12, www.hepworthwakefield. org; 01924 247360). As growers nervously await the results of the
Farmer David Asquith harvests his new crop of forced rhubarb by candlelight
season—the frosts needed to make the rhubarb ‘crackle’ (the exploding sound it makes as the flower forces its way up through the bud) have not materialised—Mr Parr’s photographs capture the raw conditions of the annual harvest, which is done at night by candlelight or head torch in freezing, dark sheds. ‘The Rhubarb Triangle & Other Stories’ incorporates Mr Parr’s previous documentary series on life in Yorkshire.
Road safety Highways agencies are removing white lines in an attempt to make motorists more cautious; the AA points out that ‘a pot of paint can save lives’ Henry Vlll He may have suffered brain damage during jousting say scientists Ancient woodland The Woodland Trust has accused HS2 Ltd of misleading statements about potential damage to woodland and says its ‘no net loss of biodiversity’ aim is unachievable
New fair comes to Cornbury
Charming the goldfinches
NEW event on the countryshow scene is set to become a ‘must’ in the countryman’s calendar. The box office is now open for the Field & Country Fair, which is being run by COUNTRY LIFE’s publisher, Time Inc. UK, at Lord Rotherwick’s family home, Cornbury Park in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, on June 10–12. Cornbury, an elegant, 17th-century house, originally a royal hunting lodge, sits in an 800-year-old deer park encircled by a ribbon of ornamental lakes and is a charming location—it has hosted the Wilderness Festival (August 4–7) since 2011. Some 300 exhibitors are expected, including the best English and international gunmakers, as well as the biggest names in game fishing, sporting art, antiques, clothing and rural crafts and there will be fal-
HE goldfinch, one of the prettiest of birds, is now a far more frequent garden visitor than it was 20 years ago, but scientists still don’t really understand why. The BTO is conducting a survey to discover to what extent plants grown or food provided plays a part in attracting the cheerful little birds and how best they can be helped when the hedgerows are bare. The work is being headed by Kate Plummer, who conducted the BTO’s recent survey which showed that supplementary feeding and increased sales of commercial bird seed, plus milder winters, have influenced the migratory patterns of the blackcap, which is now a much more frequent winter visitor. The goldfinch survey runs until the end of this month (www. bto.org/volunteer-surveys). ➢
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conry displays, gundog ‘have a go’ competitions, an eclectic range of food producers and lots of entertaining demonstrations. ‘We promise a true celebration of the British countryside and fieldsports,’ declares show director Fiona Eastman. ‘It will have a completely fresh look and feel, providing a genuinely different visitor experience.’ Adult tickets cost £18 in advance (www.fieldandcountryfair.com; 01256 768346). PL
Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire will host the new Field & Country Fair
Country Life, February 10, 2016 35
Town & Country
Fitzwilliam’s Parisian past revealed A
S the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge University celebrates its 200th birthday this month, the secret life of its founder is revealed in a new book, The Fitzwilliam Museum: A History. Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion, who died on February 4, 1816—his death possibly hastened from a fall from a ladder in his library six months earlier— left his collection of art, books and manuscripts to the university. He had no legitimate children, however, it turns out that he had three offspring, two of whom survived infancy, with his French mistress, Marie Anne Bernard, who danced under the name Zacharie at the Opéra in Paris. During his travels in Europe, Fitzwilliam amassed some 144 paintings, including works by Titian and Veronese, 300 carefully ordered albums of Old Master prints, a vast library and 10,000 fine printed books, which he left to the university ‘for the purpose of promoting the Increase of Learning’. ‘Lord Fitzwilliam’s life has been described as “deeply obscure”,’ says the book’s author, Lucilla Burn. ‘Many men of his class and period, who sought neither fame nor notoriety, nor wrote copious letters or diaries, do not leave a conspicuous record. But by going through the archives, for the first time, we can paint a fuller picture of his history, including
Right: Gallery 3 in the 19th century
Venus and Cupid with a Luteplayer by Titian (1555)
aspects of his life that have previously been unknown, even to staff here at the Fitzwilliam.’ Two major exhibitions open this month: ‘Celebrating the First 200 Years: The Fitzwilliam Museum 1816– 2016’ plus a show of Egyptian antiquities, ‘Death on the Nile: Uncovering the afterlife of ancient Egypt’ (www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk).
Petworth reveals its rich collection H
IERONYMUS BOSCH’S Adoration of the Magi (about 1515) and the finest surviving version of Holbein’s destroyed portrait of Henry VIII, which was probably painted in his studio in about 1540, are just two of the treasures from Petworth House’s magnificent art collection that have been redisplayed for the National Trust’s exhibition ‘Remastered: From Bosch to Bellotto’ (until March 6). The full-length portrait of Henry usually hangs high in the panelling of the famous Carved Room, but, now, visitors can admire it close up in all its glittering detail. Also beautifully lit is a series of exquisite religious subjects from about 1450–1605, including works by Rogier van der Weyden and Adam Elsheimer, and 16th-century portraits by Bronzino, Titian and Bordone. From the modern gallery space, visitors move into the state rooms, where works by van Dyck, Claude, Teniers and others have been temporarily re-hung and illuminated to reveal much that is usually difficult to see. There are rare books from Petworth’s outstanding library and a detailed 1609 drawing of the Moon, which predates Galileo’s. An accompanying booklet by curator Andrew Loukes explains how this extraordinary body of European Old Masters came to be in this West Sussex country house. MM 36 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Titian’s An Unknown Man in a Black Plumed Hat (about 1515–20) www.countrylife.co.uk
Country Mouse
Wentworth Woodhouse sale agreed
Any future for farming?
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SAVE-d for the nation: Wentworth Woodhouse will be open to the public
T last, following a protracted and nerve-racking process, agreement has been reached on the sale of what is considered Britain’s largest house. As hoped, 300-room Wentworth Woodhouse in South Yorkshire will be preserved for the nation: the Newbold family, which owned it, has agreed to sell to the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust (W WPT), set up by the charity SAVE Britain’s Heritage, for £7 million. At one stage, it looked as if the house would go to a Hong Kong-based company, but that sale fell through, possibly when the scale of the renovation was realised, giving SAVE a reprieve. The money has been raised through substantial donations and grants from heritage-funding bodies and private trusts. Now, however, the real fundraising operation begin—repairs are estimated at about £40 million.
The National Trust will support the public opening of Wentworth Woodhouse for the first five years and repair work, which will take place concurrently, will be phased over the next 10–15 years. ‘The purchase is a fantastic news story for the people of Rotherham and South Yorkshire,’ says Julie Kenny, W WPT chairman. ‘The trust will be able to continue the work of the Newbold family by creating a sustainable future for the house. It has such a magnificent history that it’s a really exciting prospect to ensure that this history and splendour can be shared with thousands of visitors. We now start the fundraising work in earnest and I hope that many people will be able to help us with it.’ Visit www.justgiving.com/ SAVEWentworthWoodhouse to make a donation.
Reality TV living
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HE former home of the BBC in White City, west London, is being converted into 950 apartments, which will be launched on the open market this April. Nearly half the homes will be inside the central circular area, known as the Doughnut, which is Grade II-listed, and the first phase is due for completion in 2018. The development includes cafes, restaurants, offices, a hotel and a new Soho House private members’ club with a rooftop swimming pool. Visit http://televisioncentre.com The legacy of the broadcaster is set to continue with BBC Worldwide having taken occupation of a new headquarters in April 2015, retaining three studios, which are due to reopen in early 2017. AY
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Apartments start at £650,000 and rise to £7 million for a penthouse
Town Mouse Forlorn and ‘for let’
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National Trust; Country Life Picture Library; Fitzwilliam Museum,
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HE coverlines on the front cover of the current issue of Farmers Weekly give a stark snapshot of the farming industry: ‘How to quit dairy when TB strikes’, ‘Spud probe’, ‘Beef in the balance’ and, perhaps saddest of all, ‘12 tips on preparing your farm for sale’. Farming has always been a balance of hope and reality, but the latter is winning. In many sectors, the industry is in a terrible crisis and that’s before any vote takes place on the EU referendum for which the Defra Secretary says her department has no ‘Plan B’ in the event of a no vote. That failure of responsibility shames further the Government’s approach to farming. Not only has it allowed unscrupulous supermarkets to treat farmers with contempt, it continues to wrap the industry up in a blizzard of red tape. As I write this, Storm Imogen is buffeting us, a tile has come off our roof and a few daffodil flowers have been snapped off their stems. No real harm, but since we have got into the habit of naming these storms, we seem to be getting more of them. In days gone past, it was just a windy day—now, thanks to the names, we have someone to blame: how very modern. MH
HE splendours of Liverpool shine through even the gloomiest of February days, as I was reminded on a visit this week. It’s such a friendly city and a paradise for anyone who loves architecture. Ranged along the streets, often in stark contrasts of style and scale, is the most astonishing assemblage of eyecatching buildings. If you want to know what London felt like in the 1930s, as its low-built streetscape began to be reared upwards by new high-rise blocks, then visit Liverpool. On Castle Street, I was struck afresh by two 19th-century banks that testify to the city’s former commercial importance. The first by Norman Shaw has a wonderful façade of banded marble and brick that stands like an evocation of Orvieto on Merseyside. This still operates, but almost opposite is the former Liverpool branch of the Bank of England, a quite exceptionally magnificent 1840s creation by C. R. Cockerell. It stood forlorn and ‘For Let’ with a tramp huddled in the entrance. There are similar sights across the city (and on Lime Street, there are scandalous demolition proposals afoot), but prosperity is returning to Liverpool and, hopefully, these buildings will gradually be returned to use. If and when they are, Liverpool will surely emerge as the most architecturally splendid metropolis in Britain. JG Country Life, February 10, 2016 37
Town & Country Notebook Quiz of the week 1) Which English Romantic poet wrote Ode on a Grecian Urn? 2) Which Briton was the Formula 1 World Champion in 1969, 1971 and 1973? 3) What is the longest river in Scotland? 4) Name the actor after whom the National Theatre’s largest auditorium is named? 5) Who was the British Prime Minister when the Berlin Wall was constructed in 1961?
100 years ago in
COUNTRY LIFE February 12, 1916
D
ARKENED London is not without its advantages. At any rate it has enabled the dwellers therein to behold the lovely skies of this year. The stars have been singularly clear and beautiful during the nights of many months past, and none more so than in February… At its setting, Jupiter sinks first below the horizon and the picture is gone. But all the other stars shine as though they were determined to illustrate the beauty of Mr Bourdillon’s line, ‘The night has a thousand eyes and the day but one.’
Words of the week
Nidifugous (adjective) Leaving the nest while still young
Quaestuary (noun) Someone whose first and foremost objective is profit
Bratticing (noun) A board fence around something dangerous 1) John Keats 2) Sir Jackie Stewart 3) The Tay 4) Sir Laurence Olivier 5) Harold Macmillan
38 Country Life, February 10, 2016
dited by Katy Birchall
The nature of things Pike
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EEDMACE lines the water’s edge in stands of unkempt straw, holding aloft brown pokers roughly bearded with scraps of cotton wool. The water’s surface is a vision of calm, but, beneath it, Esox lucius lurks in the shallows, particularly near submerged vegetation—a mottled, olive-coloured, lean-andmean hunting machine, lying torpid, but, at the same time, watchful. The lone pike is a sniper with deadly aim and crafty camouflage, its skin marbled and spotted, neatly breaking up the outline of this barracuda of our rivers and lakes. Average lengths of adult pike vary, being generally between 2ft and 4ft, although rare specimens have been measured at up to 5ft. With the water temperature rising, spring is breeding time, when males reach the spawning ground first and large quantities of eggs are being released by females. The name of ‘pike’ is ancient, referring to the pole weapon of centuries past—both pointed and deadly. Appropriately, too, as this submarine carnivore picks off smaller fish, assorted amphibians and invertebrates as well as ducklings and water rodents. And,
especially if times are hard and prey is scarce, cannibalising its own species is common. In all cases, speed, surprise and large jaws opening wide to catch prey sideways are supplemented by sharp, backward-pointing teeth and a barbed tongue, giving prey scant chance of escape when the water tiger decides to pounce. KBH Illustration by Bill Donohoe
Time to buy The Designer Set of six pairs, £74, London Sock Company (www.londonsockcompany.com)
Green-glass decanter, £55, I&JL Brown (01432 851991; www.ijlbrown. com)
Soft wool pheasant cushion, £39, Indigo and Rose (01628 531555; www. indigoandrose. co.uk)
young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone. Matilda, Roald Dahl
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Unmissable events
(020–7349 0822; www. proudonline.co.uk) February 13–May 2 ‘Capability Brown & The Landscape’, Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. Displaying the landscape Brown found when he was a guest at the palace, his plans and how they were executed (01993 810530; www. blenheimpalace.com)
Exhibition February 17–June 12 New Light Prize exhibition, The Mercer Art Gallery, Swan Road, Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Showcasing the work of talented, contemporary artists (above) in the north of England (www.newlightart.org.uk) February 11–April 3 ‘James Hunt: Girls, Beers and Victory’, Proud Chelsea, 161, King’s Road, Chelsea, London SW3. Celebrating 40 years since James Hunt’s 1976 Formula 1 World Championship win, this exhibition includes historic photographs of the British racing driver
Auction February 11 Auction of bronzes by Belinda Sillars, Special Auction Services, 81, Greenham Business Park, Newbury, Berkshire. An auction of bronze horse sculptures (below) by renowned equestrian artist Belinda Sillars. Estimates range from £400 to £600
(01635 580595; www. specialauctionservices. com) Book now March 14 ‘Wine, Women and the Glory of Venice: Masterpieces of Renaissance Glass’, Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1. A lecture in aid of the Venice in Peril Fund by Dora Thornton, Curator of the Waddesdon Bequest and Renaissance
Europe at the British Museum. Doors open 6.30pm, tickets £15 for members and £18 for non-members (020–7736 6891; www. veniceinperil.org)
What to drink this week Bordeaux 2002 and 2012
These vintages aren't as hyped as others, but they're just as charming, enthuses Harry Eyres
April 15–16 COUNTRY LIFE Kitchen, Pitfield London, 31–35, Pitfield Street, London N1. A COUNTRY LIFE event in partnership with Essential Lifestyle Media, this pop-up dining experience (above) features a four-course menu prepared by former River Cottage head chef Tim Maddams. Tickets £55 (www.countrylife. eventbrite.co.uk)
We’ve been looking at Burgundy recently—especially the attractive 2014 vintage—so it seemed time to pivot to its polar opposite in terms of French wine regions, Bordeaux. There, 2014 may turn out to be an appealing minor vintage, but the wines are too young to drink. Time then to consider two Cinderella vintages of the past 15 years, a decade apart, but both offering some excellent drinking and value for money.
The Mount Delamore, Cornwood, Ivybridge, Devon PL21 9QP
Why you should be drinking it My wine-merchant father taught me never to overlook ‘lesser’ vintages in Bordeaux. Without the hype, the very high prices and the need for long maturation, they can often provide great everyday drinking pleasure and what the French call typicité.
