Summer 2015 £3.95
Be blown away... Henry Swanzy Honing perfection
Unique Home Stays Character in exclusivity
Bovey Castle
A Dartmoor icon reborn
Simon Armitage Poet, troubadour
ST TUDY INN, CORNWALL Seasonal delights THE SEAHORSE, DARTMOUTH Exclusive recipes PORTHMINSTER CAFÉ, ST IVES Kitchen gardening
MANOR | Summer 2015
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savills.co.uk
1 IDYLLIC CREEKSIDE 'ECO' HOUSE WITH PRIVATE PONTOON malpas, truro, cornwall 4/5 bedrooms ø 4 bath/shower rooms ø vaulted sitting room with wrap-around balcony ø open plan kitchen/dining room ø tidal creek frontage with foreshore ø private pontoon ø terraced gardens, sun deck and balconies ø summer house ø garage and private parking ø eco technology ø 2,516 sq ft ø EPC=C Guide £1.2 million Freehold
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MANOR | Summer 2015
Savills Cornwall Jonathan Cunliffe jcunliffe@savills.com
01872 243 200
savills.co.uk
1 ONE OF THE FINEST COASTAL HOUSES IN CORNWALL plaidy, looe, south east cornwall Panoramic sea views ø private steps to beach and foreshore ø renovated under direction of award winning architect Stan Bolt ø five bedrooms ø two reception rooms ø bespoke fitted kitchen/dining room ø large garage with studio/workshop ø private gated driveway with ample parking ø terraced gardens ø woodland garden ø about 1.7 acres ø EPC=D ø 3,149 sq ft
Savills Cornwall Jonathan Cunliffe jcunliffe@savills.com
01872 243 200
Guide £3 million Freehold
MANOR | Summer 2015
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MANOR | Summer 2015
Accounts . Wealth . Legal
Summer 2015
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38 34
70 Regulars 13 TOWN MOUSE, COUNTRY MOUSE Correspondence from across the divide
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TRENDS
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Cowboys and Indians, Monochrome
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MANOR CONFIDENTIAL Exeter Food Festival; Studio 17; Masked Ball
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AS I SEE IT... Interior designer Naomi Cleaver considers raw intelligence, breeding and inspirational obituaries
137 WHERE ARE YOU READING YOURS? Blooming at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Features 30 WORD ON A WALL
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The story of Nkuku
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SIMPLE PHYSICS Furniture maker Henry Swanzy
Style & Beauty 20 MY FEEL GOOD REGIME Fiona McGowan lives for the outdoors
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BEAUTY FOCUS Elouise Abbott’s guide to summer make-up
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THE STYLE SHOOT Drawn to the seaside
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OLD SOUL Cornish tin tabernacles inspire innovative portable buildings
Photostory 44 TEIGN SPIRITS Photographs in response to Castle Drogo by Mike Smallcombe
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90 60 Food 90 ST TUDY INN Provenance scores highly on the new seasonal menu
Culture 56 HOGWEED AND HONEYSUCKLE Dartmoor painter and printmaker Michael Honnor
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AS MUCH A STRANGER Simon Armitage – 21st-century troubadour
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THE EXETER ART SHOW Maynard School’s fourth affordable art show
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SOUTH WEST MUST SEES... What’s on around the region
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WORTH MAKING THE TRIP FOR... Cultural highlights from the metropolis
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WORTH STAYING IN FOR... It’s all about armchair journeys
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BITES Food news from across the peninsular
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THE SEAHORSE Mat Prowse on grappa, truffle hunting and food shopping while famished
103 THE TABLE PROWLER ...sups South African style at The Glazebrook and pops in to Jane Baxter’s pop-up at Dartington Fair
Escape 110 THE SCILLIES Island hopping
114 BOVEY CASTLE The Dartmoor jewel refurbished and reinvigorated
Summer 2015
114 120 132 128 Space 120 UNIQUE HOME STAYS It’s the personal touch that makes these luxury home stays unique
124 STEPHEN EMANUEL ARCHITECTURE The timeless principles of good design
126 NATURALMAT Natural achieves a higher level of nocturnal comfort
128 SPACE SHOPPING Lounging, partying, eating or just being
132 WORKSPACE Dominic Welch sculpting from his open, tin-roofed barn in Dartmoor
136 Q&A Barnes of Ashburton’s Kim Whinnet reveals her passions
MANOR school 139 IN DEFENCE OF DIVERSITY Professor Ruth Merttens on diversity in educational methodology
Property 145 THE BULLETIN The ripple effect of central London’s property boom
150 PROPERTY OF NOTE An Exeter luxury penthouse
153 SNAPSHOT COMPARATIVE A selection of South West properties plus a London bolthole
Back page 162 BLACK BOOK Secrets from Devon Food & Drink Director Hayley Reynolds
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100% bespoke, handmade kitchens & furniture for the home
24A West Street, Ashburton, Newton Abbott, Devon TQ13 7DU
Tel: 01364 653613 www.barnesofashburton.co.uk 8
MANOR | Summer 2015
Welcome to The Design Issue of MANOR. It is stunning and we do not exaggerate. There is such a plethora of talented individuals whose skill and designs have turned this issue of MANOR into a work of art. There is a theory that less hubbub breeds greater creativity; that any seeds or saplings of creative ideas are stamped out in the metropolis by corporate steam-rollering, making unnecessary demands, doing it bigger, but wrong. The pressure of fast commercialism is not always conducive to the pace of creativity. Whether it’s inspiration or pace, here in the South West there are a myriad of artists and craftspeople who have risen to the very top of their game. Many of their clients and customers run the high-pressured organisations we refer to. The range of individuals featured in this issue of MANOR are designing, creating and manufacturing for not only London clients, but also the international market, as well as for customers and clients within the South West. Many are award winners. Henry Swanzy last month won the coveted ‘Design Guild Mark’ for two of his pieces (effectively putting him into the same league as Terence Conran and Pearson Lloyd). Multiple award winner in their its field, the Eden Collection was voted the Best Small Hotel Group in the UK. We take a walk around the £2m first-stage refurbishment of its latest acquisition, and one of the South West’s grandest hotels, Bovey Castle; plus we have picked the brains of Unique Home Stays’ in-house designer, responsible for making its clients’ homes some of the most desirable places to stay in the UK. The design, the photography, the architecture and art make this issue of MANOR our most visual to date. In producing the magazine we make no apology for giving over space to showcase the inspiring work of experts. There’s plenty to read, not least an exclusive with revered poet Simon Armitage, as well as our bumper food section, always mouth-watering. This issue of MANOR is a veritable assault on all the senses. Indulge them and enjoy.
Imogen Clements PUBLISHING EDITOR
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is brought to you by PUBLISHING EDITOR
Imogen Clements imogen@manormagazine.co.uk
COMMISSIONING EDITOR
Jane Fitzgerald jane@manormagazine.co.uk
LEAD FEATURE WRITER
Harriet Mellor harriet@manormagazine.co.uk
ARTS EDITOR
Belinda Dillon belinda@manormagazine.co.uk
FOOD EDITOR
Anna Turns anna@manormagazine.co.uk
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Fiona McGowan, Miranda Gardiner, Genoveva Arteaga-Rynn DESIGN
Guy Cracknell ADVERTISING SALES
Rae Muscat, Rachel Evans, John Bevan advertising@manormagazine.co.uk
THE COVER Top from Top Shop, swimsuit from Revival; Art Director and Stylist: Ione Rucquoi; Photographer: Mike Smallcombe; Model: Philippa Mills; Hair and Make-Up: Elouise Abbott.
Š MANOR Publishing Ltd, 2015. MANOR Magazine is published by Manor Publishing Ltd, 3 Station Road, Okehampton, Devon EX20 1DY. Registered in England No. 09264104 info@manormagazine.co.uk. Printed by Warners Midlands plc. The views of the writers in MANOR Magazine are not necessarily those shared by the publisher. Unsolicited manuscripts, artwork or transparencies are accepted on the understanding that the publishers incur no liability for their storage or return. The contents of MANOR Magazine are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without permission. By submitting material to MANOR Magazine, MANOR Magazine Ltd is automatically granted the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, edit, distribute and display such material (in whole or part) and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in such content. The contributor acknowledges that material submitted may be published in any
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publication or website produced or published by MANOR Publishing Ltd.The contributor agrees not to submit material where they do not own the copyright and where they have not obtained all necessary licenses and/or approvals from the rightful owner. With respect to any photographs submitted, the contributor confirms that all necessary model and property releases have been obtained from any clearly identifiable person appearing in any image, together with any other relevant consents required. Prices and details of services and products are genuinely believed to be correct at the time of going to press, but may change. Although every effort is made to maintain accuracy we regret we are unable to honour any incorrect prices or other details that may be printed.
Dominic Welch
Sculpture at Lord’s Wood Marlow Common, Bucks, SL7 2QS
Open Weekend Friday 19th June, 11am – 7pm Saturday 20th June, 11am – 7pm Sunday 21st June, 11am – 5pm
Aspiration II carrara marble 94 x 24 x 21 cms 37 x 91⁄2 x 8 1⁄4 ins
28 C ork S t reet , L ondon W1S 3NG
for further details please contact jo@messums.com
MessuM’s Tel: +4 4 (0)20 7437 55 45
i n fo @ me s s u m s.c om
w w w.me s s u m s.c om MANOR | Summer 2015
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beautiful fused glass interior pieces, handmade at our cornwall studio. bespoke design service available. galleries at st ives, padstow, fowey and launceston, cornwall and ripley, surrey. www.jodowns.com 12
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TOWN MOUSE, COUNTRY MOUSE Darling...
Sweetness...
What with the arrival of sunny weather I am considering what improvements I can make to the abode. On the balcony, an Egg bbq, some deck chairs, possibly some herb and salad window boxes? Inside, nothing short of a total refurb is required. I’ve been referring to mags, Pinterest, other people’s homes, etc, but have found that the most fabulous source of inspiration for interiors is in fact Unique Home Stays’ website. Have you seen the level of design and décor in those dreamy homes?! I have spent hours coveting each one. One in particular, in Mousehole (ha, well of course it had to be), is as far as I’m concerned the very blueprint for my flat – white wooden floors, muted colours, rugs and woodburners. I shall have to go and stay to take notes. Shall we? Of course, I suffer profoundly every time I look down on the flat below – that lovely expanse of garden they have. I’m feeling particularly envious of their latest acquisition – a pond. Yes, pond. Swimming pools are so last millennium darling. These days no one wants plastic and chlorine. They want fresh water, and algae and newts to swim amongst. I’m told that The Pond comes with a pump under the gravel base that allows a certain filtration and the water to circulate such that it doesn’t stagnate. This really is the new thing for summer. They plan to spend the season swimming while I squeeze onto my balcony to catch the late morning sunshine, pretending not to notice. If it’s not basements, it’s ponds. Seems everyone this side of Kensington is digging. As a second floor resident I fear for our high-rise stability.
The pond trend has not hit the country. We of course have relatively easy access to wild water dips here. The expense of digging ponds just isn’t warranted. Such is the prevalence of wild water opportunities that you can pop out with the intention of a civilised picnic à l’herbe one minute, only to then find yourself stripped to your smalls and waist deep in wild water rapids the next. Well, not me of course, but some more hardy types, like for example a friend of a friend, who joined us recently on one of these aforementioned moorland lunches. Trekking back along the River Teign we came to that pool above the Salmon Weir where the river slows and such is the peace that the only sound is the fly fisherman’s reel as he quietly flicks and drags hook and line in the quiet expanse of water. With a squeal of delight it was clear that the friend of a friend, on seeing water, couldn’t contain herself. She promptly stripped down to her undies and plunged straight in. I was horrified – I mean it was May – the water must have been glacial. Not as horrified as I was, however, when everyone else proceeded to follow her! It shattered the fisherman’s peace, and chances, and left yours truly scampering around on the bank erring and vacillating just long enough for them all to turn a grade off hypothermia and clamber out. I mean, madness! That said, the lady in question had not a single patch of cellulite on her and was sporting very respectable underwear – clearly she’d come prepared. I have a grudging admiration, and shame at my own prissiness. One must make amends.
WHAT’S HOT IN THE SMOKE?
WHAT’S COOL IN THE COUNTRY?
Barbara Hepworth’s retrospective at Tate Britain for those who haven’t wandered through her garden in St Ives.
Bridget Riley at Tate St Ives part of In Moving Out into Space exhibition.
High Society at the Old Vic is the summer’s hot ticket. Bonnie Gull’s Seashack, Fitzrovia transports you to the harbour’s edge with to-die-for seafood.
Gilmore’s in Newquay – current cool bar of choice. Crabshell Inn’s terrace in Kingsbridge serving chilled beer and crab sandwiches. Lovely views, great menu.
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Cowboys and indians This season we’ve seen suede, fringes and bold prints on the catwalk. Put them all together and there’s a definite wild west theme to proceedings. All that’s missing is the horse.
Neckerchief, Zara, £9.99
Mized Piano Collar, F&F, £12 Tassle, Zara, £19.99
Suede shirt, Zara, £129
Skirt, Zara, £25.99
Belt, Zara, £25.99
Top, Zara, £25.99
Suede skirt, Marks & Spencer, £195
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Top, Zara, £29.99
Saddlebag, Next, £22
Alberta Ferretti SS15
trends
Bag, Zara, £29.99
Dress, Monsoon, £59
Bag, F&F, £45
Medallion print top, Whistles, £104
Necklace, Next, £25 Rucksack, Next, £60
Sandals, Next
Dress, Next, £40
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Marvellous monochrome You can’t fail to look stylish in black and white, as well as make a statement. The sleek elegance of black sets off the clean brilliance of white to deliver geometric outlines that flatter like no other combination. Somerset by Temperley SS15, John Lewis
Bag, Zara, £49.99 Poncho, Wallis, £40 Enamel bangle, Whistles, £16
Enamel hoop earrings, Whistles, £16
Top, Zara, £25.99
Top, Phase Eight, £75 Shoes, Zara, £49.99
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Altuzarra SS15
trends
trends Skirt, Marks & Spencer, £89
Skirt, Marks & Spencer, £89
Earrings, Whistles, £16
Dress, Zara, £29.99
Skirt, Zara, £39.99
Shoes, Whistles, £175 Jumper, Zara, £25.99
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novak djokovic
astron. the world’s first gps solar watch.
By connecting to the GPS net work , the new Astron adjusts at the touch of a but ton to your time zone* and, by taking all the energy it needs from light alone, never needs a battery change. *Time zone data as of January 2014. Time zone can be also manually adjusted as required.
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My feel-good regime Fiona McGowan lives in Hayle, West Cornwall. She is a freelance writer and editor for websites and magazines, and has recently finished writing her second children’s novel. She is on the Board of Governors at the local primary school and is studying for a fitness trainer qualification. Her husband works in finance and, until recently, spent Monday to Friday in London. He is now working as a consultant from his office in Hayle, intermittently travelling to London, Dubai and Dallas. They have two children aged four and seven. I live for the outdoors. Nothing makes me happier than being by the sea or in the wilderness. Whenever I find spare time, I go for a run on the beach or the coast path. I have surfed quite a few times, but prefer to boogie board these days… I used to hate the cold water, but since I bought a really good wetsuit, I can go in the sea any time of the year. Although I am still a wuss – I’ll only get in the waves if they’re not too big and the sun has to be shining! Running is my meditation; rock climbing is my passion. I have climbed all over the world – from Mexico to New Zealand and from Greece to Madagascar – and return to it as much as possible. The sea cliffs in Cornwall are stunning (and scary), usually battered at the base by giant, foaming surf, and the hard crystalline granite is superb to climb on. I always meet exceptional people through climbing, and have made some great friends in Cornwall whilst dangling off a cliff face.
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Since I hit 40, I have noticed that my metabolism has changed. I used to be able to eat anything, and never thought much about food. The one advantage with London is that I walked everywhere, so I was constantly burning calories. In Cornwall, with two small children going to afterschool activities and the beach or the countryside, we spend a lot more time in the car. I make sure I work out every day – whether it’s climbing-training inside a converted barn, cycling and running on the coast path, going to the gym or doing a High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) session for 20 minutes in the living room. I have given up refined sugar! This is a small miracle for me, but I feel great about it and have invented some recipes to overcome the cravings. I put lots of cinnamon and berries in my porridge and I make hot chocolate from pure cocoa powder, coconut/rice milk, cinnamon, vanilla essence and ground ginger. I also make flapjacks with the mulch from the juicer, a handful of chopped dates, one spoonful of maple syrup and lots of cinnamon. I do miss 70% dark chocolate, though – and it makes me fall off the wagon every now and again…
beauty
The beach at Hayle
Since moving to Cornwall, I have made more friends than at any other point in my life. There are a lot of parents struggling to get by financially, but everyone is doing something – there’s lots of imagination, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, albeit on a small scale. The ‘school gate’ is full of conversations about setting up businesses and finding ways to fit work around the lifestyle of coastal living. When I was ill with pneumonia and my husband was in London, people I hardly knew came round with casseroles and all sorts of food and offers to look after the children.
choices. I also love a dance, whether it’s to gigs in the buzzing, artsy venues in Falmouth or in the pub. I LOVE reading. My favourite novel at the moment is The Humans by Matt Haig - it is an incredible story and makes you feel happy to be human. I’m also reading The Chimp Paradox, which is simply life-changing (and I don’t often say that about a book, as I am a Natural Born Cynic).
Apart from outdoor activities and gorging ourselves on the many National Trust properties and gardens in the area, I love to go out in the evenings. My husband and I have date nights at a few favourite gastro pubs and some wonderful restaurants: the Porthminster Café in St Ives, Ben’s Cornish Kitchen in Marazion and Scarlet in Lelant are our three top
LANGUISHING IN MY MAKE-UP BAG
MY BEAUTY REGIME IS...
I only have four items of make-up in my make-up bag.
Nivea Age Resisting Day Crème around my eye, a simple light hydrating lotion for my face and Palmer’s Cocoa Butter for my body (love the smell).
Rimmel Exaggerate black waterproof eye definer, Rimmel sun bronze powder, Rimmel Concealer, No 7 Lipstick in a deep brick red colour. For special occasions, I also use Rimmel Match perfection radiance foundation and No 17 solo charcoal grey eyeshadow.
I wash my hair every day with Suma Pure Grapefruit and Nettle Shampoo and Aussie 3-Minute Miracle heat-resisting conditioner.
For VERY special occasions, I wear Clinique Happy perfume.
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beauty
Have you got your summer skincare covered? Once upon a time the choice was foundation or no foundation. Now there are different degrees of coverage and if, like us, it’s taking you time to know your BBs from your CCs, the following guide to summer make-up by Elouise Abbott will come as some relief.
S
ummer is here, and while we all look forward to fabulous brighter sun-kissed skin, we tend to look for a lighter alternative to a traditional foundation. Tinted moisturisers, BB creams and CC creams provide lighter coverage, but with the added benefit of a skin treatment. Beauty balms (BB cream) and colour correctors (CC cream) also contain ingredients to target and treat specific imperfections whilst also providing that all important sun protection. One cream that does it all – moisturise, cover and protect – is ideal for busy mornings and the holiday make-up bag. However, with such a wide variety of creams available it is often difficult to distinguish which product does what, and to choose the most suitable product that will provide you with the best benefits. TINTED MOISTURISER
A Tinted moisturiser is primarily a moisturiser, with the added benefit of a light sheer coverage of colour. This product is ideal if you wear little make-up and your skin needs a boost of hydration. Often tinted moisturisers do not contain SPF, so make sure to check the label and use a separate SPF if needed. I like the Laura Mercier tinted moisturiser broad spectrum SPF 20 sunscreen, designed to hydrate and be worn instead of a foundation for a beautiful natural glow, with the added benefit of a sunscreen. Perfect for skin that requires a little more hydration. If your skin is on the oily side try the Laura Mercier oil free tinted moisturiser broad spectrum SPF 20, this gives the added benefit of oil control. BB CREAMS
Beauty balms, or BB creams, give much more coverage while still feeling light. The benefits of BB cream range from brand to brand, but they all hydrate, provide a light coverage and contain SPF. All cosmetic houses now have BB creams within their product range with an ever improving array of colours, and many
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more beginning to target specific skin requirements such as anti-ageing, oil control, and dry skin. For dry skin I like No7 Beautiful Skin BB cream for Dry/Very Dry skin. This BB cream nourishes, covers, and provides an SPF 15. Clinique Anti Blemish BB Cream SPF40 is a wonderful product to balance oily skin. This lightweight oil-free formula provides buildable matt coverage that will last up to 12 hours. CC CREAMS
CC creams, or colour correct creams, are taking the world by storm. These creams target redness, brighten dull skin, disguise dark spots and blur fine lines. With light-reflective particles, CC creams provide dewy light coverage, giving the skin a radiant and healthy glow. I love the beautiful blendable coverage given by Chanel CC cream. Hydrating and soothing, and with an SPF 50 for maximum sun protection, this product is perfect for all skin types. For a drier skin, try Clinique’s moisture surge CC cream for an extra moisture boost with added anti-ageing technology. Finally, I love Smashbox camera ready BB cream eyes SPF 15, hydrates, protects and perfects, all the benefits of a BB cream designed for the delicate eye area. Illuminating particles instantly diminish dark circles. Say goodbye to tired eyes!
confidential
Exeter Food Festival 2015 launch The Exeter Food Festival took place on 22 - 24 April and now in its 12th year attracted around 20,000 visits. On the evening of Thursday 21st an exclusive launch party was held hosted by Michael Caines and supported by Prydis, during which there were cookery demonstrations, talks and much mingling and munching in Exeter Castle’s sun-drenched courtyard. Photos by Juliette Mills
Studio 17 On Friday 1 May, Colourburn and Illicit Web Design threw a party to mark the launch of Studio 17, a creative hub that brings both businesses together to offer clients bespoke film, marketing and web design packages under one roof, above McCoys Arcade in Fore Street.
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The Masked Ball, Kernow The Masked Ball took place on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 May. The two-day electronic music extravaganza - featuring Bonobo, Andrew Weatherall, Simian Mobile Disco and The Stanton Warriors and attracting some 5,000 - brought all the glitz and glamour of the Vegas ringside to the clifftops of Porthleven. Director Kelvin Ball said: “Despite bad weather, we were amazed to have a fantastic party. We simply cannot fault the ballers, and the crew, in their attitude. Everyone excelled themselves by having a fantastic time.” maskedball.net
PHOTO: JONATHAN VIVAAS KISE PHOTO: JONATHAN VIVAAS KISE
MANOR | Summer 2015
PHOTO: ELLIE HETEBRIJ
PHOTO: JONATHAN VIVAAS KISE
PHOTO: JOSEPH WALKER
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confidential
PHOTO: ELLIE HETEBRIJ
PHOTO: JONATHAN VIVAAS KISE
PHOTO: ELLIE HETEBRIJ
PHOTO: FRANCIS HAWKINS
PHOTO: ELLIE HETEBRIJ
PHOTO: ELLIE HETEBRIJ
PHOTO: JONATHAN VIVAAS KISE
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PHOTO: TREVOR LEIGHTON
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As I see it...
