MANOR Issue 11

The Region’s Premium Publication Summer 2016 | Issue 11 | £3.95

Chloe-Jasmine

by the pool

Rosie Lowe

on the couch

The Pig Hotel

comes to Devon

PLUS

CULTURE FOOD SPACE ESCAPE SCHOOL PROPERTY

48 hours

...in Seville

The West’s best architecture 1 Winners RIBA 2016 MANOR | Summer 2016

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MANOR | Summer 2016

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Salcombe, Devon

A spectacular waterside home with direct water access Kingsbridge 6 miles, Exeter 45 miles (London Paddington 128 minutes), Exeter International Airport 51 miles (All distances and times are approximate) A front-line waterfront home with a running mooring off the landing platform in the middle of Salcombe. Grade II listed house with 2 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Balcony and steps leading down to the foreshore.

Guide Price ÂŁ1,950,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/ EXE150155 4

MANOR | Summer 2016

To find out how we can help you please contact us. christopher.bailey@knightfrank.com 01392 976832

Topsham, Exeter

A beautiful waterside house on one of Devon’s most sought after roads Topsham Railway Station 0.6 miles, M5 (J30) 2.5 miles, Exeter City Centre 4.5 miles, Exeter St David’s Station 5.7 miles, Exeter Airport 6.3 miles (All distances are approximate)

To find out how we can help you please contact us. edward.khodabandehloo@knightfrank.com 01392 976832

Substantial Grade II listed house with a wonderful south-west facing position on the Strand. 4 reception rooms, master bedroom suite, 5 further bedrooms (2 ensuites) and family bathroom.

Views over the Exe Estuary. Double garage, off street parking, large rear garden and riverside garden, terrace and small mooring.

Guide Price 1,975,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/ EXE140513 MANOR | Summer 2016

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Birdie Sospensione

BY FOSCARINI

EXPERTS IN ILLUMINATION

THE SHOWROOM

2 Bridford Rd, Exeter EX2 8QX 01392 677030 amoslighting.co.uk

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MANOR | Summer 2016

Contents

Summer 2016

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34

74 Regulars 13 TOWN MOUSE, COUNTRY MOUSE Correspondence from across the divide

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MANOR CONFIDENTIAL Michelmores Drinks Reception and Fifteen Cornwall’s 10th birthday

26

AS I SEE IT...

Singer-songwriter Rosie Lowe

Style & Beauty 14 TRENDS Parallel lines and define your denim

19

BEAUTY TUTORIAL

20

MY FEEL-GOOD REGIME

74

THE STYLE SHOOT

14

Features 28 IN HOG HEAVEN

What makes The Pig Hotel in Devon so successful?

48

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

52

THE BUSINESS

54

STRINGS OF DESIRE

An insightful interview with Chris Abbot, founder of Open Briefing

Michelmores talks to Andrew Hawkins of ComRes

Cornish banjo makers John Dowling and Louis Bauress

Get set for summer

Photographer Sarah Clarke

Diva on Dartmoor

Photostory 34 COPPER CREATIONS

Photographer Luke Brown’s vivid portraits of The Copper Works, Cornwall

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60 124

Culture 60 THE ART OF THE GARDEN Artist Frances Gynn captures aspects of the Little Garden, Dartmouth

65

STAGING DREAMS

68

SOUTH WEST MUST SEES...

96

96

We profile Doorstep Arts in Torbay

What’s on around the region

71

WORTH MAKING THE TRIP FOR...

Cultural highlights from the metropolis

73

WORTH STAYING IN FOR...

Quality time on your sofa

Food 92 IMPECCABLE TASTE We experience Gidleigh Park’s tasting menu

96

HIVE OF CREATIVITY Queen Bee Cakes in Ashburton

100

SUMMER LUNCHING Tempting recipes from Riverford Organic Farmers

106

WILD DINING Foraging with Fat Hen in Cornwall

108

BITES Food news from across the peninsula

111

THE TABLE PROWLER ...dines out at The Cornish Arms, St Merryn and The Springer Spaniel, Launceston

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100

Summer 2016

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126 150

130 Space 116 STRUCTRAL INTEGRITY The best architecture in the South West, as chosen by RIBA

124

SHOPPING FOR SPACE

MANOR school 139 BY THE BOOK Professor Ruth Merttens offers the eighth part in her series on how to Help Your Child at Home

Property 147 THE BULLETIN What will the EU referendum mean for the region’s housing market?

Al fresco living

126

Q&A Edmund Stephens of Shawstephens

Escape 130 48 HOURS IN...SEVILLE How to make the most of a couple of days in this great Spanish city

134

LEGENDARY LOCATION Carn Cobba on the Cornish coast

150

PROPERTY OF NOTE

159

SNAPSHOT COMPARATIVE

Seal House, Dittisham

A selection of homes under £750,000 in the South West and London

Back page 162 BLACK BOOK Secrets from lifelong surfer Peter Clements

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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

FEATURES EDITOR

Fiona McGowan FEATURES WRITER

Harriet Mellor ARTS EDITOR

Belinda Dillon belinda@manormagazine.co.uk

FOOD EDITOR

Anna Turns food@manormagazine.co.uk

CONTRIBUTORS

Professor Ruth Merttens, Charlotte Dear, Kay Dunbar, Emma Inglis, Phoebe Tancock DESIGN

Guy Cracknell ADVERTISING SALES

Rachel Evans, Rae Muscat advertising@manormagazine.co.uk S P R I N G AT G I D L E I G H PA R K

Celebrate the best of Devonian springtime with a five-course lunch & a Champagne cocktail for £65.00 Toast the start of spring and Executive Head Chef, Michael Wignall’s arrival with a special five course menu celebrating the finest, seasonal local produce including St Austell bay mussels, Pipers Farm chicken, Cornish plaice and English asparagus.