February 13/14 and 20/21, 11am–3pm. £4, children free The Mount is opening for the first time and reveals a spectacular display of snowdrops within the Delamore estate on the edge of Dartmoor. Paths wind through swathes of plants, some of which have been established for decades and are thought to be particular to the site. Visit www.ngs.org.uk
Truly scrumptious
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Print Collector/Getty Images; Dreamstime.com; Nevodka/Dreamstime.com
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Britain’s specially
HIS spicy, swirly sausage with minced pork, has protected produce has a long and multinatinnards that are coarsely ional history. It was first docuchopped and—crucially— Traditional mented in a book, published in include lots of seasoning. Cumberland 1911, entitled the Reliable Guide In 2011, the traditional sausage to the Curing of Cumberland Cumberland sausage— Hams and Bacon and the Preparation of the suffering at the hands of mass-produced, subOffal in the Cumberland Style, although folkstandard lookalikes—gained much-needed lore suggests its invention harks back to a 16thProtected Geographical Indication status. century influx of German miners to the area. Jim Paice, food minister at the time, commented: Others place the arrival of this particular ‘We’re justly proud of British food and I’m banger in the 1800s, when the west coast town delighted to welcome traditional Cumberland of Whitehaven was a major trading port. It was sausage as the first of our many fine sausages said that regular shipments of spices such to win protected status.’ as ginger, nutmeg and pepper contributed To comply with the rules, the sausages to the evolution of many traditional Cumbrian must be produced, processed and prepared dishes, not least the imitable sausage. in Cumbria and have a meat content Although standard sausages of at least 80%. Ellie Hughes are divided into links, the Cumberland variety Illustration is spiral-shaped and, by Fiona instead of being filled Osbaldstone
What to drink After the great 2000 and the excellent 2001, 2002 was a seriously overlooked year. The wines were always rather on the soft side, with less tannin than usual, but, in the right hands, show considerable charm. Château Haut Bages Libéral 2002 (£35; www. bbr.com) is classic mature Pauillac—very much a Cabernet Sauvignon wine, with notes of lead pencil and cassis, considerable finesse and grip. Château Giscours 2002 (right, £59; www.bbr.com) has a lovely floral Margaux nose— sumptuous and delicious. And 2012 has never been a hyped vintage either; conditions were a little easier on the Right Bank (St Emilion and Pomerol) than in the Médoc and the Pomerol Château La Croix Taillefer 2012 (£24.99; www. waitrose.com) has excellent colour, long flavour and almost chewy texture— proper claret at an affordable price. Country Life, February 10, 2016 39
Letters to the Editor Letter of the week
Once more into the Fray
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S I settled down with ‘Eating humble pie’ in January 27, looking forward to a good read on one of my favourite foods, I was just thinking how beautifully Tom Parker Bowles writes when, suddenly, I felt like I had had a slap in the face. The poor Fray Bentos comes in for such a beating—admittedly, it may not be haute cuisine, but it isn’t akin to cannibalism! I’m sure that hundreds of other readers agree that the tinned pie is an institution and has saved the day for many a student, sailor and skier, as much today as at any time since its launch in 1961. A great article, but I would venture that a Fray Bentos steak-and-kidney pie is, in fact, very tasty. Tracy Gleeson, Suffolk
Mark Hedges
The other side of Rhodes
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LIVE ASLET’s comments on the campaign to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College are welcome (January 27). Much has been written about this, mostly irrelevantly. That Rhodes was not perfect and that statues to rulers are often removed or destroyed is beside the point. The statue at Oriel adorns a Grade-II* building paid for by Rhodes and so is an image of Rhodes as donor, not as statesman. In that respect, it’s akin to other donor statues adorning colleges such as New College Oxford. To remove them is to reject the donation, which Oriel has evidently never had any intention of doing. Dr Selby Whittingham, London SW5
A whale of a time
The writer of the letter of the week will win a bottle of Pol Roger Brut Réserve Champagne
A rookie mistake
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OM PARKER BOWLES lists traditional and ancient pies, but he omits an important one—rook pie. In Mary Norwak’s The Farmhouse Kitchen, there is a recipe for the dish using six young rooks, seasoned flour, 8oz streaky bacon, stock and 8oz shortcrust pastry. Only young rooks should be eaten and only the breast and upper part of the leg. The skin should always be removed, the bird drawn and the backbone removed as it has a bitter flavour. I wonder if there is anyone alive today who has actually eaten rook pie? Sue Lethbridge, Devon
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OUR enjoyable piece on town criers (January 27) reminded me of a recent visit to Hermanus in South Africa, where one of the more unusual of the ilk in the world operates the whale crier tradition. Wearing his distinctive hat, Eric Davalala (above) sounds his kelp horn to announce the daily arrival of the southern right whales in to Walker Bay between August and November. You need to understand the code of the horn sounds to decipher the exact location and number of whales being announced. It’s helpfully provided on his sandwich board, but Eric is more than pleased to cry out the best vantage points to his band of followers. He’s a fitting successor to the original Hermanus whale crier, Pieter Claasen, who devised this strange but compelling art in 1991, even attending the Topsham Town Criers’ Convention in the UK in 1996, where he received suitable accolades for his unique talents. Ian Elliott, Belfast
Good neigh-bours
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OUR story about the Household Cavalry (September 30, 2015) brought back fond memories of a longlost friend. In the early 1980s, I ran a company housed directly across the road from the Hyde Park Barracks. One of the residents of the barracks was a beautiful horse whose stall opened towards Knightsbridge, level with my office. When I was sitting at my desk and the horse was not otherwise involved, he (or she) kept an eye on me and followed my every move with apparent great interest. We enjoyed many a long-distance lunch together, even though I never knew his name. This kind of fond memory says ‘London’ to me, even though I’m now enjoying my retirement in Atlanta. Dr C. L. Anstine, Georgia, USA
COUNTRY LIFE,ISSN0045-8856,ispublishedWeeklybyTimeInc.(UK)Ltd,BlueFinBuilding,110SouthwarkStreet,London,SE10SU,UnitedKingdom.Country Life Subscriptions, PO Box 272 Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3FS. Enquiries: 0844 848 0848. Email: magazinesdirect@quadrantsubs.com One year full subscription rates: 1 Year (51) issues. UK £170; Europe/Eire €350 (delivery 3–5 days); North America $425 (delivery 5–12 days); Rest of World £330 (delivery 5–7 days) PeriodicalspostagepaidatJamaicaNY11431.USPostmaster:SendaddresschangestoCOUNTRY LIFE,Airfreightandmailingin the USA by agent named Air Business, c/o Liberty Express Distributions USA LLC, Suite 201, 153–63 Rockaway Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London, SE1 0SU. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. BACK NUMBERS Subject to availability, issues from the past three years are £6 a copy (£8 in the EU, £10 overseas): 01733385170;www.mags-uk.com.Subscriptionsqueries:08451231231.IfyouhavedifficultyinobtainingCOUNTRY LIFE fromyournewsagent,pleasecontactuson:020–31483300.Weregretwecannotbeliablefor the safe custody or return of any solicited or unsolicited material, whether typescripts, photographs, transparencies, artwork or computer discs. Articles and images published in this and previous issues are available, subjecttocopyright,fromthephotographiclibrary:020–31484474. INDEX:Half-Yearlyindices,listingallarticlesandauthors,areavailableat£40each,andtheCumulativeIndex,listingallarticlesoncountryhousesand gardenssince1897,at£40each(includingpostageandpacking)fromPaulaFahey,COUNTRY LIFE PictureLibrary,BlueFinBuilding,110Southwark Street,LondonSE1 0SU.ChequesshouldbemadepayabletoTime Inc.(UK)Ltd.IftwoHalf-Yearlyindicesfromasingleyear,andtheCumulativeIndex,arerequired,thetotalpricewillbe£80. Editorial Complaints We work hard to achieve the highest standards of editorial content and we are committed to complying with the Editors’ Code of Practice (https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/cop.html) as enforced by IPSO.If you have a complaint about our editorial content, you can email us at complaints@timeinc.com or write to Complaints Manager, Time Inc. (UK) Ltd Legal Department, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU. Please provide details of the material you are complaining about and explain your complaint by reference to the Editors’ Code. We will endeavour to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and we aim to correct substantial errors as soon as possible.
40 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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Doing the goose step
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N response to John Goodall’s recent Parish Church Treasure, shoeing geese was not just a medieval metaphor (January 27). In the 19th century, geese were reared in Norfolk for the London market and driven into town. The birds were fitted with small wrought-iron shoes to save their feet on the long journey. It’s also said that those who couldn’t afford the iron shoes would dip the feet of their geese in warm tar followed by pea gravel, providing an avian answer to the hobnailed boot. Antony Jarvis, Lincolnshire
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E shih-tzus are becoming increasingly fed up with seeing Russell-type terrier dogs repeatedly appearing on the cover of your otherwise quite readable magazine. We are utility dogs who live in the country and like chasing rabbits with the rest of them, but, unlike those brainless Jack Russells, we don’t disappear down burrows after them and have to be dug out. If you’d like to feature proper dogs on said cover for a change, we would be happy to make ourselves available. Fee negotiable. Woof woof, Chutney & Tiffin, Wiltshire
COUNTRY LIFE FEBRUARY 17
Oysters–one gulp and you’re hooked; Scottish landowners look to the future; plus Constance Spry and living in Oxford Make someone’s week, every week, with a COUNTRY LIFE subscription 0844 848 0848 www.countrylife.co.uk
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He’s a little shih-tzu!
Don’t fall for the foolish food fads
O into any supermarket and the range of gluten-free products has shot into premier positions. Despite the fact that only 1% of the population has coeliac disease, the sales are rocketing. For an increasing number of companies, it’s a profitable earner, although they know that most of the purchasers don’t need gluten-free products at all and derive no advantage from the premium price they pay. Indeed, avoiding gluten can seriously harm your health. For most of us, a balanced diet should include foods that contain gluten. That doesn’t apply to the small number of people who, although not coeliacs, are still wheat intolerant. However, even if we allow a large margin for those who suffer in this way, but have not been diagnosed, we are still talking about a tiny minority of the population. More than 95% of us would be much better off eating normally instead of succumbing to the gluten health scam. What’s more, people who think that, by eating gluten free, they’re eating more healthily will be disappointed to discover that many gluten-free products are just as processed, carrying the same additives, colourings, sugar, and E numbers as the normal alternative. ‘Gluten-free’ isn’t a shorthand for healthy, still less for natural. Much of the same applies to ‘lactose intolerance’. First, there is a difference between being allergic to lactose and being allergic to milk. It’s an important difference because it can lead to different solutions. What is true is that, in the Western world, 80% of the population isn’t troubled by either condition. In the Asian world, it’s quite different because the mutation that enables humans to continue to drink milk as adults simply didn’t kick in. Up to 90% are intolerant and would be best advised to avoid dairy products. The production of non-milk milks, designed for
the rich markets of Europe and North America, will be of real value in Asia. That’s not true in Great Britain, where, instead, such products are another component of the Great Health Rip-off and we country people should be particularly concerned about it. Just as the gluten fad devalues good British bread, so the lactose fad undermines the dairy farmer. There are, of course, people who have problems with milk or lactose, but they are a small minority. Many of them can drink milk in moderation and get no discomfort, yet hundreds of thousands of people spurn good healthy milk even if they are entirely free of allergy or intolerance. They buy a milk substitute or lactose-free milk and the tills ring out in jubilation. Manufacturers particularly like them buying lactose-free milk because it’s heavily pasteurised and therefore has the longer shelf life that they and the retailers love. The Government is properly worried about obesity and is co ing taking tough action against the exces lories, especially sugar, in our diets. Almo f us would benefit from a lower intake of sugar and salt, just as most consume more red meat than is sensible. These are, of course, changes to our diets that could make us all much healthier: more vegetables and salads, more fish and more roughage. However, manufacturers rarely see easy ways to make money out of these basic improvements. Instead, they find it easier to promote and encourage food fads that enable them to command premium prices and deliver significant profits. With celebrity backing and pseudo-scientific gobbledegook, the sky’s the limit. They are the lineal descendants of the mountebanks and patent medicine sellers of the past and we should see them for what they are: shysters.
“Gluten-free” isn’t a shorthand for healthy, still less for natural
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Country Life, February 10, 2016 41
My week
Wendy Holden
Fruity behaviour
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INTER dawn was all brown fog to T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land, but, up here in Derbyshire, it’s red and beautiful. As the sun rises, a sky like scarlet smoke turns a hazy grey and gold. Cold weather has its compensations. Making crème de cassis is another. Kir is one of my favourite aperitifs and we were almost buried under blackcurrants from the summer. We also had a cupboard full of bottles of vodka—what was stopping us? Following a recipe found in these very pages, we swamped the fruit in Stolichnaya. The many empty receptacles went in the recycling; what the recycling men must have thought can only be imagined.
Many local families make the von Trapps look like slackers
Kir-ikey, that’s good! If you’ve got a bumper crop of blackcurrants and a cupboard full of vodka, you know what to do
Illustration: Clare Mackie
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This all happened l ly and now, six months later, s time for the next stage. We h strain the mixture, add the sugar syrup and decant it. This done and, arranged in rows in the kitchen, the labelled bottles are an immensely satisfying addition to the jams and quince paste we made in the autumn. I feel the urge to open a deli, especially as adding an exotic touch to this splendid range are several large bottles of Cretan olive oil that a Greek friend imports from her family village. On the other hand, the deli business round here is pretty competitive. The Chatsworth farm shop, with its straw-boatered till operatives, is just over the hill. And there’s another farm shop along the moor road, a deli down in the village and butcher and cheese shops everywhere you look. Food round here is quite wonderful and quite unlike anywhere else.
42 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Take the pyclet (pronounced pikelet) stall in Derby’s lovely Georgian market hall. Its proprietors, two brothers, cook these small, fluffy pancakes fresh to order. My daughter loves chewing her way through a packet of six as she sits in the stands watching Derby County. I prefer mine heated and slid under bacon and sausages on Sunday morning (or indeed any time of day or night). Pyclets are food for the gods.
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fter that, we strap on our boots and stagger out into the fields, heading, ultimately, to one of the excellent local village pubs. A favourite is the Barley Mow in Bonsall, whose dynamic landlady, Colette, has been introducing shabby chic to her time-honoured hostelry. Union Flag cushions, giltframed pictures, lopsided lampshades and mismatched chairs have duly made their appearance and it’s all gone down very well. However, a line has been drawn over the flooring. Colette’s plan to pull up the ancient flowered pub carpet and polish the wooden
boards beneath has been thwarted. Locals like the carpet and have got up a petition to keep it. Faced with the its retention, Colette is wondering about extracting some of the generations of local DNA from it; might she be able to clone the ultimate village resident? Or would a flat-woven fiend be let loose? An Axminster axeman? An underfelted Frankenstein? Watch this space.
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he Barley Mow’s other contribution to village life is maintaining the fine tradition of hen racing, of which it claims to be world centre. August sees thousands assemble to watch chickens running across the car park. Other established local rites include well dressing, which is not, as a French friend once imagined, a sartorial stand-off among the denizens of rural communities. It’s the ancient summer practice of decorating the local water source with panels of coloured petals. Villages get very competitive about it and some of the results are amazing. Derbyshire winter village traditions are few and far between,
but that of putting on your own panto is alive and well. And why not? We all need cheering up in February and there’s zero competition from other seasonal entertainment. But that’s not the only reason. Far from it. The fact is, villagers round these parts have strong terpsichorean tendencies. They require—nay, demand—an outlet. There are many local families that make the von Trapps look like slackers. So numerous are the performers in one place that you practically need an Equity card to live there. One lady I know has two professional dancers and a circus bareback rider among her offspring. She is, moreover, married to the pantomime dame. By day, he’s a respected company director. Last week, as Widow Twankey, he was all pink wig and falsies, supported, as it were, by other leading lights of local business playing roles from sultans to policemen. What’s behind all this? It might be something in the water (of which we get a lot) or something to do with the long, dark nights. Perhaps villagers, especially in the undemonstrative North, simply need to let rip from time to time or confound opinion by revealing unexpected sides to their personalities. Whatever the reason, the performers have a blast and it brings the whole village together. Entire local dynasties, including teenagers, people the panto cast list. Some perform, some produce, some provide musical accompaniment. Community spirit isn’t just alive and well, it’s singing, dancing, cross-dressing and providing ice creams in the interval. We may live in the age of the internet download and a million TV channels, but there’s still no fun quite like your own fun.
Wendy Holden’s latest novel is Wild and Free (Headline, £7.99) Next week: Rupert Uloth www.countrylife.co.uk
My favourite painting Roger Scruton The Tempest by Giorgione
Roger Scruton is a writer and philosopher—his novel The Disappeared was published by Bloomsbury Reader last year
Galleria dell’ Accademia, Venice, Italy/Cameraphoto Arte Venezia/Bridgeman Images; GL Portrait/Alamy Stock Photo
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This work is a mystery. How come that woman has removed her clothes? Not, surely, for the man who stands so limply guard over her. Not for the baby she’s feeding. Certainly not to enjoy the approaching storm. Where is this happening and why? Is it a real place, a real time, or some rarely visited region of the imagination? Of course, art historians have theories about it. For me, however, it is as if I am being singled out by that woman’s look and told that I do not matter—a worthwhile lesson from time to time!
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The Tempest, about 1507, by Giorgione (Giorgio da Castelfranco, 1476/78–1510), 32¼in by 28¾in, Accademia, Venice
John McEwen comments on The Tempest
IORGIONE’ is best left in Italian. Translated into English, it means ‘Big George’. Did that refer to his physical or artistic stature? One hopes the latter, in the way Glaswegians confer ‘Big Man’ on quite slight people such as Billy Connolly as a term of respect. Giorgione is the embodiment of what Cecil Gould called that ‘magic moment in Italian and Venetian art, when new ideas about Nature and God and Antiquity, and man’s relation to them, were being discussed just when… technical advance had given painters the full power of illustrating them’. The
44 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Tempest is the quintessence of that epitome. The picture’s deference to Nature was particularly innovative. In this, Giorgione was indebted to the teaching of the Venetian Giovanni Bellini and the example of the Florentine Leonardo, but it was he more than anyone who invented the genre picture: domestic in scale, easily transported and on a subject imagined by the artist, soon known as poesie because this invitation to daydream had previously been associated only with poetry. What we know of his brief, plague-terminated life wouldn’t fill a postcard. ‘He
is more of a myth than a man,’ wrote D’Annuncio. What is certain is that Giorgione inspired Titian; that the demand for his work was so great on his death that even Isabella d’Este was unable to find someone willing to part with one of his precious pictures; that, within no time, fake Giorgiones were being marketed. And The Tempest? Here is a progenitor of all fanciful art up to and including today’s dominating Surrealism. ‘In the Age of Giorgione’ is at the Royal Academy of Arts, London W1, from March 12 to June 5
www.countrylife.co.uk
Parish church treasures English Classicism
A book of the series is published by Bloomsbury
Photography by Paul Barker and text by John Goodall
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HIS is the late-16th-century tomb of Sir Robert Dormer, which stands in one of the greatest surviving Anglo-Saxon churches in England. The tomb is an imposing structure executed in a strikingly idiomatic Classical style. It comprises a canopy supported on four fluted Corinthian columns. Beneath this is a tomb chest decorated with the skulls of oxen—termed bucrania—linked by swags of fruit. Carved on the panel beneath the central bucranium is the date 1552. In fact, the monument was almost certainly erected slightly later by Sir Richard’s son, William. He was related by marriage to the powerful
46 Country Life, February 10, 2016
The Church of All Saints, Wing, Buckinghamshire
Dudley family and the connection may suggest a provenance for this highly unusual tomb. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sent one John Shute to Italy in 1550 to study architecture. On his return, Shute published the first English treatise in his field, The First and Chief Groundes of Architecture, in which he refers to his study of ancient monuments. The tomb canopy at Wing is of relatively conventional design, but the detailing of the tomb chest implies a personal knowledge of Roman sarcophagi and altars. In short, given the Dudley connection, Shute is a plausible designer for the monument. If so, the inset brasses behind it are later additions.