Naomi Cleaver is an award-winning design consultant and interior designer. She specialises in homes, from private residences to student accommodation, hostels to holiday villas. Working from her studios in London and Devon, she is also a writer and broadcaster presenting such programmes as Channel 4’s Other People’s Houses and Honey I Ruined the House, as well as appearing on Grand Designs: Trade Secrets and the BBC’s DIY SOS. It was obvious early on I was a budding designer. As a child, one of my favourite things was making buildings out of carefully swept piles of pine needles (we lived near the New Forest for a while and my school had loads of them) but, just as Larkin said that sex began in 1963, for me I only really became aware of ‘design’ and that I could actually get a job creating things when I left home. Obituaries are a great source of inspiration. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when growing up. I recommend to my nieces, nephews and godchildren to read the obituaries in the broadsheets to find out what amazing lives they could have and start planning. I wish someone had suggested the same to me. One of my best childhood memories is going mushroom-picking with my Uncle Ernie very early one summer morning. Uncle Ernie is the model for Benny Hill’s song about the fastest milkman in the West - he had no teeth, raced greyhounds, owned a static caravan park in Wiltshire and loved Kit-Kats. He would take me and my mother to lunch in his Mercedes and was always very impressed with my healthy appetite. My education is a story of interruption. I went to seven different schools and left six months before my A levels when I was 17. (I still have nightmares about not sitting my A levels.) While I was the first in my family to go to university, the distinction of being the first to graduate remains unclaimed. Raw intelligence, curiosity, sociability and application can go along way and I worry about the number of people who are now students. A qualification doesn’t necessarily mean you will get the job or career you want. I’ve always had a strong work ethic. As soon I was old enough I got a Saturday job and in the summer I would have two jobs, one in a book shop during the day and the other in a pub kitchen in the evening and I’m encouraging the youngsters in my life to do the same. Working in TV was some trip. I never sought it
out but it sought me, and once given the chance, and after much deliberation, I thought I’d give it a try. I learnt a lot about communication and have had experiences I wouldn’t have had otherwise but working in TV is often boring and annoying. The BBC docu-comedy, W1A, is all too accurate. Like The Archers, all those characters are real! Everything we build is an infringement on other species and we would do well to remember that. With a little thought, humans can live in much greater harmony with their fellow creatures. I’m designing homes in Devon and London that actively encourage bats, birds and invertebrates, as well as flora, making for more interesting buildings too. I’m a fervent admirer of Prince Charles and his ideas but on a visit to Poundbury I felt very let down. We have a lot to learn from other countries, such as the Netherlands, and Japanese architects like Kengo Kuma and Terunobu Fujimori, who use both modern and traditional materials and techniques in thrilling, contemporary ways. If we really cared about our environment we’d significantly curb our shopping and breeding. Sustainability is a big issue in housing and yet we are not having an honest discussion about what we really mean by that. So many mornings I’ve listened to one item on the news about ‘green energy’ sharply followed by another about a human’s right to have children by whatever means. The simple fact is more people need more energy and more of everything, but population control is the last great taboo. I hate ‘devices’ and will confiscate them from any children who come to stay with me in Devon (nasty Aunty I know) so they can fully enjoy the surfing trips, etc, that I take them on, though they are allowed a half hour in the morning and the same in the evening. After a few days they forget. Aunty 1, Apple 0. I also like to give a quick lecture on the evils of mining for coltan and other precious metals that constitute these devices. I am such fun to be with!
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INSPIRED DESIGN FOR THE WAY YOU LIVE Visit our inspirational new website smallbone.co.uk or call 020 7589 5998
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Š reg design & design right Part of the Canburg Group
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PHOTO: KATE MOUNT
Alexandra and Alistair Cooke
Word on a wall
What began with a bulldog clip, a few sketches and a stack of brochures grew into thriving homeware brand Nkuku, writes Harriet Mellor.
T
he start of this story is a familiar one – especially to those who’ve been backpacking and cannot shake off the bite of the travel bug. A free-spirited couple in their 20s leave their city jobs and take a year out to travel some lesser-conquered corners of the globe. So inspired by the indigenous people they meet and the artisan treasures produced, they decide to start an export business. It’s a win-win combination of wanderlust and work. However, that beautiful dream comes with some pretty harsh realities: international bureaucracy, unforeseen overheads, the delivery of dodgy shipments and actually shifting the product. It’s much easier to go back to the security of the desk job and take exotic annual holidays instead. Alexandra and Alistair Cooke (known better as Alex and Ali) were once that couple – and to some extent they still are. The difference is, via some white-knuckle rides, they’ve managed to go the whole hog and are owners of the fair-trade homeware brand Nkuku. Their huge stylish range, which includes lighting, furniture, jewellery and accessories, is sold to John Lewis and
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Mango wood utensils, artisan canvas apron, vintage gold corkscrew, vintage gold bottle opener
Selfridges, 1,500 independent stores nationwide and also distributed to 500 outlets across Europe and 200 in the USA, Japan and Australia. They’d only been seeing each other for six months when Ali left a career in finance at Goldman Sachs and she one at David Linley Furniture to predominantly traverse Africa and some of Asia. Alex takes up the tale of how Nkuku came to fruition: “We had no plan at all to start a business before we left. It was about six months in that we started thinking about alternative options. Our problem when we travelled was that we were both beach bums at heart, in that we liked the lifestyle but we were no good at doing nothing. The idea of a business gave us something to focus on. “It began as a bulldog clip with sketches, logos, and loads of brochures. I was a typical traveller reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, and I wrote the business plan on the inside cover. We were in Zambia and drove through a village on a bus and saw the letters Nkuku whitewashed on a mud hut. We liked the way it sounded and the name stuck.”
Necessity was another element. On their return to England they’d have no money to live on. Rather than go back to London where they couldn’t afford to pay rent they would stay with Ali’s mum in Devon and sell their global wares at local markets. “We knew being in Devon would give us the space to work out how we wanted to live our lives rather than end up in the same predicament of doing a job because we had to do it,” says Ali. “We picked and packed everything ourselves. It was all stored in my mum’s hayloft with donkeys below. When our first-ever container arrived, all the locals came and helped unload. It took six hours and the lorry got stuck. It had to be removed by a tractor.” From there the business alternated in pace for about 10 years between dwindling and accelerating – at times almost coming to a grinding halt. But everything that was achieved was done without resorting to outside investment. A gulf of cashflow is a typical difficulty for this type of business, and the downfall of many. The producers are paid upfront but the client doesn’t
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Our key thing is ethical, eco-friendly and handmade, inspired by traditional skills. We use lots of sustainable mango wood, recycled glass, natural jute, which uses less pesticides, and recycled cotton paper pay until receipt of goods. When you are ordering at trade shows for the next season it can be many months until the shortfall is met. “Cash flow is always an issue, which made business very slow. We spent five years thinking we’ve got to get out of this but there was always a last-minute reason we’d stay on.” First it was a huge order for handmade photo albums and frames for a commercial chain, then orders for Boots and Tesco. But it was their painted metal cups with a bird design that was the first product that “really flew”. Another factor that put the brakes on the growth and reduced their manpower was kids – four blonde ‘mini-me’s’ aged 10, 9, 5 and 3. “When Archie, our eldest, was born we still travelled a lot. He’d be asleep on the packing boxes whilst we had to complete an order at 1am and when there were two kids we took them to the trade shows.”
Savanna messenger bag
Even though Alex loves being a mum, raising offspring temporarily curtailed her ambition and she’s just coming out the other side. Baby number four coincided with the business taking off at quite a phenomenal speed and Ali being mostly absent as he needed to be the face of the company around the world at back-to-back trade shows. Nkuku has grown from three employees working from a hut in their garden to 26 staff in a huge space at Dartington Mill in the last three years. Ali says: “I think the key to our success is that we never planned and always related to the situation. It’s the same with kids. We’d have another baby, just get on with it. “It’s funny because we started this so we could both travel, but the romance of that went pretty quickly. I hope that now the kids are older we can use the business to either take them all away, or me and Alex can have more romantic excuses to source products in other countries.”
Bespoke furniture made of reclaimed wood in Devon by Nkuku’s resident carpenter
Mali ceramic tableware
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Nkuku’s trade stand
Braided hemp pouf
If the couple were to dissect their talents then Alex says she is the voice and Ali the slightly more visual of the two. Much of their enduring success is in their mutually impeccable taste. Rather than going for the wackier ethnic or seasonal looks, Alex says they stamped their own style and created a brand. “Our look is quite natural. We like raw materials, soft natural muted hues, we’re not a fashion brand, we’re not particularly trend-led. Maybe that’s our strength.” At the heart of the business is the ethical element. “Our key thing is ethical, eco-friendly and handmade, inspired by traditional skills. We use lots of sustainable mango wood, recycled glass, natural jute, which uses less pesticides, and recycled cotton paper. We currently work with India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and have just found one handmade producer in China. “It’s really important to work with social enterprises and co-operatives, but also support independent businesses. We visit all our suppliers and check out the labour conditions using a criteria form. Basically it’s about good practice. “From our point of view it’s also about being less of a supplier and more of a partner, with transparency and open dialogue. We’ve grown and so have they alongside us. We’re about to launch a new website in September. Last year we took all the kids to India
Odum chair
for a month to interview our suppliers and tell their story from a personal point of view. We also put on a conference in Delhi and invited all our Indian suppliers to lunch and an open mic forum to discuss any issues. They were grateful, as hearing viewpoints is unusual in this industry.” So far Nkuku has only been available online, or through ordering at international homeware trade shows, where they do the majority of their business. But now they are on the verge of completing the most exciting addition, not just to the brand, but also for us locals. They’ve converted a series of massive stone barns on the A3128 just outside Totnes into a showroom for buyers that will be finished by the end of June, followed in September by the opening of their first retail outlet on the same site, which will become a big flagship store for the brand. After the slow slog, before they’ve reached the age of 40, they’ve achieved the cherry on the top, carrying out the ultimate goal they sketched out all those years ago. “We always wanted to have a lifestyle store, it’s in the original bulldog clip we took around Africa. So we can’t wait. We’ve got there. It’s a really exciting time.” nkuku.com nkukulife.com
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Orinoco bench and detail (opposite)
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Simple physics Furniture maker Henry Swanzy discusses natural imperfection, functional aesthetics and time well spent. Words by Fiona McGowan.
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here can be few smells more universally appealing than the smell of wood. Freshcut wood shavings. This is the scent that accosts you when you walk into Henry Swanzy’s workshop on the docks in Falmouth. The senses are in heaven here – not just this aroma, but above Henry’s workbench is a window overlooking the glittering water and gently swaying yachts of a peaceful marina. And then there are the pieces themselves. In varying stages of creation, there are planks of wood, half-turned legs and completed stools, benches and tables. Eminently tactile, everything invites you to reach out and touch, stroke and rest your hands upon it. This, I realise, after talking to Henry, is what happens when you look at hand-finished work. You are drawn to the character and personality in the wood – it is the natural imperfection, both in the material itself and in the human intervention. Production-line furniture, no matter how exquisitely designed, just doesn’t have that visceral draw… Henry Swanzy first started making furniture 17 years ago, spending many years creating bespoke hand-made pieces for commission in workshops in London before setting up and running his own studio in Wiltshire. This is a man who knows his business. Looking at the sketches littering his desk and printouts of prototypes, it is obvious that there’s a marksman’s precision in the way he creates furniture, too. “I have a real love of simple physics,’
he enthuses, explaining in detail how a small wedge inserted into the top of a table leg can hold the entire thing together with no movement and no need for any other attachment. He turns to the Bareppa coffee table: essentially a glass top slotted into three large wooden pins. The tapered oak legs are tilted outwards at an angle and the glass sits perfectly into the ‘heads’. A black bungee is looped between the legs – giving the table a functional aesthetic. “It is the simplicity which really pleases me,’ says Henry, demonstrating how the table can be assembled in less than a minute. “The angle of slot on the legs is what provides the strength, the bungee cord just holds the legs in place.” The combination of simplicity of form and functionality is evident in all of Henry Swanzy’s work. The handmade element is fundamental, too. “There’s a Japanese philosophy of Wabi-sabi which really explains the way I see my work,” he says. “It’s based around the acceptance of transience and imperfection.” The challenge for artists and craftsmen like Henry is the mass production of pieces – particularly those made in China - driving prices down and making hand-worked furniture more difficult to market. But there is still a vital element which is missing in production-line furniture, Henry explains: “I would like to think that what we produce is fairly readily identifiable as not having the very crisp machine-made manufacturing line aesthetic, and there’s just little subtle elements which give it this
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There’s a Japanese philosophy of Wabisabi based around the acceptance of transience and imperfection, which explains the way I see my work
Henry at work
character. I’m not into indulgent craft for indulgent craft’s sake… but if you can give something a unique character by making it by hand, then that’s time well spent and that does mark us apart.” He leans on a large glass-topped trestle table, explaining its growth from idea through several prototypes to the final product. “I’ve really scrutinized the trestle – I thought, what’s the minimum it needs to be? And, having identified that, how can I make that minimal thing a thing of beauty?” Pointing to the three splayed legs at each end of the table, he adds, “So you take the trestle down to three legs – because you can. And if you put one of those legs pointing inwards, then the person sitting at the end has really good leg-room.” There’s an artist’s drive in all of Henry’s work. His inspiration, he says, is hard to pin down – but being in Falmouth definitely has an impact. “It’s the sea, the view. The pace of life. I suppose inspiration comes from the frame of mind that being in a place puts you in. I really don’t know where my ideas come from. I do a lot of thinking while I’m driving – which I do quite a bit of in the West Country – so I often pull into a service station and sketch. I find that it’s really good, clear thinking time. Then you just inject that element of unknown-ness – which is all about your frame of mind and your surroundings and the silence and the birds and whatever it may be… and that determines how you process an idea.” He lives with his young family in a cottage in a remote woodland outside Falmouth – the bucolic
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location of the forest images that feature in his website. There seems little better place for a selfconfessed ‘woody person’ to live. Falmouth is renowned for its art school and it was when Henry had “fallen out of love with making bespoke furniture” that he decided to do an MA in furniture design at Falmouth University, and he fell in love with the environment of South West Cornwall. Seven years later, he cannot imagine moving anywhere else – and it’s not just the scenery that has held him here. His workshop is in a typical marine dockside. To one side is a swanky new development of residential flats overlooking the harbour, yet surrounding the workshop is a tumbledown collection of industrial buildings containing everything from recording studios to marine engineering businesses. Henry’s passion for simplicity and his artistic aesthetic is balanced with his business acumen and appreciation for the mechanics of making furniture. “What is brilliant about Falmouth is the amount of small industries that there are kicking around, particularly because of the marine industries,” he says. “Falmouth is fantastic for small-scale manufacturing solutions. I know people who can do all sorts of stuff – like good precision engineers, or someone who could give me advice on making one particular element, or a branding guru to help me develop the business. The stainless steel that I use is all produced in local marinebased studios or workshops.” He also appreciates that, in this part of the world, “People are prepared to do things
Bareppa coffee table
for a few quid, rather than saying, ‘you’ll have to go and speak to the operations manager, and no we’re not really interested and you can wait a week and it’ll cost you £300’, it’s, ‘yeah – I’ll do it and slip us £20, and job done.’” Henry may be in the “arse end of nowhere” as he describes his idyllic location, but he is outward looking. While taking his furniture up to shows in London and selling to clients all over the country, the West Country provides inspiration, contentment and a community that helps to develop and build his ideas. But with his eye on the future and the production of pieces that combine ergonomics, aesthetics and ethics (the oak is sustainably sourced from France and carries Forestry Stewardship Council certification, and the ash is all English), the business can only expand. The challenge is to keep making furniture that is hand made – which means employing more people in the same vein as his current employee, Adrian, who is (literally) honing his skills after completing a joiner’s apprenticeship and was ‘rescued’ by Henry from an uninspiring job as a site chippie. Another challenge is to sell furniture that is by its very nature so tactile – in a world that is becoming dominated by online purchasing. While Henry Swanzy’s pieces are exquisite to look at, it is still the unique character - the wabi-sabi - of the hand-turned legs on a stool, the varying hues of a wooden seat or a thin layer of cork that holds a glass table-top in place that catches the eye and draws you in.
On 20 May 2015, two of Henry’s pieces won a coveted ‘Design Guild Mark’: the Pollyfox table (above) and the Pollyfox bench (below)
henryswanzy.com
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Old soul
It was a tin tabernacle at Cadgwith that gave Anna Bingham the idea for building compact, portable houses from scratch – vintage-style. Words by Kate Mount.
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ollow the winding footpath down to the harbour from the car park above the charming Cornish fishing village of Cadgwith and, about half way along, you’ll pass a blue and white corrugated iron hut. On closer inspection, you’ll see it’s not just any old hut, but a ‘tin tabernacle’ – a surviving example of the prefabricated chapel buildings that supplied Victorian evangelists at home and across the Empire with an instant sanctuary, manufactured for them far away in Glasgow, Liverpool or Manchester. The Cadgwith chapel is a surprising relic to find in the rocky salt-washed landscape of The Lizard, but the clever way it combines industrial practicality with deeper symbolism and meaning – toolshed on the outside, shrine on the inside – gives it fashionable contemporary appeal. Anna Bingham and Dan Mullaly’s first encounter with the St Mary’s, Cadgwith, was the inspiration for a thriving tin tabernacle revival business. Inside a cavernous barn at Gweek, a few miles higher up the Lizard peninsula, they make a modern upcycled version of the original – wheels underneath, corrugated alloy for the shell; carefully selected salvage within to spirit up unexpected made-tomeasure atmosphere. “Encountering the Cadgwith chapel was a defining moment for me,” Anna says. “I started to
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imagine how we might make innovative, portable buildings with ‘old soul’.” Their affection for prefabricated tin churches has not been the only influence on the growth of Anna and Dan’s Love Lane enterprise. Rescuing and rebuilding mid 20th-century caravans for an earlier campsite business put Anna in touch with traveller communities and the craft tradition on show inside horse-drawn Romany wagons and circus trailers. “I was doing business with travellers, when noone else seemed prepared to,” she says. Explore the edges and corners of the couple’s Gweek parts warehouse, as their customers often do, and you’ll find all these influences and interests mixed up – a pulpit balustrade here, a carousel pole there, Gothic arch fragments, painted glass ... It’s a happy coincidence that fragments of those styles and traditions are still to be found. The salvage may not be as common or complete or as cheaply bought from reclamation yards as it used to be, but chapel conversions, ‘grand design’ upgrades, even in a recent case, the restoration of Buckfast Abbey, continue to make historical oddments homeless. And recovered architectural bits and pieces that would look lost or twee in the average family home, once introduced into a more intimate living space, framing a platform bed or a galley kitchenette, add unusual character and focus – exactly that ‘old soul’.
PHOTO: MITTY STILES
As for how it all happened, Devon-born Anna was a Biology student at university and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a spell before going into business as a lingerie designer and manufacturer. She was extraordinarily successful, becoming one of the first smaller makers to take factory production to China. Her company, Bas Bleu Lingerie, produced collections for Selfridges, Debenhams, Victoria’s Secret and Liberty before becoming a main designer and supplier to Top Shop. She might be doing it still, had not the sheer size of the Top Shop contract squeezed all of the experiment and excitement out of the creative process. Dan was a Fine Art student at Falmouth before he embarked on a career in the music industry. As a tour manager for bands including Madness and the Waterboys he travelled all over the country. In those wandering days, if there was a vintage caravan lying unwanted in a field or by the side of the road, the chances were that sooner or later he would notice it from the tour bus window. In 2007, their son Victor was born, and they decided to change course. From their houseboat in Hammersmith, West London, they moved to Cornwall where they started repairing and converting caravans and showman’s wagons. Four generations of Dan’s family lived in Constantine and he had grown up there. The vehicles and trailers he had a knack for finding they now started to collect and rejuvenate – and put on to their Constantine holiday campsite. Eventually the supply dried up, but it was just a short conceptual step to the ‘tabernacle’ and from restoration to ‘new build’. They started building compact, portable houses from scratch – vintage style, low maintenance, old soul. Since then, they have found a place in the countrywide network that supports the reclamation
Anna and Dan
Reclaimed architectural features including a door rescued from Buckfast Abbey (right)
A tabernacle being finished at the Gweek workshop
Tin tabernacle ‘Tin tabernacle’ describes the range of prefabricated ecclesiastical buildings made from corrugated zinc-galvanised iron. They were developed in Great Britain in the mid-19th century and were purchased and shipped overseas in huge numbers. The development of corrugated iron is one of the less appreciated advances in construction to emerge from the Industrial Revolution, and it had its finest hour during the Second World War in the development of the Anderson shelter. There are around 73 surviving tin tabernacles in England – some churches, some village halls – and many are still in use. By the 1950s there was an unwanted Anderson shelter buried at the bottom of around 3.5m British back gardens. bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/47/a5087847 The church at Cadgwith that inspired Anna
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The view from the workshop at Gweek
and upcycling industries. Windows, for example, are a key feature of their interior designs, much as they were in the originals, and the search for ones that play with coloured light, like the tinted and leaded ovals in art deco front doors, has taken them repeatedly to the Brooking National Collection of Windows in Brighton. From Charles Brooking’s eccentric but increasingly valued hoard, they collect unwanted duplicates. Another important source of historical
features is LASSCO (The London Architectural Salvage and Supply Co.). Prices: studios from £17,000; a larger tabernacle with bathroom, electric and full fit from £32,000. Contact details: Love Lane Caravans, Retallack Farm, Constantine, Cornwall TR11 5PW. Tel: Dan on +44 (0) 7876 593340 email: sales@lovelanecaravans.com lovelanecaravans.com
Anna says... ...Cornwall is blessed with some of the most beautiful coastline imaginable. So you’ll find us on or near the water most weekends … quite often in our campervan or with our tent, even out of season. I guess it’s very much an ‘out of doors living’ kind of place. ...our favourite beaches are Dollar Cove near Helston and Porthgwarra and Porthcurno down towards Land’s End. Favourite thing to do, now that Victor is older, is to walk some of the costal path with a picnic or pub in the middle. We’re aiming to walk the entire coastline - doing a different bit each time. Some weekends we do a two-day mission with an overnight in a B&B. ...having been a designer for many years, building tabernacles gives us the chance to create something and a way of living that we aspire to ourselves - simple, stylish and outdoors. ...the only shopping I ever do is at reclamation yards and delving into farmers barns for the odd find. There are still a few antique shops worth browsing, but there’s no clothes shopping here. But with little reason to wear nice clothes - it doesn’t feel like a big loss. Anyway, it’s lovely to have the excuse to go for a city break when shopping is required. The Tabernacle with the Buckfast Abbey door is now in St Wenn (and will be available to rent from canopyandstars.co.uk)
Anna at work ALL PHOTOS BY KATE MOUNT, EXCEPT WHERE CREDITED
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Glamping zone
INTERIOR PHOTO: GUY HARROP
One of Love Lane Caravans latest creations (above) has just been delivered to Brownscombe Luxury Glamping, set in a secluded valley in the heart of Devon’s South Hams, close to Totnes and Compton Castle. Kate Tregoning’s family farmed here for over 30 years; not any longer, but there are still pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks roaming nearby, as well as a farm shop stocking their own and other quality local produce. Apart from the new arrival from Love Lane, which sleeps two and is set in its own private space with an outdoor hot tub, there are three large Safari tents sleeping up to six.