To book a table, please call 01647 481 361 or visit www.gidleigh.co.uk This offer is available Monday – Friday for lunch until 30th June 2016.

Subject to availability. Not available in conjunction with any other offers.

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THE COVER Seafolly Spot On tankini top, £85; briefs, £48, both John Lewis; sunglasses and turban, stylist’s own Stylist: Mimi Stott; Photographer: Jimmy Swindells; Model: Chloe-Jasmine Whichello; Hair and make-up: Maddie Austen

© MANOR Publishing Ltd, 2016.

MANOR Magazine is published by Manor Publishing Ltd, Registered office: MANOR Publishing Ltd, 52/54 Higher Compton Road, Plymouth, PL3 5JE. Registered in England No. 09264104 info@manormagazine.co.uk. Printed by Warners Midlands plc.

Welcome to The Hot Issue of MANOR! We called it The Hot Issue for want of a better name. We are at that time of year when high summer is just around the corner, with all the loveliness that it brings: sunshine (let’s be optimistic, shall we?); gardens in bloom playing host to al fresco lounging, reading, and eating, alone or with friends; swimming pools and sun-soaked shores. We’re all happier in the summer. So with this issue we thought we’d get into the mood.

First up, our cover girl, Chloe-Jasmine (CJ), is hot property (The X Factor, Celebrity Big Brother, national press for those of you who knew you recognized her). She is not only the perfect swimwear model but was also a dream to work with and thoroughly entertaining. The shoot breezed by and everyone was charmed.

CJ is hurtling towards the big time, of that we are in no doubt.

Another rising star, lauded by both Elton John and apparently Adele no less, is Rosie Lowe, the highly talented singer-songwriter. Openly self-analytical and highly intuitive, she reclines on the MANOR couch to reveal passions, observations, and occurrences that have inspired her music. Her intelligent songwriting has placed her firmly on the UK music map (she’s just played at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Exeter), such that megastars are listening up.

Food features heavily, of course – start lighting that chimenea and firing up the wood oven – we’re lunching out with Riverford, and dining in with Michael Wignall at Gidleigh Park. We scrutinized and sampled every dot and crumb that was laid before us in this famous hotel’s more famous dining room, and the verdict on Mr Wignall’s cuisine was, well, go to page 92 to find out.

Design, as ever, is prominent in MANOR. We were the only South West magazine to attend the RIBA (Royal Society of British Architects) South West Awards, and on page 116 we feature five of the winners, including Best Building of the Year.

We are, as ever, investigative and relentless in our pursuit of the fine and fascinating, which led us to interview Robin Hutson, the founder of the Hotel du Vin group and The Pig chain of boutique hotels, the latest of which, The Pig at Coombe, is due to open in Gittisham in July. There is much excitement amongst all stylish hotel aficionados and Devonians about this latest addition to the litter, and our feature doesn’t just give you a taste of what’s to come but attempts to establish just why Hutson is such a success in his chosen field. A lesson for all aspiring hoteliers.

Highly desirable places to stay, delectable dishes, award-winning architecture, pools, copper, banjos, oh, and global intelligence. Just a hint of the range and variety of riveting content that you will find in this Hot Issue of MANOR. Go pour yourself a cool drink, don your shades, get out in the sun and enjoy it.

Until the next time,

Imogen Clements FOUNDER & PUBLISHING EDITOR

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 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.

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TOWN MOUSE, COUNTRY MOUSE Sweetness

Darling...

I have been feeling rather warm of late. Not literally, you understand, although the temperature is a-rising, as they say, but warm and content in the knowledge that a fully fledged summer approaches. One where I intend to spend much of my time outdoors, gliding to and fro in swimming pools, paddling in the sea and eating al fresco wherever there’s room for a picnic blanket.

It is about this time every year – and unperturbed by the odd downpour – that I am filled with optimism for a sunshiney summer, and start taking the precautionary hay fever pills. I am applying fake tan with gusto to get a head start and exercising like a spinning dervish to tone everything up, if that’s possible. One word of advice – burpees. Apparently the burpee is the single most effective exercise you can do to work on all those classic trouble spots.

Which brings me on to food. I have comprised my summer menu: I’m thinking paella parties over barbecues – barbecues are so last decade, don’t you think, sweetness? – along with an array of finger food and cakes. Lots of cakes.

There is nothing like tea and cake on the lawn.

Beyond that, I will be stringing out the bunting and investing in a double kingsize flat white sheet and projector to watch movies al fresco (like they do in White Company catalogues). And do you know what, I might even camp out.

Do the full 24 hours outside. You see what this country life is doing to me?

Actually… we have discovered the allure of the Static Caravan. It’s true. And I am rather smug, because a static caravan has all the location advantages of a campsite – exceedingly close to the beach – with none of the discomfort.

It comes with all mod cons. Plus, it’s considerably cheaper than a holiday cottage. I am a convert to the Static Caravan.