www.countrylife.co.uk
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ENTRAL London has been so reshaped over the centuries by war, fire and development that every extant medieval building within it is a nearmiraculous survival. The massive gateway spanning the northern end of St John’s Lane, just north of Smithfield is no exception (Fig 1). Built in 1504, it was the entrance to the inner precinct of the Priory of St John, the principal English house of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, known familiarly as the Hospitallers. The Priory of St John of Jerusalem was founded in about 1144 beyond the city walls by one Jordan de Bricet and his wife. At the time, the Hospitallers were in the process of rapid institutional evolution. The Order was established in about 1113 by a certain Gerard, the supervisor of the great hospital near the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. His radical vision was to treat the poor who came into his care (and regardless of their faith) as Christ himself. The vocation of care he advocated has remained central to the Order ever since, but it quickly became overlaid by another driving concern. During the mid 12th century, and after the official recognition of the rival Templars in 1120, the Hospitallers assumed a military role in the defence of the Holy Land. The Order consequently developed an unusual tripartite structure: a governing hierarchy of knights under monastic vows, a distinct internalised body of chaplains and a group of lay servants or servientes responsible among other things for running its hospitals. Fundamental to its success, moreover, was a centralised international structure. Across Europe, the Order’s estates —termed commanderies—were grouped together by common language to form langues, a word literally meaning ‘tongues’. At one point, the English commanderies were managed from France, but, by 1300, they came to constitute their own langue under the authority of a prior. He later assumed authority of commanderies across the British Isles. In uncertain circumstances, Clerkenwell emerged as his seat, presumably because of its proximity to the capital. The developed national and international administration of the Order made it a valuable tool for the English kings, particularly in their financial Fig 1: The 1504 gate looking north towards the inner court of the precinct
48 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Living chivalry The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem
In 1888, a medieval monastic gatehouse in the heart of London became the headquarters of a new order of chivalry. John Goodall relates the extraordinary story of this building Photographs by Will Pryce
Private Collection/Bridgeman Images
Fig 2: The north front in 1731. This reversed image shows the 1660s subdivision of the main arch, which was swept away in 1771–2
affairs. The same was true of the Templars, until their brutal suppression across Europe in 1312. Henceforth, enriched with the property of their former rivals, the Hospitallers unequivocally emerged as the single wealthiest religious body in Britain. The Priors, meanwhile, became ‘premier’ barons of Parliament. Little is known in detail about the changing size and formulation of the community at Clerkenwell. A list dated 1328 names 119 members of the community, of whom 34 can be identified as knights, 34 as chaplains and 48 as servientes. The large precinct of the priory was divided into several internal courts by walls and gates. The surviving gatehouse gave access to the principal of these courts. It contained the church, which preserves a mid-12th-century vaulted crypt (Fig 4). Archaeological investigation has demonstrated that it was originally attached to an exceptionally large circular nave. This unusual form, common to both the churches of both Templars and Hospitallers, evoked the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. It was rebuilt on a rectangular plan in the 13th century. A cloister stood to the south of the church and the conventual buildings to the north and west of the nave. These included a great hall, dormitory and services. To the north of the church choir was the Prior’s house. This layout probably changed little over the Middle Ages, but the precinct was sacked during the Peasants Revolt
in 1381 and was probably almost completely rebuilt thereafter. Much of the wider precinct, including St John’s Lane, formerly a private road closed towards Smithfield by another gate, was built up with large independent houses occupied by officials or servants of the Order. These—and the Prior’s house—passed through a period of particularly intensive aggrandisement from the 1480s onwards. Archaeological excavation has revealed fragments of an elaborate terracotta window from one of these buildings, a material in the height of fashion in the 1510s and 1520s. During the Middle Ages, the Order repeatedly refocused its affairs. It was driven from Jerusalem when the city surrendered to Saladin in 1187 and then from the Holy Land. In 1310, it created a new headquarters at Rhodes and the fall of this to Suleimann the Magnificent in 1522 called into question the order’s purpose. Henry VIII considered turning the resources of the English langue to the defence of Calais. This plan was effectively quashed in 1528 and, in 1530, the Hospitallers took up another powerful Mediterranean base in Malta. Nevertheless, the English langue fell victim to the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. Henry VIII used the buildings for storing tents and as a wardrobe, but, from 1546, also partly leased the property. Then, by the terms of his will, he granted the priory to his daughter, Princess Mary, a mark of its perceived grandeur. ➢ Country Life, February 10, 2016 49
Notwithstanding this gift, in 1549– 50, the Lord Protector despoiled the church to provide materials for Somerset House. As John Stow wrote in his A Survey of London (1603), ‘the church, for the most part, to wit, the body and side aisles, with the great bell tower (a most curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and enamelled, to the great beautifying of the city, and passing all other that I have seen), was undermined and blown up with gunpowder’. Following Mary’s accession, the Hospitallers were briefly restored by Cardinal Pole and their Prior was none other than the celebrated architectural patron Sir Thomas Tresham, who shored up the remains of the church. However, Elizabeth suppressed the Order again in 1559 (although English knights continued to serve on Malta, now approaching the crisis of the Great Siege of 1565). From this moment forward, the priory site and its associated buildings entered into multiple ownership and became steadily absorbed within the fabric of London. The inner court of the precinct initially preserved its integrity. It became the base for both the Office of Tents and the department responsible for Court entertainments, the Office of Revels. Sets and costumes for revels were made here and the buildings became a venue for rehearsals. In 1607, the property was sold by the Crown and the Prior’s house eventually passed to the Bruce family in 1640 (Fig 6). Meanwhile, the gate of the inner court was granted in 1604 to Sir Roger Wilbraham, in whose family it descended. Clerkenwell escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666, but, in its aftermath, and with increasing speed from the
1680s, the inner court began to be more densely redeveloped and its medieval buildings destroyed piecemeal. The gate alone survived intact after a confused period of redevelopment and multiple ownership. This started with the creation of a room within the gate passage, reputedly inserted in the 1660s. From 1703, Richard Hogarth, the father of the painter, set up a coffee house in the east tower of the gate. Its point of distinction was that all conversation was held in Latin. The coffee house was later converted into a tavern that extended into the neighbouring property and which survived until the 1880s under various names, including The Old Gate and the Old Jerusalem Tavern.
Fig 3: The chapel of the Order served from 1721 to 1931 as a parish church. It was restored in the 1950s, following bomb damage, by Seely and Paget. The walls incorporate medieval fabric and windows
Fig 4: The crypt of the church. Preserved on the ribs of some of the 12th-century vaults are the remains of incised plaster decoration that create zig-zag patterns. It is an unusual treatment also found, for example, in the 1165–73 chapel of Orford Castle, Suffolk
50 Country Life, February 10, 2016
In 1730, a printer, Edward Cave, occupied another part of the gate and, the following year, published from it the first issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine. This monthly general-interest magazine survived for nearly two centuries. Within a year of its first appearance, a crude image of the gate was adopted as its frontispiece (Fig 2). Cave also had the door of his coach decorated with the same device. Cave occupied the gate with his family until his death in 1754. He created a library in the west tower and provided his most celebrated contributor, Samuel Johnson, with a garret in the building to work from. Initially, The Gentleman’s Magazine was printed in the chamber over the arch and it was in this room that, in 1740, Johnson’s friend, Garrick, made his first London appearance in an amateur play. By 1750, however, the presses moved into a purposebuilt printing works to the west of the gate and the tavern expanded into its premises. At this point, the gate passage chamber was converted into a billiard room, only to be stripped away in 1771–2 as an impediment to traffic. The building now gradually languished and, in 1845, its owners were served with a notice either to repair or demolish it. A local architect, William Griffith, was moved to begin a public campaign to save the building and the owners of the tavern, who celebrated and publicised its history, increased awareness of its significance. ➢ www.countrylife.co.uk
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Sue James/National Trust
From the 1560s, the priory site became steadily absorbed within the fabric of London
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Fig 5 above: Oldrid Scott’s Chapter Hall. Fig 6 right: A mid-17thcentury drawing by Wenceslaus Hollar showing the east end of the chapel (left) and the Prior’s apartments and hall (right) www.countrylife.co.uk
Country Life, February 10, 2016 51
In 1703, Richard Hogarth, father of the painter, set up a coffee house in the east tower of the gate–all conversation was held in Latin. Later in the century, Samuel Johnson worked from a garret there
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Fig 7: The Council Chamber, restored by Oldrid Scott in 1885–6. In the background of Queen Victoria’s portrait, Prince Albert is shown wearing the regalia of the Johanniterorden. This connection may have been important in securing the Queen’s support for the revived order
Some restoration work followed, but, in 1873, the tavern was placed on the market. Its purchaser was Sir Edmund Lechmere, who had loved the gate since his schooling at Charterhouse (as a boy, he had touchingly given five shillings to Griffith’s cause). He was also a leading member of a group that aimed to revive the Order of St John in England. Bizarrely, the roots of this idealistic revival were bound up with an attempt by the French langue to raise money in London and intervene directly in the fraught politics of the Holy Land. Sir Edmund bought the tavern as a working concern, with the intention that the Order would, in future, purchase it as its headquarters. Prior to its first lease of the building in 1879, he commissioned Norman Shaw to start the work of restoring the fabric. Ironically, at exactly the same time, the inner court was being cut in two by the construction of the Clerkenwell Road. Then, in 1885, the architect Oldrid Scott began a new series of much more ambitious changes to the building intended to accommodate 52 Country Life, February 10, 2016
the revived Order, which was now growing on an exponential scale across the globe. This expansion was born of a determination, first manifest in the 1870s, that the new Order should provide medical facilities for the public. This undertaking hearkened back to the Hospitallers’ original purpose, but it was also inspired by the nascent Red Cross and the activities of another revived branch of the Order in Germany, the Johanniterorden. Crucial to its success was the foundation of the St John’s Ambulance Association in 1877, an umbrella for local volunteer ambulance services that offered equipment and a first-aid training service. This association spread immediately across the Empire. On the strength of its growing stature, the Order finally bought the freehold of the gate in 1887. The following year, it was issued with a royal charter of incorporation by Queen Victoria. This established a new British order of chivalry, whose members—uniquely—are approved by the Crown, but independently proposed
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to its ranks. Like the Johanniterorden, it is Protestant, but affiliated with the Catholic Order of the Knights of Malta. Oldrid Scott’s alterations to the gatehouse provided a theatre for the Order’s ceremonial. They included the Council Chamber of 1885–6 over the gate (Fig 7) and the Chapter Hall built in an extension of 1899–1913 (Fig 5). He also worked on the former chapel, since 1721 a parish church. In 1931, this was returned entirely to the use of the Order, but its interior was completely destroyed by bombs in 1941. Ninian Comper proposed an astonishing centralised replacement, but— sadly—economy prevailed and it was restored instead by Seely and Paget in 1951–8 (Fig 3). Their dignified work incorporates an enclosed garden on the site of the medieval cloister (Fig 8). Otherwise, the Order has done much to preserve the setting of the gate in the 20th century. It now houses a museum that tells the extraordinary story of the Hospitallers and their modern heirs, the Order of St John, who continue to work across the world towards the ideals of their motto: ‘For the faith and in the service of humanity.’
Fig 8: Seely and Paget’s 1950s cloister garden to the south of the church incorporates this figure of the crucified Christ www.countrylife.co.uk
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A drop of golden nectar Walkers Daffodil Fields, Lincolnshire
The flatlands of Lincolnshire are ablaze with daffodils invigorating the landscape for several weeks each spring, finds Jacky Hobbs Photographs by Clive Nichols
Left: Putting down roots: Johnny Walkers, seen in his Lincolnshire fields, is a thirdgeneration bulb grower. Preceding pages: ‘And then my heart with pleasure fills/ And dances with the daffodils’: some 10 varieties are planted en masse, but Mr Walkers’s collection extends to the hundreds
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T’S quite a sight: wave upon wave of resplendent daffodils washing foreground and horizon in bold, unbroken splashes of gold and silver. Reminiscent of the Dutch bulb fields, the Lincolnshire district of South Holland continues to promote daffodil cut-flower and bulb cultivation; its flat, silty landscape mirrors the growing conditions of the Low Countries just across the North Sea. To gardeners and the Chelsea Flower Show’s regular visitors, Taylors Bulbs is one of the most familiar names in British daffodil growing and one of its directors, Johnny Walkers, has long been a driving force both in promoting good commercial varieties and in conserving heritage cultivars. He guides me through the immense, colour-blocked fields of daffodils
grown for commercial cut-flower and retail-bulb production. Only 10 or 11 varieties are selected annually for these mass plantings, whereas Mr Walkers’ specialist collection amounts to almost 600 named cultivars. Perhaps surprisingly, several of the older strains are still commercially preferred ahead of many modern varieties. Big, strong and ever-popular Carlton has been around for a long time and was described by the eminent plantsman E. A. Bowles in 1934 as having ‘wide cups with frilled edges… in soft duckling yellow’. ‘Carlton is more than 100 years old, but it’s one of the best all-round, midseason daffodils,’ advises Mr Walkers. ‘It naturalises easily, can be forced and is good for cut-flower and bulb production.’ Other commercial stalwarts include early-flowering Ice Follies, bearing big,
Gold by the acre
● The bulbs are planted out in ridges, to enable efficient mechanical handling, over the course of three weeks, during September. ‘I remember, when I was a schoolboy, we used to plant five rows in a bed, with a horse and cart; nowadays, we use adapted, mechanised potato-planting equipment, which has saved the daffodil industry, although it hasn’t been able to do the same for the tulip,’ explains Mr Walkers. ● Commercial daffodils can only be grown on the same soil for one year in eight, so they’re rotated with potatoes, sugar beet, wheat, cauliflowers and peas over 350 acres annually, from a pool of 2,500 acres. Aside from the application of fungicides and herbicides, the crop remains undisturbed for
56 Country Life, February 10, 2016
15–16 months until flowers are ready to pick, from February onwards. ● The UK market dies after Easter, but yellow daffodils remain a popular export to Scandinavia, Belgium and Holland. By June, the field bulbs have reenergised and are mechanically lifted, cleaned and graded. The smaller bulbs are hotwater-treated before being replanted to bulk up; the larger ones are packed and distributed to garden centres and mail-order customers. ● Potential new varieties are only bulked up after having undergone rigorous trials for overall heath and stamina. Out of 15,000 crosses made and planted, perhaps 25 of them will be considered worthy of selection for trial, potentially the long-lifers of the future.
white petals with a pale yellow trumpet—registered in 1953, it ranks as a relative newcomer. Although it’s robust and makes a good cut flower, supermarkets apparently dislike white daffodils, so it doesn’t always get chosen. ‘In the old days, the local markets would know all the varieties, but the chains simply want bulk,’ advises Mr Walkers. Ice King, a sport of Ice Follies, registered in 1984, is another commercial favourite, ‘a superb daffodil with a double-frilled centre’. Jack the Lad, a mid-season double, rescued by Taylors from Rosewarne Research Station when it closed down in 1989, also merits bulk cultivation and regularly adorns the springtime fields of Lincolnshire. www.countrylife.co.uk
Nowadays, we use adapted potatoplanting equipment, which has saved the daffodil industry
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Mr Walkers is a third-generation Above: Sunshine on a cloudy day: bulb grower. His Dutch grandfather commercial farmed in the bulb district of Hillegom rows of golden in the Netherlands, but it was his Narcissus Pinza father, Martinus Walkers, who came with its eggto England in 1933 to work for Otto yolk centre. Taylor, of Taylors bulbs. After the Second Right: N. Pink World War, Martinus went into partnerCharm ship with an English bulb grower and young Johnny would pick flowers, clean and plant bulbs for pocket money. Demand for the rare and unusual daffodils he privately collected over many years eventually led to the founding of his own bulb business (found online at www.bulbs.co.uk). Modern cultivars of his own breeding include Penny Hill (1990), named after the local windmill at Holbeach and ➢ www.countrylife.co.uk
Worth getting to know Johnny Walkers selects some of the best of the collection Fragrant cultivars • Fragrant Breeze Huge flowers, white with a yellow inner and heavily perfumed, reminiscent of freesias • Raoul Wallenberg Really tall; a huge, pale-lemon hibiscus-like flower with an immense frilled rosette; slightly perfumed Heritage Hero, one of the first orange-cupped trumpet daffodils, which has also been successfully used in breeding by fellow enthusiast Ron Scamp (COUNTRY L IFE, February 19, 2014), notably as a parent of Plymouth Hoe, one of Mr Scamp’s finest. Away from the golden glare of the mass-planted commercial fields, Mr Walkers has secreted away his catalogue of specialist bulbs: variegated ribbons of daffodils in all tones and combinations of colour from white through to orange, yellow, peach and, more recently, pink. They span the 13 daffodil divisions in a cacophony of colour and form: short or tall, open-faced or reflexed, some of them perfumed. Reared outdoors, these robust, heavyheaded blooms dance on sturdy long legs as the wind whips across the flatlands. This isn’t a cossetted collection—they are buffeted, but not battered. There are two fragrant, old-fashioned species: Narcissi poeticus recurvus—the ancient Pheasant’s Eye—and double-flowered, white N. albus plenus odoratus, together with some 600 hundred cultivars dating from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. The oldest of them in Mr Walkers’s collection is Beryl, registered in 1907: ‘It’s a very popular short variety with small flowers and attractive reflexed petals. I can never grow enough.’ Irene Copeland (registered 1915) is ever popular, a great old double, with creamy white flowers. Mr Walkers’s own introduction, Penny Hill, is one of the newest cultivars, a late-flowering yellow. Georgie Boy, named after Prince George and registered in 2014, is white with a lemon-yellow trumpet. Walkers Bulbs, Washway House Farm, Holbeach, Spalding, Lincolnshire (01406 426216; www.bulbs.co.uk) 58 Country Life, February 10, 2016
• Irene Copeland An old double with olive-green foliage and creamy-white, huge double petals, seemingly iridescent in the morning dew New pinks • Pink Charm A distinctive red/ pink ruff to the trumpet • Precocious An ivory outer and full pink ruff Unusual form • Quail Triple-headed, elegant and slender with buttery yellow flowers • Paricutin With a curious flat, yellow floret and contrasting open orange centre • Orange Crest Citrus yellow with a wide trumpet, dip-dyed deeper at the edges • Pinza Bright, clear yellow with a tightly puckered egg-yolk trumpet. Very popular • Dolly Mollinger Like a freshly poached egg, with the whitest of white outers and a golden yolk middle Huge
From top to bottom: The unusually flat Narcissus Paricutin; the muted tones of super-sized N. Easter Bonnet; and Orange Crest with its dark-edged trumpet
• King Size Massive yellow outer petals with rich, hibiscus-like pip to its inner • Lemon Cloud Huge, pale lemon, slightly seer-suckered, up to 4in– 5in across • Easter Bonnet Huge ivory petals with a massive lampshade of an ivory trumpet • Limbo A large-cupped midseason variety with deep egg-yolk orange • Penny Hill Named after the old windmill at Holbeach • Panache A waxen, sturdy, pure white bloom, very popular
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In the garden
Mark Griffiths
Winter’s iris is worth searching for
Andrew Lawson/MMGI; Alexan24/Dreamstime.com
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ARDEN centres and florists are full of pots of delightful dwarf bulbous irises—cobalt and violet clones of Iris reticulata, golden I. danfordiae, hybrids such as the opal and primrose I. Katharine Hodgkin and so irresistibly on. Among them, you’ll not find the greatest winter-flowering iris of all, the Algerian iris, Iris unguicularis (syn. I. stylosa), a very different plant that’s more often admired than sold. However, now is the time to take note of it and to place an order with one of its few suppliers for delivery later in the year. A native of North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean and Greece, I. unguicularis was introduced to our gardens in the 19th century. Since then, it has rarely strayed beyond the cottages of connoisseurs and the houses of the grand. This winter, I. unguicularis has surpassed itself, blooming continuously since November and still showing no sign of stopping. The dark months are its natural flowering season, but it usually proceeds in fits and starts, withholding its gifts whenever extreme cold threatens. In 2015/16, however, it has abandoned all such restraint, convinced by the prolonged spell of wet and mild weather that it’s enjoying a protracted version of the precious winter rainfall on which it depends in its arid native haunts. Unlike most other early-flowering irises, it has no bulb or tuberous
Remember my name: unsung hero Iris unguicularis Marondera
rhizome and it’s evergreen, producing large clumps of tough, grassy and ground-trailing leaves to 18in long. Butterfly-like and easily 3in– 4in across, the flowers are borne low amid the foliage. The conspicuous part of the petals is broad, outspread, silky and typically lilac or lavender to blue-mauve. At its centre, a white zone is bisected by a gold flash and overlaid by veining and stipple. Hidden below, the petal’s base is long and narrow, ‘unguiculate’ in botanical parlance, hence this species’ name.