SPECIAL OFFER FOR MANOR READERS INTERIOR PHOTO: GUY HARROP
Brownscombe are offering a discount of 10% for MANOR readers throughout the year excluding July and August. Please quote MNR 2015. Contact details: Brownscombe, Compton Holt, Compton, Marldon, TQ3 1TA. Tel: 01803 872532 email: info@brownscombe.co.uk
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Teign spirits Teign Spirits is a photographic exhibition created by photographer/artist Mike Smallcombe. The Teign Spirits images are 3 x 2 metre, high resolution photographs, printed on waterproof canvas to be hung outside in Castle Drogo’s stunning gardens and around the wider estate near Hunter’s Path, Fingle Bridge and along the River Teign. 44
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photostory
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The photographs form part of a new creative presentation for the next two years. Castle Drogo is currently undergoing a major five-year £11m conservation project with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). During this time, three creative partners/ artists have been invited to respond to the stories of Castle Drogo and the surrounding landscape to inspire a series of new art works and installations. Mike Smallcombe’s work references the charcoal burning that used to take place in the valley; Blackenstone Quarry, where much of the stone that built the castle was sourced; Julius Drewe’s passion for salmon fishing in the Teign; and the chandelier is a nod to the grand chandeliers that hang in the castle that the Drewes bought while on honeymoon in Venice. The photographs will be on show from summer 2015 until early 2017.
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photostory
Charcoal
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Salmon
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photostory
Blackenstone
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photostory
Waifs
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Murano
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photostory
MIKE SMALLCOMBE Photographer/artist Mike Smallcombe has lived in Devon for 21 years. His commercial work is mainly in London and he pursues his Art projects from his studio in Devon. After a number of group exhibitions (including the Association of Photographers Awards), Mike’s first solo exhibition, Nomads (2006), expressed his interest and concern for the Tuareg of the southern Sahara. In 2007 he won the photography award at The Exeter Contemporary Open. In 2008 Mike was awarded Arts Council funding for his touring exhibition Ghosts in the Wood shown at Haldon Forest, Exeter, Kielder Forest, Northumberland and Grizedale Forest in the Lake District. He is now working on three new major pieces of work including the up and coming Teign Spirits exhibition at Castle Drogo for the National Trust. The National Trust: for more information and exhibition dates. Castle Drogo email: louise.donovan@nationaltrust.org.uk. Tel: 01647 433306 or visit the project blog at castledrogonationaltrust.wordpress.com. Costumes: Liz de Tisi, Exeter Northcott Theatre. exeternorthcott.co.uk. Casting: Kate King
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Culture
Michael Holler | Simon Armitage | Exeter Art Exhibition South West must sees | Worth making the trip for | Staying in
Dave King, Pink Interior This and other works can be seen at the Exeter Art Show, Maynard School, Exeter, Saturday 4 July from 10am – 6pm and Sunday 5 July from 10am – 4pm
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Trendlebeare Down, Bog Asphodel, acrylic on linen, 16 x 18 ins
Hogweed and honeysuckle In the midst of preparing for two solo shows coming up in London and Devon, painter and printmaker Michael Honnor stops for a moment to show Miranda Gardiner his latest work.
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ichael Honnor is in the midst of preparing a vast body of work for two solo shows coming up: one at his longstanding gallery of 25 years, The Thackeray Gallery in London, and another at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Bovey Tracey. In his studio near the southern edge of Dartmoor – a rustic former barn in a cobbled courtyard with an abundance of natural light – he shows me his latest work. I’ve seen all sorts of artists’ studios over the years - barns, warehouses, architect-designed pods in fields - and even have a make-shift one of my own at home
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culture
PHOTO: MIRANDA GARDINER
Michael Honnor at work in his studio
No one ever planted the vast blanket of saturated gorse on the cliff edge or a small group of gently nodding snake’s head fritillaries in the damp meadow
North Norfolk, Common Poppy, acrylic on linen 11 x 13 ins
(that pops-up between the spare room and the dining room table) but Michael’s has some unique elements. Firstly, he has an enviable collection of architects’ plan chests, which he uses to store tubes of paint and paper “so that everything is easily to hand”. Then, in the middle of the studio, is a unique prototype tilting easel that can shift from holding the painting on a totally vertically plane to horizontal in a couple of light presses on a foot pedal. This is handy when you want to slip quickly between different thicknesses of paint, or to get a fresh viewpoint on a work. Michael made the easel to his own specifications. He
also makes the paintings’ exquisite frames and uses conservation methods, such as the use of wheat starch glue, for mounting works on paper. Before his successful painting career, Michael studied English at Oxford University. “I always knew I wanted to be a painter,” he says. “I was often drawn across town by the lure of the Ruskin School of Art, which was still based in the Ashmolean in those days.” It was during his time at Oxford that he discovered his two life-long passions, art and the cello, which he still plays, often surrounded by paintings in his studio.
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PHOTO: MIRANDA GARDINER
Torr Wild Daffodil, acrylic on linen, 18 x 19 ins
I have been familiar with his work for the past 20 years, particularly the landscapes of Southern Dartmoor and those around the Erme Valley, Wonwell estuary, the far West of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. He painted these, and still does, in situ - Mr Turner-style. He would lug huge canvases over moorland streams and bogs and nestle himself within the landscape to paint, not just the visual aspect of a place, but also, to some extent, a personal exploration of that moment, through suggestive brushwork and energetic pops of colour. Hogweed and Honeysuckle is an exhibition of his recent wild flower paintings on canvas and aluminium plates. They are resonant of Shakespeare’s weeds: the vibrant, slightly un-hinged, wild-child cousin to the well-behaved, but frequently sickly, hybrid cultivators we buy in garden centres and plant in our borders for maximum show value. I love old-fashioned scented garden roses, peonies and alliums, but his paintings seem to be saying that maybe their wild cousins might have more fun. Part of the attraction of the flowers Michael selects – wild carrot from Morvah in Cornwall, giant hogweed flowers, honeysuckle, poppy, samphire and wild sorrel – is their ephemeral nature, such as the brief moment in May when the hedgerows are almost psychedelic with bluebells, red campion, wild garlic and zingy green ferns. The other factor that makes wild flowers so exhilarating is their surprise factor when you stumble upon them: no one ever planted the vast blanket of saturated gorse on the cliff edge or a small group of gently nodding snake’s head fritillaries in the damp meadow. “I love painting outside… I plonk myself down with a jam jar of flowers,” he tells me. “I don’t like them in a vase. The jam jar goes into the landscape, maybe down to the beach, and gets gently pushed into the sand. There is just a hint of the curve of the jam jar in the finished painting.”
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The wild flowers on the canvas, resonant fully of the season in which they were first glimpsed, picked and painted. They do capture a moment, but also make a very specific observation about the meeting of wild flowers and the landscape that created them. However, they are also about the artist who feels nostalgia for the captured wild flowers he once pressed between blotting paper as a boy.
PRINTMAKING Michael has taught a highly regarded and muchloved printmaking course at Dartington Hall for the last 25 years. Printmaking workshops with Michael Honnor Meet the maker - Michael Honnor Sat 19 September, 10.30-11.30am, Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Bovey Tracey Add your Mark - print work collaboration with Michael Honnor Sat 24 October, 10.30am - 12 noon, Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Bovey Tracey Printmaking workshop with Michael Honnor 31 October, 9am - 2pm, Dartington Studios, Devon
EXHIBITIONS Hogweed and Honeysuckle 16 - 26 June 2015, The Thackery Gallery, Kensington, London Michael Honnor: Painter Printmaker 19 Sep - 1 Nov 2015, Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Bovey Tracey
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Wiscombe Cliff, Honeysuckle, acrylic on linen, 17 x 17 ins
“Wild flowers have always been my favourite flowers. I like their ragged, tough delicacy. They’re Shakespeare’s brave weeds that outlive the sickly cultivated sort and prick the landscape with their tiny dances of colour. Even now the smell of sellotape takes me back to the age of six when I used to stick my squashed-flat specimens into a scrapbook. Now I’m finding ways of putting them flat into paintings, no longer squashed or even picked, but still carried home with the same hoped-for expectation that I’ve caught something alive.” MICHAEL HONNOR
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As much PHOTO: PAUL WOLFGANG WEBSTER
a stranger When 21st-century troubadour Simon Armitage travelled from Minehead to Land’s End reciting poems for his supper, he found challenges and surprises along the way, writes Harriet Mellor.
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wandering poet fills a book about his pilgrimage along the South West Coast Path. My initial reaction is one of tedium at the prospect of introspective passages and clichéd scenery-laden stanzas. By page 12 it’s clearly time to bin any stereotypical assumptions: this is no ordinary trek or poet. The first nocturnal stop-off is a bed at a Butlins holiday camp, followed by breakfast in the cafeteria of the supermarket chain Morrisons. The compelling narrator is Yorkshireman Simon Armitage, often described as ‘the poet for people who don’t like poetry’. By breaking that mould and widening cultural appeal, he was awarded a CBE. His words are dissected, his style emulated, he is studied at GCSE, A-Level and as part of Creative Writing degrees. In order to compile Walking Away: Further Travels with a Troubadour on the South West Coast Path, Simon endured an intense hike from late August to midSeptember 2013 along the north side of the coast path from Minehead to Land’s End and beyond, with the intention of reaching Samson, the furthest speck of Scilly Isle, inhabited by just one resident. A ‘troubadour’ was originally a strolling minstrel or medieval poet who frequented France and Italy in the 11th century, singing about ‘courtly love’. Simon’s modern-day version entailed following a route and, literally, singing for his supper. Stopping every evening, he gave a reading in exchange for bed and breakfast hosted by strangers. These very different characters who responded to an itinerary on Simon’s website ended up interwoven into the story. “Effectively all that meant was that I had a name and sometimes a phone number and I would be sitting on a wall until someone arrived. You take your chances a little bit because you don’t know who these people are, but I ended up seeing it from their point of view: they didn’t know who I was. I was as much a stranger to them.” One of the most interesting aspects also became one of the hardest. After the daytime spent alone
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in his headspace, Simon reverted not just to being a sociable guest, but playing to an audience. “That really is the great challenge. I’ve said that about these sort of projects before; they’re harder on your smile than they are on your feet. Often trying to transform from something solitary and thoughtful into somebody who can talk and be entertaining. “On their own, either thing is plausible, to walk by day or to give readings every night. To do both of them in tandem on the same day means you have to go through a transformation to make that happen. At about 4 or 5pm coming in, getting scrubbed up, then coming down with a smile glued to your face. “But at the same time, if the readings hadn’t been arranged and I hadn’t been meeting people, I may well have packed it in. It was the sense of obligation that kept me going.” Simon’s existence was minimalist, sparsely armed with just a few affectionately described props: a hat, walking boots and stick, and a rucksack nicknamed the ‘Galapagos Tortoise’. Adding to the challenge, he lived purely on what he was worth at each performance. Discretionary donations were stuffed into a walking sock that was handed around the audience. Amongst the pennies were some completely random ‘gifts’. “I dipped into the sock to pay for things and I think it’s fair to say I broke even once I tallied everything up.” Each person Simon meets, as well as his non-cash acquired offerings, are gratefully listed at the end of the book. “I think the acknowledgements might be the longest sentence ever, in a book. And I know my publishers were very pleased that I had written a book that ended with the words ‘German Condom and hard boiled egg’.” Even though the terrain and characters are different, Simon has famously used this theme once before. In 2010 he traversed his own neck of the woods, the Pennine Way, under similar
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circumstances. The result, Walking Home stayed on the Sunday Times best-seller list for a number of weeks. Mind you, Simon is so well-known in his native land even his poems are etched into Stanza Stones, a 47-mile walk from his birthplace of Marsden to Ilkley. There were obviously differences in the landscapes which were more than aesthetic. Towards the end of the South West Coast Path Simon was in such agony he was practically mainlining paracetamol draped over his mate Slug, who had joined the last leg (so to speak). “When you’re walking on the (Pennine) moor it’s a very horizontal experience. The horizon is this thing in the distance and you have vast landscape on either side of it. There’s a sameness to it all and actually, apart from being lost, which happened to me a lot, it’s very relaxing. You don’t have to think about it too much. “The coastal path is always blue on the right hand side and brown on the left. It took me a while to tune into the language of the sea. It’s not my natural environment and I was very surprised by how tough the walk was. A bit of a tightrope act. A lot of those paths are fairly precarious and there are times when you really have to concentrate on this ribbon of a path in front of you. “I thought I was going to be ambling across golden sands but it was really pummelling. Definitely harder than the Pennine way across some sections.” Even though Simon’s personal take on the British Isles would be the stuff that TV travel programmes producers dream of, he is keen to end it there. “It is the last one. I was restless and I wanted to write that book and do that walk and I’m really pleased that I did and got it out of my system. The minute people have expectations of you it’s best to try something different. “I think Walking Away might be the last nonfiction book that I write. Recently, I’ve been concentrating on my poems, writing more drama, and doing some lectures.” He also likes working at his west Yorkshire village home, which he shares with his wife Susan Roberts, who works at BBC’s Media City running the radio drama department for the North. The Armitage household must be an inspiring place for a 15-year-old. “Our poor old daughter gets it from both sides. It’s funny, she’s been studying my poems at school. She comes home and tells me what they mean.” Amongst the many roles and strings to his bow, Simon is Professor of Poetry at Sheffield University a writer of fiction and regulary contributes to TV and radio drama. He is also a long-term regular side-kick on Mark Radcliffe’s Radio 1 Show. As this piece goes to press Simon is making the headlines as he’s up against Nobel Literature prize winner Wole Soyinka to be the next Professor of Poetry at Oxford
After the daytime spent alone in his headspace Simon reverted not just to being a sociable guest, but playing to an audience University – a role seen as second to the post of Poet Laureate in terms of prestige. From early autumn Simon’s new dramatisation of the Odyssey, The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead performed by the prestigious ETT (English Touring Theatre) is on tour, beginning in Liverpool at the Everyman Theatre, via The Globe Theatre in London, ending at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter. There’s also a play in development at The National and a lot of drama being penned for BBC Radio. The poetry he is perhaps most famous for is a creative outlet, free of contracts and commercial pressure. “I don’t put time aside for writing poetry. Everything else I do comes with deadlines but nobody’s screaming at me for poems, so in some way that still feels like a hobby. “Every now and again I steal time off my other kinds of writing to write it. Essentially I just wait and see what comes. I have a notebook that comes with me everywhere I go. Occasionally I gather my notes up and find they develop a momentum towards a particular theme.” Simon responds modestly to being described under the same umbrella as the likes of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney – as the poet of this generation. “It’s not easy to remain relevant or popular, but I think the trick is probably not to think about it. There is too much creative pressure trying to be immortal. “I think you should just write for the here-and-now and see what happens. I’m a pretty day-to-day person so I tend to know what’s going on in the world and I wonder if, at some subconscious level, these walks have been a way of staying grounded and connected.”
Simon Armitage is appearing at: Ways With Words Festival of Words and Ideas 4 July at 8pm in the Great Hall, Dartington. wayswithwords.co.uk Port Eliot Festival 30 July - 2 August porteliotfestival.com Porthminster Gallery, St Ives 6 August porthminstergallery.co.uk
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Peter Randall-Page
Simon Ripley
Jess Davies
The Exeter Art Show The growth of the art fair has become something of a 21st century phenomenon. By Imogen Clements.
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rt, the viewing and trading of art, was once upon a time a much more controlled affair. Artists were reliant on galleries choosing to exhibit their work then attracting the right and sufficient numbers of viewers to stand any chance of it getting seen, never mind bought. And therein lies the rub. For anyone but the most informed art aficionado, galleries were an intimidating place to set foot in. If you wanted to buy art and weren’t proficient, loaded and/or thickskinned, it wasn’t easy, much to many struggling artists’ frustration. Then in 1999, the Affordable Art Fair came along and brought art out of its gallery confines into the open air, that open air being Battersea Park. The hundred or so artists that exhibited remained galleryrepresented but the galleries were in stalls instead, allowing easy access to the masses to peruse their works, as well as comfort in numbers. The healthy, but up-to-then repressed, appetite for art was underlined by the 10,000-strong crowd that the first Affordable Art Fair attracted, and by the success that followed it (which took it around the globe). Today, 1.6m people buy £235m of art this way.
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The Exeter Art Show 2015, hosted by The Maynard School on 4 - 5 July, is built on exactly the same principles – ease of buying, breadth of choice and user-friendliness – but it goes one step further in that it by-passes the galleries altogether. The 120 artists exhibiting at the Exeter Art Show sell their work direct. “We’re not competing with the galleries and it suits everyone really,” says organiser Helen Reynolds. “Firstly there are numerous people who come to the Art Show who would never otherwise set foot in a gallery, and this experience often inspires them to. The artists themselves pay us a commission of 30% on everything they sell, which is considerably less than they would pay to a gallery; and all the commission earned at the Exeter Art Show goes to charity, this year to the South West Children’s Hospice, as well as towards the funding of an art bursary for one of the pupils.” Around 120 artists showing richly varied work will exhibit at Exeter Art Show this July. “We have ceramics, sculpture, automata as well as paintings of every style and medium,” says Helen. “There is effectively something for everyone, suiting every budget with works selling for between £10 and £9,000.”
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Sarah Mohun
Kate Aggett
Gemma Fletcher Katharine Lightfoot
It is the range of talents that the show attracts that Helen is particularly proud of. “What we think is wonderful about the show is that the artists selling direct means those just starting out get to meet and exhibit alongside some incredibly successful artists, and these well-known names will attract an audience who, once there, will get to see the work of the lesserknown artists. “Alongside graduates straight out of Falmouth Art College, we have the renowned sculptor Peter Randall-Page, Royal Academician Ken Howard and South West Academicians Alan Cotton, Brett Humphries and Jenny Pery to name but a few. Also we are showing the work of Jeff Soan, whose clever and intricate pieces made with wood have prompted The Duke of Edinburgh to name him ‘a craftsman at the top of his game’. The Exeter Art Show was started in 2008 by Helen. On arriving at The Maynard as a primary school teacher just prior to the school’s 350th anniversary, she suggested that they celebrate the milestone with an exhibition titled A Celebration of Art. This first exhibition attracted 100 artists and managed to raise enough money to fund a pupil’s bursary.
This year marks the fourth Art Show at The Maynard and the extent and calibre of work is unprecedented. The Maynard expects to welcome thousands of aspiring collectors through its doors with the private view on Friday 3 July. “It’s something that the school is incredibly proud to host,” say Helen. “Everyone gets involved. The girls serve food and perform music at the private view and teachers and parents help with the selling across the two days of the show.” The Maynard is also keen that the show attracts young artists from beyond just their own classrooms. This year there is an art competition open to any 16-19 year-old who attends a school or college within the South West. The top 20 works chosen will be exhibited at the Art Show. In doing so their art will be seen, admired, and perhaps even bought, alongside that of Royal Academicians. The Exeter Art Show will be held at the Maynard School, Exeter, on Saturday 4 July from 10am – 6pm and on Sunday 5 July from 10am – 4pm. Funds raised will go to The Children’s Hospice South West and to an Art Bursary for a sixth form student. exeterartshow.co.uk
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South West must sees...
Art on the green For 40 years, Exeter Craft Festival has provided a vibrant platform for the best artists and makers in the South West. Swing your beaks around the more than 100 stalls to see work by creatives from across the region, including these gorgeous pieces by Cornish ceramicist Emma West, Hare and Lapwing. 17 - 18 July on Cathedral Green, Exeter. exetercraftfestival.co.uk
This sweet life Penned by award-winning playwright Jack Thorne – whose recent stage adaptation of Let the Right One In was a West End sell-out success – The Solid Life of Sugar Water is an intimate, tender play about loss, hurt and rediscovery. The play is a co-production between Theatre Royal Plymouth and Graeae Theatre Company, who are committed to breaking down barriers, challenging preconceptions and boldly placing disabled artists centre stage. All performances will include audio description and creative captioning.
You’re so vain
Until 13 June at Drum Theatre, Plymouth. theatreroyal.com
His stark materials Existing somewhere between sculpture, collage and chaos, Paul Carter’s solo show Hotel Workers reminds us that all spaces are transitory, portals to where we’re going or monuments to where we’ve been. Until 4 July at Exeter Phoenix. exeterphoenix.org.uk
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Facebook, Twitter, Instagram… never have our identities been so mutable yet so carefully self-constructed. In Show Off, all-female performance company Figs in Wigs present a mash-up of styles and genres to delve deep into our digital existence, examining how social media has bred a new form of narcissism. Music, dance, circus, stand-up: Figs in Wigs are addressing the big issues, one sequin at a time… 11 - 13 June at Bike Shed Theatre, Exeter. bikeshedtheatre.co.uk
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7 - 11 July at Hall For Cornwall, Truro. hallforcornwall.co.uk
All at sea In Search of the Miraculous is an exhibition of international artists inspired by and marking the 40th anniversary of the voyage made by Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader, who set sail alone in July 1975 in 12ft dinghy Ocean Wave from Massachusetts to cross the Atlantic to Falmouth, Cornwall, disappearing en route. It includes artists who have not necessarily taken direct influence from Bas Jan Ader but have made works that feature a yearning for the sublime, a playful pursuit of new experiences and journeys, or a romantic contemplation of the sea and what may lie beyond the horizon. Primarily comprising photography and film, the exhibition will also feature a day sail from Newlyn to Falmouth by a flotilla of small vessels with an eclectic crew of experienced skippers joined by artists and young people. 27 June – 19 September at Newlyn Art Gallery. newlynartgallery.co.uk
PHOTO: BRINKHOFF MÖGENBURG
Winner of seven Olivier Awards, the highly acclaimed National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime hits the South West on its first-ever nationwide tour. Beg, steal or fight for a ticket: this is a hugely inventive adaptation of Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel about a 15-year-old boy’s attempts to decipher the complexities of the adult world.