But tell no one. You will never, ever, see me towing one. Far too conspicuous.

Ah, summer… indeed glorious. There is nothing I love more than a London summer. The pavements are a mass of tables with cheery diners, and over just three months we pack in all kinds of brave initiatives: street parties, volley ball tournaments in the park, outdoor cinema – I think you may regret the sheet and projector, sweetie, unless you’re harping back to 1930s barely visible celluloid.

We in the city have all that you have (bar sea), with the added bonus of loads of people. Endlessly fascinating to watch, and collectively radiating a happy vibe that hangs over the capital in the sunshine months. I too can’t wait and you have inspired me to prep.

What more to report? Ah yes, I have been studying award ceremony attire. It is clear that this varies considerably by sector.

Advertising and media ceremonies are always black tie – which as we know, darling, having spent decades in that world, is because media types consider themselves aristocracy, the puppet masters to the rest of the world, which of course they once were, until the advent of social media. Now we are all our own masters, are we not? Communicating endlessly about everything with one another, leaving those media kings of old trailing.

Then there is the women’s award for women, which, from what I’ve seen, is a wonderful meringue-fest, an excuse to get dressed up in the most lavish ballgown available, because there’s nothing girls like more than dressing up together. And finally there is the architects’ awards ceremony, where, as you would expect, form follows function: quality materials, simplicity in lines – nothing garish – and state-of-the-art accessories, such as thick-rimmed modern spectacles and edgy haircuts. There are no ball gowns, dickie bows and very little in the way of suits (superfluous to need), just high-quality tees under well-cut jackets for men and structured dresses for women – think Prada and Paul Smith over Dolce & Gabbana and you get my drift. Fascinating, don’t you think? I should write a thesis.

With that thought, I leave you to check the forecast. Who needs the Mediterranean, hey? British summers are the best.

WHAT’S COOL IN THE COUNTRY?

WHAT’S HOT IN THE SMOKE?

The West’s ‘best little festival’ Chagstock, 22-23 July, is gaining a big following. Beautiful setting, family friendly, day or weekend-long tickets. The Stranglers headlining.

The Frenchie Covent Garden, Gregory Marchand’s new London outpost from his Frenchie set in Paris. Creating a stir amongst gastronomes (‘Frenchie’ is the name he acquired while at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen).

The Blue Bay Café in Hayle - sea container serving up organic coffee, burgers, wraps, salads, homemade cakes and picnic blankets from which to enjoy the phenomenal views.

Emma Rice’s final production as Kneehigh’s artistic director,The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, showing at the Kneehigh Asylum, Lost Gardens of Heligan from 14-31 July.

Vogue 100 - A Century of Style at the National Portrait Gallery. From the most qualified of experts: a study of fashion, photography and art intertwined over the last 100 years.

Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds at the British Museum, a triumph of archaeological splendour that transports you back to the wonder of Atlantis.

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Parallel lines

Salvatore Ferragamo SS16

There are monochrome stripes or stripes that radiate colour. Stripes hit the high street in a wealth of shapes and guises. Stripes are bold per se, but colour adds additional warmth. Beyond the usual, vertical stripes tend to slim, horizontal tend to widen, there are no rules – the crazier clashes the better.

Compiled by Phoebe Tancock.

Drop earrings, Accessorize, £8 Top, River Island, £35

Cullottes, Zara, £19.99

Bardot top, Topshop, £20 Skirt, Topshop

Dress, Topshop, £39

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Shoes, Dune, £80

Salvatore Ferragamo SS16

trends Necklace, Next, £20

Dress, Zara, £39.99 Dress, Jigsaw, £169 Bag, Phase Eight, £39

Bangle, Whistles, £25 Bag, Debenhams, £55 Platforms, Zara, £39.99

Skirt, House of Fraser, £40 Ballet flats, Zara, £39.99

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trends

Define your denim Denim, perennial and pretty much seasonless, featured heavily again on catwalks Summer/Spring 16, and not surprisingly. It is effortlessly versatile: casual, stylish, quirky or practical. Be it ripped skinny jeans, embroidered or as a simple dungaree dress, pair it with a soft white shirt or tee, and trainers or platforms, as is your wont.

Compiled by Phoebe Tancock.

Earrings, Whistles, £35

Altuzarra SS16

Necklace, Whistles, £35

Shirt, Zara, £29.99

Dress, Jaeger, £150

Jeans, River Island, £42 Jumpsuit, River Island, £38 Espadrilles, Zara, £29.99

Jacket, Zara, £39.99

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Wedges, Mint Velvet, £99

Earrings, Accessorize, £4

Top, Marks and Spencer, £25

Jeans, Topshop, £45

Dungaree dress, Monsoon, £59

Exclusive designer fashion...be different...dare to wear!

Pumps, Marks and Spencer, £49.50

NOW IN ROYAL WILLIAM YARD Skirt, River Island, £38

PLYMOUTH Unit 2&3, The Guardhouse, Royal William Yard, Plymouth PL1 3RP Tel: 01752 941968 TOTNES 83 High Street, Totnes TQ9 5PB Tel: 01803 840823

www.traditsia.co.uk MANOR | Summer 2016

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promotional feature

Don’t allow bad teeth to blight your life – let the experts at Inspired Dental give you something to smile about.