Horticultural aide memoire No. 6: Chit potatoes The potato, that unique vegetable, now resurfaces in the grower’s consciousness. Having chosen our intended first early cultivars for this year, we must now start them into growth. The potato isn’t hardy, so we begin indoors. Look through the ‘seed’ tubers and weed out any feeble or damaged duffers. Then, take a seed tray and set each tuber upright, with the ‘rose’ end—that bearing the most buds— facing the sky. Rest each neatly against the others and label securely. Place the tray on a shed windowsill to sprout. If frost threatens, lay newspaper loosely on top overnight. SCD
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This winter, Iris unguicularis has bloomed continuously since November
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Despite not having stalk, Algerian iris flower excellent for arranging in vases and glasses indoors, where warmth will coax from them a perfume that is both green and vernal and anticipatory of summer’s riper pleasures. Choose buds that are plumply Champagne-flute-shaped and about to unfurl; run your fingers gently down their stalks, following them as deep into the leaf crown as possible and pluck them at this point. In the garden, it needs full sun and fast drainage. The classic site is against a south-facing house wall in soil that’s stony, impoverished and liable to dry out in summer, but I’ve had superb results
on sunny banks and in spaces created by lifting paving slabs on terraces; in both cases, in soils that are more fertile and consistently moist (but never, never long-term wet). I’d like to see it spread beyond its traditional strongholds, to town gardens, roofscapes, raised planters, containers, water-conscious public landscapes and Modernist designs, especially if our current weather trend continues. Here, after all, is a lowmaintenance, ground-smothering, drought-proof, evergreen ‘grass’ that repays hardship and neglect by producing, when we least expect them, blooms that are very heaven. My favourite suppliers are Broadleigh Gardens and Avon Bulbs, which, in addition to typical forms, offer cultivars such as the rich-purple Mary Barnard, iceblue Walter Butt and large, lavender Marondera. These are sold as bare-root divisions that, for their first year with you, will appreciate more generous watering and feed than usual. Once they’re established, the main concern is the leaf tussocks, which become tatty over time and a haven for flower-devouring slugs and snails. Wholesale cutting back is disastrous: the foliage is designed to endure and is painfully slow to regenerate. Instead, I pick over clumps, teasing and trimming out withered leaves (and routing molluscs). Late summer is a good time for this, in readiness for the flowers and growth that cold, wet weather will bring. Iris unguicularis dislikes disturbance and can be left to its own devices for years, but spring is when to lift it if you must. It’s also when to take side divisions consisting of at least one strong fan of foliage—which, covetous friends will soon tell you, you absolutely must. Mark Griffiths is editor of The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening Next week: What’s in a name? Country Life, February 10, 2016 59
Dance of the funky chickens
There are breeds of poultry so spectacular they scarcely seem real, yet, as Kylie O’Brien discovers, many can make ideal pets, once you know how
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’M peering at what looks like a powder puff balanced on paleblue legs. A tiny beak pokes out of a perfectly spherical cape of feathers, each one laced and tipped with white. The eyes are buried somewhere beneath an elaborate crest, muffing and beard. This is a hen, but not as we know it. It’s one of Clare Beebe’s chamois, buff-laced Polands, as far removed from my own red-and-brown Sussex hens as I am from Zsa Zsa Gabor. Polands are one of a group of fantastically feathered birds most usually kept to exhibit by those ‘in the fancy’. Mrs Beebe, now retired to Norfolk, is well known as an exhibitor and a show judge as well as a committee member of the British Poland Club. She has bred these cheerful creatures, more feather duster than hen, for the past 15 years and considers them the royalty of the poultry world. ‘They’re a little high-maintenance compared to other birds, but I love everything about them. They’re such characters.’ Keeping Polands (named after the odd shape of their head, from the Middle Dutch word pol rather than the country) needs time and some expertise— their crests should be checked
Which chicken?
Robert Dowling/Corbis; Lynn M. Stone/naturepl.com; Cynoclub/Dreamstime.com; John Millar/COUNTRY L IFE Picture Library
Photographs by John Millar regularly for black crest mite and they’re prone to eye infections, usually because a feather has grown into the eye (this can be avoided by tying the crest in a band). They can also catch cold easily in wet weather, although you can dry their crest with a hairdryer.
I’m peering at what looks like a powder puff on legs
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‘They’re hardy and live outdoors, but they can spooked because they can’t behind themselves,’ advises Mrs Beebe. ‘They can also get lost or stuck in strange places, so it’s best to keep them confined to limit the chances of them hurting themselves.’ Although keeping ‘fancy’ fowl is still a minority interest, it’s gradually gaining ground—last December’s National Federation Championship Show had a record 7,200 entries. Chris Parker of the Poultry Club of Great Britain believes it’s a natural
development among hen-keepers. Ruffling feathers: Clare ‘During the recession [in 2008], people Beebe’s fellow started to keep hens for their eggs Poland exhibitor and then they realised what super Claudia pets they make. They set out keeping Camillerihybrids [bred for prodigious eggGoldup gives production], then they find they like her bird the look of the pure-breeds they see a blow dry at shows and the hobby develops.’ Mr Parker keeps Sebrights, a dolllike ‘true’ bantam originally bred by a group of poultry-fanciers in the early 1800s. The aim was to produce the perfect bird and, led by Sir John Sebright, MP for Hertfordshire, they developed a magnificent hen-feathered bantam (meaning that the male has few sickle feathers) with precise, almond-shaped, crisply laced feathers. Sir John would have been proud of the prodigious showman and vet Robin Creighton, who has won more supreme champion titles (four) at the two ‘Crufts’ of the poultry world, the National Poultry Show at Telford, Shropshire (this year on November 19–20), and the Federation of Poultry Clubs Championship Show on Staffordshire County Showground (December 17–18), with his Sebright and silver-spangled Hamburg than anyone else; he has applied to Guinness World Records ➢
Appenzeller
Brabanter
Comes in black, gold-spangled and silver-spangled (the most common) and is named after the lace bonnets worn in the Appenzell region of Switzerland. Has flighty tendencies, so not one for beginners
Ancient rare Dutch breed with a forward-facing crest similar to the Appenzeller, but with a tri-lobed beard and muffling around the face, which was the subject of d’Hondecoeter’s painting A Hen with Peacocks. Suitable for novices, with a little care
60 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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Brahma One of the largest breeds, with heavily feathered feet and a vast square frame, it has Asian roots, but was created in America in the 1840s; several were sent to Queen Victoria. Good for children, but prone to being bullied by a mixed flock and needs wide doorways
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Polands They come in chamois, gold, silver, self-white, self-black, white-crested black, whitecrested cuckoo and white-crested blue, plus a frizzle variety with shaggy, forward-turned feathers. Friendly and easy to handle, but prone to health problems
Frizzle The frizzle gene appears in many breeds, including the Pekin and Poland, but is now recognised in the UK as a breed. Its feathers offer little protection from wind and rain, but they make good broodies and an even greater talking point
Country Life, February 10, 2016 61
Houdan Named after Houdan in Fr and arrived in the UK in the 1 where it was bred as an e ition bird. Has an impres crest and five toes (linking it Poland and the Dorking, which it was created). Its needs attention, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recommended for begin
62 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Modern game Striking, fine-boned bird with long neck, tightly feathered ail, slim body and long legs red purely for showing after cockfighting was banned n 1849. The tiny bantams are popular, but are easy prey for hawks and cats so need sheltered pens
Russian Orloff Named after the Russian Count Orloff Techesmensky in the 1880s, it has an upright carriage, small wattles, walnut comb and a beard and whiskers. A hardy type that is suitable for novices (with some care)
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As a rule of thumb, a hen with brown earlobes will lay brown eggs and hens with white earlobes produce white eggs. For beautiful blue eggs, you need an Araucana. The cream legbar, which has some Araucana blood, lays green-blue eggs, although it may not do so consistently. The prolific white leghorn produces large, pure-white eggs; those of the brown-and-red Sussex hens are an attractive pale brown, sometimes lightly speckled. Marans are renowned for deep-brown eggs and Welsummers produce gorgeous, large, terracotta-brown speckled eggs.
How to win at hide and seek: Robin Creighton’s Sebrights, a breed designed to be the ‘perfect bird’, are prolific winners in the showing world
Transylvanian naked neck Brought to Britain from the Transylvanian region of Hungary in the 1870s, its bare neck looks shocking. As delightful in character as it is ugly, it’s easy to handle, friendly, hardy and is an excellent layer of large eggs www.countrylife.co.uk
as the country’s most successful breeder of show poultry. In 2015, he was just pipped at the post; his fine large Hamburg won reserve at the Federation, beaten by a racy Golden Duckwing Modern Game. ‘However, he’s the first bird ever to win more than one show/ reserve supreme champion,’ he tells me proudly. Mr Creighton’s secret is a mathematical approach, in which he is able to predict what the first and second generation of his breeding pairs will look like, based on many years’ close observation of fowl. However, there’s a strong emotional attachment, too: ‘Sebrights and Hamburgs are so beautiful. I love rearing them and seeing them grow, then, when you get a really good one…’ His preparation is meticulous. ‘Sunlight makes their feathers go yellow, so, in summer, they go in covered runs. On the day, I wash them, I’ll remove any odd-shaped feathers and clean their feet. They’re very tame, so I wear a white coat like the judges do to get them used to it.’ He also feeds them canary seed to pep them up at the show.
Hamburgs aren’t generally recommended for beginners, but Mr Creighton believes they shouldn’t be the preserve of exhibitors: ‘They’re all individual characters and make great pets and it’s not an expensive hobby.’ Some of the more outlandish breeds of chicken are understandably rare: the Yokohama, with its fabulous sweeping tail and saddle feathers, should never be allowed near mud, the Japanese onagadori needs extra-high perches to accommodate its 25ft tail (due to a recessive gene that prevents moulting) and the deafening Kosovo longcrower can let rip for up to 60 seconds. Others, however, such as the noble Russian Orloff, simply fell from fashion. This aristocratic, otherworldly bird, which originated in northern Iran, is a monumental-looking creature, powerfully built, with a hooked beak and heavy Tolstoyan brows. It’s far from gloomy, however, makes a great pet and lays well. I talk to Jayne Gillam as she’s bathing and blow-drying 17 of her Orloffs for the Federation show. She’s mystified as to why this handsome, if slightly scruffy, creature isn’t more ➢
They’re all individual characters and it’s not an expensive hobby
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Pekin A ball of fluff on legs with gloriously feathered feet, it’s also known as a miniature cochin, even though it’s no relation. The first buff pekins were brought to the UK by the British army returning from Beijing in 1860. An ideal garden pet, it comes in lavender plus partridge, white, birchen and silver partridge
Kimberly White/Corbis; Jean Michel Labat/ardea.com; Richard Bailey/Corbis; Robert Dowling/Corbis; Cynoclub/Dreamstime.com
Shades of shell
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Dutch booted Named after the extravagant feathering on the feet and hock joints (known as sabels in Dutch), this exhibition bird is becoming increasingly popular as a pet. It comes in spectacular colours, including lemon millefleur
Country Life, February 10, 2016 63
Henny Penny Ltd; Omlet; Robert Dowling/Corbis; John Millar/COUNTRY L IFE Picture Library; Richard Bailey/Corbis
popular. ‘Orloffs have such a great character. They’re easy to breed and look after, they’re not at all flighty and they’re beautiful to look at, with that lovely regal air.’ Mrs Gillam is secretary of the Russian Orloff Society, which was founded in 2011 to encourage keeping, breeding and exhibiting the birds and to help attract newcomers to the breed, which had fallen to seriously low levels. She keeps 30–60 birds at her home on Silsden Moor, West Yorkshire. ‘I live 750ft above sea level and it can be bleak at times, but Orloffs can thrive in colder climates, which is one of the reasons I decided to keep them,’ she explains. Another easy bird for beginners is perhaps the strangest of all: the comical silkie, with its black face, wattles and crest, black skin, black bones and soft, fluffy backside. Les Wilson doesn’t show his 100 or so silkies—‘it’s too much trouble’—but sells them ‘from the gate’ at his home in Sinnington on the North Yorkshire moors or in the rare-breed sale in York (the next one is on April 23). He has 100 or so bantams in total, in five colours: black, blue, gold, partridge and white. Children find them adorable. ‘People do like them for pets,’ he says, ‘and they’re very good broodies. They don’t fly, they’re docile and easy to sell.’ I’m tempted to spice up my own hen house, I must admit. Perhaps it will be a Pekin among the flowerpots and a Brahma in the border this year. My lovely Sussex girls had better watch out. The Poultry Club of Great Britain (01830 520856; www.poultryclub.org) Rare Poultry Society (01263 577843; www.rarepoultrysociety.co.uk) Successful Poultry Breeding (for exhibition) course at Highgrove, Gloucestershire, on February 24, £49.95 (0333–2222 4555; www. highgroveshop.com)
Grand designs: where to find houses fit for fancy birds
Far from cooped up: ‘You see Mabel, I told you that glamping would be better than Ibiza’
❍ Hen House Home (01379 678085; www.hen-house.co.uk) Bespoke and off-the-shelf hen houses, including a coop styled on a Victorian boat house with shingle roof (price on application). Characterful ready-made versions include the Henley (£486, plus £155 if painted) for seven hens to one for up to 70 fowl (£2,700, plus £400 if painted) ❍ Henny Penny Hen Houses
up to 18 chickens). Runs, wheels and legs can be supplied ❍ Omlet (www.omlet.co.uk) A byword for modern hen houses made from plastic, which are easy to clean, avoid the problem of mites and lice and are useful for small spaces. Convenient and colourful, the Eglu Classic chicken coop (below) for 2–4 birds starts from £314.99 ❍ Flyte so Fancy
(01904 819000; www. hennypennyhenhouses.co.uk)
(01300 345229; www.flytesofancy.co.uk)
Top-of-the-range hen houses with trademark thatched roofs, including the Chalet (right, £999 for four birds) and the Manor House (£2,490 for 18 large, privileged hens). The Chalet comes in your choice of Farrow & Ball paint (£1,332)
Pretty arks, elaborate chicken houses and even gypsy caravan-style coops (above) from £299 (including VAT). The granary hen house, at 6ft wide and 4ft deep, is the largest, at £990, and comes with timber staddle stones, perches, external nestboxes and a walk-in front door
❍ Smiths Sectional (01630 673747; www.smithssectionalbuildings. co.uk) Robust, no-nonsense and beautifully built arks and bantam houses on wheels, from £195 (inc VAT) up to the Thicket (£730 for
Barbu d’Anvers
Sebright
The dandy of the poultry world, also known as the Bearded Antwerp Bantam (barbu means bearded), it has an owllike face, a ‘boule’ of neck feathers and a wealth of beard and muffling. The hens are friendly, but the cockerels can be aggressive
Exquisite, doll-like bantam, hen-feathered laced with black. It was formed by a group of English poultry fanciers who wanted to develop the perfect bird. Not for the novice, they’re prone to Marek’s disease
64 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Silkie Ancient, diminutive Asian breed with furlike feathers and blue earlobes, five toes (like the Dorking and Houdan) and almost black skin. Calm, docile birds, they make delightful children’s pets. Keep away from mud
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Reel Life
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David Profumo
Another man’s treasure
E anglers all know there is much more to fishing than the mere catching of fish and, for my money, the collecting of piscatorial paraphernalia is one of the chief ancillary pleasures of our pastime. For the past few years, one of my main sources has been Mr John Andrews, purveyor of Vintage Fishing Tackle for the Soul. We first met in 2010, at a festival where we were both reading from the oddball anthology Powerlines (edited by the novelist Dexter Petley, who dwells in a yurt in Normandy). I already knew John’s writing from his contributions to Classic Angling magazine and the excellent website Caught by the River. He was reading his contribution to the anthology, from the work-in-progress Tunnyland —a semi-fictional fairy tale set in the heyday of the big game sport off Scarborough—and I was immediately taken by his quirky imagination, deadpan wit and profound knowledge of the social history of fishing. He introduced me to his website, Andrews of Arcadia, and I’ve been a devotee ever since. When you click on the pike’s eye, you enter a parallel world in which ephemera, piscatoriana and antiques of a wayward nature are on offer. John has adopted a pastiche persona of a Victorian showman hawking his wonderful wares— of his weekly stall at Spitalfields market, he declares: ‘I shall have with me items worthy of museum cabinets but instead to be put upon the velvet in front of your very eyes.’ Arcane objects from mahseer teeth to reels by Allcocks or Abu are for sale, under headings such as ‘Just In, Sir’ or ‘Under the Counter, Madam’. I recently acquired a boxful of venerable celluloid prawn baits and an old permit for the Downton Castle Fishing. When www.countrylife.co.uk
John Andrews tempts the author with a carp skeleton at his London stall
When Mrs Reel Life visited his stall, he sold her the sign above it
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Mrs Reel Life visite stall, he actually sold her th above it: ‘Tackle Wanted. Cash Paid.’ Quietly spoken, thoughtful and immaculately turned out (we share a penchant for cravats), John regards the objects in which he deals as possessing a talismanic power; they are reliquaries that offer an insight into the lives of previous owners. In an age of aerial fishing drones, this belief—which I entirely understand—strikes me as faintly heroic. But he’s no otherworldly poseur or mere
retro-heritage trader. In a previous career, he was marketing manager for the indie record label Creation Records—‘staffed by a mixture of drug bunnies and superfly beats’—and dealt with bands such as Oasis and the Super Furry Animals (nowadays, he occasionally deals in taxidermy). A sparky, evocative stylist in his blog, John admires Bernard Venables and Arthur Ransome, that cynosure of columnists. In 2002, he published For All Those Left Behind, a poignant memoir following the premature death of his army-officer father, in which he confronts loss by returning to his early love of the sport, from Skye to Cuba and beyond. It deserves to be better known and suggests much about the author’s unique combination of nature writing and introspection. Most Thursdays, he’s open for business at the market, where
‘tea is drunk by the gallon Imperial’ and ‘there is usually a small gathering of “anglers lost” in the vicinity’. The day I visited, one chap brought him a bag of courgettes, another bore news of the bass movements off Dungeness and a Japanese tourist was haggling over a (japanned) box of guteyed flies. ‘I may have something for you,’ he winked at me, huckster fashion. And, from beneath his stall, he withdrew a magnificent mounted carp skeleton— ‘a proper old wildie’—that immediately took my fancy. John acquires most of his goodies privately—auction prices having proven prohibitive—and this trophy hailed from a Sussex boarding school. I feigned a lack of interest and returned to supping my Tetley’s, but the former marketing manager had scented a deal. ‘Much to the delight of my good lady wife Deborah, aka The Empress of Arcadia,’ writes John, ‘I retain an extensive personal collection.’ I’d dearly like to have a peek at that. Most recently, he purchased a child’s dress made entirely from Spratt’s dog-biscuit bags, possibly dating from 1939— the company once manufactured ground bait, thus the tenuous historical connection, typically idiosyncratic. Over a lunchtime pie in the company of our mutual friend and fellow author Luke Jennings, I finally succumbed to the lure of that Arcadian carp and smuggled it home. Mind you, I did get some odd looks on the Underground. Contact John Andrews either via ‘Electric Pigeon’ (visit www. andrewsofarcadia.com) or ‘Field Telephone’ on 07980 274383 David Profumo caught his first fish at the age of five and, off the water, he’s a novelist and biographer. He lives up a glen in Perthshire Country Life, February 10, 2016 65
London’s burning! The roaring flames of the fire that destroyed a quarter of our capital city are depicted in this 17th-century Dutch School painting. In the foreground are shown the crowds escaping with their possessions. About 70,000 people were made homeless by the fire, which burnt for nearly five days. It’s one of a series of English urban conflagrations that are a particular phenomenon of the late 17th century
X marks the spot This year marks the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London. Curiously, the spot on Pudding Lane where it broke out has been forgotten. With the help of a 1679 plan, Dorian Gerhold finally reveals the exact site of Mr Farriner’s oven 66 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Where it all began: using the 1679 plan, the precise location of king’s baker Thomas Farriner’s oven can be identified. It is shown marked on the ground of Monument Street with an X. The Monument to the fire is visible to the rear www.countrylife.co.uk
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VERYONE knows that the Great Fire of London in 1666 (350 years ago this year) began in Pudding Lane. Look closely at the existing accounts of the fire and you find they are vague about exactly where in Pudding Lane. Astonishingly, knowledge of where one of Britain’s greatest urban disasters began has been lost. A commemorative stone was placed on the site in 1680, blaming Catholics for the fire, but it was removed in about 1750, not because of greater honesty, but because too many people stopped to look at it. This was before there were street numbers, which would have made the site easily identifiable.