Christopher Boone (Graham Butler) and cast
Hollywood calling...
Exeter Phoenix and media agency Colourburn are teaming up again to give budding Spielbergs aged 10-13 the chance to get involved in all aspects of film-making to produce a short film over five days. This year’s Summer Film School will be take place amid the dilapidated decadence of Poltimore House and will also feature promenade theatre renegades Four of Swords as collaborators. The film produced will be shown at a special premiere screening as well as being submitted to film festivals around the world. 3 - 7 August at Poltimore House, Exeter. Course fee £200. exeterphoenix.org.uk/events/exeter-film-school
Gunnar Jónsson, Hringsól, 2012 (detail)
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Worth making the trip for...
Wall to wall art Europe’s largest urban art festival, Upfest, is returning to the cultural home of UK graffiti, Bristol. Now in its 7th year, the free festival brings 250 of the world’s most cutting-edge paint-slingers to the city to create 30,000sq ft of artwork across the festival weekend. Highlights include Bristol’s well-known Inkie, My Dog Sighs, Dutch duo Telmo Miel, Martin Ron, Croatian artist LONAC and the first man to paint on the Berlin Wall – Thierry Noir. Artists will paint to a soundtrack of live funk, soul, reggae and old school hip hop in locations all over Bedminster including the Tobacco Factory, Hen and Chicken, The Steam Crane and Spotted Cow. The festival raises money for The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA), which offer a confidential phone line for children affected by alcoholism within the family unit. 25-27 July at various locations in Bedminster, Bristol. visitbristol.co.uk/things-to-do/upfest-bristol-2015
All washed up Part of the Bristol 2015 European Green Capital programme, ‘Withdrawn’ plants five fishing boats in the lush green of Leigh Woods for the summer. Created by artist Luke Jerram – responsible for the giant waterslide on Bristol’s Park Street last year – this eerie, thoughtprovoking piece encourages reflection on the impact humanity is having on our seas and oceans. You can experience the installation on a walk in the woods, plus there is a series of associated events taking place throughout the summer, including performances, theatre, lectures and live film presentations. Until 6 September, Leigh Woods, Bristol. trustnewartbristol.org for full programme details.
Hole lotta love
Nearly 50 years since London last hosted a retrospective of Barbara Hepworth’s work, Tate Britain’s summer show will include carvings and sculptures in wood, stone and bronze, as well as drawings, collages, textiles and experimental photogram works. 24 June – 25 October at Tate Britain, London. tate.org.uk
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All you can eat PHOTO: © RWD14
Using movement, clowning and multimedia, multi-award-winning Clout Theatre turns its attention to food in all its ritual, routine and retch-potential. Feast explores the evolution of mankind’s relationship with food through the triptych of Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. Expect violence and hints of cannibalism. 8 - 11 July at Battersea Arts Centre, London. bac.org.uk
Last chance to catch PHOTO: WELLCOME LIBRARY, LONDON
Forensics: the anatomy of crime explores, the history, science and art of forensic medicine. It travels from crime scene to courtroom, across centuries and continents, looking at the specialisms of those involved in the delicate processes of collecting, analysing and presenting medical evidence, drawing out the stories of victims, suspects and investigators of violent crimes, and our enduring cultural fascination with death and detection. Containing original evidence, archival material, photographic documentation, film footage, instruments and specimens, the exhibition is rich with artworks offering both unsettling and intimate responses to traumatic events. A must for anyone hooked on the endless permutations of CSI.
Pioneering French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon was the first to develop the now standard two-part ‘mug shot’ method of photographing suspects from the front and in profile, as demonstrated in this 1913 portrait of Bertillon himself.
Until 21 June at Wellcome Collection, London. wellcomecollection.org
Sounds of the city Now in its second year, Bristol’s Harbourside concert series kicks off with George Ezra on midsummer’s night, followed by Kaiser Chiefs on 25 June, Seasick Steve on 26 June and Jessie J taking last night duties on 27 June. With a stage flanked by two tall ships with their masts lit for the occasion, it looks like being a hot ticket. 24 - 27 June at the Harbourside Amphitheatre, Bristol. bristolsummerseries.com
Seasick Steve
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Worth staying in for...
Up Periscope – it’s time to teleport Rather than inventing more ingenious weapons with which to wipe out humanity, scientists should spend their time developing teleportation technology. Or, at the very least, magic carpets. Think of the reduction in carbon emissions – no more interminable car journeys or long-haul flights. Bliss. While we wait for the eggheads to sort this one out, the closest you can get to actually swapping eyeballs with another human being is Twitter’s new live video streaming app, Periscope. Hitch a ride with a skydiver in New Zealand, sail across San Francisco bay, watch a man called Dave feed his hamster in New York. Seriously, if there’s someone Periscoping it, you can see it. And while I thoroughly enjoyed watching a woman in Brighton walking her pugs on the beach, what I really want is for someone to Periscope their journey home on the N159 night bus – but only if they’re sitting on the top deck at the front. The world just got smaller. Again. The Periscope app is free to download. It is currently only available for iPhone. Android version coming soon.
Places of the heart When Philip Marsden moved to a remote creek-side farmhouse in Cornwall, the intensity of his response to the landscape took him aback. It led him to begin exploring why we react so strongly to certain places, and why particular features inspire layers of mythology to build up around them. In Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place, the author journeys from the Neolithic ritual landscape of Bodmin Moor to the Arthurian traditions of Tintagel, from the mysterious china-clay country to the granite tors and tombs of the far south-west, assembling a chronology of our shifting attitudes to place. Rising Ground is published by Granta: £20 hardback, £9.99 paperback, £9.99 ebook. grantabooks.com
This living landscape Bleak and beautiful, forbidding and mysterious, moorland landscapes inspire awe and fear in equal measure. In The Moor: Lives Landscape Literature, William Atkins takes the reader from south to north in an exploration of this elusive terrain’s uniquely captivating position in our culture, history and psyche. Atkins may be a solitary wanderer across these vast expanses, but his journey is full of encounters, busy with the voices of the moors, past and present: murderers and monks, smugglers and priests, gamekeepers and ramblers, miners and poets, developers and environmentalists. As he travels, he shows us that the fierce landscapes we associate with Wuthering Heights and The Hound of the Baskervilles are far from being untouched wildernesses. Daunting and defiant, the moors echo with tales of a country and the people who live in it – a mighty, age-old landscape standing steadfast against the passage of time. The Moor is published by Faber and Faber: £18.99 hardback, £12.99 ebook.
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Both Philip Marsden and William Atkins will be appearing at the Dartington Ways with Words Festival, on 8 and 9 July at 11.45am respectively. wayswithwords.co.uk
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What’s keeping me in... Arts Editor Belinda Dillon “I’m hooked on Channel 4’s The Night Bus. A snapshot of London in all its heart-warming, eccentric glory.”
On your feet For a more radical guide to walking – as artistic practice, as a political act – delve into Walking’s New Movement, in which writer, performer and ‘mythogeographer’ Phil Smith seeks to unravel psychoeography from its early roots, considers where things are at for walking (as art and as performance), and examines the use and abuse of public space. Thoughtful, rigorous and not a little playful, Smith offers the reader strategies and tactics for a more engaged way of moving through the world. Walking’s New Movement is published by Triarchy Press, £10 (plus p+p) paperback. triarchypress.net
Publishing Editor Imogen Clements “The one word that springs to mind is ‘MANOR’. Beyond that there is the odd snatch of telly Better Call Saul is an impressive sequel to Breaking Bad. Follow that? Well it has, very well too. Great characters, fabulous dialogue as before, slow plot build and of course you’re forever waiting for when Saul meets Walter... ” Designer Guy Cracknell “After having my senses bombarded by George Miller’s brilliant Mad Max: Fury Road starring Tom Hardy, I felt it my duty to revisit the Aussie director’s original apocalyptic Mad Max trilogy. The films have maintained their power to shock and excite, especially the first two. Mel Gibson is great as the troubled anti-hero and the action is still startlingly visceral. Brutal, beautiful and bonkers.”
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The Style Shoot Oh to be beside the seaside, to be beside the sea. Seaside lends itself to many different guises. Steeped in story and mystery, it brings images of helter-skelters, candy floss and balloons; clowns and entertainers and palm-reading fortune tellers; pirates and treasure hunters, smugglers and crossbones. Punishing shorelines and hypnotic horizons. We are forever drawn to the sea. Come on in. The water’s lovely. ART DIRECTOR AND STYLIST: IONE RUCQUOI PHOTOGRAPHER: MIKE SMALLCOMBE
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Top from Top Shop, £30; yellow 1930’s swimsuit from Revival, Totnes, £30; mint blue trainers by Adidas, £67; plastic ring from 30 The Square, £4
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Giant doily, artist’s own creation; top from Top Shop, £30; knickerbockers from Revival, Totnes, £24
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Body from Top Shop, £18; white trousers from Revival, Totnes, £36; earrings from 30 The Square, £9; black belt from Revival, £4
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1950’s swimming hat artist’s own; white dress from Revival, Totnes, £46
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Behind the scenes On a sunny Monday morning we gathered on Plymouth Hoe and looked out to sea, to see the rain rolling in, as is fitting for a perfect British seaside day!
THE MANOR CAST AND CREW Model: Philippa Mills Art Director and Stylist: Ione Rucquoi Photographer: Mike Smallcombe Hair and Makeup: Elouise Abbott
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Properties featured; High Tide Porthtowan (top), Pednolver (centre), The Haven (bottom)
0844 800 2813 www.cornishgems.com
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Food
Tasting elegant simplicity at St Tudy Inn, Cornwall Bites, the latest news and events from Devon and Cornwall’s vibrant food scene Exclusive recipes from The Seahorse, Dartmouth | The Table Prowler
PHOTO: KATE WHITAKER
Seaside risotto cooked by head chef Andy Appleton at Watergate Bay’s Fifteen Cornwall fifteencornwall.co.uk
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seasonal delights Anna Turns meets Emily Scott, who is creating a simple yet exquisite seasonal menu at the revamped St Tudy Inn.
S
itting outside the St Tudy Inn in the sunshine, chef Emily Scott is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the season’s first asparagus. “A local farmer called Roger will bring the first harvest to the pub in his horse and cart, and I won’t put asparagus on my menu until the day he turns up!” Five miles from the North Cornish coast in the picturesque village of St Tudy, Emily is transforming the local pub. “I feel like I’m in the middle of the French countryside, which is odd because Burgundy is where I first learnt my trade,” says Emily. “This pub feels like my home now.” With relaxed French-style interiors, natural stripped-back furnishings and fresh white walls, every room is a reflection of her personality and her food is simple yet beautiful to match. In the kitchen, she’s intuitive - “I don’t often use the timer, I feel when something is done” - and there’s a certain elegance to her cooking that perhaps only a woman can achieve in this predominantly male industry. “Whenever I have worked alongside other chefs on demos, they have always been brilliant. Some say they can tell my food is cooked by a woman because there’s an extra finesse to it.”
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PHOTO: POLLY RENWICK
Provenance, producers and
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PHOTO: DANIEL SCOTT / theheadthetail.com
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It’s all about bringing people together around a table and breaking bread
ALL PHOTOS THIS PAGE: DANIEL SCOTT / theheadthetail.com
Emily bakes with her ten-year-old daughter Evie
Every dish should tell a real story: “It’s not just about the chef, it’s about the provenance, the producers and the seasons. It is definitely not about me,” she says. “I love fish cookery and I want to inspire people to go home and try making a recipe at home. People tend to shop just for convenience but if you give people knowledge of how simple it can be to cook fresh fish, it doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult. Lemon sole takes four minutes in the oven.” Emily also couldn’t be without herbs and she is planting a small kitchen garden this summer. “One of my favourites is chocolate mint to decorate desserts. It smells of chocolate and it’s a real talking point.” At the end of service, Emily always glances at the pile of dirty napkins as a sign of how busy the pub has been, and now she’s keen to take stock. “I need to realise what I have achieved on my own. This place proves to me that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.” She wants to pass this ethos on to her three children, aged 10, 12 and 13, who have been on this cooking adventure with her. St Tudy Inn is a pub with a strong local following here and it’s evolving into much more than that. “A pub is a very different game to running a restaurant, because I think locals always feel like they own a little bit of any pub. We took out five microwaves when we bought this pub and nothing is ‘pinged’. Everything is made from scratch in our kitchen, from mayonnaise to biscotti, and my style of food was always going to be different, but now locals know what I’m about. They can still enjoy a good pint of
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real ale from Padstow Brewing Company or Harbour Brewing Co. at the bar.” She’s also excited about getting a verre du vin system so customers can enjoy any bottle of wine by the glass, making the St Tudy wine list more accessible to everyone. “It also makes it more interesting for us in terms of matching food with wine,” adds Emily. Surrounded by young, dedicated and creative staff members, chefs Lucy, Louis and Katie plus Lucie managing front-of-house make up an unusually female-dominated team. “It can be a tough and
food
ALL PHOTOS THIS PAGE: DANIEL SCOTT / theheadthetail.com
pressured work environment but it feels like a lot of elements are now marrying up, and for the first time ever I’d like to be recognised and perhaps get some rosettes, although that will never be the be-all and end-all.” A woman on a mission, Emily’s drive to excel was instilled in her from a young age. “My very ambitious grandmother was a paediatrician, which was phenomenal in her time. Granny was passionate about education, so my siblings and I were lucky that she gave us opportunities to pursue things that we each loved. She always used to say ‘press on’ and I definitely don’t slow down much.” Growing up inland in Surrey and Sussex, Emily remembers family holidays at her grandmother’s house near Padstow fondly, so it’s apt that she’s settled here. Every day she takes her dogs to the beaches she enjoyed as a little girl. “Cornwall has changed so much in the 14 years I have lived here. When I first worked in Port Isaac, having a proper coffee machine was unheard of,” says Emily, who previously ran The Harbour Restaurant in Port Isaac, which she sold to chef Nathan Outlaw in 2013. “Now I want people to come here and say ‘wow, we’re so pleased we found this place’.” Emily goes with the ebb and flow of the seasons, creating experiences and memories through food. “It’s all about bringing people together around a table and breaking bread,” she explains. Nearing 40, Emily has found real confidence in her style of cooking. Years ago she would have described herself as a cook, but now she’s very much a chef, and one to watch out for. sttudyinn.com
Emily’s favourite... ...summer ingredients: strawberries, peaches, apricots, courgettes and courgette flowers, crab, Cornish sardines and mackerel. ...Cornish producers: Padstow Kitchen Garden for salad leaves, Warren’s Butcher in Launceston, fish from Matthew Stevens in St Ives or Fish4Thought, and Port Isaac fishermen for mackerel and crab. ...inspirational chefs: Simon Hopkinson, Nigel Slater, Skye Gyngell, Rick Stein, Angela Hartnett and Florence Knight. ...places to eat: The Gurnard’s Head at Zennor, The Seahorse in Dartmouth, Fifteen at Watergate Bay, Rick Stein’s The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, The Hidden Hut at Porthcurnick Beach, Driftwood Hotel at Portscatho, Hotel Tresanton and Hotel Endsleigh.
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Bites Seaweed in a different light Dive into the world of seaweed and learn how to harvest, cook and eat this healthy ingredient with local experts including the Cornish Seaweed Company. 14 June. Clovelly Seaweed Festival. Clovelly Harbour. 10am-5pm. Normal admission charges apply. clovelly.co.uk
Cornish shellfish on the road Chef Harry Bartlett is taking his @Home street food trailer to Northampton, just a few miles from where he grew up, for Crabstock, the inland shellfish festival on 25-26 July. Harry grew up in Daventry and moved to Cornwall when he was 18: “Cornwall is such a massive part of the UK’s fish and shellfish industry and I never ate seafood until I moved to Cornwall,” says Harry. “Now as a chef I am taking the amazing produce of my new home back to where I grew up, so it has a really special meaning for me.” Follow @HomeSTREETFOOD on Twitter.
Picnic in a wildflower meadow Map in hand, set off to find your bespoke picnic hamper in the beautiful grounds of the Moorland Garden Hotel near Tavistock. Prepared by head chef Rob Murray, gourmet goodies include freshly baked bread, local cheese and chutney and smoked salmon pâté, plus cream tea and seasonal berries. Wine or bubbles available on request. £48 per couple. moorlandgardenhotel.co.uk
Beyond the hedgerow Explore Pipers Farm near Cullompton and taste red Ruby steak as part of a special three-course fire pit supper served in the herb garden. £20 (£1 per ticket donated to Farms for City Children Charity). 23 June, 7 July, 21 July. pipersfarm.com
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LittlePod takes the biscuit LittlePod’s new vanilla shortbread biscuit is now available at Darts Farm in Topsham and via littlepod.co.uk (rrp £2.60). LittlePod’s founder, Janet Sawyer, has been baking the vanilla shortbread recipe, made with the company’s innovative natural vanilla paste in a squeezable tube, since the company launched in 2010, in order to demonstrate the flavour of the Madagascan vanilla at shows and events. The recipe is also published in Janet Sawyer’s book Vanilla: cooking with one of the world’s finest ingredients.
Hot choc Madagascar Dark Chilli Chocolate (70%) and Costa Rica Milk Chilli Chocolate (38%) are the two new single-source chilli chocolates from South Devon Chilli Farm. These single-source chilli chocolates include their first milk chocolate and first 70% dark chocolate. southdevonchillifarm.co.uk
Pudding and pie
PHOTO: VINCE HUTICHINGS @yetiphotography
Taking tea in Torquay Simon Hulstone (above), chef proprietor at The Elephant, has taken over Burridge’s Café Tearooms in partnership with his father, Roger, focusing on high class, traditional English afternoon teas. Visit: Burridge’s Cafe Tearooms, 8 Victoria Parade, Torquay, TQ1 2BB.
Visit okemoor.co.uk to tempt your tastebuds with scrumptious puds, homemade pies and chocolatey treats like this gluten-free chocolate and orange meringue roulade (above) that can all be delivered to your door from the Okehampton-based kitchen at the click of a button. Head Chef Fortunato Malerba, who trained alongside Michelin-starred chef Michael Caines at Dartmoor’s Gidleigh Park, brings his kitchen wizardry to Okemoor, giving traditional recipes his own unique, contemporary twist.
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A feast for the soul
PHOTO: MICHAEL BOWLES
Daniel de la Falaise on the Flower & Fodder Stage at Port Eliot Festival 2014
DON’T MISS... 13 JUNE Crediton Food and Drink Festival 10am until late. Crediton town square. Free.
27 - 28 JUNE Looe Food Festival Free. 9am - 6pm.
creditonfoodfestival.co.uk
looefoodfestival.com
13 JUNE Launceston Food and Drink Festival Street food and more, as part of The Charles Causley Festival. 10am-10pm.
11 JULY Rock Oyster Festival Farmers’ market, street food and food academy. Day ticket from £23, camping also available.
launcestonfoodfest.co.uk
rockoysterfestival.co.uk
19 - 21 JUNE Fowey River Big Gig and BBQ Weekend Fantastic food, plus a smoke-off competition and cooking demos organised by James Strawbridge. Follow @FoweyGig on Twitter
23 - 27 JULY Somersault Festival, Castle Hill, North Devon River Cottage head chef Gill Meller, Fifteen Cornwall and Valentine Warner host campfire feasts. £40. somersaultfestival.com
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PHOTO: FIONA CAMPBELL
Thomasina Miers judging the Flower & Fodder Show at Port Eliot Festival
PHOTO: FIONA CAMPBELL
Rick Stein
PHOTO: MICHAEL BOWLES
go to porteliotfestival.com
PHOTO: ANNA MCCARTHEY PRESS CENTRE
Tickets for Port Eliot Festival (30 July - 2 August) are hot property this summer as the Flower & Fodder Stage hosts an eclectic mix of chefs, food writers and producers. Welcoming Padstow’s Rick Stein, innovative chef Skye Gyngell, baker extraordinaire Richard Bertinet, the legendary Rose Prince, the Observer’s Allan Jenkins, cofounder of Wahaca, Thomasina Miers, ‘Oyster Lady’ Katy Davidson and many more, St German’s will be a hive of culinary delights. Trading from a beautiful 1971 Citroen H van, previously used as a post van in the South of France, Hix’s Fish Dogs invites festival goers to experience the FishDog, created by celebrated seafood chef Mark Hix. Fowey’s James Strawbridge takes over Port Eliot’s Orangery to transform it into the Cornish Picnic & BBQ Smokehouse, a new restaurant serving up Cornish brunch, Posh pasties, classic cream teas, local charcuterie and exciting outdoor BBQ seafood. In the evenings, it will take bookings for gourmet Clam Bake and Port Eliot Feasts. On Saturday and Sunday it will open an outdoor Cornish Festival Market, offering the perfect picnic. To book tickets,
food
Signature dish Matt Downing, the new head chef at The Magdalen Chapter, is putting his own stamp on the restaurant, hoping to make this the ‘place to be’ in Exeter for socialising. “Whether it’s a light lunch, cocktails and tapas or a glass of wine and a pizza sat on a deck chair in the garden, I want the hotel to be enjoyed by all, embracing our ethos of uncomplicated, unpretentious, great tasting seasonal food,” says Matt, who has his own allotment and is passionate about top quality fresh produce. Former Professional South West Chef of the Year, Matt joined the kitchen brigade at The Magdalen Chapter following 10 years at The Jack in the Green. themagdalenchapter.com
Recipe: Farm chicken breast with braised peas, broad beans, gem lettuce, radish and salsa verde. Serves 4 SALSA VERDE INGREDIENTS
METHOD
• ½ clove garlic, roughly chopped • 2 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped • 1 shallot, roughly chopped • ½ lemon, juiced and zest • 1 tbsp capers • Small bunch parsley • Small bunch basil • Small bunch mint • 3 tbsp olive oil
1. Place the butter in a medium sauté pan over medium high heat. When the butter has melted and is bubbling, add the shallots and smoked bacon. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 1-2 minutes, or until the shallots are soft and translucent and bacon golden. Add the radishes and cook another 3-4 minutes, stirring, or until the radishes begin to turn color. 2. Add the chicken stock and the salt and pepper. Give the mix a stir, then cover and turn the heat down to simmer. 3. Cook for another 10-12 minutes, or until the chicken stock and butter have reduced to a glaze. Stir in the peas, broad beans, spring onions and baby gem lettuce and cook another minute to heat them through and wilt. Add the lemon juice and the mint. Taste for seasoning, adjusting with more salt and/or lemon juice.