W

hat is your photo smile? You must have perfected it. Look to camera, widen mouth, bear teeth, semi bear them or don’t bear them at all? There are those who’ve trained themselves never to smile (you see many of them in the public eye) because they have decided that an unguarded smile, a laugh-out-loud-for-the-joy-of-it smile does not show them at their best. They have learned to override their natural giggle response for fear of exposing their bad teeth.

Once upon a time, if you hadn’t had your teeth fixed by your teens then you never did. As an adult it was simply something you didn’t do. Now, realizing the psychological benefit on all – givers and receivers – of beaming smiles, and the general acceptance that this can be achieved at any age, more and more of us are turning to the experts.

Andre Faro Leite and Amish Bhayani met at university.

They honed their skills in dentistry, then realizing the positive psychological impact of their work decided to focus on offering treatment to adults afflicted by poor teeth.

They realized that for many, dentists conjured up images of men in white coats, the sound of drills and anxious waiting rooms. In order to give the very best treatment, and achieve the best results, they needed to counter ‘the fear barrier’ and create a clinic that was calm and inviting, while also private and reassuring.

Experts in all forms of dentistry, offering the latest treatments available in the UK, they decided they would adopt a friendly, modern attitude to their patients. The result is a clinic that is focused on making you feel good from the moment you step over the threshold to the aftercare you receive post-treatment.

“Whether general medicine or dentistry, so much depends on the environment in which you’re treated and the attitude of those around you,” says Amish.

“What I love about this profession is that you can change people’s lives,” says Andre. “What we hope to achieve is the confidence in people to correct the problem.

Their approach seems to be working – after setting up the practice less than two years ago, they have built a highly appreciative and loyal customer base.

And it delivers an immense amount of satisfaction for the team. “To see that renewed confidence,” concludes Andre, “when patients leave the clinic and can smile broadly again with and at other people without having to think twice, is extremely rewarding for us.”

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“I can now smile with all my teeth – I’d definitely recommend them.” Sarah Felix from Plymouth (above)

Andre Faro Leite

Amish Bhayani

NEW PATIENT OFFERS FROM INSPIRED DENTAL Free routine hygiene appointment worth £64 Cosmetic Teeth Straightening: 20% off Invisalign and £500 off other orthodontic treatments 246 High St, Exeter EX4 3NZ. Tel: 01392 272385. GDC: 168447 inspireddentalcare.co.uk Both offers need to be taken by 31 August 2016.

beauty

Get set for summer With holiday season upon us, it’s time to get your skin – and your travel kit – in perfect shape for maximum exposure. Make-up artist Elouise Abbott gives us the glow-down.

I

t’s finally here – summer has arrived! To ensure you’re looking your best once the skimpy outfits make their appearance, give your skin some serious attention so it can make the most of all that vitamin D. Here is my top summer skin-preparation regime, and my ‘must-pack’ essentials for sunny trips away.

SKIN PREP STEP ONE: Scrub away and remove those layers.

Exfoliating really helps to even out the skin, removing the dry, flaky texture caused by the extra layers of clothing and dry central heating of winter. Exfoliating will leave your skin renewed and ready for hydrating and help your tan to last longer.

Right now I am in love with Rituals Himalaya Wisdom Body Scrub. It smells wonderful and leaves your skin silky smooth.

STEP TWO: Hydrate. Great-looking skin needs to be

hydrated. Coming into summer I like to get a head start with my tan, too, with L’Oreal Sublime Bronze Summer Glow Lotion – great for a gradual tan with lots of hydration.

STEP THREE: Protect that skin from harmful UV

rays. Aim to always use SPF30 or higher and a broad spectrum sunscreen like Piz Buin In Sun Ultra Light Sun Spray.

STEP FOUR: Bronze. Get that ultra-special sun-kissed

glow with a gentle sweep of bronzer over the cheeks, the forehead and along the nose. When applying bronzer, just pinpoint all the points of the face the sun hits, and apply bronzer conservatively.

Liquid bronzer gives a wonderful glow and blends beautifully. I apply with my fingers and blend well with a good firm brush, such as Real Techniques Expert Face Brush. Liquid bronzer works best with a combination to oily skin, as it can make dry skin appear drier. My current one of choice is bareMinerals Lovescape bareSkin Sheer Sun Serum Bronzer.

Matt powder is flattering for all skin types, and definitely my go-to product for a natural sun-kissed look. A matt powder would also be my bronzer of choice for a more mature skin. My kit staple is Bobbi Brown Bronzing Powder in Elvis Duran.

If you’d like a touch of glamour then a shimmer bronzer is the way to go. There are some wonderful pearlescent bronzers at the moment that behave like highlighters, lending a gorgeous bronzed glow that is perfect for an evening out. Try NARS Bronzing Powder in Laguna for a gentle shimmer.

MY TRAVEL BAG ESSENTIALS When you have to travel light it can be hard deciding what to take and what to leave. Here are the products I never leave home without.

• Simple Kind to Skin Cleansing Facial Wipes are an absolute must have, especially for festivals.

• Moroccan Oil hydrates and conditions the hair, moisturizes skin and nails, whilst smelling incredible.

• Chanel CC Cream Complete Correction Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 30 – light skin coverage, anti-aging and sun protection.

• Gone are the days of having to carry around a bag of individual make-up products as many cosmetic houses now have a look in a box. Illamasqua Multi Facet Palette in Aura is my multi-tasking palette of choice, containing everything I need for eyes, brows and highlight and contour in a stylish small black compact.