A commemorative stone was placed on the site in 1680, blaming Catholics for the fire, but it was removed in 1750
Museum of London, UK/Bridgeman Images; John Goodall; London Metropolitan Archives, City of London
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A plan of 1679 recently disc d among the City Corporation’s s at London Metropolitan Ar s has now pinpointed the exact site. It shows an empty L-shaped plot belonging to the City on the east side of Pudding Lane, and on it is written ‘Mr Fariners grounde there the Fyer began’. This was Thomas Farriner, the baker, from whose oven and bakehouse the fire spread. The plot can be identified on later maps as 23, Pudding Lane. It appears with exactly the same shape on plans of 1886 for the creation of Monument Street, which crosses Pudding Lane, and is now within the roadway of Monument Street; the short part of the L clips the pavement on the south side. Here then was the house where the alarm was raised at about 2am on September 2. From here, Farriner and his family escaped through an upstairs window to an adjoining house and, here, the maid who refused to make the dangerous climb became the first victim. The area immediately behind the next plot (Mr Taynton’s on the plan) was identified in 1679 as the small yard where Farriner had kept his wood for firing the oven, so here the fire found its first fuel. The www.countrylife.co.uk
This 1679 plan, recently discovered among the City Corporation’s records, has shed light on the longforgotten location of Farriners bakehouse, the starting point of the Great Fire of London. The distinctive shape of the plot shown in the plan can be traced through later maps to a precise position on the roadway
X
1
4
2
X The site of the oven, 202ft from the centre of the Monument 1 ‘Mr ffariner’s grounde there the ffyer began’ 2 Vertically, ‘Mr Taynton south’ 3 ‘Pudinge Lane west’ 4 The site of the small yard where fuel for the oven was kept
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Monument provides the final clue. Its inscriptions state that the fire began 202ft to the east. Those who measured the distance must have thought they knew exactly where the fire began and this can only mean Farriner’s oven, despite his denial that it began there. Tracing 202ft takes us almost to the back of the main part of the plot,
or to the middle of the short part of the L, so the latter is the probable site. The fateful oven was therefore in the southern lane of Monument Street about 60ft east of Pudding Lane.
A full account of this research will appear in the ‘London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Transactions’ this year Country Life, February 10, 2016 67
Love in a cold climate
From the Song of Solomon to Richard Mabey, Jonathan Self celebrates the way the countryside has inspired some of our greatest love stories
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HAT do Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy, Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, Eve Halliday and Rupert Psmith and thousands of other famous couples from English literature have in common? They met, wooed and fell in love in the countryside. Not any old countryside, either. Pride and Prejudice is partially set in the Peak District, with its wild and dramatic heather moorland, blanket bogs and limestone plateaux; Far from the Madding Crowd takes place in the rolling Dorset hills with their chalk downs, ancient bluebell woods and unspoilt farmland; and the courtship scenes in Leave
it to Psmith occur in the lush, golden, if fictional, Vale of Blandings. Appropriately enough, the connection between romance and Nature can be traced back to the father of English literature: Geoffrey Chaucer. It’s one of the themes he explores in Parlement of Foules, which includes, coincidentally, the first ever mention of sending Valentines: ‘For this was on Seynt Valentynes day,/Whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make.’ However, even Chaucer was late on the scene. In the Song of Solomon, we learn of the first dirty weekend on record, when the Beloved says to Her Lover: ‘Come, let us go the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages.’
Nor should it be forgotten that Adam and Eve dwelt in the Garden of Eden, Socrates thought romantic love was a form of divine madness arising from the beauty of the earth and Virgil, in his Eclogues, says ‘Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori; hic nemus; hic ipso tecum consumerer aevo’, which, happily, Dryden took the time to translate into: Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound: The woods, the fountains and the flow’ry ground: As you are beauteous, were you half so true, Here could I live, and love, and die with only you.
Artists also like to portray romance in a rural setting. To cite a few examples, Gherardo di Giovanni del Fora’s The Combat of Love
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You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since—on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens
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The blossoms appear in the countryside. The time of singing has come, and the turtledove’s cooing is heard in our land Song of Solomon 2:12
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It’s all I have to bring to-day,/This, and my heart beside,/This, and my heart, and all the fields,/And all the meadows wide ‘It’s All I Have To Bring Today’ by Emily Dickinson
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Never to be forgotten, that first long secret drink of golden fire, juice of those valleys and of that time, wine of wild orchards, of russet summer, of plump red apples, and Rosie’s burning cheeks. Never to be forgotten, or ever tasted again ‘Cider with Rosie’ by Laurie Lee
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As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I should prefer the delights of a garden to the dominion of a world John Adams in a letter to Abigail Adams, Philadelphia, March 16, 1777
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op Images/UIG via Getty Images; ZUMA Press Inc/Alamy
and Chastity, Millet’s The Angelus or Hughes’s The Long Engagement. Why, since early times, have writers and philosophers, not to mention poets and painters, chosen to link the passionate with the pastoral? Vita Sackville-West offers a rather matter-of-fact answer: ‘I suppose the pleasure of country life lies really in the eternally renewed evidence of the determination to live.’ Of course, she is partially correct. Close proximity to the birds and the bees can frequently bring about a strong desire to mimic their behaviour. However, her explanation fails to take into account a much more significant factor: being surrounded by natural beauty induces
in many an overwhelming desire to share the experience. Omar Khayyaám puts it well: A book of verse, underneath the bough, A jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness— Ah, wilderness were paradise now!
Moreover, the object of one’s affections and the landscape can merge, as Thoreau points out: ‘The lover sees in the glance of his beloved the same beauty that in the sunset paints the western skies. It is the same daimon, here lurking under a human eyelid, and there under the closing eyelids of the day.’ Love in a rural setting is different from love in an urban setting. To begin with, Cupid is likely to draw back his bow and let
his arrows fly towards a higher percentage of the population. A couple of years ago, Really, a television production company, surveyed 2,000 British adults. Those who lived in the country fared considerably better than those who lived in built-up areas. To begin with, close to 8 in 10 said they had found their soulmate, almost double the number of townies. Their relationships endured an average three times longer, with 6 in 10 having lasted for at least a decade, compared to 2 in 10 among the urbanites. Touchingly, half of them said ‘I love you’ at least once a day, a figure that falls to only a fifth in the city. The fact that romance flourishes where ‘fieldes have eies and woods have eares’ has
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I love your hills and I love your dales,/And I love your flocks a-bleating;/but oh, on the heather to lie together,/With both our hearts a-beating! ‘Where be ye going, you Devon maid’ by John Keats
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led to some interesting developments, not least a drift back to the countryside by those searching for love. Evidence of this is provided by a rash of dating agencies with names such as Muddy Matches (www.muddymatches. co.uk), Farmer Wants a Wife (via Muddy Matches) and Countryside Love (www. countrysidelove.co.uk) that cater to city slickers yearning for permanent relationships in a more bucolic setting.
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination
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Anthony Brown/Alamy Stock Photo; BBC Films/DNA Films/Fox Searchlight Pictures/The Kobal Collection/Alex Bailey; Vintage; Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
Voltaire
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There’s also a new genre of literature, especially popular in Australia, called Rural Romance, which has produced such modern works of genius as Man Drought by Rachel Johns, Beneath Outback Skies by Alissa Callen and Fifty Bales of Hay by Rachael Treasure. It’s why I suspect 40,000 single people descend every year on the Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival (www.matchmaker ireland.com) in my native Ireland. None of this, incidentally, would have come as a surprise to Emile Durkheim, the 19th-century French philosopher, who was deeply concerned with the effect industrialisation—and, in particular, the move from a rural society, in which everyone knew their place, to an urban society, where roles were not clear—had on the individual. He noted that when people moved from country to city, they began to feel increasingly alienated and purposeless. ‘No wonder,’ one can hear him saying, ‘that people are choosing to move back.’ Whether you live in town or country, whether you have found your other half yet or not, there can be little doubt that love is more likely to flourish when one is closer to Nature. Especially at this time of year, when the early signs of spring are making themselves felt, the sap is starting to rise and there is And at home talk of St Valentine on everyby the fire, whenever one’s lips. Indeed, perhaps the you look up there moment has come to heed Christopher Marlowe’s plea: I shall be—and
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Comelivewithmeandbemylove And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
whenever I look up, there will be you ‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy
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I love you already, and if these things be done in the dry tree, what shall be done in the green? ‘Precious Bane’ by Mary Webb
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Books to be swept away by ❍ Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen ❍ Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee ❍ Nature Cure by Richard Mabey ❍ Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy ❍ The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ❍ Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx ❍ Love Among the Chickens by P. G. Wodehouse ❍ Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë ❍ The Wild Irish Girl by Lady Morgan ❍ The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
www.countrylife.co.uk
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All right, petal?
While the rest of London is asleep, the New Covent Garden flower market on the banks of the Thames is a hive of industry. Olivia Williams finds that its future looks rosy 72 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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ITH its hundreds of stalls opening at 4am and with the first few hours of business taking place before sunrise, Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest flower market has something of the air of a well-kept secret about it. The metal-and-concrete exterior, so incongruously ugly in comparison to its beguiling contents, disguises a bustling interior filled with sights, sounds and layers of scent that evoke a production of Pygmalion. Behind the marketâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heavy green door, row upon row of buckets brimming with roses, hydrangeas, hellebores and
narcissi jostle for attention in the vast hall. These familiar blooms contrast with more exotic specimens from all over the world, from Chilean peonies and Italian ranunculi to South African sugarbushes and Thai orchids. Even without being arranged into elaborate bouquets, many of the flowers are showstoppers in their own rightâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; dark-purple calla lilies, dainty sprays of viburnum, fragrant eucalyptus and orange Icelandic poppies immediately spark the imagination. Little wonder that party planners, florists, restaurateurs, frugal brides and the odd adventurous tourist brave the early start to venture www.countrylife.co.uk
here for the chipper advice that comes with their bargain foliage. Andy Noble, who works at the Alagar stall (020–74980170; www.alagarltd. co.uk), has been selling flowers at the market for 37 years. Before that, he remembers his father bringing him when it opened in 1974, to show him where he worked. ‘I wasn’t allowed on the trading floor, but my Dad showed it to me from the gallery,’ he reminisces, gesturing up at the balcony that runs the length of the hall.
Britain’s largest flower market has the air of a wellkept secret
Everything’s coming up tulips: the New Covent Garden flower market (above and top right), now based at Nine Elms, London SW8, is still frequented by loyal florists and restaurateurs
Being a stallholder is rele work, with Mr Noble getting up 0am to set up in time. Although arket is still busy, he says that it’s ‘not quite the same’ these days. ‘The internet and supermarket shopping have made this a much trickier job than it was in my father’s time,’ he laments. Huge Dutch wholesale lorries that sell directly to London businesses have also appropriated much of the traditional trade from both the growers and sellers. However, plenty of intrepid florists remain faithful to the market. Daisy Allsup, who runs her own business, Flowers by Daisy (07523 055579; www.flowersbydaisy.co.uk), arrived at 5am on the same day I visited, to examine some bright snowdrops on a dark morning. Despite the unearthly hour, she assures me that it’s well worth getting out of bed for: ‘There’s endless inspiration to be found at New Covent Garden. I try to follow the seasons and buy British where possible, picking out whichever flower looks the best that morning and taking it from there. I’m not much of a planner—I prefer to let the market guide me. As well as the flowers you know and love, there’s often something surprising—a new colour or variety to enjoy.’ Before moving to Nine Elms, the market was, as its name suggests, located in Covent Garden, London WC2. However, this year—due to the fact that the area has recently become a sought-after property hotspot for its picturesque riverside location in the heart of the city—the market faces further upheaval. The rapid pace of change in the area is reflected by the way cranes, new blocks of luxury flats and posters advertising
www.countrylife.co.uk
Oliver Knight/Alamy Stock Photo; Amer Ghazzal/Alamy Stock Photo
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forthcoming hotels, supermarkets and the futuristic American Embassy, flank the market. In spite of all this change, the market will remain in the area, but the building it’s housed in is to be knocked down, with the traders moving to a temporary home in October, until their new premises are ready in 2022. For all the anxiety one might expect this to create, the traders seem broadly optimistic about the rejig, even though their new trading floor will be much smaller. Just like Mr Noble, Jonathan Hart of J. H. Hart (07958 297795;
jonnhart@yahoo.co.uk)—who has sold flowers at the market for 32 years— followed his father into the business. Neither man is particularly worried about the move and, now that there are fewer sellers, Mr Noble says it makes sense to fit the flower hall into the smaller space. And what of the future? ‘As a family, we’ve been in the business for more than 70 years. We’re in it for the long haul,’ he says with a smile from behind his counter. New Covent Garden Market, London SW8 5BH (020–7720 2211; www. newcoventgardenmarket.com)
Where to find the best blooms ❍ St George’s, Belfast (028–9032 0202; www.belfastcity.gov.uk/ tourism-venues) ❍ Moseley Farmers’ Market, Birmingham (0121–449 3156; http://moseleyfarmersmarket.org.uk) ❍ Columbia Road Flower Market, London E2 (www.columbiaroad.info) ❍ Swansea Indoor Market (01792 654296; www.swanseaindoormarket. co.uk) ❍ Edinburgh Farmers’ Market (www.edinburghfarmersmarket.co.uk; 0131–220 8580) ❍ Western International Market, Middlesex (020–8573 5624; www.westerninternational.co.uk) ❍ Flowervision, Bristol (0117–977 8889; www.flowervisionbristol.co.uk) Country Life, February 10, 2016 73
Simon’s Kitchen
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VER since first eating confit de canard, in the Dordogne region of southern France in the late 1960s with my parents, all crisp and rich (the duck, not Ma and Pa), I have forever loved all things salted and preserved. The French confit means ‘preserved’, but it’s also the prefix of confiture (jam)—as I’m sure most of you already know. Furthermore, I also gaily went on to guzzle gizzards (gésiers), hot and salted, fatty chunks of pork belly (rillons—the big daddy of rillettes) and rich duck liver, of course.
Ever since first eating confit de canard in southern France, I have forever loved all things salted and preserved
Jason Lowe
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Much later in life, I di red salted fish. A further r tion of preservation and hat, if one can possibly say this, eclipsed my love of this way with poultry and meat, but it remains a very close call. For anyone who adores salt cod as much as I do, then it may well have been either Portugal, Spain (particularly in Barcelona) or northern Italy (especially in the Veneto), where this Nirvana first took place. For this enthusiast, it was in the Douro valley behind Porto, where a simple piece of grilled salt cod (bacalhau) and potatoes (also grilled) sent me to that very paradise. Once doused with local olive oil of rare pungency and eaten together with pitchers of very cold local white wine, the promised land was given. Simon Hopkinson is the founding chef and co-proprietor of Bibendum restaurant, London 74 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Simon Hopkinson
Perfectly preserved
Simon Hopkinson is transported to the promised land by a feast of salt cod and gésiers Italian salt-cod stew with potatoes (baccalà in umido) Serves 4 Ingredients 120ml–130ml extra-virgin olive oil 750g–800g medium-size waxyish potatoes (red-skinned desirée would be my choice), peeled and thickly sliced 1kg salt cod, soaked overnight, skin and any stray bones removed, cut into 4cm–5cmsize pieces 1tspn chilli flakes, or less, to taste 4 cloves garlic, crushed and roughly chopped 250ml dry white wine Salt Flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped —about 4 heaped tbspn Method Pre-heat the oven to 170˚C/ 325˚F/gas mark 3. Take a large, lidded casserole (a Le Creuset
would be ideal, here) and pour into it 2tbspn of the given olive oil. Place a single layer of the potatoes in the base of the pot, then a randomly placed layer of the salt cod. Sprinkle with some of the chilli flakes and a little of the garlic. Repeat these layers three times (depending on the width of the pot), finishing with a final layer of potatoes; the finished dish doesn’t necessarily need to have a ‘layered’ look to it, but the layering does, however, assure even cooking throughout. And, anyway, the layers will be well disturbed before serving, as the final addition of the parsley is stirred in. Now, pour in the white wine and the rest of the olive oil. Warm the pot over a low flame for about 5 minutes until the wine and oil are quietly bubbling away beneath the fish and potatoes.
Cut out a circle of either greaseproof paper or foil (slightly larger than the circumference of the pot) and place it over the top layer of potatoes, tucking it in around the edges to make a reasonable seal. Finally, pop on the lid, place in the pre-heated oven and cook for about 45 minutes or until the potatoes are tender when poked with a sharp knife. Remove from the oven, take off the lid and discard the paper/ foil. Add the parsley and carefully stir it into the assembly, making sure that it is as fully distributed as possible. Return the pot to the oven without its lid, turn up the heat a little and continue cooking the stew for a further 15 minutes or so; if the potatoes lightly gild during this final cooking, so much the better, but this isn’t essential. What is essential, however, is the heat of the dish: it must be served piping hot!
Layers of flavour: the salt-cod is layered with potatoes, chilli and garlic in this fragrant stew www.countrylife.co.uk
Shiver me gizzards: this classic salad dish from the south of France, with hot confit duck gésiers, makes a substantial lunch or supper
Two final notes: depending upon the salinity of the soaked cod, a little extra salt may need to be added to the dish, so taste a small piece of the fish to make sure. Also, it may at first seem alarming to witness quite so much oil floating on the surface of the dish. Don’t flinch from this, as, once the stew is carefully stirred, then served onto (hot!) plates (or shallow soup plates, even better), it will naturally distribute itself and is, after all, part of the charm and an authentic feature of this extraordinarily delicious and rich recipe; the potatoes are particularly wonderful when crushed among the fish. www.countrylife.co.uk
Salad of poultry gizzards Serves 4 Ingredients 75ml olive oil 2 cloves garlic, crushed 2 thick slices from a large sour dough loaf, cut into 2cm cubes Salt and freshly ground black pepper For the dressing 1tbspn Dijon mustard 1 clove garlic, crushed with a little coarse sea salt to a paste 1tbspn red-wine vinegar 75ml extra-virgin olive oil 1 large head of frisée 8 confit duck gizzards, thinly sliced 3 hard-boiled eggs, shelled
Method In a small pan, warm together the olive oil and garlic for cooking the croutons. Leave for a few minutes to infuse and then sieve into a roomy frying pan. Heat until moderately hot, put in the bread and quickly toss together until very lightly coloured, then tip into a roasting tin and bake in a moderate oven for 7–10 minutes or until golden. Season lightly with salt and cayenne and scoop out onto several folds of kitchen paper. Put to one side. To make the dressing, whisk together the mustard, garlic and vinegar. Add the olive oil in a thin stream and continue whisking until amalgamated.