ROAST CHICKEN BREAST
1. Season 4 chicken breasts with salt and pepper. 2. Seal in a hot pan with oil skin -side down to get a nice golden crisp skin. 3. Place the pan in the oven at 180°c for 8-10 mins. Set aside to rest. BRAISED PEAS AND RADISH INGREDIENTS
PHOTO: MATT AUSTIN
• 2 baby gem lettuces • 100g smoked bacon (cut into lardons) • 250g fresh peas • 250g broad beans • 3 spring onions sliced thin • 3 tbsp unsalted butter • 2 large shallots finely chopped • 1 bunch radishes, cleaned, trimmed and cut in half lengthwise • 200ml chicken stock/water • ½ tsp sea salt • ¼ tsp black pepper • Juice of 1 lemon • 1 tbsp chopped mint
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Mitch Tonks and Mat Prowse discuss recipes over grappa
The Seahorse – behind the scenes
Mat Prowse talks to Anna Turns about grappa, truffle hunting and why he goes food shopping when he’s hungry.
M
orning meetings between Dartmouth’s seafood chefs Mitch Tonks and Mat Prowse always involve the strong stuff – a shot of Italian grappa to sip alongside proper coffee. It’s here at The Seahorse that they discuss new business ventures and create their special menu. “There’s no such thing as a normal day here and sometimes the menu changes twice a day, depending on the produce that is available,” says Mat, who treats this restaurant like his front room. “You come in to our home and you join in what’s happening that day. Restaurants are about people above all else - our staff, customers and suppliers – it’s about forming relationships, not winning accolades.” Mat and Mitch have worked together for almost 20 years and The Seahorse, which opened in 2008, is very different to their growing empire of Rockfish
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restaurants. “The Seahorse is a one-off, there’s never going to be another Seahorse,” says Mat. “As restaurateurs, we’re magpies – this place is a culmination of all our travels and inspirations and it has evolved over time.” Food-wise, Mat and Mitch both bring something different to the table. Mitch is self-taught from eating great food whilst Mat is classically trained – when he first met Mitch, Mat was head chef at Bath’s finest restaurant, The Olive Tree. So The Seahorse menus represent a middle ground where the two create stylish food together, inspired by their joint passion for Italian and Mediterranean cuisine. “We have both always loved that simple but good approach to food, rather than it being unnecessarily complicated,” explains Mat, and their new book The Seahorse: the restaurant and its recipes, reflects this. None of the
food beautiful dishes involve convoluted methods or fiddly ingredients, each recipe is tried and tested and accessible to all. Mat has four children and Mitch has five, some now following in their fathers’ footsteps – Ben Tonks is currently in The Seahorse kitchen - so it’s perhaps inevitable that at evening service, when the tables are covered in pristine white tablecloths, families are always welcome. There’s a relaxed atmosphere and children are treated like valid customers, just like in any good restaurant in Italy. Here in Dartmouth, the windows overlook the stunning River Dart. “Our main ingredients are out there in the sea,” explains Mat, whose buyers visit the bustling Brixham fish market at the crack of dawn every morning. “We have to adapt to what comes in because we’ll only buy the best, freshest seafood on offer.” They have to create menus depending on what the local fishermen have landed that day. “Sustainability is a massive, complex issue and it’s changing constantly. Our buyers know the fishermen and talk to them daily so they only ever buy what’s in season.” Once the fish arrives in the kitchen, Mat, Mitch and their three chefs do very little to it. Sticking to their Mediterranean ethos, it is usually grilled on the charcoal oven, roasted or baked. Today, he’s cooking grilled local seabass with a tomato salad. Simple
maybe, but the biggest effort goes into sourcing the best ingredients. “The best-tasting tomatoes in the world come from Spain, so we import them. Just because it is local doesn’t mean it is the best.” Italian beef is another staple on the menu, sourced from a butcher called Dario in the tiny Tuscan village of Panzano: “We buy that because it is the best beef we have ever eaten. But then we’ll also serve our oysters with chilli sauce from South Devon Chilli Farm nearby in Loddiswell.” Every November, Mat, Mitch and a group of close friends travel to Piedmont in Italy in search of one of the most sought-after ingredients in any kitchen. “Our truffle-hunting trips are pretty legendary, and it’s invite only! Sometimes the truffles are hard to find, other times they are in abundance, but the truffle hunters are always secretive about the best locations.” These memorable trips, and the ‘bagna cauda’ feast that always ensues, highlight the backbone that makes The Seahorse what it is. “It’s all about the wonderful people we meet and connect with – we invite our sommeliers, chefs, writers, suppliers plus some regular customers have come along. We’re gathering friends along the way.” For Mat, the sense of discovery and fun that comes with food is key. “We don’t consider this work – I’m the luckiest person in the world because I’m doing what I enjoy every day.”
As restauranteurs, we’re magpies – this place is a culmination of all our travels and inspirations and it has evolved over time
Mat’s tips on how to buy the best “You need to trust your butcher or fishmonger when you ask where the meat and fish has come from – if they know their stuff, stick with them,” says Mat, who recommends butcher Chris McCabe in Totnes, Mark Lobb for fish in Dartmouth and the Fish Deli in Ashburton. “Buy what is really good, adapt to what’s available then find a recipe for it. Use your instinct when you buy food and go shopping hungry to make sure you buy something really delicious.”
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A taste of The Seahorse This selection of exclusive recipes are taken from The Seahorse by Mat Prowse and Mitch Tonks, published by Absolute Press: £25 hardback. All photos by Chris Terry.
Roasted red sea bream with artichokes, tomatoes and Verdicchio wine For two people “We love baking round fish with wine and vegetables – so simple and so nice. Bream are best for this treatment but it also works well with sea bass, red mullet and gurnard. What is great about these types of fish is the slight oiliness of the flesh. They are also a joy to take through to the dining room and prepare at the tableside.”
INGREDIENTS
• Olive oil, for cooking • 2 garlic cloves • ½ white onion, finely sliced • 4 small artichokes, cleaned and taken down to the heart • 2 very ripe tomatoes • 150ml dry white wine (we use Verdicchio) • 1 fish, about 700–900g, scaled and gutted • 1 lemon • salt (see panel below) METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 220°C/Gas Mark 7. 2. Pour a few glugs of olive oil into a roasting dish and heat over a medium heat. Add the garlic and onion and cook for a few minutes until softened. Add the artichokes and tomatoes and cook gently for 2–3 minutes. Add the wine and boil for about 2 minutes to cook off the alcohol, then taste and season with salt. Place the fish on top and roast in the hot oven for 35 minutes. 3. Remove the fish from the dish and place on a plate, cover with foil and keep warm. Return the tray to a low heat and stir the vegetables together. They should be nicely browned, season again then add a squeeze of lemon juice and stir, mixing in all the cooking juices. The sauce should be quite thick and emulsified, if not add a splash ofwater. Spoon the sauce around the fish and serve.
Salt The texture of the grind and flavours added to salt can change the experience of what you are cooking. Mat and Mitch are huge fans of Cornish sea salt. For this recipe, they recommend making black olive salt. Dry out some black olives in a low oven overnight, allow them to cool then blend about 15 per cent olives to salt in a coffee or spice grinder. Keep the grind to medium.
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Marinated and grilled lamb chops with salsa verde For four people “This is a great marinade for lamb and mutton and also works well on pork. You can’t go wrong buying spring lamb because it has to eat grass and live a healthy life outdoors in order to survive and grow. The combination of the smokiness from the paprika and the sweetness of the maple syrup, which caramelises when grilled over a fire, we think gives the best results, but it works well under a hot grill, too.”
INGREDIENTS
• 8 small lamb chops FOR THE MARINADE
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika • 1 tablespoon tapenade • 50ml olive oil FOR THE SALSA VERDE
• 2 anchovy fillets • 1 teaspoon salted capers • ½ garlic clove • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard • 40g mint leaves • 40g parsley leaves • 20g oregano leaves • 1 green chilli, finely chopped and deseeded • 100ml olive oil • 2 tablespoons peeled and finely diced cucumber • salt and freshly ground black pepper METHOD
1. Simply mix all the marinade ingredients together in a shallow dish, add the lamb chops, cover with clingfilm and allow to marinate in the fridge for 1–2 hours. 2. Make the sauce by grinding the anchovies, capers and garlic to a paste in a pestle and mortar then add the mustard. Chop all the herbs together then add them with the chilli to the anchovy and garlic mixture. Drizzle in the olive oil and stir to make a thick sauce. Stir in the cucumber and season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside. 3. Preheat the grill. Remove the lamb chops from the marinade and cook them under the hot grill for 4 minutes on each side depending on their thickness and how you like to eat your lamb. 4. Serve with the salsa verde.
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food
Caramel and espresso pannacotta Makes 12 espresso cups This is Mat’s wife Liv’s favourite dessert: “There’s trouble if it’s not on the menu when she eats with us! Liv is our harshest critic but when she tasted this I finally got a gold star! It’s great to have her as a good honest sounding board – it keeps Mitch and I level-headed and focused on the detail.This pannacotta makes a good finish to a meal, it’s very simple to make and looks great served in a coffee cup.” FOR THE PANNACOTTA
• 4 gelatine leaves • 220ml freshly made espresso • 220ml full-fat milk • 120g caster sugar • 100ml brandy • 360ml double cream FOR THE SYRUP
• 100ml water • 300g granulated sugar • 125ml freshly made espresso • 25ml brandy METHOD
1. Place the gelatine in a small bowl and pour over enough cold water to cover. Soak for 5 minutes, or until soft, then drain and squeeze out the excess water. 2. Warm the espresso, milk and sugar in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. Add the softened gelatine and stir to dissolve in the warm liquid. Take off the heat and allow to cool (not completely cold, just tepid). Add the brandy and cream and mix well until combined, then pour into espresso cups and allow to set for at least 4 hours in the fridge. 3. For the syrup, make a caramel: pour the water into a deep heavy-based saucepan, add the sugar, stir and put over a gentle heat to dissolve the sugar; keep stirring until it is fully dissolved. Once the sugar has dissolved bring to the boil and boil until the syrup is a light golden colour. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly but not completely cold. 4. Carefully pour the espresso into the cooled syrup and stir until smooth, then add the brandy. Stir to combine and allow to cool. 5. To serve, pour a little of the syrup over the top of the pannacottas to completely cover the surface.
Win a copy of The Seahorse
The SEAHORSE the restaurant and its recipes
If you would like to try more delicious recipes, MANOR has three copies of The Seahorse to give away. All you have to do is go to manormagazine.co.uk/seahorse, and answer the question below, supplying your name, address and telephone number. Usual MANOR competition rules apply. Closing date for entries is 31 July 2015. Q: From which fish market do Mat Prowse and Mitch Tonks source most of their seafood? Mitch Tonks & Mat Prowse
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The Table Prowler South African Epicurean Evening I am holding a prehistoric stone hand-axe. It was discovered on Gary Jordan’s Wine Estate in Stellenbosch. Gary is a geologist and wine producer who is speaking at a South African Epicurean evening hosted by Pieter Hamman, owner of the Glazebrook House Hotel on the south edge of Dartmoor. Course by course we are transported to vineyards at different altitudes and with varying aspects on the Jordan Estate, tasting grape varieties grown on soils that have evolved from 600 million year-old Cape granite. It makes sense to combine expertise in wine production and geology. It’s all about the ‘terroir’. From the outside the Glazebrook House Hotel looks a little austere – quite symmetrical with a castellated entrance and deep-set windows. Inside it’s quite another story – Alice in Wonderland, in fact – with tartan carpets, black painted walls, curious pieces of furniture – perspex, steel and ancient timber. An ostrich skeleton stretches upwards beside the oak staircase, an egret curves its neck under a glass dome across the hallway, while on a pedestal above stands a translucent bust of the Queen with a light-up crown, necklace and eyes. We are offered a glass of Jordan Chameleon Rosé (a delicate and fruity blend of Merlot and Shiraz). Guests chat, explore, nibble aubergine and feta croquettes and Boerewors – a traditional farmer’s sausage - to the rhythms of African djembé drummers, before being summoned to the Dining Room where eight round tables glint with tall, fat, thin, deep and shallow wine glasses. The evening’s South African cuisine has a distinctly British flavour, perhaps not surprising given the colonial history, but with added spice, and sometimes sweetness.
Gary Jordan tells the story of each wine – its provenance, the origins of its name, where and precisely how it is grown. Inspector Peringuey, a citrusy Chenin Blanc, sings along nicely with a delicately smoked fish paté, followed by curried pickled fish with a glass of Nine Yards, a Chardonnay grown on the granite east-facing slopes of the Estate. A spiced Cape Malay Bobotie (baked spiced minced beef with raisin and savoury custard) served with chutneys is squared-up to by The Prospector, a robust Syrah. The 2012 Cobbler’s Hill, is served with pan-fried fillet of ostrich (yes ostrich) with a fig jus. The dessert wine, Mellifera is a 2012 Noble Late Harvest Riesling named after the Cape Honey Bee. When Gary was in the midst of pressing the grapes for this new dessert wine, his young son was stung by a swarm of bees and rushed to hospital. The grapes were forgotten and left in the press for two days. The result – a honeyed, apiary wine (and no long-term harm from the bee-stings). As it is served, small ice buckets appear on each table, the waiters pour dry-ice into them, and a cool white mist flows across the white tablecloths (reminiscent of the natural phenomenon on Table Mountain when cloud gives the landmark its own ‘tablecloth’). This announces the arrival of the Malva pudding – a baked syrup-infused sponge served with ginger-root ice cream. After coffee and petit fours we leave buoyed by the evening, with something of a grasp of South African cuisine, and an appreciation South African wines. Food 9 (Wine 10) | Service 9 | Location 9 | Ambience 9
Jane Baxter Pop-Up The evening sun is shining when we arrive at a PopUp dinner created by Leon Fast Vegetarian author and former Riverford Field Kitchen head chef Jane Baxter, celebrating the launch of The Shops at Dartington annual Food Fair. Greeted with a cold glass of Sharpham pink fizz, we sit down under canvas around four large round tables decorated with carnations in jam jars, plenty of wine and Luscombe drinks. After a short but sweet speech from Sharpham’s Mark Sharman, antipasti awaits. Truffle arancini, salt cod fritters dipped in aioli, and a fava bean puree are amongst what’s on offer, each one as delicious as the other, and with plenty to go around. The main course is lamb cooked three ways with fresh Landworks veg. It was the lamb shoulder cooked in milk that was topic of conversation at my table. Spiced with fennel seeds and served with chard, the lamb was sweetly
falling-apart tender. Each variation of lamb – breast with anchovy, breadcrumbs and pepperonata, and grilled leg of lamb with a salsa verde – would have been a meal in itself, and it was difficult to see how they could work together, but as per Jane Baxter, they worked…very well. I couldn’t wait for the desserts, and there were three to come: rhubarb and strawberry amaretti crumble, berry pavolva, and the completely underrated baked custard. The crumble topping was sweet and almondy, yet the fruit slightly tart, the pavolva sticky as it should be, and the slice of egg custard tart, complete with a sprinkling of nutmeg, perfect. I can’t wait for the next Jane Baxter pop-up. From reading her tweets, I have a feeling it might be part of the mysterious #ProjectX. Food 9 | Service 8 | Location 8 | Ambience 8
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A cliffside
kitchen garden
Produce for the kitchen at the Porthminster Café is grown against the odds in a steeply terraced garden cut into the cliff, writes Miranda Gardiner.
PHOTO: PORTHMINSTER CAFÉ
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I
discovered the Porthminster Café one evening back in 1999, when I worked in Cornwall projectmanaging art in the landscape and galleries, such as the Tate St Ives. After one memorable exhibition opening - truckloads of fresh carrots carpeted the gallery floor - we went for post-exhibition drinks at a favourite local spot. On the terrace, with a glass of something chilled and a bowl of crispy calamari flecked with chilli, this place reminded me of my favourite cafés around Sydney harbour. I’d found my café nirvana, a bit closer to home. Later, watching fishermen off-load their catch and bring it around the back to the kitchen door, was a scene so cinematic, it made you think they must have been paid as extras. These days the Porthminster Café is a favourite of locals, tourists and chefs visiting the area. Cornish chef Nathan Outlaw is a fan and Heston Blumenthal rates it as a “favourite holiday eating spot of mine” which has “the freshest local ingredients, inventive cooking and a gorgeous location. The recipes perfectly capture the pleasure of sitting down by the sea, still salty-skinned, and tucking into some utterly delicious food.” The white stucco, deco-style café was built on the site of a former seaside pavilion that put on concerts and opera. It sits snugly beneath the slopes of Porthminster Point and has breathtaking views across St Ives Bay to Godrevy Lighthouse. It opened as a café in the mid 1930s for a couple of seasons, before the war promptly closed it. Post-war it was used to store deck chairs and windbreaks, and later incorporated a takeaway downstairs. 1991 marked the return of the café, which was reported to have had the first espresso machine in St Ives. The Porthminster Café is owned by Australian chef Michael Smith and his business partners. He was formerly the head chef and still has days when he’s needed in the kitchen. The Porthminster Café combines the best of casual Sydney beachside café living - scrubbed tables, fresh flowers, a decent flat white, engaging staff, a sandy door mat, flip flops and towels by the door, coffee and a slice in the morning, scallops, sea air and a glass of bubbly in the evening - with the nostalgia of childhood bucket and spade holidays in the far west of Cornwall. It is an exquisite blend. The atmospheric harbour of St Ives, with its slate hung cottages, chalky paint facades and sail lofts, frames the view to the left from the café. To the right is the coastal footpath to Carbis Bay, lined with echiums, agapanthus and palm trees, and behind the café, up a steep slope, is one of my favourites bits: the cliffside kitchen garden.
It’s impressive to see a productive garden exist in such a compromising situation; a sheer cliff side, that has been terraced into accessible beds of leeks, beetroot, rainbow kale, courgette and artichokes
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PHOTO: PORTHMINSTER CAFÉ
Owner Michael Smith (far right) with Porthminster team
On the early spring morning I visited, chefs were springing up into the kitchen garden before lunch service and popping back down with trugs of fresh herbs. Chef Lucka Toffani showed me around the organic kitchen garden, which he tells me grows over 50 different types of fruit and veg for the kitchen. We climb the granite steps that make up so much of the infrastructure of this part of Cornwall, past terraces of blackcurrant and rhubarb beds. On his way up, he collects handfuls of lemon balm and some edible flowers for a salad. “We can change the menu to reflect the abundant produce in the garden. These will be ingredients for a deliciously fresh salad,” Lucka says, showing me his basket that has been gathered for the lunchtime menu. I’ve visited gardens, edible and ornamental, all over the world, and love it best when the two elements are creatively combined. It’s impressive to see a productive garden exist in such a compromising situation; a sheer cliff side, that has been terraced into accessible beds of leeks, beetroot, rainbow kale, courgette and artichokes, amongst the sub-tropical spires of echiums and palm trees. Later, over a top-notch flat white, Michael tells me how the garden was developed: “It was Julie and Jim Horn who first started to cultivate this patch of wasteland. Their son was one of the original apprentices in the kitchen here. That was about 10 years ago. Now it’s tended by part-time gardeners and harvested every day by the chefs and waiting staff. “At the height of summer the garden gives us an abundance of rhubarb, globe artichokes and watercress, sage, mint and fennel. There are blackcurrants and raspberries, which the pastry chefs can’t wait to get their hands on, as well as gooseberries and elderflower,
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which goes into a mouth-watering dessert of elderflower and raspberries, with puff pastry, crème patisserie and gooseberries. “Even in the leanest of winter months, we can gather woody-stemmed herbs such as rosemary for a braised lamb dish, or sage for roast pork. One downside is that the hillside only gets the sun in the morning so the garden has not only the challenges of vertical planting and harvesting, but also of a limited growing season.” The soil is beautiful, as you would expect from 10 years of cultivation. Deep black Cornish loam that
Michael says... Favourite cafés or restaurants? Donovans in St Kilda (Melbourne), Scarlet Wines in Lelant and Kota Kai in Porthleven, Cornwall. Best UK coffee roaster? Goldstone Espresso is our blend of choice from Small Batch Coffee in Hove, set up by a former Porthminster employee. On a day off I like to head off to the beach and surf with the family. Best beach? Porthtowan. Favourite walk? Lelant to Porthminster. What next? We’ve just opened the Porthminster Kitchen on the harbour front in St Ives: casual, modern, small plates-with-glass-of-wine-style dining with no bookings. And we have two self-catering apartments above the restaurant so you can order restaurant food straight up to your terrace.
food
At the height of summer the garden gives us an abundance of rhubarb, globe artichokes and watercress, sage, mint and fennel
meets West Penwith bedrock not far below. Even though the kitchen garden has been drawn up with a practical eye towards the demands of the menu, it still looks inviting from below, where the eye is led upwards from a sprawling rosemary bush, while from above the
rhubarb and chard meet the blue horizon line of sea and sky. Maybe I can persuade Michael to sneak a couple of weathered Adirondack chairs up there to lounge in, so you can have your coffee amongst the artichokes and echiums and look out to sea?
Fresh from the garden recipe: Halloumi and beetroot salad with wild sorrel, sumac and orange. Serves four as a starter or two for lunch INGREDIENTS
PHOTO: PORTHMINSTER CAFÉ
• 4 small beetroots • 4 sprigs of thyme • 400g halloumi cheese • 2 tbsp rapeseed oil • 1 tsp sumac • 1 cup sorrel, preferably wild • 1 orange • 200g mixed salad leaves • ½ red onion, finely sliced • ½ bulb of fennel, finely sliced • Balsamic vinegar • extra virgin olive oil • Salt and pepper
METHOD
1. Clean the beetroots under cold water, taking care not to pierce the skin. Wrap them in foil with the thyme, a splash of the rapeseed oil, salt and pepper and cook them in the oven until they are soft, approximately 45 minutes. 2. W hen they have cooled a little, peel the beetroots and set to one side. While they are cooling, peel the orange, segment half of it and reserve these segments to add to the salad. Place the remaining segments in a blender, along with two beetroots and one tbsp of rapeseed oil. Blend until smooth and then season with salt and pepper. 3. Cut the other two beetroots into the desired shapes for the salad. Wash the sorrel and mixed salad leaves and put them in a bowl with the beetroot, fennel, red onion and orange. Dress the salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil and sumac. 4. Cut the halloumi into one cm squares, add a splash of rapeseed oil to a hot frying pan and when it begins to smoke, add the halloumi and fry until golden, turning occasionally. 5. Finally smear the beetroot purée onto the plates, arrange the salad in the middle and serve with the halloumi on top. ALL PHOTOS BY MIRANDA GARDINER, EXCEPT WHERE CREDITED
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Royal York Crescent, Bristol
SUMMER BREAKING. Tower Bridge, London
RIVER STROLLING. St Ives, Cornwall
BEACH ROAMING. Be a Great Westerner and explore over 270 destinations by train this summer. Find our lowest fares at firstgreatwestern.co.uk
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Escape
Discovering The Scillies | Bovey Castle back to its best
PHOTO: VISIT THE SCILLY ISLES
The Scillonian sails into the Scilly Isles
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Rushy Bay, Bryher PHOTO: VISIT ISLES OF SCILLY
Paradise found
In search of peace and a little respite, Nicola Smith catches the passenger boat from St Mary’s to Bryher – one of the smallest inhabited islands in the Scillies.