• Finally, Dr PawPaw Tinted Peach Pink Balm – this is wonderful on the lips, and gives just a hint of peachy colour. But I do love a multi-tasker so I often use it along my cheekbones too to add a dewy sheen.

It’s also great as a hand treatment.

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My feel-good regime Sarah Clarke is a photographer who moved to Chagford from Italy six years ago. She has five children aged between six and 17 years old and a husband who travels a lot for work, but she still finds time to enjoy the surrounding countryside. Indeed, she’s learned to focus on what, in the little time she has to herself, she can do to feel good. Photos by Sarah Clarke.

We have a saying at home, which is “Let’s all calm down to a panic.” It pretty much sums up life in the Von Clarke household. Five children was never going to be a walk in the park but using the ‘hands off ’ parenting approach – not sweating the small stuff (like swallowed Lego hands) and investing in some top-of-the-range ear plugs – we manage to keep all the balls in the air. Our children are all pretty autonomous and well balanced, which amazes me sometimes.

I love the idea of curling up in an armchair with a good book but this rarely happens and I tend to flick through magazines. I am currently enjoying The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – but don’t ask me how long I’ve been reading it – and next on my list is Ben Rawlence’s City of Thorns, which is an account of nine lives in the world’s largest refugee camp on the Kenyan/ Somalian border. I’m also enjoying The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo, which I am reading to my youngest two.

Cooking for five children with completely different tastes (part-time vegetarian, doesn’t like crunchy things, potato phobia) is always a challenge.

For myself, I love cooking healthy Mediterranean dishes. I have good intentions: I’ve had a packet of quinoa in my cupboard for some time which I have no idea what to do with, but one day I will make something delicious with it. I always drink two litres of water a day and enjoy a glass or two of Malbec at the weekend. I’m a truffle snaffler and have been known to eat an entire tin of Marc de Champagne on the way home from the supermarket. Good coffee is a must in our house – we have an amazing Italian espresso machine that makes the best coffee in town!

A favourite place to eat with family and friends is The Cosy Club in Southernhay, Exeter. Located on the site of an old hospital, it is quirky and spacious with plenty to look at and amuse the kids. They are very relaxed with families – I always say we do ‘The Waltons to Shameless’ in five minutes, 20

MANOR | Summer 2016

but The Cosy Club is large enough for us to blend in and not be noticed. My favourite place for a special night out would be The River Exe Cafe. You’re taken by water taxi from Exmouth to a floating barge, moored in the middle of the estuary. It’s a relaxed atmosphere and amazing food, considering they have no electricity or running water. If you’re lucky, it’s a great spot to watch the sun go down. The Birdcage is a pretty little café in Chagford that serves great coffee and cakes by day; tapas and cocktails at the weekend.

Do what you love, love what you do – photography is my passion and I’m lucky enough to be able to work from home and fit this around my family. Apart from weddings and funerals, I am open to most things and love the variety that this can bring: newborns, children, families, commercial work and everything in between. I recently won the national ‘Book of the Year 2015’ competition through Bob Books for my book Photo a Day, which was fantastic! This was a personal project I undertook last February to publish one black and white photo per day of my own (very reluctant) children. Worth the sweat and tears.

Running is a big part of my life and a complete destressor for me. Unless I’m training for a particular race, I run three times a week for half an hour and try to fit in a longer run at the weekend to get away from the children.

Being on Dartmoor, there are plenty of scenic routes to choose from. I’ve also recently taken up Tai Chi, which is a welcome pause in my week and I am loving it.

As anyone with children will tell you, ‘me time’ is essential for sanity. To get away, I’ve even spent a night in our camper van in a local car park. I try to get away for a ‘holiday for one’ every year. I love the freedom of travelling on my own, discovering new things and watching the world go by. Last year I visited Zante: I swam with wild turtles; got invited to a Greek wedding; ran every day; read an entire book and slept in the afternoon! I returned refreshed and energized. Nobody seemed to miss me so I’ll be pitching for two weeks this year.

My prized possession is a blue Piaggio moped (imported along with the coffee machine). During the summer, I can often be spotted with a slow queue of traffic behind me heading for the hills with my camera and a picnic (top speed is 29mph). sarahclarkephotography.com

LANGUISHING IN MY MAKE-UP BAG I’m using Burt’s Bees Soap Bark and Chamomile Deep Facial Cleansing Cream,

which I love for the menthol tingle! I’m a big fan of Neal’s Yard’s Frankincense range, in particular the Frankincense Hydrating Cream. I use bareMinerals make-up and apply Mattifying Prep Gel under the Original Foundation. I don’t wear eye makeup and make do with curling my eyelashes on special occasions with a flick of brown mascara. My best-kept secret, however, is RapidLash Eyelash Enhancing Serum, which I cannot recommend highly enough. For an ‘evening look’, I’ll use Dior’s Diorskin Forever foundation with a Dior blusher called Nude. I also love essential oils and use lavender for relaxation and switching off my thoughts at night about all the things I didn’t have time to do that day!

U s i n g c a r e f u l l y s e l e c t e d , b e a u t i f ul materials, we individually design & handmake, unique L a d ie s fo o t w e a r & A c c e ssorie s from our stud io in Topsh am, D e von .

www.rarepear.co.uk MANOR | Summer 2016

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Michelmores Collections drinks reception On 14 April, the Michelmores Private Wealth team hosted a special Michelmores Collections drinks reception at Haynes Motor Museum. Collectible cars have proved to be one of the best sectors to invest in recently, and the event included exclusive access to the museum’s leading collection of more than 400 of the world’s greatest cars. James Knight, Group Director and expert from Bonhams Motor Department, delivered a speech that revealed the marques that are performing particularly well and where the market is heading. Photos by Rebecca Vale Photography.