To make the salad, ruthlessly remove all the very bitter outer green leaves from the outside of the frisée until only the inner pale-yellow heart remains. Wash this well, then separate it into wispy tendrils and dry them in a tea towel. Place in a roomy salad bowl and combine with the dressing and croutons. Briefly fry the gizzards (commonly found in tins or jars) in a dry frying pan for a moment or two and turn out onto the salad. Grate the eggs over the gizzards and mix well—hands are best, here. Serve forthwith.
Follow @Simonhopkinson on Twitter Country Life, February 10, 2016 75
Focus on the Visual Arts
Edited by Michael Hall
The power behind the painting A new gallery in Cambridge has opened with an exhibition of British paintings collected by Sir Alan Bowness, former director of the Tate. Painted between 1955 and 1965, they are among the finest achievements of a group of artists whose fame owes much to Sir Alan, as Ruth Guilding explains
Fig 1 above: Alpine (1963), by Richard Smith, one of several works in the collection given by artists to Sir Alan Bowness in lieu of professional fees. Fig 2 below: Boulder Coast (1952) by Peter Lanyon, an evocation of the rocky Cornish landscape
university’s library. The paintings are a highly personal selection, all belonging to the 10-year period when St Ives in Cornwall became the crucible for British Modernism and Sir Alan was a magus figure, presenting its artists to a wider world. During his long career, he was involved everywhere, teaching, governing, advising or running institutions that included the Chelsea School of Art, the Royal College of Art, the Courtauld Institute, Bath Academy of Art at Corsham Court, the Arts Council, the British Council, the Contemporary Art Society and Kettle’s Yard. As Director of the Tate Gallery from 1980 to 1988, he instigated or oversaw projects for the Clore Gallery, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and its Hepworth Museum and established the Turner Prize. Afterwards, he was Director of the Henry Moore Foundation and, following the death in 1975 of his mother-in-law Dame Barbara Hepworth, Sir Alan ran the Hepworth Estate and played a role in setting up the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and the Hepworth Wakefield Gallery.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge/Flowers Gallery; Sheila Lanyon/All Rights Reserved, DACS 2016. Modern Art Press
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AST week, Downing College, Cambridge, opened a new art gallery, converted from its Edwardian stables. The Heong Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, ‘Generation Painting 1955–65’ is a display of star works by a galaxy of artists who hefted Britain into a leading role in the international art world. Rarely seen in public before, they were collected by Sir Alan Bowness, who is, with Kenneth Clark and Herbert Read, one of the great cultural powerbrokers of 20th-century Britain, but remains much less well known. For almost half a century, his hand guided our existing and emergent art institutions and, during their renaissance, he acted as a kind of head gardener, fertilising and sowing the soil from which they sprang. Designed by the architectural partnership Caruso St John, the new gallery is the gift of an alumnus of the college, Alwyn W. Heong, a New York-based fund manager. From these former stables, to which they have added entrance foyers and a garden court, the architects have created an austerely beautiful toplit single space beneath a pitched roof, finished in natural oak and painted boards, with a dark floor of encaustic tiles. Its modesty nods to Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge, four renovated cottages that, since the 1950s, have housed the modern art collected by the curator Jim Ede.
He realised that he could make art history and use his patronage to secure reputations
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The pictures in the Heong Gall inaugural exhibition, curated by R Rose Smith, have been selected from a much larger gift of works made to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, by Sir Alan—also an alumnus of Downing—who has, in addition, given his books and catalogues to the 76 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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realised that the prevalent British view that there was no future in abstraction was wrong: ‘On the contrary all kinds of abstract art, from painterly to constructivist, were possible.’ Working as the Arts Council’s regional representative, he went down to St Ives, then already recognised as the only centre of artistic innovation in the country that could challenge London. He had a Cornish grandmother and felt an atavistic tug to its landscape that was, he wrote, ‘long inhabited, with stone circles and quoits everywhere and a field pattern that lies unbroken for two millennia’. Here, Sir Alan was befriended by the king and queen of St Ives, Ben Nicholson (who was already poised for flight) and his former wife, Barbara Hepworth. Sir Alan joined their artistic dynasty by marrying their daughter, Sarah, in 1957. Returning to St Ives each year thereafter, he fell in with a slightly younger ‘middle generation’ of artists: Peter Lanyon, Patrick Heron, Terry Frost, Bryan Wynter and Roger Hilton.
They were “the spearhead of what one might call the New British Painting”
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Fig 3: Drift (1961) by Lanyon, bought by Sir Alan soon after he first saw it in the artist’s studio Sir Alan was given his first picture on his 21st birthday, in 1949, a lithograph by Keith Vaughan in the manner of Graham Sutherland, which he hung in his rooms at Downing. When he left the Courtauld Institute in 1955, after two years studying the new discipline of art history under Anthony Blunt, the postwar economy and the British art market both remained frail. Paris was the well-spring from which Impressionism and post-Impressionism, the Cubism of Braque and Picasso, Surrealism and the revolutionary inventions of Léger, Delaunay and Matisse had flowed, but war had starved our artists of Continental influwww.countrylife.co.uk
ences. Those of combatant age, such as John Piper and Eric Ravilious, had joined Clark’s propagandising contingent of war artists, but Vaughan, who was self-taught, and the art student Bryan Wynter had been forced to labour as conscientious objectors. It was assumed that France would resume its lead and Sir Alan bought prints by Pierre Soulages and Alfred Manessier, artists who then seemed poised for greatness. However, while Europe had been at war, Paris had lost its ascendancy. Sir Alan saw the light between 1956 and 1959, the dates of two major exhibitions of contemporary American painting at the Tate Gallery, and
In their different ways, they were oving away from figurative work a re making ‘painting about painting’, something so new and significant that it could stand as a riposte to the phenomenon of American Abstract Expressionism that was then in the ascendant. Frost, Hilton, Wynter, Heron and Lanyon, with Alan Davie and William Scott, were, for Sir Alan, a ‘team’ at the frontline of the national style that he could play against the American artists whose work had been shown so recently at the Tate. For him, they were ‘the spearhead of what one might call the New British Painting’, marking a newfound confidence and a power shift that could give Britain parity with the exciting innovations coming out of America. Sir Alan would go on to preside over the British art world, where his greatest contribution was to influence the market in the fluid space where commercial and cultural institutions overlapped. Meeting dealers and artists and building his collection, exhibiting work and creating the ideal context for its reception, he realised that he could make art history and use his patronage to secure artistic reputations. He bought pictures whenever he could and asked for ➢
Country Life, February 10, 2016 77
Focus on the Visual Arts
The Estate of Patrick Heron/All rights reserved, DACS 2016; Estate of Roger Hilton/All rights reserved, DACS 2016; William Scott Foundation 2016
Fig 4 above: Patrick Heron’s Soft Vermilions with Orange and Red: April 1965, which was first exhibited in New York the same year. Fig 5 below: April 1961 (1961), a demonstration of Roger Hilton’s ability ‘to make marks and signs that were sensual and suggestive’
others in lieu of fees, such as Alpine (1963) by his near-contemporary Richard Smith (b.1931), a graduate of the Royal College of Art, who was inspired by Pop Art and cigarette advertising (Fig 1). Unsurprisingly, Sir Alan still sees mid20th-century British art in the terms in which he framed it 50 years ago. For him, the ‘Middle Generation’ of artists remains synonymous with the ‘ten good years’ when he was most closely active as an explorerdiscoverer, scouting the works that would enter our national collections, lecturing, writing and covering his own walls with new art. Drawn from these ‘ten good years’, his choices for Downing’s show are also shaped by friendship, appreciation, scholarship, circumstance and his preference for pictures that ‘reward long looking’. Sculpture is unrepresented, despite Sir Alan’s direct links with Hepworth and Moore, because, as he puts it, ‘we have works by Hepworth at home and they don’t seem to welcome other sculptures’. Some of the very best paintings were tokens of friendship: from Patrick Heron (1920–99), the critic-cum-painter who had helped Sir Alan to promote St Ives from the beginning (Fig 4), he received Horizontals: March 1957, one of the artist’s first investigations made using pure colour 78 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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after breaking with his earlier figurative work. Peter Lanyon (1918–64), who was then developing his painting as a contact sport, running, swimming, climbing, hanging over cliffs, cycling and gliding over the landscape, became a close friend, hailing Sir Alan as a fellow Cornishman. Sir Alan’s admiration for the dynamism and expressive qualities that Lanyon had adopted from Abstract Expressionism is demonstrated by three outstanding examples of his work in this show.
I was fortunate in knowing them well... Art, like music, is its own language
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Boulder Coast (1952), with its gro shapes and earth tones (Fig 2), is a cation of the local landscape painted r the influence of Lanyon’s former tutor Adrian Stokes (1902–72), employing Stokes’s psychoanalytic approach to map his personal experience of landscape through ‘placeness’. Drift (1961) and Loe Bar (1962) catch us up in the bird-like experience of riding the thermals, with paint swept in cloudy waves across the canvas and land slipping in and out of veils of wind-blown wrack (Fig 3). ‘I saw Drift in Peter’s studio when it was just painted in 1961 and simply felt at once it was a picture I had to have,’ Sir Alan has said. Sir Alan refers to his puritan streak and a preference for ‘pictures that might be called difficult, which have secrets that are only slowly revealed… I like my colour subdued, often monochrome, the artistic gestures restricted and the eroticism present but hidden’. A post-Cubist landscape Yorkshire Black and White (1955) by Terry Frost (1915–2003) is more orderly and subdued than his later, chromatic work. January 1962 (Tall White) (1962), a single, pallid, phallic form painted by that intelligent, restless artist Roger Hilton (1911–75), received in lieu of curatorial fees, also falls into this category. For Hilton, striving to make marks and signs that were sensual and suggestive was a form of challenge and self-interrogation (Fig 5). The formal Blue Still Life (1957) by William Scott (1913–89), a painting that haunted Sir Alan for years before he could acquire it, is typical of Scott’s flattened, table-top compositions. But Scott’s Ocean (1960), a work of emulation made after encountering Mark Rothko in New York, www.countrylife.co.uk
Fig 6: William Scott’s Ocean (1960), which has hung above Sir Alan’s desk for more than half a century. ‘It still remains mysterious to me,’ he says is much bigger and bolder, a giant blue field divided by horizontals within which lesser forms are shrouded or embedded (Fig 6). It has hung above Sir Alan’s desk, an object of daily contemplation, for 50 years. ‘It still remains mysterious to me, a palimpsest of forms and gestures suggesting the residues of a still life,’ he writes. Sir Alan is understandably proud to share these paintings that testify to his special relationships with the pathfinders of British Abstract art with a wider public. ‘I was fortunate in knowing them well and in being
able to talk and write about the work, though in the end I feel it defies verbal analysis and demands something more like a gut response,’ he recalls. ‘Art, like music, is its own language.’
‘Generation Painting 1955–65: British Art from the Collection of Sir Alan Bowness’ is at the Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge, until May 22. Admission is free. For more information, visit www.dow.cam.ac.uk or telephone 01223 334800 Country Life, February 10, 2016 79
Property market
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F walls could speak, what secrets would those of elegant 73, Chester Square SW1 (Fig 1), in the discreet heart of London’s Belgravia, reveal about the life and times of the late Baroness Thatcher, whose home it was for 22 years, from 1991 until shortly before her death in 2013? ‘This is a real collector’s piece, an intriguing house that very few people have seen from the inside, which has been refurbished in a timeless, quintessentially English way by specialist developer Leconfield— well known for its work in this exclusive part of London,’ says Richard Gutteridge of selling agents Savills (020–7730 0822), who quote a guide price of £30 million for the freehold. The white stucco-fronted house, listed Grade II, which stands in the quietest corner of this pretty garden square, is one of a terrace of 12 Regency town houses built by the Grosvenor family from 1835 onwards as part of the development of the main part of Belgravia, which included the creation of nearby Belgrave Square and Eaton Square. Arranged over four principal floors, 73, Chester Square has a lower ground floor and basement. In contrast to the classic, refreshingly bling-free, late-Georgian main building, a mews house to the rear has been rebuilt from scratch in contemporary style to provide a light-filled family kitchen, a roof terrace and a lower-ground floor housing a media
Penny Churchill
What’s in a name? An illustrious former resident or owner can make a historic property even more attractive
Fig 1: A Prime Minister’s Belgravia bolthole: 73, Chester Square (below) has been elegantly restored (above and right). £30m
room, a gymnasium and a convivial bar area with a temperature-controlled wine cellar for 500 bottles of wine or Champagne. Back in the main house, highprofile prospective purchasers will be impressed by features retained from the Thatcher era that include the inlaid ‘73’ plaque in the doorstep installed on her arrival in 1991, the steel-lined, bombproof front door and the original security glass in all windows facing the square. Areas of the house previously adapted to accommodate the Iron Lady’s security detail have been reintegrated and upgraded as part of the overall restoration. The design and
layout of the formal dining room and interlinking study on the ground floor has reverted to how it was in Lady Thatcher’s time and the spectacular first-floor drawing room, with its lofty ceilings and views of Chester Square—reputedly her favourite room —now boasts a pair of original Louis XVI fireplaces and parquet flooring matching the house’s original floor. The imposing master suite, comprising a large double bedroom, a dressing area and a master bathroom, occupies the entire second floor; five further bedrooms are housed on the remaining floors. Leconfield has striven to achieve ‘the perfect balance between traditional www.countrylife.co.uk
Find the best properties at countrylife.co.uk and contemporary living’, with more than a nod to the style and standing of its late owner. Such fine attention to detail is shown in the choice of rare Hopton stone from a small Derbyshire quarry—originally used in the Palace of Westminster and at Chatsworth House—for the floors of the entrance hall and kitchen. Grey and red brick with rusticated stone doorways and surrounds were the materials of choice for the construction by Sir Edwin Lutyens, in 1911, of Mulberry House (Fig 3) at 36, Smith Square, Westminster SW1, for the Liberal MP Reginald McKenna, later Chancellor of the Exchequer. Recently refurbished by its British owners, the substantial, 11,720sq ft building is now for sale through Hathaways (020–7222 3133) and Knight Frank (020–7881 7722) at a revised guide price of £19.95m. According to COUNTRY LIFE (June 6, 1931), a frisson of excitement ran through the drawing rooms of Westminster when the financier and politician Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett, commissioned the architect Darcy Braddell to ‘redecorate’ the drawing room and dining room in what is described as ‘one of the boldest, most complete and original schemes of decoration of our time’. Taking advantage of ‘that useful margin of strength with which all Sir Edwin’s work is endowed’, Braddell remodelled the walls and ceilings of the two grand rooms in polished stone,
as offices. Its current owners, who bought it in 2006, have revitalised one of Westminster’s most distinguished family homes, whose pièce de résistance is Lutyens’s majestic first floor, with its 37½ft-wide drawing room, panelled library and travertine stone-clad dining room. They have also installed a grand sweeping cantilevered staircase from the ground to second floor and created seven bedroom suites, plus staff accommodation.
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An intriguing house that few have seen inside Fig 2: Historic Hurstbourne in Highgate N6 has also been recently refurbished. £14m
engaging the Academicians C. S. Jagger and Glyn Philpot to decorate them with a startling display of erotic sculptures and paintings. Jagger’s Art Deco bronze bas-relief entitled Scandal is now part of the permanent collection at the V&A and all that remains of the ‘decoration’ is the travertine stone lining in the dining room and a polished marble architrave and surround in the drawing room. Mulberry House was bombed during the Second World War and later used
Fig 3: ‘One of Westminster’s most distinguished family homes’: Mulberry House in Smith Square SW1 £19.95m
Trevor Abramsohn of north London agents Glentree International has taken time out from berating the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the woes of the big-house market, to celebrate—with fellow agents Knight Frank and Savills—the sale of The Halcyon in Winnington Road, N2, for a figure ‘not far off the asking price of £32.5m’. For Mr Abramsohn, ‘the clue is in the name Halcyon, a reminder of the luxurious living standards of the glorious past in a thoroughly modern context. The sale represents one of the largest transactions to take place in London for some time—the only trouble is we need more!’ That elusive next winner may come sooner rather than later, following the launch onto the market of Hurstbourne (Fig 2) at 16, Bishopswood Road, Highgate N6, through Glentree (020–8458 7311) and Savills (020– 7472 5000), at a guide price of £14m. A fine six-storey Victorian house, built in 1878 and previously part of Highgate School, Hurstbourne has been comprehensively refurbished by ground-breaking international developer Atelier and its façade enhanced by an English Heritage blue plaque, commemorating its occupancy, from 1923 to 1967, by 1922 Nobel Prizewinner Archibald Hill. Set in splendid landscaped gardens laid out in about 1920, Hurstbourne boasts a grand entrance hall leading to the formal reception rooms, a large open-plan kitchen/diner, a vast master suite, five large bedrooms with bathrooms, a cinema room and a swimming-pool and leisure complex.
Country Life, February 10, 2016 81
Property news
Edited by Arabella Youens
Earls Court reborn
One of the biggest regeneration projects in west London since the Second World War is under way. Arabella Youens asks the experts whether now is the time to invest
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ARLS COURT has remained a bit of an anomaly on London’s residential map given that it’s sandwiched between some of the most expensive real estate in the country: no longer the landing pad for freshly arrived Australians to store their backpacks and further still from its reign in the 1970s as the heart of the capital’s gay nightlife scene, it still juxtaposes gritty bedsits with soaring town-house prices. Part of its lack of identity could be linked to the fact that it’s sliced through by two streets, the very unlovely Earls Court Road and the even less attractive Warwick Road, which are thoroughfares of dual-lane traffic day and night. However, all this could be on the verge of change with the redevelopment of the Earls Court exhibition centres —and the surrounding 77 acres of former goods yards and wasteland— that is currently under way. The first phase of this redevelopment—which, uniquely in London, is being carried out by one developer, Capco (which also owns Covent Garden)—is already off the ground at the former Earls Court exhibition centre car park in Seagrave Road. Anyone who remembers a scruffy, open expanse bordering the railway sidings up the west side of the Brompton Cemetery will be surprised to see a series of smart mansion-block-style apartments, with gardens designed by Chelsea gold-medal-winning designer Andy Sturgeon—the first residents are due to move in later this year. According to Henry Lumby of Savills (020–7016 3808) sales of phase one of Lillie Square have been brisk; starting prices for phase two begin at a punchy £799,000 for a one-bedroom flat. ‘It’s been popular with people wanting to downsize from the local area as well as family investors and we anticipate that there will be lots of owner-occupiers once the project has been completed.’ For these considerable sums, residents will be able to take advantage of a 20,000sq ft clubhouse on site, which will have a gym, swimming pool, sauna, private dining area and, for those wanting to cut a certain dash, a fleet of the latest 82 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Lillie Square is the first of four new urban villages on the Earls Court/ West Brompton border. Its resident clubhouse ‘aims to provide services more akin to a fivestar hotel’
Aston Martins will be waiting to escort them into town. According to Mike Hood of Capco, this clubhouse will be ‘one of a kind in the capital, which aims to provide the services and lifestyle more akin to a five-star hotel’. Lillie Square is the first of four new urban villages due to be built in the ground formerly occupied by the exhibition centres as well as, more controversially, local-authority housing blocks, which are due for demolition.