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hite sands, cobalt blue seas and swathes of wild flowers coloured with every hue imaginable… the view over the Isles of Scilly from the air is almost otherworldly, yet these beautiful islands lie just 30 miles off the Cornish coast – 15 minutes by plane from Land’s End Airport – and in that short time, visitors are transported from their busy everyday lives to their very own Arcadia. Within minutes of landing at St Mary’s and collecting luggage, visitors find themselves in a taxi winding down the hill, with the whole of this beautiful archipelago at their disposal…
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There are five inhabited islands and more than 100 uninhabited islands to explore. St Mary’s is the largest, yet covers less than 2.5 miles and has a population of just 1,800 people. I sought the true escapism offered by the smaller islands, and so headed down to St Mary’s Quay and caught the small passenger boat to the island of Bryher, arguably the dramatic face of Scilly. Home to just 80 people, Bryher is battered by the Atlantic waves on one side, with sheltered beaches on the other. The boat deposited us at Church Quay from where our bags were taken by trailer to the hotel, Hell Bay. We chose to walk, drinking in the sea air
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PHOTO: VISIT ISLES OF SCILLY
Tresco cows
PHOTO: SHEILA SMITH
Nicola Smith on Bryher
PHOTO: VISIT ISLES OF SCILLY
PHOTO: VISIT ISLES OF SCILLY
Hell Bay, Bryher
Aerial view of Scillies
with the warm sun on our faces, passing small cottages selling homegrown produce, complete with honesty boxes. The smell of wild garlic filled our nostrils and birdsong filled the air. There is something very honest and simple about life on these islands. Hell Bay is the only hotel on Bryher and its understated form seems to recline in relaxed splendour, its beach-hut inspired exterior at one with the landscape. Situated on the exposed west coast, most of the 25 sumptuous suites are sea-facing, offering a great vantage point from which to watch the theatre of the Atlantic. We enjoyed tea on the balcony in the late afternoon sun, picking out lone walkers dotting the hilly landscape, and marvelling at the tranquillity. A short stroll out of the hotel brings you to the slightly ironically named ‘town’, comprising a wellstocked general store and post office. Soon you will happen upon Fraggle Rock, often referred to as the island’s only ‘pub’, but with a comprehensive menu featuring fresh Bryher farm produce, locally caught shellfish and ice cream from Stw Agnes. It is not alone in showcasing one of this archipelago’s great strengths – food. Issy Tibbs, who grew up on Scilly and has lived on Bryher for most of her 33 years, runs a B&B and a woodfired pizza takeaway from her home. She believes that a major part of the islands’ culinary appeal is its “food minutes” - not food miles. “As you
explore the islands you see the cows which produce the milk of the sunshine-yellow clotted cream tea you enjoy at the next cafe. You sit on the quays and watch crabs being landed, then head to the pub for a crab sandwich. You picnic on the beach metres from the potatoes growing for your salads. Whichever island you visit you’ll meet producers passionate about the food they’re growing, catching or making.” Hell Bay hotel’s restaurant is also a celebration of local ingredients – from Hell Bay bacon to Tresco beef - and its menu changes daily depending on the produce available. Last year it also opened its rustic summer Crab Shack where guests tuck into crab, scallops and mussels served in Portuguese cataplanas (copper cookware shaped like clam shells). The shellfish is accompanied by bread, fries and a sweeping Atlantic view, all washed down with a glass of wine. For good British comfort food, you can’t beat The Vine on Bryher, a compact rustic café which opens several weekday evenings between March and October. Booking is almost essential and while its offering is limited (when we visited it was homemade steak and kidney pie or lentil pie followed by a choice of artery-busting puddings) the food is mouthwateringly excellent. Guests sit cheek by jowl and an easy conviviality presides, lubricated by liberal amounts of ‘Bring Your Own’ wine. On St Mary’s, The Galley, serving locally reared Salakee Farm duck comes highly recommended, while
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PHOTO: EMILY WHITFIELD-WICKS
Fraggle Rock, Bryher PHOTO: VISIT ISLES OF SCILLY
There is something very honest and simple about life on these islands
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PHOTO: SHEILA SMITH
on the island of St Martin’s there is also a working vineyard and winery, producing fruity white wines which perfectly complement the local seafood. Away from the culinary delights of the islands, hop on a boat to Tresco, home to the sub-tropical paradise of Tresco Abbey Gardens. Set over three terraces, the Gardens house 20,000 species of subtropical plants from coastal regions all over the world, many of which wouldn’t survive on the Cornish mainland. Mike Nelhams, Abbey Garden’s curator, who moved to Tresco in 1984, says it is “like discovering many of the world’s gardens, in one place.” On our wander under the towering palm trees and among the great blue spires of Echium we also spotted a spectacular Golden Pheasant and a red squirrel, both unconcerned by our presence. It is an easy place to lose several hours just roaming. En route to the quay, we called in at Tresco Gallery, which is set in a converted boatshed and sells work from painters, sculptors, potters, glass blowers and jewellers. Tresco houses an extensive art collection, said to be comparable to that of Tate St Ives, but it is not just finished works that form part of the artistic allure of these islands. The Scillies also offer access to a wealth of local artists and their working studios. One interesting port of call is Richard Pearce’s beachside studio on Bryher’s Great Par beach, a converted gig shed which is often left open for visitors to peek inside. Other chances to see artists at work include Porthloo on St Mary’s, where you will find a clutch of artists at work. The Isles of Scilly certainly transport you to a figurative far off land, feeding the senses and rejuvenating the soul. Yet within minutes you can be back to your daily routine, dreaming about the next time.
One of Tresco’s Golden Pheasants
HOW TO GET THERE Sail on The Scillonian from Penzance to St Mary’s (March to November) which takes two hours and 45 minutes. Fly on the Skybus from Newquay or Land’s End to St Mary’s. Flights run Monday to Saturday, all year round (except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day). You can also fly from Exeter between November and March. Book a ‘Fly and Sail Combo’ which allows you to fly out and sail back. Tel: 01736 334220 islesofscilly-travel.co.uk
WHERE TO STAY Hell Bay The four-star Hell Bay on Bryher is arguably the most luxurious hotel on the Isles of Scilly, set in a secluded cove overlooking the sea. It has a three AA rosette restaurant and an attractive bar, as well as several outdoor terraces and even a ‘Sunset Deck’ where couples can enjoy a secluded sundowner. There is an outdoor swimming pool, sauna and jacuzzi, while a spa treatment room was also added in 2013. Dogs are also welcome. Tel: 01736 422947 hellbay.co.uk
Tom and Richard of Trafford Yachts wear Herring Fowey
58 Fore Street, Kingsbridge, Devon TQ7 1NY
www.herring.co.uk MANOR | Summer 2015
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Glory
restored
Bovey Castle re-emerges rescued and reinvigorated after a ÂŁ2m first-stage investment. By Imogen Clements. Photos courtesy of The Eden Collection.
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The Cathedral Room
hen Bovey Castle was sold in July 2014, there was a frisson of excitement within the immediate locality. The Edwardian mansion and luxury hotel, complete with championship gold course, must rank as one of the impressive buildings and breathtaking settings in the South West. It was common knowledge, however, that the 64-bedroom hotel set in 275 pristine acres of Dartmoor countryside had not seen much in the way of investment for some time. The place was a shadow of its former self, and many who still used it as golf or spa members but for little else hoped that a new owner would rescue and reinvigorate it, restoring it to its former glory. The new owner, The Rigby Group, stated it intended to do just that by adding it to its awardwinning collection of hotels, The Eden Collection. “We’d expressed an interest in Bovey Castle some three years before we finally completed,” reveals the MD of The Eden Collection, Mark Chambers. “We’d become aware that the hotel was on the market and had an aspiration for a bigger asset, a diverse and notable property. Bovey Castle met that criteria.” Bovey Castle dates back to 1907 when the son of William Henry Smith (WH Smith, later to become Viscount Hambleden) built North Bovey Manor House on the 500-acre estate, bought previously by
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To restore this hotel to its former glory, grandeur alone is not enough
The Rocking Horse
The Great Western Restaurant
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Hambleden, as one of the family’s country residences. On the death of Lord Hambleden in 1928, the Manor House and its estate were put on the market to raise funds to cover death duties, and it was eventually auctioned to the Great Western Railway for conversion into a golfing hotel. The Manor House Hotel remained under the ownership of the Great Western Railway (and later the British Transport Commission) until the 1990s when new owners took it on, expanded it, only to sell it again in 2003 to Peter de Savary who renamed it Bovey Castle. De Savary sold it in 2006 to Hilwood Resorts, who eventually sold it to The Rigby Group. It certainly sounds like a pillar-to-post existence, which has gradually chipped away at the hotel. “I think it was well-documented that the hotel had been under-capitalised and uncared for and it was true. We inherited threadbare carpets and furniture with foam spewing out of the upholstery. We’d done a thorough due diligence and knew what we were getting into and set to work straight away. I’m pleased to say that within ten months of acquiring Bovey Castle we’ve achieved an awful lot.” Chambers is referring to the £2m of investment that has gone towards the first stage of refurbishment: £700m on general restoration work – roof, gutters, mullions and windows – and £1.3m on refurbishment of the ground floor. By all accounts this £1.3m refurbishment of all the public rooms on the ground floor should reassure regulars to the old Bovey Castle that The Eden Collection is serious in its intention of restoring the hotel to its former glory. “From East to West, all the public spaces on the ground floor have been remodelled and refurbished. There are new carpets throughout, new curtains, new soft furnishings, new furniture. We have replaced wiring, lighting and music systems. The brasserie is 25% bigger as a result of back of house areas being reconfigured to front of house. We have also introduced a boutique selling country and golfingwear from premium brands like Dubarry, through opening up back of house space.” The spa too has been remodelled and refurbished throughout and it relaunches in June, so all those long-term members are, it seems, going to be in for a nice surprise. Bovey Castle’s refurbishment has been overseen by The Eden Collection’s In-house Design Director Marian Cartter in consultation with NH Interiors, an award-winning combination for The Eden Collection, which itself won Small Hotel Group of the Year in 2014. Mark Chambers reassures me that Bovey Castle won’t look like any other refurbished hotel within the chain. “We don’t conform to a template. We pride ourselves on being a collection of individual hotels, each designed according to the style of the
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The Adam Room
Smith’s Brasserie
The Oak Room
building, the location, the customers and the staff that work within it. We are not a brand, in fact we detest the word. We simply strive to deliver a very high standard of hotel quality – in food, service, comfort and hospitality – but individually.” In both names and design there has been a discernible nod to the hotel’s history and heritage, something that Sir Peter Rigby apparently was particularly keen to reference, and something that is clearly unique to the place. The name of the brasserie becomes Smith’s Brasserie and the more exclusive dining restaurant becomes the Great Western Restaurant. With one of the key struts to hotel quality being food and general dining experience, it’s no surprise that the restaurants were targeted first for a thorough overhaul. The food, I am told by locals, was one of the key areas that Bovey Castle of old fell down on. New head chef Mark Budd, under the guidance of the Eden’s multi-award-winning Food and Beverage Director Simon Haigh, will be looking to quickly reverse that reputation. Despite its setting and undeniable grandeur, there
The Library
has been something of a persistent cloud that hangs over Bovey Castle. It could be a misconception, but it feels like this luxury hotel has never truly thrived. It may well be down to its size, coupled with the remote location. But there is much to do – the championship golf course, fishing on the Teign, sport and spa. Plus there are helicopter pads, and The Rigby Group owns Exeter Airport, so images of private jets to Exeter, then helicopters delivering monied guests to the lawns of Bovey Castle are not so far-fetched. Plus the Eden Collection’s numerous awards garnered by both the group and individual hotels would indicate that if anyone can restore this hotel to its former glory, it can. Mark Chambers concludes: “What we are trying to do in this business is carve out a niche, be different. We are in the business of making a memory because we want people to come back. This has to be supported by quality hotel principles. To restore this hotel to its former glory, grandeur alone is not enough.” boveycastle.com
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Space Designing for Unique Home Stays | Shopping for space Stephen Emanuel Architects | Dominic Welch | Designer’s Q&A
PHOTO: UNIQUE HOME STAYS
The dining room of Elysian, one of Unique Home Stays’ beautiful cottages
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Raven sitting room
From home to
Unique Home Stay Jess Clark, Unique Home Stays In-House Interior Designer, reveals how her very personal approach to each of the projects she works on makes them just that − unique. Photos courtesy of Unique Home Stays.
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hen someone visits my home, there’s little detective work required to establish (despite my best cupboardcramming efforts) that it’s a toddler zone. Stick men adorn the walls and grubby fingerprints decorate the practical and wipe-able surfaces. While the pots of paint and fabric samples may allude to the interior designer in me, the artwork to various travels, and the books to another life when we had time to read, our house is about as far from a show home as you can get. And maybe it’s the slight mayhem that fills my every day that can be seen in varying degrees across the schemes that I create. Even when I do my level best to work with a calming palette where draping linens slouch at windows, I’ve a tendency to ‘make busy’ art collections, or feel the need to add just one more plant to a windowsill. I am the bane
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space of housekeepers’ lives with my candlestick here, crockery set there ‘finishing touches’. Given half a chance, I’ll pop back to a completed property several months post-project, bringing a must-have addition I happened upon. Treating the properties that I work on as if they were my own often means investing hours upon end sourcing the perfect piece. It means procrastination and lots of ‘left a bit, right a bit’ when it comes to picture hanging; it means that settling for something you don’t love is just not an option; it means spending many a night unable to fall asleep due to adrenalinfuelled beating heart ‘please let it look great’ moments before the end of the project, and roping in family and friends when you’ve 24 hours before a photo shoot and builders are still fixing holes in walls. It means also that I spend wisely - though I can spend a lot - but I save where I can, embroiling myself in painting, fixing and modifying furniture that’s often been given up on. I’m forever gathering items from markets, auctions and restoration yards. ‘Tip-ready’ is how my husband – always slightly incredulous when I bring home another ‘project’ – best describes my finds. He’s always keen to remind me that a project is just that; something that needs to be worked on as opposed to gathering dust. As I tend to surround myself with talented craftsmen and can-do builders who can transform my scribblings and dubious perspective drawings into reality, I feel slightly daunted about said projects that require a more practical mindset. So the broken wicker chair which I assured him was ‘very on trend’, the spindle-less Ercol sofa ‘that’ll be worth a fortune’ and half-painted 60s sideboard ‘no I didn’t realise it was quite that long’ remain obstacles at home that he has to negotiate his way around before he can reach his workbench.
There was a reason I couldn’t leave the shop without buying them and that I’m sure they’ll prove inspirational for the beginnings of a story that I create for a future property Even in their unfinished, slightly tired state, I see these items as my stock. I rationalise that there was a reason I couldn’t leave the shop without buying them and that I’m sure they’ll prove inspirational for the beginnings of a story that I create for a future property. In the way that an old sunburst door found cobweb-deep at a reclamation yard set the wheels in motion for the transformation of a shepherd’s hut into Sundance, the western-themed retreat complete with
Raven dining room
Raven bedroom
Jess and with Bodi and Lola
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Fisherman’s Knot dining room
Elysian bedroom
Sundance kitchen
Treating the properties that I work on as if they were my own often means investing hours upon end sourcing the perfect piece Sundance exterior
steel shower screen, authentic American arrows and well-worn cowboy boots. The discovery of a vintage swimsuit led the concept for The Fisherman’s Knot, where a pallet of inky blues, teal greens and zingy yellows exude a retro coastal flavour. A collection of bug plates set the theme for Elysian, a Cornish cottage-cum-collector’s lair, where botanical books, binoculars and beetles combine. On paper, some of these themes can seem a little daunting, but they will always be relevant to the history of the property, the architecture or its setting, and in creating a clear look book which includes everything from proposed room configurations to colour schemes, fabrics and mood, the owner is able to see the direction in which I’m taking the property and why. I try to be straightforward and lingo-less; though I might think in zones when I’m considering
the layout, I don’t talk in them. It’s important to understand the investment that clients are putting in me and the scheme. I never take that for granted, and over the course of a project establish friendships with clients that continue long beyond the project completion date. Of course, my ultimate would be to have my very own Unique Home Stay property. I’d create a house made entirely from recycled items; the exterior would be clad in an assortment of old mismatched doors, there’d be a timeworn yet rainbow-bright collection of coloured floorboards underfoot, each with a story to tell. A secret hideout ensconced in a wooded glen, complete with roaring fire, candlelight and a stargazing hammock, you’d reach the cabin on foot by following a clue trail. And I’d call it Gretel... I knew all that bedtime story-telling would come in handy.
Unique Home Stays operate across the UK and abroad offering the very highest level of self-catering holiday accommodation, all with unique character. Indeed, to call them holiday homes is to understate them. As Sarah Stanley, Director, notes “We don’t class ourselves as holiday home providers but luxury private home custodians. Key holders to homes with heart.” Tel: +44 (0) 01637 881183. uniquehomestays.com
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space
Jess Clark’s guide to creating a Unique Home Stay Storytelling is at the heart of Unique Home Stays’ philosophy. The ‘experience break’ ethos which surrounds our luxury self-catered stays has its origins in the hosted B&B properties that the company set out marketing. The stay was as much about the property owners and their fascinating stories as their houses; often quirky, always comfortable. In affording access to out of the ordinary private homes off the holiday home radar, a truly exclusive selection of unique homes was established. As an interior designer for Unique Home Stays my role is to create an inspiring narrative. In immersing myself in the setting, history and style of the property, everything from furniture to artwork and accessories are acquired with the theme in mind, creating properties with a strong identity, each unique from the next. Take one shepherd’s hut, add a bedroom and bathroom extension, a smattering of vintage arrows, well-worn cowboy boots and Navajo patterns and you can begin to visualise the westernthemed Sundance. Embracing a retro sixties vibe, The Fisherman’s Knot is a thatched cove-side cottage which references its setting through a pallet of inky blues, teal greens and zingy yellows, complete with vintage nautical artwork. Transforming a Cornish cottage into a collector’s lair, at Elysian botanical books next to binoculars, bugs and beetles. Once a theme has been established for the property, keeping the target audience in mind is integral to creating a successful scheme; ensure that a romantic bolthole is just that, complete with roaring open fire, expansive bed and double ended bath, all with dimmable ambient lighting. In family-friendly abodes, think cinema/games rooms/TV dens with a clear and striking theme.
Afford careful consideration to outside spaces, even the cosiest of courtyards can be transformed with clever lighting, planting and comfortable seating and al fresco dining options. A fusion of form and function is key when considering interior schemes for rental properties. While light-draping linens look amazing in bedrooms, the addition of a subtle blackout blind ensures a lie-in past daybreak! Opt for the largest bed you can get away with when it comes to couples’ retreats, but for larger houses flexible bed configurations − prove useful for mixed family groups. Consider space-saving options in smaller rooms, such as shaker peg rails replacing wardrobes. I put myself in the guest’s shoes at all times; if the bedside light creation looks amazing but doesn’t illuminate a book, an alternative will have to be found. If you’ve found a feature-piece headboard but the curved edge will impede guests’ view of the garden, it’s back to the drawing board. Ensure that all the raw materials - floor to wall finishes - that you opt for reflect the scheme, whether your desired look is rustic or modern. Refound objects, repurposed furniture and reworked pieces add characterful interest. I encourage owners to have fun with the scheme. This is not your full time family home, so opt for bold interior choices and go for smile-inducing options that will prove as interesting and stimulating for you as your guests.
The Theme
Colours
Furniture & Fabrics
Finishing Touches
Taking inspiration from the ensconsed in nature setting - the ‘flight of fancy’ theme takes you on a journey of discovery as you explore this collectors lair. A pared back and neutral aesthetic with accents of slate grey, proves the perfect backdrop for a striking display of quirky collections and furniture with character.
Working with the existing scheme off white walls, slate floors, neutral carpets and wooden floors - there’s a continuation of this natural - back-tobasics feel throughout. The addition of warm greys, taupes, creamy coffee and accents of muted sage green will ensure depth and contrast throughout without breaking from the tonal vibe.
Against this tonal pallet, knotty textures, scrumpled linens and slouchy sofas create a lived-in feel. Patchwork rugs add to the collector theme, with storage furniture display-case inspired. �intage shutters and reclaimed iron bedsteads set the tone in the bedrooms; where loosely draped linens languidly frame windows.
Artwork is eclectic and interesting, think vintage bird prints, paint distressed dovecotes and framed butterfly galleries. In addition, replica bird’s egg displays, vintage bird cages and magnifying glass collections add a museum edge. Suspended terrariums provide an outside-in feel whatever the weather.
dining
Jess’s design process goes from initial sketches through to a lookbook (examples shown from Elysian’s)
Opting for a bench and collection of eclectic stools that easily tuck under the table will maximise the space in this fairly narrow room. A jute rug atop the slate will break up the inky floor, while a darker characterful trestle table with a wooden lampshade duo suspended over will add drama. This is the perfect room in which a quirky display cabinet would prove both a functional and talking point piece.
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Elements of delight Stephen Emanuel Architecture’s core principles in design cross generations and are marked out in buildings and living spaces around Dartmoor and beyond. Words by Imogen Clements.