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MANOR | Summer 2016

confidential

www.barcarchitects.com Hems Studio, 86 Longbrook Street, Exeter, EX4 6AP Tel: 01392 435051 Call us to arrange a free consultation MANOR | Summer 2016

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confidential

Fifteen Cornwall’s 10th anniversary On 16 May, Jamie Oliver was at Watergate Bay to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of his social enterprise restaurant, Fifteen Cornwall. The day began with a Fifteen Cornwall Reunion breakfast with more than 50 graduates of the Apprentice Scheme and his own mentor, Gennaro Contaldo, at the restaurant in Watergate Bay. Ten years on, the scheme has served nearly threequarters of a million diners, trained 180 young people in need of a second chance as apprentice chefs, created 112 graduates and generated £30m sales with 100% of the profits going back into the development of young people and suppliers from Cornwall.

Jamie Oliver said: “It’s hard to believe it’s already been ten years since I came down to Watergate Bay and started the Fifteen Cornwall restaurant and Apprentice Programme. It’s been one hell of a ride, but it absolutely remains one of the things I’m most proud of.” Jamie went on to host a lunch for loyal supporters of the restaurant, the Apprentice Programme and The Cornwall Food Foundation, the charity behind the whole enterprise.

PHOTO: MIKE SEARLE

PHOTO: SIMON BURT

PHOTO: SIMON BURT PHOTO: SIMON BURT

PHOTO: SIMON BURT

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PHOTO: SIMON BURT

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As I see it...

Rosie Lowe is a London-based singer-songwriter, originally from Devon. Her music – described as “dark synth-soul”; her sound “like steel cloaked in a whisper” – has captured the attention of the UK music scene, been publicly lauded by Elton John and apparently impressed Adele. Lowe released her debut album, Control, in February of this year to critical acclaim. She is playing the festival circuit this summer, including a recent performance at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Exeter.

My older sister Laura was my biggest inspiration in early life. My parents split when I was quite young and she took on a parenting role. She taught me a lot, particularly about matters relating to being a woman – femininity, feminism… everything I’m passionate about now.

The hardest thing about being the youngest is that you’re the one who’s left, the last to go. I’m the youngest of six kids and as a family we were all pretty tight and still are very close. I remember feeling bereft when Laura, who was my nearest sister, left home. I’d lie on her bed and cry.

Our household was highly creative. We didn’t have a TV and were encouraged to express ourselves creatively, in particular through music. It was a big part of our upbringing. Dad used to take me to gigs all the time; Mum loved soul and R&B, which had a big effect on me. I remember a moment in our relationship when my brother and I truly bonded over a Aaliyah track – both of us had tingles down our spines. We learnt a language through music – it was a form of communication.

I wrote my first song when I was seven or eight. I fell in love with jazz at around six years old and loved all those classic jazz standards. Then I discovered Joni Mitchell and Carole King and was moved by their honesty. I used to study their lyrics and what they meant, at which point I became really interested in the craft of songwriting and how it made you feel.

I studied music GCSE in my early teens and one of the tutors liked my songwriting so much he said he would manage me – it was then I saw songwriting as a professional outlet and threw everything I had into it.

My voice is my best instrument. Studying music at Goldsmiths I would write using piano or guitar, but I always felt limited by my technical ability, and someone accompanying me would always influence the output in some way – I was frustrated that I could never put down or play exactly what I was hearing in my mind. I then realized that using recording software I could just sing what I was hearing and use my voice to write the songs.

I immediately felt complete freedom; I didn’t need to rely on anybody else to help me write my music – it could be entirely my own creation and output, and I could record everything myself.

My writing tends to start with an emotional reaction.

Music is my therapy. It feels a safe place to explore what’s actually going on for me. These days there are so many distractions from how you truly feel – screens, comparisons, constant information. Having a creative outlet, you’re always having to tap back in. It’s been really hard sometimes but I’ve got to know myself more than I ever would have if I hadn’t been doing music. It’s helped me develop as a person.

I don’t compromise my music – it’s at the heart of everything I do. When it comes to modelling, I model as a musician. There’s a lot that I wouldn’t do. I feel I’ve had to stay on the ball and be very aware of commercial exploitation.

When you assert yourself as a woman you’re considered over-emotional and high maintenance, whereas a guy doing it is considered strong and knowing his own mind. In saying ‘no’ I was aware of being labelled as this mad woman. I’ve had to keep tabs on myself – that voice that says ‘don’t say anything because you don’t want them to think you’re crazy’. The biggest part of this journey has been learning that I’m a businesswoman who’s not going to conform to some stupid stereotype – the stereotype is there to limit women and their output. It’s important that women assert themselves – stick to your gut.

Feeling insecure is a natural human instinct. Insecurity, anxiety, depression and jealousy are things that men and women deal with every day. It’s not accepted as an open dialogue.

Mental health needs to be. The taboo needs to change. Most of my friends are dealing with something at any one time. My mum and dad have always taught me to be totally open about that stuff and express it – I love them for that.