It’s traditionally suffered from having no amenities, but that’s about to change
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In total, 7,500 new homes will be built and a new high street will run from North End Road to Warwick Road and a new north-south thoroughfare, The Broadway, will link Cromwell Road to Lillie Road. Finally, a new ‘green lung’, the Lost River Park, will form part of the 7½ acres of green space set aside in the scheme. So is it time to invest? ‘I’ve worked in this part of Fulham since 2009 and that area has been “up and coming” for years, but has never up and come,’ says Sam McArdle of The
Buying Solution (07918 561050). ‘However, with this new scheme on the cards—which some say is one of the biggest regeneration projects in central west London since World War Two— for someone willing to play the long-term game, this could be a really good bet.’ The key, according to Sam, is to ‘tread carefully’. He advises: ‘If you’re interested in going in at this early stage, don’t make mistakes about buying the right unit. The vital thing to remember is that, when all the buildings complete, the market will be awash with flats, so, unless yours stands out—a good floor, an exceptional view—you might struggle to find a good tenant.’ Another option would be to opt for a property in one of the surrounding streets that, until now, have arguably suffered from lack of amenities and then piggy-back on those provided by the new development. Addresses such as Earl’s Court Square and Nevern Square have already benefitted from an uplift of interest in the area, says Ashley Wilsdon of Middleton Advisors (020–7370 4242), who says prices have reached £1,700 per sq ft. Sam is advising his clients to look west to Barons Court, just one stop down the Piccadilly and District Lines, where prices remain about £1,100 per sq ft. ‘It’s traditionally suffered from having no amenities, but, as that’s about to change, draw your own conclusions.’ www.countrylife.co.uk
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Property news Town houses
Knightsbridge, £3.7 million Walton Street, SW3 Maskells (020–7581 2216) Tucked away in a Grade II-listed building is this two-bedroom, loftstyle apartment. The rooms are laid out on two floors, covering 1,926sq ft, and have been decorated in a contemporary style to make the most of the dramatic space.
London panorama Marylebone, £8.95 million Marathon House, NW1 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, parking for five cars, 24-hour porter Harrods Estates (020–7409 9047) With views over London, this duplex penthouse comes to the market in excellent condition. The main living room occupies almost the entire top floor and boasts an eat-in kitchen as well as a media room. On the lower floor lie all the bedrooms, including a large master with a dressing room. Chelsea, £3.5 million Camera Place, SW10 Strutt & Parker (020–3411 0867) This three-bedroom house comes with a south-facing terrace and garden. It has been carefully renovated, comes with three bedrooms and bathrooms and covers 1,815sq ft.
Views on the mews Kensington, £4.55 million Adam & Eve Mews, W8 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, garage, roof terrace Lurot Brand (020–7590 9955) This 2,400sq ft mews house lies just off High Street Kensington within easy distance of Kensington Gardens and the Tube station. Finished in a contemporary style, the house has a media room on the lower-ground floor and a large open-plan living/dining room on the top floor plus a roof terrace. 84 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Knightsbridge, £6.95 million South Terrace, SW7 Strutt & Parker (020–3432 4960) Measuring 3,000sq ft, this fivebedroom house sits on a quiet street off the south end of Thurloe Square. The house has been tastefully decorated and there’s a south-facing garden.
www.countrylife.co.uk
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Exhibition ‘Vogue 100’ at the National Portrait Gallery
86 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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Glamour parade
Philippa Stockley is seduced by a dazzling exhibition of Vogue photography, which opens tomorrow in celebration of the magazine’s centenary
Tim Walker; The Condé Nast Publications Ltd
Left: ‘Master of the fantasy fashion photograph’ Tim Walker shot Lily Donaldson for the March 2009 issue. Above: Christie Turlington in a hat from My Fair Lady in February 1992, by Patrick Demarchelier
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HE middle of a World War may not seem the best moment to launch a magazine, but that is what American Vogue’s owner, Condé Nast, did in 1916, when U-boats interfered with shipping it to Britain. Thus began British Vogue. From the start, Vogue’s mix of high-society portraits and highbrow writers, of style and intelligence, was successful. The magazine was aimed in its early
decades at women of a certain class, but it also featured men of note, such as Charlie Chaplin, photographed by Edward Steichen in 1926, and Fred Astaire, captured in a marvellous dancing image of 1939 by André de Dienes. Vogue’s ability to retain editors— Beatrix Miller, 1964–1986; Alexandra Shulman, from 1992 and counting—created a stable framework within which its pantheon of photographers and ➢ Country Life, February 10, 2016 87
The Condé Nast Publications Ltd; Javier Vallhonrat
Facing page: Ocean-going setting: Maggi Eckardt poses alongside RMS Windsor Castle at Birkenhead. By Don Honeyman, July 1960. Above: Javier Vallhonrat photographed Suvi Koponen, wearing Emporio Armani, in the Maldives for Vogue in February 2008
writers could flourish. Cecil Beaton published for 57 years, from 1924 to 1980; when a portrait of the young painter David Hockney was required in 1968, it was Beaton who took it, not David Bailey, who was snapping his way to stardom with lively, reportage-style shots. The National Portrait Gallery’s (NPG) exhibition of 280 images offers an important documentary about British Society over the past century. It’s the happy outcome of what could have been a disaster, for wartime paper shortages led Beaton, among others, to pulp much of his archive for recycling. Although Vogue was the first fashion magazine to publish colour fashion photographs, the images on show—mostly portraits, plus a sprinkling of front covers—are mainly black and white, which has a particularly powerful effect. The exhibition evokes a centurylong cocktail party of the most fascinating and interesting people one could hope to meet: Nancy Cunard (photographed by Man www.countrylife.co.uk
Ray), Diana Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Edith Sitwell; literary lions such as Gore Vidal (Clifford Coffin, 1949) and Evelyn Waugh (Irving Penn, 1952). And then inexorably on towards modernity: Terence Stamp’s brooding face by Terence Donovan (1967), beautiful Martin Amis by Snowdon (1978) and Snowdon’s Rupert Everett posing, apparently naked, behind a window (1983). Jude Law (Albert Watson, 1996) and Keira Knightley (Mario Testino, 2011) look ethereal; Kate Moss makes an undressed appearance in a set taken in 1993 by Corinne Day that sharpened the trend towards model-celebrities. And then there’s Diana, Princess of Wales, photographed by Patrick Demarchelier in 1990: unforgettable. As the photography of the Nineties and Noughties becomes more experimental—ripped, frayed, half-naked—Mario Testino’s 2002 colour image of Prince Charles feeding his chickens at Highgrove in a smart overcoat and shiny shoes offers reassuring calm.
Vogue quickly made a habit of bypassing or exceeding expectation. Although early issues featured plenty of debutantes and chicly dressed women, they were done using explorative techniques that were particularly favoured by Beaton. This is well shown in Soap Suds, a ballgowned group from 1930, whose fairytale effect is created by heaped balloons wrapped in cellophane combined with clever lighting. Soon after, the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group was championed in text and image: Virginia Woolf wrote book reviews, Clive Bell was Vogue’s art critic and Aldous Huxley (broodingly photographed by Charles Sheeler in 1927) was the sub-editor. During the Second World War, the magazine’s secret weapon was model-turned-photographer Lee Miller. The fashion flag never furled in those hard times and two photographs stand out: Beaton’s image of a slender model picking her way through rubble in an immaculately cut wool suit (1941) and Miller’s
shot of two models in smart, rationed trousers (eight coupons each) standing in a field, one contemplating a just-dug vegetable with lively suspicion (1943). Many of the male portraits, particularly those by Tony Armstrong Jones, later Snowdon, are remarkable, not just for their effortless clean lines, but also for the beauty of their young subjects, who are shown wearing their own clothes and looking very relaxed. David Bailey may well have joked that the magazine was run like a point-to-point, but, based on the evidence of the NPG’s new exhibition, this was clearly a good thing: it’s the photographic portrait show of the century, there’s no other way of looking at it. ‘Vogue 100: A Century of Style’, sponsored by Leon Max, is at the National Portrait Gallery, London WC2, from February 11 to May 22 (020–7306 0055 www.npg.org.uk) Next week: Nikolai Astrup at Dulwich Picture Gallery Country Life, February 10, 2016 89
Art market
Huon Mallalieu
Pure and not so simple And now for something completely different in the saleroom: a chastity a Grand Tour souvenir and just what is a baculum?
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HOMAS DEL MAR of Blythe Road, Olympia, is evidently a genderneutral, equal-opportunities, nonsexist, PC sort of auctioneer. Not only did its December sale include a chastity belt (Fig 1), but there was also a baculum. Recent newspapers have enjoyed the story of a middle-aged lady in Padua who turned to the local firefighters for professional help when she had lost the key to her—voluntarily worn—chastity belt. Despite red faces all round, they were able to perform the task. Current thinking on the subject holds that few, if any, such belts were made before the 18th century, and that earlier references were either theological metaphors or ribald jokes. However, it seems worth recording that one of the earliest known examples, which is on display in the Doge’s palace in Venice, is apparently recorded there in an inventory Fig 2: A baculum (left), or penis bone (probably from a walrus) and an African knobkerrie. £1,716 for both
of 1548. Is it pure coincidence that it is described as ‘braga de fero della moier del Signor de Padoa’—the iron pants of the wife of the Prince of Padua? That is a similar design to the belt offered by Del Mar and the company knows of two comparable examples in a German castle collection and another in Austria, They dated this one, ‘probably’, to the latter part of the 17th century because of the style of the scrolling decorative engraving on the, as it were, business plate. This also had stitchholes, indicating that it would have been padded. No key was mentioned, and the small padlock was said to be a replacement, but someone had faith enough to bid it to £18,600. I wonder how many readers could claim, hand on heart, to know the meaning of ‘baculum’. Although I knew what the object it described was, I had never come across the word before. It signifies
Fig 3: Capt Alexander Hood’s sword, sold with a miniature. £5,040
Fig 1: Chastity belt ‘probably’ from the latter part of the 17th century. £18,600
a penis bone, a feature of many mammals and all primates except man and woolley and spider monkeys. Creationists have suggested that the human lack came about because Adam’s baculum was used to create Eve. That at Del Mar probably came from a walrus. It was thought to be 19th century and measured 18½in long and, lotted with an African knobkerrie (Fig 2), was sold for £1,716. The most expensive example recorded at auction made $8,000 in 2007, but that was also the largest on record, measuring 54in. Del Mar’s speciality is arms and armour—the belt came with
a large group of helmets and cuirasses from a German princely armoury—so now to two more mainstream items, but by way of another eccentricity. A small collection from the descendants of Vice Admiral Sir Samuel Hood (1762–1814) included the combination knife-fork made for him when his right arm was smashed and amputated. When I last discussed such an implement (COUNTRY L IFE, February 22, 2012), it provoked quite a correspondence. A number of one-armed warriors seem to have had the same idea, but I think that this will be one of the earliest. Hood entered the Navy in 1776 and fought in
Fig 4: Robe sword, said to be the last worn by him, belonging to Vice Admiral Sir Samuel Hood. £908, with a combination knife-fork made for him when his right arm was amputated 90 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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Fig 5: Grand Tour souvenir cork model of one of the temples at Paestum, possibly made by Domenico Padiglione. £41,712
many actions around the world, but he finally succumbed not to shot or shell, but malaria in Madras at the war’s end. His fork was sold together with a robe sword (Fig 4), said to be the last worn by him, for £908. The previous lot had been a small sword owned by the Admiral’s elder brother, Capt
Alexander Hood (1758–98), not the last, but possibly the second last, that he touched (Fig 3). His final command was the 74-gun HMS Mars, in which he engaged the similarly sized French Hercule off Brest. The ships became entangled and continued to blast each other until the French, with heavier casualties, struck.
was placed in his hand. Henry Singleton made a painting of the subject, which in print form became a pattern for the iconography of the death of Nelson. L’Héritier’s weapon is now at Greenwich, but Hood’s, sold together with a miniature of him attributed to Richard Bull (active 1777–1809), reached £5,040.
Pick of the week I have already written about Matthew Barton’s November sale, based, like Del Mar’s, at Blythe Road, but I cannot resist returning to it to remark on the extinction of mythical creatures. Truly mythical creatures, of course, cannot die, but the real creature that is turned into a myth through misinterpreted reporting can no longer come into being in a world in which everyone has a camera in their pocket. The early European secondor third-hand images of rhinoceroses and elephants are utterly charming because they are bizarre but still have a faint connection to the real thing. When the Portuguese explorer and writer Fernão Mendes Pinto (about 1509–83) returned from the Far East, he brought with him a description of a creature (some say it was a fruit bat) that entered Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese popular mythology as a dragon-headed bird, the caquesseitao or ‘ancestor of the devil’. Models were often used as water-pouring aquamaniles and Barton’s sale included a pair of late-19th-century German silver caquesseitaos made by Schleissner of Hanau, with the added oddity of embossed Classical or Arcadian scenes on the bodies. They still enchanted and sold for £6,600.
www.countrylife.co.uk
Tourists after the Napoleonic Wars were cork models of the temples at Paestum. Such things were first made by Augusto Rosa (1738–84) in Rome, but it was Domenico Padiglione and his family in Naples who made them really popular. Padiglione worked as a model-maker for the Royal Museum, but moonlighted to supply tourists. John Soane acquired cork temples from him through a pupil and they have recently gone on show again at his museum. Another cased example, measuring 30½in wide by 15¾in high overall, was sold for £41,712 by Dukes of Dorchester in December (Fig 5). It is not possible to be quite certain about the attribution, as Padiglione had to keep quiet about his extracurricular activity. In addition, the Duke of Buckingham recorded that the local priest and guide at Paestum also made cork models. In any case, they tend to be impressively modelled and the material suggests ruin and decay admirably. Next week A golfing giant and Goya guesswork Country Life, February 10, 2016 91
Performing Arts
Edited by Jane Watkins
Love rules Geoffrey Smith finds it easy to fall for February
I
’M sure that music programmes in February particularly aim at wit and romance. Call it the Valentine principle: huddled in the midwinter chill, audiences crave the spark of warmth and laughter. It’s in that spirit that the Royal Opera (020–7304 4000; www. roh.org.uk) is presenting its firstever staging of Chabrier’s madcap operetta L’Etoile. Quintessentially French in its elegant nonsense, deadpan Surrealism and exquisitely crafted score, it conjures giddy intrigues in the court of King Ouf, a cheerfully bloodthirsty monarch rather like a Gallic version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Mikado. In her Covent Garden debut, director Mariame Clément makes the most of a largely French cast, headed by Christophe Mortagne as the King, blends whimsical images and colourful sets and even adds a comic pair of actors—French
In its first staging by the Royal Opera, Chabrier’s L’Etiole is rather like a Gallic verion of The Mikado
and English—to the zany mix. Mark Elder conducts with idiomatic zest and the opening-night audience seemed amused, if not altogether ecstatic. L’Etoile shines its quirky light until February 24, when it will be succeeded by Puccini’s Il Trittico, from the 25th to March 15. Still something of a rarity in its complete three-part form, it’s revived in Richard Jones’s staging, with stars from the original production: Lucio Gallo is the vengeful husband in Il Tabarro
What’s new
Bill Cooper; Brescia Amisano
Every spring, the London Handel Festival sheds new light on its great subject. This year’s diverse bill, running from March 8 to April 11, includes the first performance since 1725 of Elpida, Handel’s pasticcio incorporating music by other composers, plus the festival’s first recital in the new studio at the Handel House Museum. The climax is another rarity, the oratorio Alexander Balus, at St John’s Smith Square (01460 54660; www.london-handel-festival.com)
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English Touring Opera sets off on its spring travels, opening on March 5 at London’s Hackney Empire with Gluck’s Iphigenie en Tauride, followed from March 10 to 12 by Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Donizetti’s Pia de Tolomei, before taking to the road (020–7833 2555; www.englishtouringopera.org.uk)
An intriguing programme from star mezzo Magdalena Kozena at Wigmore Hall with the Baroque ensemble La Cetra on March 8,
92 Country Life, February 10, 2016
and the eponymous hustler of Gianni Schicchi and Ermonela Jaho reprises her Suor Angelica. Nicola Luisotti conducts and is also in the pit for the return of Richard Eyre’s evergreen production of La Traviata, March 1–19, with Maria Agresta and Rolando Villazón among the singers. And the keenly anticipated collaboration of Sir Antonio Pappano and Richard Jones in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, starring Bryn Terfel, runs from March 14 to April 5.