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ook closely at the turf between London and Devon, and onwards to Cornwall, and you will see a wellworn path. A path trodden by those leaving the city, looking for expanses of moor, sea air and just a little less hub-bub. Quite often those who have trodden the exact same path years apart for very similar reasons come across one another, find core principles in common, and a flourishing friendship or professional relationship develops. Stephen Emanuel, a Cambridge architecture graduate, had held the position of chief architect for a London housing association for some time when he yearned for more inspiration and moved his young family from West London to Dartmoor in the 1980s. It wasn’t a random pin in the map, there was a family connection: Stephen’s wife Lucinda had been brought up in Devon. Simon Roper had been working in London for a large firm of conservation architects when he too, eight years ago, decided to move his young family to Devon, swapping high-octane city architecture for hands-on building work on a tumbledown listed building with his wife. Simon, having got to grips with the house, began looking for freelance work and so it was that Stephen and Simon came to work together. Within six years they worked on over 50 different projects, realizing that they shared the same core principles of building design. “At the heart of a job is the relationship between people and buildings,” Simon explains. “We challenge
The Holiday Barn
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and develop the brief with our clients so that we fully understand their needs and aspirations. An honest assessment is made of the building’s strengths and weaknesses and then we formulate contextual proposals aimed at achieving the best result on both sides.” Simon goes on to indicate the variety of challenges associated with the profession. “You are always led by the building and its setting. We try not to go to a new job with preconceived ideas. Our aim is to focus on spatial organization, to create ‘flow’ and to bring in light and views. Sometimes just moving a doorway or a stair can transform the functionality of a space.” Stephen would err on the side of simplicity but add personality through choice of materials and detail. ‘Adding an element of delight’ was one of his core principles, inspired by the ancient Roman architect, Vitruvius. So how exactly have these shared principles been borne out in the buildings that Stephen and Simon took on? The Holiday Barn was a 19th-century farmhouse in the South Hams that came with a dilapidated barn that the family who bought it was looking to turn into holiday accommodation. The barn had glorious views of the valleys near Totnes but had been built for animals and hay storage. The approved scheme for its conversion had missed key opportunities. “The place was falling down,” recalls Simon. “The extent of disrepair was sufficient to warrant a complete new build within the retained shell of the building. This
space both saved money and allowed us to achieve much greater energy efficiency overall. We reused materials wherever possible, reinstating the original timber trusses in the re-engineered structure to retain the personality of the vaulted upper floor. “An open plan kitchen/dining room with large glazed opening was positioned to reveal the view and connect with the sunny terrace looking out over rolling fields. The piggery was converted to a cosy snug and a TV room was created, leaving the sitting room free to enjoy the woodburner. In this way, the space offers flexibility for different sized gatherings.” The brief relating to the Farmhouse Conversion was to upgrade a Victorian farmhouse and reorder the dated accommodation to a generous family home. “This house was a dysfunctional hotchpot when we were called to it,” explains Simon. “The previous owners had each left their own legacy of alterations. Lobbies, shower rooms, and additional staircases in random places made very little sense as a whole. “We stripped everything back to reveal the house’s original plan and where possible restored the historic fabric of the building, resuscitating the principal rooms. Stripping away the modern alterations allowed for a light open plan kitchen/dining room but the key to restoring the ‘flow’ around the house was a tiny link extension accessed from the downstairs hall and first floor half-landing which meant that occupants no longer had to track through the whole house to get to outlying rooms.” Cottage Insert. Two cottages had been linked by a poorly designed addition, which was dark, providing very little functionality and ignoring the splendid view the site enjoyed. “Our brief was to reimagine the connection and give the whole building a lift. The solution here was to remove the existing in-fill completely and replace it with
a fully glazed timber frame by Emanuel Hendry. Emanuel Hendry is the timber-framed building company set up by Stephen’s two sons, Oscar and Jasper, in partnership with Joel Hendry. The family connection means we’ve worked closely with them on many projects. It’s a good partnership. We can add front-end design consultancy to their framing package and so, between us, offer a complete service.” In December 2014, Stephen Emanuel died. He leaves behind an inspiring legacy of architectural practice in and around the National Park, and beyond. Simon took over as principal of the firm and continues to work under Stephen’s name, inspired by his core values and applying the same principles. Work for Stephen Emanuel Architecture continues to mount. Simon is busy with National Park commissions, a number of timber-framed extensions and a Cornish beach house, plus two residential projects in London. “Having retained contacts there, I’m able to continue working in the city and am well-placed to manage country projects for London-based clients.” London-based clients who doubtless will plan to tread that well-beaten path west, in search of light, space and inspiration, like so many generations have done before them.
Farmhouse Conversion
Cottage Insert
stephenemanuel.co.uk
PHOTO: COURTESY OF EMANUEL-HENDR
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Natural
sleep
Pioneering natural fibre technology has led Naturalmat to create the highest level of comfort in a mattress. A MAGDALEN CHAPTER BEDROOM
I
t’s rare that you get to try out a bed before you buy. I Mark Tremlett is clear. “It’s the pioneering natural mean properly try it out. Even the most uninhibited of us fibre technology that has led us to create the highest level find lying down on a bed in the middle of a showroom in of comfort available in a mattress today by using entirely full view of sales personnel a somewhat embarrassing notion. natural raw materials.” To toss, turn, curl up or spend any time prostrate in order to Entirely natural? There are few modern day high-end accurately determine whether this mattress is indeed the one products produced on a mass scale that can boast that. For that you will be comfortable on for 8 hours in every twenty the sake of speed and endurance some form of synthetic four, over the next ten or more years is something that in usually creeps into the manufacturing process, but not large part, we leave to chance. in this case. A Naturalmat mattress comprises organic Unless of course, you use premium hotels as a gauge. lambswool soaked in a lavender, lemon and eucalyptus A hotel is the perfect opportunity to trial a mattress and a solution to render it free and repellent of bed bugs and dust great starting place to seek out the best quality. Hotels after mites. It comprises coir fibre sourced from coconut husks all trade on sleep. A hotel must invest in the quality of your that enhances the ventilation and spring of the mattress; slumber or face ruin. natural latex from rubber trees; mohair, cashmere, The obvious thing to do then when in search of a new horsetail hair, bamboo and organic cottons all from mattress would be to bed down at the nearest premium environmentally-conscious sources and all biodegradable. hotel, then assuming you are happy with your night’s sleep, pull back the sheets and see what they use. If that hotel happens to be Exeter’s Magdalen Chapter you’ll find the name Naturalmat. Naturalmat, founded by Mark Tremlett and Peter Tindall, has been supplying premium hotels with deluxe mattresses for five years. A testament to their all-natural mattress’s quality is not just that hotels choose them for their guests, but which hotels. Along with the Magdalen Chapter, Cliveden, Claridges, Chewton Glen, Manoir aux Quat Saisons, The Beaumont and The Wellesley in Knightsbridge all boast Naturalmat mattresses. These are hotels whose names go before them as the very epitome of quality on every level, so the choice of Naturalmat on which to entrust their guests’ sleep is for many endorsement enough. Enquire further however and you’ll discover just why a Naturalmat mattress attracts the attention of such esteemed hoteliers. A Naturalmat mattress is created using high quality natural materials
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promotional feature Moreover, every mattress, and Naturalmat produce some 2,500 a year, is handmade in Topsham, Devon, ensuring the very highest level of quality. Indeed, customers are welcome to go and see the production techniques first hand at the factory and showroom. The story behind Naturalmat’s pioneering status in nocturnal comfort came about in boats. Boats get wet and it was clear that mattresses made of synthetic fibres did not provide sufficient ventilation to counter the damp. As we know, natural fibres are much more comfortable to wear thanks to their natural ventilation. Naturalmat decided to apply this all-natural concept to the mattresses they made for the marine industry and achieved a markedly different standard of comfort and durability. Then Mark Tremlett’s wife had a baby, and Mark and Peter realized that the baby market, a market that is forever promoting the benefits of all things natural, had overlooked mattresses. The mattress that lined a baby’s cot or moses basket was invariably cheap foam covered in pungent plastic. “We developed an all-natural baby mattress and ran a focus group in London amongst twenty mums of newborns,” recalls Peter Tindall. “We couldn’t have got a better response. All but two of the mums in the group immediately bought one.” Naturalmat baby mattresses took off, supplying all the key nursery retailers in the UK including Mothercare. At this point the adults moved in, via the premium hotel market. These hotels, increasingly aware about
sustainability and the environment, began to take notice of Naturalmat’s unique offering. Naturalmat extolled the supreme comfort that their natural mattresses offer. This ticked all boxes and the company began to get orders to kit out top-end hotels, whilst maintaining sales to the marine and nursery sectors. They now supply hundreds of luxury mattresses to premium hotels across the globe. Quite a sampling exercise for those busy, tired executives who frequent them. How many have turned down the sheets to discover just what they were sleeping on we’ll never know, but word is definitely spreading across the domestic market. Naturalmat now sell a range of luxury mattresses direct to consumer along with duvets, pillows, and protectors. The all-natural effect on sound sleep is clearly getting noted. For those who care about the quality of their sleep, and what they sleep on, Naturalmat get the five-star endorsement. naturalmat.co.uk 01392 877 247
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15/05/2015 15:32:24 MANOR | Summer 2015 127
The great outdoors It’s summer! You need to get out more. The excitement of good weather brings with it intentions to get out and ensure you enjoy it, whether lounging, eating, partying, or just being.
Deckchairs, John Lewis, £15 each Barometer, Amara, £30
Birdhouse, Amara, £44
Lexington rug, Occa-Home, £139 Outdoor lifestyle, John Lewis
Seed box, Amara, £10
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Set of three planters, Amara, £50
space Big Green Egg BBQ, Darts Farm, £550
Pimm’s and punch set, Occa-Home, £85
Tea light holders, Heals, £14 Outdoor fairy lights, Marks and Spencer
Floor lamp, Marks and Spencer
Garden igloo, Occa-Home, £699
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crafting your space
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timber frame new builds extensions cabins
carpenteroak.com 01803 732900
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PHOTO: IAN JACKSON
workSpace Dominic Welch is a sculptor who works out of his open, iron-roofed barn on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon.
W
orking predominantly in Kilkenny limestone and Carrara marble, and also casting in bronze, Dominic’s work adorns the homes and gardens of private collectors across the world, many of whom fly to the UK with the sole purpose of viewing and purchasing one of his pieces. They range in price from £3,000 to £30,000. Dominic fell into his craft when, at 18 and on his gap year, he placed an ad in Devon-based Resurgence magazine looking for a job as an artist’s apprentice, and the sculptor Peter Randall-Page responded. Dominic never went on to university but instead apprenticed with Peter for the next ten years, learning much from his mentor, and producing his own work throughout the time he was there. “There would be crazy periods of activity when we were preparing Peter’s
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work to show, and then there would be lulls which allowed me to get on with my own work.” In 1990, just a year into his apprenticeship, Dominic sold his first sculpture and began to show and sell at a wide variety of venues nationally and abroad. Dominic set up on his own in 1999 and in 2004 was approached by Messum’s, the London fine art gallery, when they saw his work at both the Delamore Sculpture Exhibition and then again at Asthall Manor’s biennial exhibition Onform. Dominic Welch has been represented by Messum’s ever since and produces solo exhibitions for their Cork Street London gallery as well as for their annual sculpture exhibition at Lords Wood, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. This year, the Lords Wood exhibition will be held on Friday 19, Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 June.
space Drawing on the Swallowtail Angel VIII I have no sketch book, I prefer to draw directly onto the stone. I’m quite haphazard about the way I work, completely by eye with little measuring. There’s no real knowing what’s right, but you get to a point when you think, ok, that works. The point of balance is quite important. Dependent on where it is, it can deliver a very different energy to the piece.
Compressed charcoal I am forever losing these in the dust!
Plywood templates These are used when visiting clients to give them an idea of the size and perspective of sculptures they have commissioned. It helps them plan where to place the final piece.
The angle grinder This is my core tool and comes in sizes of 9 inches and 5 inches. They are extremely versatile but you have to keep focussed at all times. A respirator is of course vital during cutting and grinding. The barn is often consumed in one huge cloud of dust.
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PHOTO: IAN JACKSON
Dominic at his bench The barn is pretty chaotic, with shards of stone and cut-offs everywhere. Worktops are makeshift and temporary. In this case the bench is made out of rough Kilkenny stone laid horizontally to support a number of smaller pieces in various stages of development. The stone is heavy, weighing anything between 3.5 and 5 tonnes. It’s delivered in a lorry that unloads at the barn door and, using slings and a gantry, is then hoisted into position to be carved.
The mug There are hundreds of mugs dotted about the barn, many of them filthy! Visitors are always advised to bring their own!
A pneumatic bush hammer head For chiseling
It’s always incredibly difficult to articulate what I do and why the forms emerge in the way they do. It comes down really to achieving a lightness in the stone, a certain stillness and harmony. I don’t attempt to explain the work to any prospective buyer but they rarely ask. They buy them because they affect them in some way. What they are is for anyone to interpret in their own way. ALL PHOTOS BY GENOVEVA ARTEAGA-RYNN EXCEPT WHERE CREDITED
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space
PHOTO: STEVE RUSSELL
Embryonic VII, bronze, an edition of five, H 46 x W 56 x D 8 cm
Carrara Angel VIII 2015, Carrara marble, H 39 x W 64 x D 14 cm
Swallowtail Form, bronze, an edition of 11, H 20 x W 61 x D 6 cm
For further information about the sculpture exhibition, or Dominic’s work in Cork Street, London, Messum’s can be contacted on 020 7437 5545. For further information on Dominic Welch go to dominicwelch.co.uk
ALL PHOTOS ON THIS PAGE: COURTESY OF MESSUM’S
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space
Q&A Kim Whinnet is a lead designer at Barnes of Ashburton, who make bespoke and handmade kitchens and furniture for private clients across the South West and London. Barnes has been established for 35 years. What are you currently working on? We’ve recently completed a kitchen in Mayfair and are just about to begin a second kitchen for the property. This second kitchen is for the original client’s daughter, so even though they are practically the same shape, it requires a different style. Both rooms are small with low ceiling heights and angles everywhere. It was quite a task to fit everything in, appliance-wise, and incorporate adequate storage and sufficient work surface. We work alongside a fabulous project management company and have done for the past three years. How did you get into this business? I worked for Pat Gunning, the founder of Barnes, for a few months when I was 17 because I knew people who were already employed by Barnes. I left and found myself in a job I didn’t like when I was 23 and decided to ask Pat if he would give me a job. I have now been with the company for ten years. I also love the fact that I am free to draw what I feel and know 100% that the workshop can make it without any compromises. What has been your most satisfying project? It’s hard to pinpoint one. You’re at the beginning of the design process, so seeing the finished result once the customer has moved in is the treat – the work in situ, being used. We’ve just visited a finished project in Torquay and it totally blew me away. Most challenging project? We worked for a lovely couple who, when they first came to see us, had had a bad experience dealing with a company working in another area of the house. It became clear that what had been delivered was not right and 12 months on, the installation still wasn’t complete. They were understandably sceptical. We started off with a small order for two internal doors and framework. This eventually turned into all the internal and external doors throughout the property, then bedroom wardrobes, living room shelving, garden gate and lastly a beautiful kitchen. The first challenge was convincing the client that we were going to do a great job, the second was that the property was 500 years old and grade II listed without one straight wall. What are your favourite materials/suppliers? We source our timber from a number of different local suppliers including Devon Hard Woods, New World
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Timber, Robbins Timber and Lathams. We keep things local as the companies mentioned deliver good quality material on time and are always well-stocked. Our go-to supplier for granite, quartz and composite worktops is Steve Bristow Stone Masonary. We use Brewers for all our paints, oils and finishes; Armada Glass in Saltash for any glass work; Holly Keeling for soft furnishings and styling; Garton King for Agas and appliances, and Darts Farm and Amos Lighting are businesses we enjoy working with. What are your sources of inspiration? I like magazines such as Country Homes and Interiors, The English Home, The English Heritage, The Designer. I also check out Pinterest and Houzz for inspiration and find that these are a great way of seeing something, saving it and coming back to it later, when I can incorporate the ideas into my design. And then it’s the job. When it comes to designing it’s all about the room and the people you are working for, that’s where the inspiration comes from really. What are the current trends out there? Free-standing furniture, pantry cabinets and larders. There seems to be a nod to the past. Customers are being brave with colour, and reviving old furniture to mix old with new. Hot taps are popular such as the Quooker models, glass splash backs and upstands, and dog beds! Are there any other briefs or projects that you’d trample people to get to? There’s a rich variety of briefs down here that are quite exciting to get, but personally I would trample over everyone to work for Ed Sheeran or Sam Smith. barnesofashburton.co.uk
#MANORMontage Spotted at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show were these blooming marvellous MANOR readers enjoying their favourite magazine. Show us where you are reading it... Photos by Rae Muscat.
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Traditional values delivering outstanding academic results
TAUNTON
An education for life Co-educational day & boarding ages 3-18 01823 340830
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Nursery | Pre School | Junior School | Senior School | Sixth Form 138
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For teachers and parents of children studying in the South West Education, its immense importance, always gives rise to strong opinions and lively debate. We want MANOR to reflect that; to not only showcase the very high level of education available in the South West, but to also stimulate thought and inspire teaching professionals and parents. As such, we intend to publish the intellectual opinions and ideas of professionals in the sector (and welcome your response), as well as news and initiatives relating to schools in the region. Contact us at school@manormagazine.co.uk
In defence of diversity Professor Ruth Merttens launches the MANORschool section with a thought-provoking opinion piece.
R
eading the newspapers, one would be forgiven for thinking that, in international comparisons, English primary school children emerge rather poorly. Even the BBC has occasionally implied that England does not come out well when our primary education is compared on an international stage. However, the facts present a very different picture from the headlines. The truth is that England does very well in international comparisons if you look at the data for primary age children. We do considerably less well when the pupils are aged 15. For reasons we discuss later, there is a growing and substantial body of evidence that children’s numeracy declines rapidly from age 11 to age 16. Let us consider the evidence of good performance at primary level. The TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) conducted on a fouryearly cycle, provides the following data:
England’s 10-year olds international ranking in mathematics
1995
2003
2007
2011
16th
10th
7th
9th
It should be noted that in 2007 no European country did better and in 2011 the only European countries that performed better than England were Finland and Flemish Belgium. Key to the assertion that English primary schools are not, as we so often hear, failing English children in relation to maths, is the particular table in the TIMSS report showing the rate at which countries have improved or declined from 1995 to 2011. Here it clearly shows that England is the second most improved country, with only one country improving more. In relation to maths then, English primary schools have much to be proud of. No other country in Europe has sustained such an improvement nor, with the exception of Finland and Flemish Belgium, scored so highly. Why then the bad publicity? In answer we need to look to the Department for Education and, in particular at specific
pronouncements made by the Minister for Schools in regard to the East Asian educational approaches. The Minister would like to see us emulate and implement a Shanghai or Singaporean-style maths curriculum and teaching style in English schools. These are two jurisdictions that, along with South Korea and four other Pacific Rim states, consistently out-perform the UK on International Tables. This Government is so impressed with educational methods for young children in these countries that, in the context of cutbacks and austerity measures, they have spent ÂŁ11 million (with more in the pipeline this year) on bringing Chinese teachers over to the UK to show English teachers how it is done. It should be recognised that there is grave cause for concern here, if we truly value what is best in English Primary schools. For such jurisdictions, Shanghai and Singapore, have many important differences with the UK which make it exceedingly likely if not certain that simply importing Chinese-style textbooks and teaching methods and imposing these on English teachers will not have the desired effects and are more likely to damage rather than improve the educational chances of UK primary children. First, none of these countries is an open democracy, whereas the roles of not only teachers but doctors, nurses, policemen and women, and just about everyone else in public service, professionals in this country remain stubbornly unbiddable. We value our democracy; we appreciate diversity and originality, and place these
No other country in Europe has sustained such an improvement nor, with the exception of Finland and Flemish Belgium, scored so highly
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Unlike in Pacific Rim countries, routine memorisation is no longer part of the rituals of daily life in the UK significantly above conformity and uniformity. That is surely a strength, not a weakness in an open society. Secondly, in the UK, children from 3 to 11 years old are expected to enjoy primary school. If Jimmy is crying on the way to school, his parents are beating a path to the teacher’s or head teacher’s door to tell them. In English schools we take pains to minimise the type of competition between learners which could result in a young child feeling a failure. We do not – and have not for over 30 years – used corporal punishment in school. Creativity is seen as not only possible but admirable and critical thinking is both encouraged and developed. By contrast, in Pacific Rim countries, education takes place in a highly competitive atmosphere where high-stakes tests result in some children succeeding from a young age whilst others, effectively, fail. Corporal punishment is not illegal and children are expected to view school as a ‘job’ and to conform to a set of curriculum demands that are both uniform and unchallenged. In an authoritarian society, critical reasoning or questioning is neither expected nor valued. Many children are under intense pressure to succeed, with much time after school being taken up with extra tutoring. So, although I passionately desire my children and grandchildren to do well at school, and whilst I want them taught with rigour and energy, I want them to enjoy primary school, to feel valued as their own person, stimulated to enjoy learning and encouraged to persevere. I do not want all the children in their class to be on the same page in the same textbook at the same time. Not all children learn at the same rate, and making some feel ‘slow’ and holding others back is unlikely either to support effective learning or to promote a love of maths. That said, there are aspects of mathematics education which we can and should emulate, learning from countries who have better scores on comparative tests. Most primary schools in England are increasing their focus on memorisation. Unlike in Pacific Rim countries, routine memorisation is no longer part of the rituals of daily life in the UK. Children do not come to school having learned many prayers and chants off by heart as they used to. They do not, as they grow older, memorise the mobile numbers of their friends or family, nor do most adults. The absence of this ‘schooling of the memory’ that we used to take for granted is not the teachers’ fault, but it is the teachers’ problem. Memory is like any other faculty – use it or lose it. So English primary schools are increasingly building routine memorisation into their daily timetables.
They are also driving up the amount of practice and demanding a greater proportion of parents’ time in monitoring homework. Parental support and outof-school extra rehearsal of key mathematical skills are important features of Pacific Rim jurisdictions. However, good schools in England are keen to preserve the ethos, well established here, of ‘teaching for understanding’ in mathematics, and see this approach as crucial to the development of both arithmetic fluency and mathematical reasoning. So whilst it is true that we should see an increase in memorisation and practice, this does not mean a return to the rote learning of the past or the uniformity of the Shanghai or Singaporean curriculum. Indeed, many experienced teachers argue that we are ideally poised to attain a really good balance – developing conceptual understanding of fundamental concepts, making sure that children from the very start are encouraged to reason mathematically and think creatively, but also ensuring that children know their number facts! In this context, building an extra raft of practice to be done, as in East Asia, after school at home, can only be a good thing, helping children to see that their parents value their learning. People tend to want inconsistent or contradictory things from Primary education. They want their child to be happy and fulfilled, to be treated as a unique individual, but they also want rapid progress, the apparent security of uniform methods and frequent, high-stakes tests. In a competitive atmosphere there will be some failures as well as successes – and none of us want our child to be the loser. If we are all learning the same thing, by rote, without understanding it, the mathematically gifted young child will not be stimulated or challenged. Also, the less confident mathematician is likely to use an error-prone method to perform a simple calculation rather than making a sensible choice. In education as in life, we had better be careful what we wish for in case it is actually delivered! Professor Ruth Merttens is Professor at the University College of St Mark and St John, Plymouth and Director of The Hamilton Trust’s Maths and Reading Projects, which produces resources for primary teachers via their website hamilton-trust.org.uk. These resources are used by more than 65,000 teachers on a weekly basis, representing around 40% of primary teachers in England and a similar proportion of schools.