Vulnerability equals strength. People are taught that vulnerability equals weakness but I think that the more you can be vulnerable and express how you’re feeling, the stronger you are as a human being.

We need to switch off and look up to see how amazing the world is. You can’t find inspiration from Instagram in the way you can from real life. Social media can be brilliant but it’s dangerous how accessible and pervasive it is. I switch my phone off and unplug for a few days when I go to Devon, and feel like a new person when I come back.

We’re all on our own journey. What other people are doing doesn’t matter, what’s important is to follow our own instinct and do what feels right. It might be at a different pace but we’re all different – we all have our own heartbeat. We need to be compassionate with ourselves. Be grateful for where you’re at – even if you feel behind, you’ll always be ahead in some way.

Having my music recognised by a wide audience is a dream but fame’s not something I strive for. I don’t see it as a mark of success and can’t imagine myself as a ‘celebrity’.

I don’t feel like my music caters for it (and I don’t go out partying enough!).

Rosie Lowe’s new single, So Human, featuring Little Simz, will be released on 20 June. Control is out now via Paul Epworth’s label, Wolf Tone, and Polydor.

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The Pig at Combe

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feature

With The Pig Hotel about to open its latest in Devon, Imogen Clements meets the group’s founder to discover what it is about this boutique hotel that makes it so successful.

“I

like to say this business is about a million details,” states Robin Hutson, owner of The Pig chain of hotels and founder of the highly successful Hotel du Vin group, which he sold in 2007 for £66m.

Ah, the ‘million details’. A stock phrase, I think, and one that, according to my research, Hutson has mentioned a couple of times, so I make a mental note to omit it. In interviewing Hutson, I’m taken on a tour of the latest addition to the group, The Pig at Combe, near Honiton, and it’s clear that there are indeed a million details, and each one Hutson has considered for its strategic value to his business. From the style of door knob to the choice of building in which to expand the portfolio, it’s this breadth and degree of scrutiny that has doubtless made him one of the most successful boutique hoteliers of his generation.

He’s also really nice. Open, friendly, neither stuffy nor ruddy (it must be easy to get ruddy-faced in this business), nor stressed nor shifty; there are no airs and graces. He is, in effect, the personification of the boutique hotel chain he presides over.

We meet at The Pig at Combe, the fifth in the ‘litter’ (as The Pigs are often called), on one of his regular site checks. It’s April and the hotel’s still a building site, due to open in July. There are workmen and decorators busy in every corner. Its previous incarnation was the Combe House Hotel, owned by Ruth and Ken Hunt, who’d run

it independently for 17 years before selling to Hutson’s Home Grown Hotels in July 2015. Hutson began refurbishing the hotel in October and, once complete, will have spent £9m on it. “There was considerable work to be done to ensure Combe would accommodate the sort of numbers we can expect,” he says.

The hotel will have 27 rooms, 17 of which are in the main house – the attic has also been converted – and ten new rooms in the courtyard. There are two further cottages on the grounds, which will also be converted to accommodation.

“As a business, unless we are at 65% capacity we’re losing money,” says Hutson. “When we acquired Combe, it was catering to far fewer guests at a much higher rate than we charge.”

Combe is a Grade I listed Elizabethan building with ivy-clad walls that sits within 3,500 acres of rolling Devon countryside. It’s just off the pretty village of Gittisham and, reached down a long, tree-lined lane, draws an intake of breath as it comes into view. To add to the idyll, there’s a stud nearby breeding Arab ponies that roam and frisk balletically past the hotel’s mullioned windows, seemingly on cue.

After consultation with planners, Hutson’s team set to work, creating a larger restaurant by knocking through a wall between the panelled banqueting room and formal drawing room. They have restored a double-height MANOR | Summer 2016

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The kitchen gardens are fundamental – home-grown food has always been at the heart of the The Pig Hotel.

Oli Hutson manages all the Pigs’ kitchen gardens

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bricked-up window at the far end of the restaurant to brighten it and exploit the view. The old laundry has been converted and extended to allow for a kitchen big enough to serve around 130 covers per meal; and they have entirely overhauled the plumbing system, installing 15,000-litre tanks to provide sufficient hot water to every one of the hotel’s rooms, however many times a day guests may wish to bathe. Sounds a given, but the Combe of old was in no way equipped to cater for the numbers The Pig expects, and needs, to attract.

One of the million strategic details: size matters – the hotel needs to be sufficiently boutique to maintain high capacity, but sufficiently big to not have to turn away business. And type, of course, matters more than size.

“Combe offered exactly what we look for in a building,” says Hutson. “I probably get a dozen potential sites for new Pigs dropped on my desk daily, of which one a month might be worth a look. Of those one a year will be worth serious consideration. Combe is a quite exceptional building. It’s stunning and interesting, with extensive, terraced walled gardens.”

The kitchen gardens are fundamental – home-grown food has always been at the heart of the The Pig Hotel, a factor that’s doubtless behind the name of Hutson’s holding company: Home Grown Hotels.