Welsh National Opera (029– 2063 6464; www.wno.org.uk) rings the changes on a famous operatic romance in ‘Figaro Forever’, a sequence comprising Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Figaro Gets a Divorce, a world premiere by Elena Langer. The casts include soprano Elizabeth Watts and baritone Mark Stone, in Cardiff from February 13 to 27 and then touring. In Leeds, Mozart’s Così fan tutte has joined Giordano’s Andrea
encompassing Monteverdi’s Il combattimento de Tancredi e Clorinda and Luciano Berio’s avant-garde Sequenza III (020– 7935 2141; www.wigmore-hall.org.uk) The Barbican showcases Thomas Adès, conducting the LSO in his own works and Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter on March 9, followed on the 16th with his Asyla, Franck’s Symphony in D minor and Christian Tetzlaff in the Sibelius Violin Concerto (0845 120 7511; www.barbican.org.uk)
Last chance to see
A perfect union of setting, piece and players: violinist Levon Chilingirian leads Messaien’s ethereal Quatuor pour la fin du temps in the candlelit intimacy of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. February 22 (020–7401 9919; www.shakespearesglobe.com)
Give this a miss I admire the ‘Baroque Unwrapped’ series at Kings Place and may well be a stick in the mud, but my heart doesn’t leap at the prospect of Vivaldi Explosion: The Four Seasons Reinvented on March 17 (020–7520 1490; www.kingsplace.co.uk) www.countrylife.co.uk
ChĂŠnier in Opera Northâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current season, completed by Donizettiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;elisir dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;amore from February 17 to 27, before taking to the road (0113â&#x20AC;&#x201C;243 9999; www. operanorth.co.uk). Back in London, from February 17 to March 11, the ENO is borrowing Opera Northâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s production of Belliniâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Norma, directed by Christopher Alden, with Metropolitan Opera star Marjorie Owens as the doomed priestess. Simon McBurneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s high-tech revival of Mozartâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Magic Flute runs until March 19 and a new production of Philip Glassâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mesmerising evocation of ancient Egypt, Akhnaten, can be seen from March 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18 (020â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7845 9300; www.eno.org). At the Barbican (0845 120 7511; www.barbican.org.uk), Shakespeare reigns in his 400thanniversary year. John Eliot Gardiner conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and his Monteverdi Choir in Mendelssohnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s A Midsummer Nightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Dream on February 16 and Gianandrea Noseda takes the podium on the 25th for Tchaikovskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Overture: Romeo and Juliet, Straussâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tone poem Macbeth and Smetanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Richard III, plus Lizstâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Second Piano Concerto with Simon Trpceski. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s followed on the 28th by Berliozâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Romeo and Juliet Suite and Janine Jansen in the Second Violin Concerto by Shostakovich. From February 18 to 20, the Barbican spotlights jazz, in a residency by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the swinging virtuosos of his Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO). Their vibrant stay begins with a tribute to a contemporary icon, saxophonist-composer Wayne Shorter, who will join the JLCO in arrangements of his best-known works. On the 19th, soloists from the JLCO salute Duke Ellington, with young British bands and, on the 20th, another American classic takes centre stage in Our Love is Here to Stay, the
JLCOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tribute to the immortal George Gershwin. Jazz is popping up even outside its normal rounds. On the South Bank, the National Theatre has just launched August Wilsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s passionate exploration of jazz and blues in the 1920s, Ma Raineyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Black Bottomâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;well worth a visit for both drama and music (020â&#x20AC;&#x201C;7452 3000; www. nationalthheatre.org.uk). Close by, the Royal Festival Hall is presenting its usual array of classical riches, including an unmissable recital by master pianist Maurizio Pollini, performing Schumann and Chopin on February 23. And thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a fascinating orchestral double by Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic in March: on the 5th, Zemlinsky songs and Szymanowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stabat Mater with mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter and, on the 9th, Zemlinkskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tone poem The Mermaid, coupled with Rachmaninoffâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Third Piano Concert, featuring Marc-
On February 11, catch Jonas Kaufmann: An Evening with Puccini, filmed at La Scala, in the cinema. Visit www. jonaskaufmannpuccinifilm. com for more details
Andre Hamelin (0844 847 9915; www.southbankcentre.co.uk). Let the final antidote for dreary February go to a composer for all seasons: J. S. Bach. From the 18th to the 20th, Bathâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bachfest (01225 463362; www.bathbachfest.org.uk) will offer concertos, sonatas, suites and a cantata by the likes of tenor Ian Bostridge, violinist Rachel Podger and the Academy of Ancient Music. Just the thing to hasten spring.
Books
Imperial bodice-ripper Sex and violence play a large part in this new history of the Russian autocracy–John Ure is entertained and illuminated History The Romanovs 1613–1918 Simon Sebag Montefiore (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25 *£22)
Heritage Image Partnership Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
T
HE Romanov dynasty’s 300-year rule over Russia has been variously described as absolutism punctuated by assassination and autocracy tempered by strangulation. Such a system hardly makes for good governance, but there can be no doubt that it does make for a very lively story. This retelling could hardly be more timely: it’s 40 years since Edward Crankshaw published his masterly Shadow of the Winter Palace and new archival material, including letters from the Tsars, has become accessible to scholars. The BBC has recently presented its own serial history of the Romanovs as well as a six-part dramatisation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and we’re all concerned about the state of Putin’s Russia. Some parts of the Romanov story are relatively well known: the reigns and achievements of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, for instance, and the murder of Nicholas II and his family. However, until now, much of the story has been confused and obscured. Did Alexander I connive in the murder of his father? Were the Romanovs neurotically imagining conspiracies against themselves or was it the case that ‘when they denounced a conspiracy no-one believed them until they were assassinated’? In attempting to answer these questions, and to make the most of the dramatic nature of his story, Simon Sebag Montefiore has hit upon the ingenious idea of dividing the history of the Romanovs into three acts, with numerous scenes in each—more like a play than a 700-word series of biographies. He provides lists of the cast of characters involved at the 94 Country Life, February 10, 2016
Emperors Alexander I of Russia and Napoleon I of France meet
start of each scene, which helps the reader to identify an otherwise bewildering cacophony of Slavonic names. The Romanov Court was traditionally many different things at the same time. It was a family estate office managing their vast lands, serfs and wealth; it was an Orthodox crusading order (the Tsar and the Church were mutually dependent); and it was a military headquarters, often presided over by a Tsar, who was less competent than his generals.
Theirs was not a world exclusively “of icons and cockroaches”
‘
There were numerous paradoxes: the Tsar was the Little Father of the peasants and endeavoured to be benign in his dealings with them, but he was dependent on the support of the avaricious aristocracy and the hierarchical civil service. He was at one and the same time above politics and required to be an astute politician himself. He was expected to deliver an expanding empire and glory abroad, at the same time
as encouraging order and prosperity at home. As President Putin finds today, the more hardship increases at home, the greater the temptation to indulge in foreign adventures. However, in the face of all these problems, and despite the dangers of the job (six of the ruling Romanovs were assassinated), and the blinkered self-centred outlook of the last two Tsars, they were, the author contends, a broadly successful dynasty. Theirs was not a world exclusively ‘of icons and cockroaches’, as Trotsky later claimed. They ruled over more than 100 million people and a sixth of the world’s surface; they abolished serfdom five years before the USA abolished slavery; they consistently expanded their territories (an average of 55 square miles a day for three centuries); and they presided over an effulgence of creative literature and music. Despite periodical uprisings—the Streltsy against Peter the Great, Pugachev against Catherine and the Decembrists against Nicholas I —they managed to rule longer than any other autocratic royal house. Dr Sebag Montefiore has proved himself a chronicler worthy of their achievements and, for his readers, revealed a fascinating, if doomed, imperial cavalcade.
Fiction Fox Anthony Gardner (Ardleevan Press, £17.99 *£15.99) A PREVIOUSLY unknown disease is threatening the world, the Prime Minister is desperate to get in with the Chinese, surveillance by the State is becoming dangerously intrusive: sound familiar? Anthony Gardner’s novel is set in the future—just. Using short, punchy chapters, he stitches together a deeply satisfying plot that has shades of The ThirtyNine Steps sprinkled with Tom Sharpe-style wackiness that pitches it into that rare and difficult-tocarry off genre, the comedy thriller. Fox flu is spreading across Europe, which has the delicious consequence that English hunts that had been existing under the hunting ban have been called upon to exterminate the fox population, particularly in the cities; zeros to heroes and one huntsman in particular becomes a television celebrity. Less Mary Berry than Ready Steady Hunt. Lovers of the chase will enjoy vicariously drawing the covert of Oxford Street and picking up the scent in Canterbury Cathedral close. The Chinese have developed a dastardly way of keeping tabs on their citizens and our Prime Minister is prepared to do almost anything to get the technology to secure his own grip on power. Characters include the hilarious and buxom civil servant who fantasises unhealthily about health-and-safety directives, a Communist Vice President with a penchant for bling and an animal-rights activist who helps liberate a bear from a zoo. The heroes include a humanitarian-minded scientist, a lissom huntswoman and a young man, wrongfully imprisoned, who begins a relationship with the governor’s daughter. The action takes place partly in oppressed China, but mostly across rural Britain. I really enjoyed this book. It made me regularly chuckle and, although some may find the ending rather too neat, it’s certainly feelgood. What are you waiting for? Toot, toot. Tally Ho! Rupert Uloth www.countrylife.co.uk
COUNTRY LIFE Book club ÂŽ
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Biography Bernard Buffet Nicholas Foulkes (Preface, ÂŁ25 *ÂŁ22) A BIOGRAPHY is as good or bad as its authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capabilities make it. The merits and demerits of its subject are secondary. All lives are fascinating if well told. The painter Bernard Buffet was a formulaic auto-plagiarist whose works were, in the 1950s, a profitable craze in Paris and Los Angeles. Clowns, birds, nudes, cityscapes, depositions were all subjected to the same dour, vertically inclined treatment. His work was to France what L. S. Lowryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s was to Britain. He never transcended the brief era of sack dresses, chicken Ă la King and two-tone cars, but, during that era, he was treated like a film starâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even though he toothily lacked the looks. Wyndham Lewis famously dismissed the Sitwells with â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;they belong more to the history of publicity rather than that of poetryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.
Swap painting for poetry and you have Buffet, a low- to middlebrow artistâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;more an illustrator, reallyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for people who dislike or are scared of artâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poles: on the one hand, daubed kitsch on railings, on the other, the vacuities of the avant-garde. The young Buffet was smelly, gauche, truculent, coarse, taciturn going on mute, bisexual, near autistic. He conformed to a bourgeois notion of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: there was something of the idiot savant about him. Much of his peculiar mien was learnt from his boyfriend, Pierre BergĂŠ, an inspired Svengali with instinctive gifts for smoothing Buffetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rough edges and for le marketing of Modernism-lite. Jean Cocteau, in his role as a hypergroupie, declared Buffet a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;geniusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and accused BergĂŠ of turning him into â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;a piece of businessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Having created this minor monster and turned him into a Rolls-Royce-driving, châteaudwelling millionaire, BergĂŠ took up with another precocious, but
this time more enduring talent, Yves Saint Laurent. The milieu that provides the setting of much of the book is that inhabited by jetsetters (how quaintly dated that word is), celebrities without cause, hangerson, playboys, starlets and so on. In this transitory society, exposure in Paris Match or Jours de France counted for much more than talent. Buffet was reckoned the equal of such titans as Johnny Hallyday, Françoise Sagan and Roger Vadim. The more interesting France of la nouvelle vague and le nouveau roman was a million miles away in the bar next door. Nicholas Foulkes is perhaps the only anglophone who knows the derogatory Italian word for the supposedly unsightly gap between a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sock and his trouser cuff. He has a sure eye and ear for the nuances of hierarchy in both Eurotrashâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sumps and the art world. His book is diligently researched, elegantly written and well paced. He does period colour and local
colour with discretion and seldom dramatises incidents. However, he is relentlessly parti pris. He manages to discern commendable qualities in Buffetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oeuvre that have escaped everyone else for 50 years. He fails to see quite how ridiculous was Buffetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s conversion of part of his château near Aix into a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;classic French cafĂŠ-bar-bistroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, with marble-top tables no one sat at. And when he addresses the supposed rivalry between Buffet and Picasso, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too besotted with his hero to realise that there was no contest. Buffetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s astonishing ascent was not quite out of the blue. During the immediate postwar years, there existed in France, as in England, an antipathy to Modernist abstraction. He was the beneficiary of a widespread mood. And, although he himself may remain unfashionable, his immutable bathos set the level for half a century of really terrible French paintingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Kijno and Monory excepted. Jonathan Meades
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Crossword
Bridge Andrew Robson
A prize of £15 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Crossword No 4417, Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark Street, London SE1 0SU by Tuesday, February 16. UK entrants only.
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ACROSS 2. Soup that’s ace! Like Coke, perhaps (4-1-6) 7. Commotion in house, one on Holly Avenue originally (3-2) 8. A bachelor composer, one who eschews alcohol (9) 10. Memento of woman with polish, say? (8) 11. Bring together one cleric’s new order (9) 12. Possibly Earl Grey leaves in this? (6) 15. Excellent things required by early wireless buffs! (3, 4, 8) 20. Refusal to include Northern Ireland in business arrangement (6) 21. Coming round repeatedly about electrical flow (9) 23. Frantically trace our official in Brussels? (8) 24. Latin hero, possibly—a courageous type (4-5) 25. Old-fashioned duke with romantic assignation? (5) 26. Single article left in loch all the same (11)
DOWN 1. Failure to employ wise man with proletarian habits? (3-5) 2. TV employee arrived and ran about before noon (9) 3. One presides over meeting: it may be easy (5) 4. Much to do involving one’s cosmetic preparation (6) 5. Display French wine in English church (6) 6. Cultivated ladies’ standards of perfection (6) 7. Waver, seeing one in ambassador’s gallery (8) 9. Main earner brought up to keep a champion racehorse (11) 13. Top-grade compounds producing heavenly bodies? (9) 14. One thus behind time finally travelled alone (8) 16. Move abroad, finally settling in Arab territory (9) 17. Breed of sheep: second seen around Ireland? (6) 18. One of five initially caught eating pear-shaped fruit (6) 19. Reportedly break part of firearm (6) 22. Student: Trade Union supporter on course? (5)
4417
CASINA 1
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9
10 11 12 13
14 16
15
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22 23
24 25 26
NAME (PLEASE PRINT IN CAPITALS) ADDRESS Tel No COUNTRY LIFE,
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SOLUTION TO 4416 (Winner will be announced in two weeks’ time) ACROSS: 1, Customer; 5, Cashew; 9, Nerve gas; 10, Laurel; 11, Excelled; 12, Stable; 14, Abbreviate; 18, Comic strip; 22, Calves; 23, Cut lunch; 24, Excess; 25, Rashness; 26, Modest; 27, Testator. DOWN: 1, Canoes; 2, Spruce; 3, Openly; 4, Exacerbate; 6, Adaptive; 7, Hornbeam; 8, Weltered; 13, Articulate; 15, Ice cream, 16, Emplaced, 17, Accesses, 19, Old hat, 20, Intent, 21, Chaser. Winner of 4414 is Jacqui Taverner, Stretton Grandison, Herefordshire.
96 Country Life, February 10, 2016
bluff (sounds like a coastal promontory). Dealer South Both vulnerable
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(1) Showing his delayed (that is, three-card) support for Spades and offering a choice of games. It’s a marginal choice given the barren 4333 shape; with no ruffing value, there is much to be said for simply raising 2NT to 3NT.
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(1) A bold player would bid One Spade; an inspired one might chance One Heart—for the lead. (2) 15–15 balanced.
6
7 8
E begin a series on bluffs and smokescreens: representing a better or worse feature than you actually hold for tactical reasons. Our first deal from the US Nationals features a fine bluff show of weakness by declarer to prevent the opponents from finding the suit in which he was really weak.
If West had led a Heart, there would be no story—the defence scoring four Heart tricks and the Ace of Diamonds in double-quick time. Totally reasonably, West opted to lead the four of Spades, unwilling to lead from his Ace-Queen. Declarer played low from dummy, East played the ten and declarer gratefully scooped up the Knave. No, he didn’t! If declarer had advertised such good Spades, West would surely have switched to Hearts (as the only chance) when he won his Ace of Diamonds. Declarer instead hid the Knave of Spades and won the Ace. At trick two, he led the Queen of Diamonds, forcing out the Ace as soon as possible. West won that card and, naturally, convinced his partner held the Knave of Spades (and had played the cheaper from Knaveten)—or declarer would surely have beaten the ten with the Knave —continued with a low Spade. Declarer ran the lead to his Knave—West wincing, knowing he’d been hoodwinked—and could quickly cash four Clubs, the promoted King-Knave of Diamonds and dummy’s King of Spades. Nine tricks and game made. On our second deal, it was West on defence who found the key
West led the Knave of Hearts, declarer winning dummy’s Ace (East signalling encouragement with the seven). Declarer led and ran the Knave of Spades—and we have reached the key moment. If West had won with the normal Queen—and continued with the ten of Hearts to the King— declarer would have had no choice but to try to discard his remaining Heart loser on the third Diamond, requiring Diamonds to split 4-3, but by now a necessary risk. This would pass off successfully, the Heart disappearing on that third Diamond, and now declarer could force out the Ace of Spades, ruff the Heart return, draw trumps and force out the Ace of Clubs. Ten tricks made. Looking ahead and envisaging his doom if he won trick two’s Knave of Spades with the Queen, West won it with the Ace (key play). Declarer won his ten of Hearts lead with the King and, believing he could now pick up East’s presumed Queen of Spades, he didn’t need to risk four-three Diamonds. He led a Diamond to dummy’s ten and then confidently ran the ten of Spades. He was soon a sadder and wiser man. Trying not to gloat (always important in these situations, where your gambit has been successful), West won the Queen of Spades, led a Heart to his partner’s promoted Queen and was soon scoring his Ace of Clubs. Down one. www.countrylife.co.uk
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Spectator
Lucy Baring
Sects and the city
I
HAVE not spent more than two consecutive nights in London over the past 16 years, until now. This will be night 11. The blackbirds sing at midnight. It takes some getting used to. The only green thing I can see is a bonsai tree that Olive thoughtfully left in our care while we live out of suitcases. I’ve looked up how to prune it, but it appears I need special tools. In the meantime, I find its presence faintly mocking, a pintsized symbol of the grass not being greener and be careful what you wish for. With four weeks to fill between houses, we decided we’d spend some time in London interspersed with stays around the country kindly offered by friends. I was looking forward to the opportunity to do those things that make up the movie version of the city mini-break: museums, galleries, trips to the theatre, cafes, wine bars, lectures and shopping. Then, Anna dislocated her knee, with complications, and
as we are of no fixed abode, it became clear that she would need to be operated on in London. We are therefore holed up in a second-floor flat, without a lift, in Spitalfields, which is not an area I know, so I’m not tapping into any of the urban roots I thought I had in my youth. Yesterday, I was helped on the Underground by a Russian. Alfie has spent two nights here so far. He doesn’t like it much, being too young to head out on his own and Anna being too hampered by crutches to accompany him. I’ve bought a book in the local bookshop and tell him about the Huguenot silk weavers whose arrival introduced the word ‘refugee’ to the English language; the Jewish refugees from the Russian pogroms (by 1901, the area was described as 100% Jewish); the Mosleyites, who held meetings in the next-door street in the 1940s; the Bengalis, who moved in during the 1950s; the National Front, which caused trouble in the 1970s;
TOTTERING-BY-GENTLY
Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation
By Annie Tempest
the relative calm that descended in the 1980s; and the ‘gentrification’ that began in the 1990s. He shrugs with disinterest and sticks his head out of the window because another group of tourists is outside the pub opposite, which was apparently frequented by James Hardiman and George Hutchinson, both of whom were suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Or that’s what the guide is telling them.
Yesterday, I was helped on the Underground by a Russian
‘
He’s not at all intereste n I tell him that I was eva d from Spitalfields mark at Thursday morning because a Second World War bomb had been found in the building site next door. ‘Alf’s not enjoying this,’ I tell friends who ring. ‘Ah, he’s a country boy,’ they say and,
although I concur, I feel compelled to add ‘but he’s a sort of indoor country boy’ because I wouldn’t like to give the impression that if we weren’t on an enforced extended city break, he’d be climbing trees and building camps. He’d be on the Xbox. In this, he finally has something in common with Fletcher, with whom he has a tricky relationship, because Alfie thinks that, of the two, I favour the dachshund. Fletcher is a country sort of dog with total fear of cars, buses, pavements, crowds, bicycles and sirens. Actually, he’s just as worried about stinging nettles, other dogs, Hoovers and water, so, really, he’s an indoor sofa sort of dog. We’ve sent him to stay with the dog-sitter where he’s spent the odd night in the past, but I made Zam take him because I couldn’t bear his reproachful eyes. I ask Zam if he could take Alfie back to school on Sunday night for the same reason. I think Alf and Fletcher may bond when this is over.
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104 Country Life, February 10, 2016
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