HELP YOUR CHILD AT HOME Ruth will begin a new five-part series exclusively for MANOR magazine in the next issue titled ‘Help your child at home’. The first of the series will focus on maths for primary school children, the second on maths for older children and she will also deliver sessions on assisting your child in English.
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THE MAYNARD JUNIOR SCHOOL IS EXPANDING Places for Year 2 available September 2015 Places for Reception and Year 1 available September 2016
NEXT OPEN EVENING, THURSDAY 18 JUNE Junior School 4pm – 6pm
Senior School 6pm – 8pm
An outstanding independent school for girls MANOR | Summer 2015
141
The iconic Ship building in Derriford, Plymouth,
Burrington Estates not only has a passion for the sensitive
has been acquired by South West property
and appropriate renovation of historic and significant
developers, Burrington Estates, who intend to
buildings, but a drive to breathe new life into them and
transform the building into a bustling hive of enterprise through its collaboration with Thrive
The Ship very much fits into our overall company ethos. Our aim, as with all of our developments, is to restore them to their former glory and we are confident The
Hubs, a provider of co-working spaces for start-
Ship will be regarded as one of the places to do business
ups and growing businesses.
in the city in no time at all.
Mark
Edworthy,
Chairman
of
Burrington
Estates,
We are sure that Thrive Hubs will strike a chord with
comments: “Saving Plymouth’s glass Ship building
companies
marks an investment of £5 million and we look forward
instrumental role in creating jobs and keeping business
to working alongside Plymouth City Council to ensure
talent within the city – we also hope it will help attract
The Ship reaches its full potential within the city.
talent to the region too.”
and
entrepreneurs
alike,
and
play
For more information about Burrington Estates please visit www.burringtonestates.com For information about Thrive please visit www.thrive-hubs.com 142
MANOR | Summer 2015
ENTERPRISE HUBS
an
Property The Bulletin | Property of note: The Penthouse Suite, Dean Clarke House Snapshot comparative
Coombe House, North Huish, near Totnes, Devon On the market with Marchand Petit. Guide price ÂŁ1,250,000. marchandpetit.co.uk
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Topsham | Exeter
A stylish refurbished Grade II Listed former boat house in a prime location with direct access to the Exe Estuary Exeter 4 miles
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MANOR | Summer 2015
Offers over £3,000,000
Entrance Hall, Sitting room, Dining room, Kitchen/Breakfast/Family room, Larder, Rear entrance hall, Utility room, Gym/Garage, Downstairs WC, Master bedroom with ensuite and dressing room| Four further bedrooms, Study/Bedroom six, Family bathroom, Shower room, Garden, Extensive parking, ‘Dry dock’, Slipway, Private pontoon, Deep water mooring (transferable by way of arrangement)
property
The Bulletin How far will the billion pound foreign investment in central London property ripple out? By Imogen Clements.
P
roperty markets fluctuate, affected by all kinds of global, domestic, macro and micro economic trends, which is why to many of us it is such a fascinating market to observe and analyse, and such a gauge to the country’s broader economic state – what’s selling, to what degree, for how much, where and to whom. There is nothing that affects the property market more, however, than a pending general election, particularly when all competing parties propose major policies that would have dramatic implications for the housing market; one such policy being the Mansion Tax. Then, with the surprise result of the general election, all that changed. The Conservative win meant no Mansion Tax and highend property started exchanging hands apace. It was claimed that £30m of property in Central London changed hands at dawn on Friday 8 May. But to whom? And is all the money staying in London or moving elsewhere? Interestingly, Strutt & Parker’s quarterly report delivered shortly after the election showed that nearly 41% of all buyers in Prime Central London over the first quarter of 2015 were from overseas, many from Asia and Western Europe (Russia). This trend has given many growing cause for concern. A recent investigation by the Financial Times found that more than a hundred billion pounds’ worth of property in England and Wales is owned by offshore companies. London properties account for two-thirds of that amount. Charles Moore, former editor of the Telegraph, has been quoted as saying that London’s property market has become “a form of legalized international money laundering.” In recent decades, huge amounts of foreign money have poured into London’s most expensive neighborhoods. The recent trend for adding enormous multi-floored basements, creating in effect ‘iceberg houses’, is to many connected to the wave of capital coming into London, and not enough land to absorb it, without going down. This surge in investment in central London property is creating a tiered ripple effect not unlike the old fashioned pyramid of stacked champagne glasses – loads of money is poured into the top few glasses which overflows into the outer-lying tier below, which ultimately overflows into the outer-lying tier below that. Hence the rich people of Kensington are moving to Islington, the comfortable
Islington set are moving to Hackney and so it goes on. But to where? And how far? Does ‘London’ just get bigger or are we shipping out altogether? Money − and in the main London money − is moving to coast and countryside, as has been observed in this bulletin previously, particularly to the coast. A report published at the end of May by the Halifax named Salcombe as officially Britain’s most expensive seaside town, with average house prices of £672,874. Sandbanks came second with average house prices at £614,726, followed by Aldeburgh in East Anglia (£413,393), and Lymington, in the New Forest, at £404,781. Dartmouth was fifth, at £403,767, followed by Padstow at £387,109, and Lyme Regis at £343,604. Budleigh Salterton, in East Devon, was next at £342,442, then further down the coast came Bigbury on Sea at £333,626 and East Wittering, in the South East, was placed tenth, with average prices of £330,146. So are the locals being displaced? “Only those who want to be,” says James Baker of Strutt & Parker, Exeter. “The ebb and flow of property and popularity of different areas is a perennial fact of life. That, to some extent, is what has always driven the property market. A lot of these multimillion-pound coastal hotspots were once upon a time impoverished fishing villages. Time moves on and there is a new area that people look to for a variety of reasons.” Are we likely to see super yachts crowding our harbours and a frenzy of basements being dug along our coastlines? “I don’t think so. Many of those that come here like it for what it is and don’t want it to change. A lot of these people are making their homes their primary residences for reasons of price and circumstance (flexible working). They’re looking for a different pace and to cash in their house in London to deliver some surplus and get off the mortgage ladder. “There will always be pockets of the South West that are and remain second home territories but for many nowadays that’s a luxury that they no longer need, or if they do it’s the other way, in or near London. “The reason for London’s stratospheric rise in property prices in some areas is the segment of buyers – both British and foreign – who will only ever want to be in Central London, and will pay whatever’s required to ensure they are.”
A report published at the end of May named Salcombe as Britain’s most expensive seaside town
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savills.co.uk
1 ONE OF ROCK'S LARGEST WATERFRONT FREEHOLDS rock, north cornwall 5 bedrooms ø first sale since 1986 ø private steps to Porthilly Beach ø redevelopment potential (subject to planning consent) ø wonderful views ø garden ø boat store/workshop ø 2,336 sq ft ø EPC=F ø JSA: John Bray & Partners Guide £4.5 million Freehold
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Savills Cornwall Jonathan Cunliffe jcunliffe@savills.com
01872 243 200
savills.co.uk
1 IMMACULATE RESIDENTIAL FARMHOUSE WITH DISTANT VIEWS TO THE SOUTH lustleigh, dartmoor national park Sublime setting on edge of the moor ø superb presentation ø 4 bedroom house ø 1 bedroom cottage ø courtyard of granite buildings ø home office ø pasture enclosed by stone walls ø lambing shed ø direct access onto Lustleigh Cleave ø about 64 acres ø EPC Exempt
Savills Exeter Richard Addington raddington@savills.com
01392 455 755
Guide £2.5 million
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Pennsylvania Crescent | Exeter
An elegant and well-presented Grade II* Listed Regency house in a leafy crescent Exeter city centre 0.5 mile
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Entrance lobby, Reception hall, Drawing room, Dining room, Kitchen/breakfast room Cloakroom, Study, 9 lower ground floor rooms, 7 double bedrooms, Family bathroom 2 further cloakrooms, Secluded and spacious walled garden to rear with terrace, Landscaped garden to front and the benefit of a shared park opposite, Double garage with room above and residents parking
Guide Price: ÂŁ975,000
Moretonhampstead | Devon
An impressive farm and farmhouse with gardens and stabling in a peaceful rural location of approximately 100 acres Bovey Tracey 7 miles, Exeter 13 miles, Okehampton 15 miles
Guide Price: ÂŁ1,850,000
Main house: Entrance Hall, Drawing room Dining room, Kitchen/breakfast room, Study Utility area, Tack room, Larder |Downstairs WC Six bedrooms, two with ensuite bathrooms, Family Bathroom, Separate WC One bedroom annexe accommodation Two storey barn, Stables, Agricultural shed Open fronted tractor/vehicle shed
Exeter 01392 215631 Exeter@struttandparker.com 50 offices across England and Scotland, including 10 offices Central MANOR in | Summer 2015 London 149
Mod cons and city living Could the penthouse suite in the Grade II Listed Dean Clarke House be Exeter’s most luxurious abode? Words by Natalie Vizard.
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aving taken in the grand façade and wandered into the impressive entrance hall of Dean Clarke House in Southernhay, Exeter’s leafy professional quarter, you could be forgiven for thinking you had been teleported to London’s salubrious Mayfair. Greeted by Adam, the fulltime concierge, who helps residents with a range of services from dry cleaning to booking shows and taxis, Dean Clarke House provides a level of luxury unmatched anywhere else in the city. An imposing building with heritage in abundance, Dean Clarke House was rescued from dereliction after it ceased to be used by the NHS in 2008. Long gone are any clinical reminders of the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital. Instead, this iconic Exeter building has been transformed into one of the most exclusive residences in the city. The first impressions as you walk along the corridors are of space and grandeur, one of the beauties of it being an older property. There is a sense of history throughout the building, however, with everything so new and pristine, the high level
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of finish and attention to detail in combination with contemporary interiors create a truly special home. The owner of the penthouse also enjoys use of the fully equipped gym and Zen garden. All the newly renovated apartments offer a high level of finish, but the penthouse reaches new heights. It is 2,500 sq ft spread over two floors with views over the hills surrounding Exeter. There are three bedrooms and three bathrooms, an open plan kitchen and sitting room. The interior is elegant and contemporary in its styling, with luxurious fittings and fabrics everywhere you look. No expense has been spared on the furnishings, with extensive use of velvets and rich fabrics throughout. All the bedrooms have walk-in wardrobes. All areas have underfloor heating, with oak flooring and an oak staircase adding to the light and airy feeling. The bathrooms do not disappoint, with floor to ceiling feature tiles and top of the range fixtures and fittings, including Grohe bathroom fittings and Vitra furniture. The kitchen offers ample space to create culinary masterpieces, and features high-end appliances,
property of note
including the Gaggenhau cooker and Miele appliances. What will come in handy for entertaining will be the wine cooler, which keeps all your wine from Champagne to Burgundy at the optimum temperature for serving to guests. Beyond the furnishings, furniture and fittings, this penthouse suite has been treated to a superior level of home entertainment and automation. Wanting to deliver the highest spec possible, Burrington Estates approached specialists in smart home technology, Barton Solutions, to add yet another level of luxury. Josh Harvey from Barton Solutions explains: “The beauty of the Control4 system we installed in the penthouse is that all the lighting and heating systems, and even the home entertainment can be operated at the touch of a button – whether standing in the property or remotely, from anywhere in the world.� Maintaining the uncluttered, contemporary styling, Sky, Apple TV and DVD are all centrally located and then streamed throughout the property to all rooms. This means all equipment is completely hidden away and removes the need for bulky equipment to be sited in the rooms locally. All unsightly cables are completely hidden; you see just the flat screens fixed to the walls or to motorised TV brackets. If music be the food of love, Cupid would feel right at home as all the audio can be accessed wherever you are in the apartment. Not only that, but the system allows for five different sources to be played around the apartment simultaneously. The
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Sonos system can access a host of music sources, from Spotify, napster and Deezer to TuneIn Radio, while a wireless music bridge allows streaming from smart phones and tablets. The Lutron lighting control system allows for a bespoke lighting experience, with multiple lights and shades controlled at the touch of a button. Due to its dimming technology, this system offers substantial energy savings and luxurious mood lighting settings. The pièce de resistance of the penthouse suite, however, has to be the home cinema room. With the full 5.4.2 Dolby Atmos surround-sound system, the sound moves around you to transport you into the action. A Denon Amplifier and Artcoustic Speakers provide full HD JVC projection system on to a 3m acoustically transparent projector screen. With the Control4 system, you can impress guests by turning off the lights, turning on the surround sound and starting the movie all with the touch of a button. Answering the need to be able to work anywhere, Wifi is available throughout the apartment, while fibreoptic broadband is distributed throughout the property. The transformation of Dean Clarke House is the project of developer Mark Edworthy, who grew up in Exeter and returned to his roots: “I came down from London and fell in love with the building, and now I’m based here,” reveals Mark. “That’s how much I love it. “When we bought the building it had planning permission but we totally redid the plans to create this luxury feel. I wanted it to be quirky, edgy and high end.” burringtonestates.com
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One of Exeter’s most important historic buildings, Dean Clarke House was built in 1742 as England’s first general hospital. The imposing building, set within the historical Southernhay and Friars Conservation Area, gained its name from its founder, Doctor Alured Clarke, who was the Dean of Exeter Cathedral. The Halford Wing was added at a later date, in 1856, with the Victoria Wing later still in 1895. Designed by John Richards in the mid-1700s, this listed landmark enjoys the tall windows, high ceilings, elegant staircases and generous proportions you’d expect from Georgian architecture. The hospital escaped damage during the Blitz, but became redundant in the mid-70s when a new building was created at Wonford, leaving the Southernhay site to serve as NHS administrative offices. The administrative arm of the NHS vacated the property in 2008 and was left derelict until the building was purchased by Burrington Estates in 2013. Now featuring luxury student accommodation in Dean Clarke Lofts in the Halford Wing, as well as a range of two and three bedroom luxury apartments in the main building, its renovation sensitively combines the charm of its historic features with a high spec, contemporary refurbishment. Dean Clarke House is also home to The Cosy Club restaurant, part of the Loungers chain. Although most references to the building’s past incarnation are long gone, a visit to this quirky eatery bears reminders in the décor, which uses old hospital paraphernalia in the bar and restrooms.
property
Snapshot comparative Exceptional properties on the market in fabulous Devon and Cornwall locations, alongside a bright and spacious London bolt hole.
Town house
3 Mount Radford Crescent, Exeter £1,950,000 An impressive Grade II Listed family home in one of Exeter’s most exclusive crescents that has been beautifully adapted for 21st Century living. The late Georgian stucco house has been meticulously renovated by the present owners and is presented in immaculate order throughout. The main house provides substantial accommodation on three levels and, in addition, a basement, currently used for relaxation and family pastimes. savills.com
Water’s edge
The Beacon, Mylor, Cornwall Guide price: £950,000 One of the best positioned properties to come to the market for some time presents an ideal opportunity for a fine home in a magnificent coastal location. With stunning 180 degree views of The Carrick Roads, Mylor Harbour and Creek. Four bedrooms home with integral annexe. . humberts.com
Pond House, Charlestown, Cornwall Guide Price £1,250,000
Equestrian
Pond House is a really beautiful property in the heart of the village of Charlestown which was recently featured in Poldark with views from the garden towards the harbour Five bedrooms, stables, sand school and paddock plus self-contained cottage in a Grade II* listed former forge. humberts.com
London bolthole
Fulham £795,000 A bright and spacious split level garden flat benefiting from an excellent layout, including a spacious open plan kitchen/ reception room. Off Munster Road and therefore benefits from the shopping and transport facilities of the local area, including Fulham Broadway and Parsons Green. struttandparker.com
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Exeter: 01392 427500 • Topsham: 01392 875000 www.wilkinsongrant.co.uk
PROPERTY & ACQUISITION AGENTS
Petrockstow – Guide Price £1,000,000 Simply stunning farmhouse, Grade II Listed, with superb range of buildings, set in over ten acres of gardens and grounds around an hour’s drive from Exeter, close to Dartmoor and the North Devon coast. Offering 6/7 bedrooms, 6 reception rooms, adjoining cottage for renovation and substantial stone built barns with potential for conversion (subject to the necessary consents). Fabulous farreaching views. Paddock, woodland and stream.
Our Agent’s view...
Melanye Luscombe
“This is an exceptional mini estate on the edge of the moor, yet also close to the coast. A beautiful home which could very easily provide an income as well.”
Email: m.luscombe@wilkinsongrant.co.uk Call: 01392 875000 154
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TWITTER: @WILKINSONGRANT FACEBOOK: FACEBOOK.COM/WILKINSONGRANT
Exeter: 01392 427500 • Topsham: 01392 875000 www.wilkinsongrant.co.uk
PROPERTY & ACQUISITION AGENTS
Topsham – Guide Price £2,250,000 A beautifully restored period house on the Strand in Topsham with lovely river views. Late Georgian and Grade II Listed, but with all the conveniences of modern living. 5 bedrooms, 4 reception rooms, double length garage and further parking for 3 or 4 cars. A stunning home.
Our Agent’s view... “There are some marvellous houses on Topsham’s strand and this is one of the finest! Amazing modern living in a gorgeous period house.”
Daniel Wilkinson
Email: d.wilkinson@wilkinsongrant.co.uk Call: 01392 427500 MANOR | Summer 2015
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TWITTER: @WILKINSONGRANT FACEBOOK: FACEBOOK.COM/WILKINSONGRANT
Exeter: 01392 427500 • Topsham: 01392 875000 www.wilkinsongrant.co.uk
PROPERTY & ACQUISITION AGENTS
St Leonards, Exeter – Guide Price £850,000 This beautifully-presented, cleverly extended modern detached house in the heart of St Leonards has great ‘indoor outdoor’ space including fabulous living/dining area opening onto a lovely southerly aspect level garden. Stylish kitchen/breakfast room, spacious sitting room, utility/cloakroom, 5 bedrooms (master en-suite), family bathroom and further separate shower room, garage and parking for 2/3 cars. EER ‘C’.
Our Agent’s view...
Roger Wilkinson
“If ever the expression ‘Must be viewed from the inside to appreciate exactly what is on offer’ applies, this is a perfect example. You won’t be disappointed!”
Email: r.wilkinson@wilkinsongrant.co.uk Call: 01392 427500 156
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TWITTER: @WILKINSONGRANT FACEBOOK: FACEBOOK.COM/WILKINSONGRANT
Beach house living at Challaborough near Bigbury
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Three contemporary freehold properties designed by architect David Losasso. Situated in the popular seaside village of Challaborough, these properties are the first of their type in the area and, via the coastal path, Bigbury and the iconic Burgh Island are a short distance away. With a guide price of ÂŁ625,000, these houses are now available to reserve off plan. With use for either owner occupation or for holiday letting, the properties offer exceptional value and potential previously unseen in this part of South Devon.
Loyalty Matters: Waterside Properties
For more details call: 01548
legal pack supplied by
830 831or visit: www.luscombemaye.com 157 MANOR | Summer 2015
Specialist suppliers and quality artisans of every variety are operating across the South West JEWELLERY
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BLACK BOOK Director of Food & Drink Devon and mother of three Hayley Reynolds shares secret pages from her black book with MANOR.
I
’m a Devon girl born and bred. Having grown up on a farm in East Devon I have always had an interest in and a love of good food. A combination of travel and 10 years living in London experiencing a multitude of wonderful eateries added to this. Also, through my work, I started on my journey of discovering about the world of wine, which I find intriguing. It’s the winemakers’ passion I love. I’m a huge fan of Austrian wines – Riesling in general (a grape that is not as popular as it should be) and Grüner Veltliner. I also love Albariño from Rías Baixas in Northern Spain and have a fondness for pudding wines – Sauternes, Tokaji, a Trockenbeerenauslese or Eiswein. Blackpool Sands I live with my husband Jonathan and our three children in a farmhouse in the heart of the South Hams. We are excited about getting his 60-year-old wooden Fairey Atalanta sailing boat on the water this summer. We love to potter around the coast of Devon and Cornwall. When Jonathan took a year’s course in wooden boat building at the Marine School we lived in a tiny house just outside Falmouth. Our daughter Jemima was a baby then and we would take long walks with her in the backpack along the beautiful Helford River at Mawnan Smith. I lived in about six Helford River different parts of London in my twenties. My favourite was Little Venice where we rented a bijou flat in Pindock Mews. There was a terrific sense of community – everyone had parties on the street. When I go back to London, if I have time, I’ll walk up to St John’s Wood for a browse around the charity shops or I’ll pop over to Covent Garden and listen to the buskers singing opera in the square. Visiting London makes me realise just what good value we get for food and drink in the South Hams. Here you’re likely to get a whole crab for the same price of a crab claw in London and you know that it will be as fresh as it gets.
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One of our absolute favourites, where we go once the children are settled, is the Journey’s End in Ringmore. They serve the best calamari and Thai curries which are truly authentic. Or, with the family, we all enjoy a lazy Sunday lunch there followed by a walk to the spectacular Aymer Cove, which is less than a mile away. A perfect day! Valley View café in Loddiswell is run by the family who own Aune Valley butchers. I can’t resist their hot pork rolls, with freshly grated apple and lots of crackling! Whilst there, I always pop into the farm shop to pick up favourite local goodies – Luscombe Drinks, Portlebay Popcorn and Mike’s Smokehouse Manuka smoked salmon paté, as well, of course, as some of their outstanding locally sourced meats. Another favourite is Sharpham Vineyard. After a wander through the vines, overlooking spectacular views of the River Dart, we stop for lunch at the new Anchorstone at Sharpham café. If I’m in Cornwall, I always make sure to visit Knightor winery near the Eden Project to taste their latest releases. With our three children - aged eight, seven and four – little beats brunch at The Venus Café at Blackpool Sands. With organic ingredients, the full English is packed with flavour and after everyone’s finished munching, it’s magical to stroll along the beach. The three Bs – our favourite beaches: Blackpool, Bigbury and Bantham. Occasionally we’ll pack the bikes and head for Haldon Hill near Exeter. It’s great for off-road family cycling. But really the children are happy to play together in the gardens here. We are blessed with a great school at Aveton Gifford – it’s like a prep school but free. It has its own swimming pool, outdoor classroom and the use of a tennis court. They even get the occasional free surfing lesson.
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