Robin Hutson found his vocation early. Crashing out of school, he started in the hotel trade in his teens as a management trainee for the Savoy group, and after

feature

A typical comfy luxe room at a Pig Hotel

rising through the ranks at prestigious hotels at home and abroad, he ended up as MD of Chewton Glen in Hampshire. After eight years there, during which the hotel earned numerous accolades, he was ready to go it alone and, with colleague Gerard Basset, set up the first Hotel du Vin in 1994. It filled a gap in the market, offering stylish middle-priced accommodation with good food and wine (tastings and courses providing an interest factor) but in a more affordable context than the existing premium bracket. It was such a hit that Hutson and his partner were approached to sell the group for £66m before the seventh hotel was complete. After he sold Hotel du Vin, he assisted Nick Jones with his Soho House expansion in the UK and overseas, before being asked by an industrialist friend to help out on a New Forest hotel that he owned. “It was out of control. It was not the man’s primary business and he had never had a hotelier look after it. I suggested I put my arms around it and sort it out. The following year, in 2008, we reopened it as the Lime Wood.” The Lime Wood remains a highly successful hotel today.

“There were various other assets under the industrialist’s umbrella – a spa, butcher, seafood restaurant – that were struggling with no strategy behind them so I shut each one down until all that was left was a little hotel called Whitley Ridge – also a loss-making business. It had, however, a redeeming feature: a kitchen garden. It was at that point I had my lightbulb moment.

The interior of Pig hotels, designed by Judy Hutson, is more about shabby chic than regal grandeur – comfortable and quirky There were lots of hotels with kitchen gardens but no one had really brought that element to the fore. I bought half of Whitley Ridge with a business partner, we converted the stable yard into additional rooms, and Oli, my son, got the kitchen garden going (Oli now manages all the Pigs’ kitchen gardens). We renamed it The Pig in a deliberate bid to make the place feel accessible, like a pub with rooms, and opened it in 2011.

Things went bananas and we realized we’d struck a chord. A country house hotel that served good homegrown food and was relaxed and accessible to a wider group of individuals than the traditional ‘hunting, shooting, fishing’ contingent.”

Combe is the fifth Pig and is the most westerly of the group, given that many of their clientele are Londoners who will be driving. “If this were the first Pig, it would probably have been too far, but now that we’ve built up a following, we can look wider.” Popularity of The Pig hotels is such that the minimum 65% capacity requirement is likely to be well exceeded. The Pig on MANOR | Summer 2016

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At Combe, the massage rooms are installed in potting sheds. It’s fun and out of the ordinary

the Beach, in Dorset, is 99% booked from May through to September this year, and The Pig at Combe was full for the first two weekends of opening within 48 hours of taking bookings in April.

With just five hotels, why does The Pig generate such excitement? It comes back to the million details. For example, where the guest experience is concerned, every sensory aspect is considered.

“It’s important there’s a buzz on arrival – you want to feel there’s life in the hotel and that people are enjoying themselves,” says Hutson. “After a long journey you need to be welcomed into a warm atmosphere rather than intimidated by formality and stuffiness. On arriving at The Pig at Combe, guests will be greeted not by a quiet lofty reception area but a bustling bar to their left – located in the house’s Great Hall – which leads directly to the restaurant. The entrance is close to the main circuits of the hotel, immediately giving a sense of all that’s going on.”

The Pig at Combe, while still a jaw-dropping building steeped in history, will have an interior stripped of formality. The interior of Pig hotels, designed entirely

by Robin’s wife, Judy, is more about shabby chic than regal grandeur – comfortable and quirky, with every room in each of the hotels kitted out with decorative touches and items of furniture hand-picked from the myriad reclamation sites, second-hand shops, artisan suppliers and markets that the couple trawl regularly.

This is what distinguishes The Pig from many other 32

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places – its individuality. There is something interesting and different in each room you enter, no cookie cutter approach. “At the beginning of each project, panic sets in,” admits Judy, “a bit like a writer embarking on a new book. With each hotel you have a blank canvas and there is so much to consider. I’ll usually think up a character, so for The Pig on the Beach, it was a batty old aunt with easels, chasing donkeys around her garden. That character starts to give rise to a look. With Combe, the place has such a strong sense of personality already that I didn’t need to invent a character.”

They have a number of favourite suppliers but everything is sourced individually for each hotel. “We don’t make life easy for ourselves,” admits Hutson. “It’s not something you can delegate, because it’s our own personal taste. But we’ve been doing it for 22 years, we enjoy it and it works.” Another strategic detail: the individuality of each Pig makes you want to visit and discover them all. And no room is the same, which makes you want to go back and stay in a different one for the novelty factor. “Plus, of course,” adds Judy, “we need to continually evolve – people very quickly start to copy us.”

The Hutsons are perfectionists. As the rooms come together there are regular tweaks, rejections and adaptations – Judy tells me of bedside tables that needed to have legs shortened to make the lamps on them easier to reach. As we’re looking at a room she informs me that the pendant is too high and needs to be lowered an inch.

It looks perfectly fine to me.

feature They leave nothing to chance. Prior to each hotel opening, the staff spend a ‘snagging’ night there, occupying every room as guests would, to report back anything, however minor, that might not feel quite right. “It’s only when you use the shower, sit on the loo, or sleep in the bed, that you notice,” explains Hutson.

“It gives us a chance to correct it and ensure nothing compromises the guest experience.”

Intrinsic to the guest experience, of course, is price.

“The board are always saying to me, ‘You’re doing so well, raise your prices!’ but my response is that it’s because we’re priced where we are that we’re doing so well. If you consider the price pyramid – those at the pinnacle are a relatively small but highly wealthy group – take it down a slice and suddenly there are a whole load more individuals that you can appeal to. We want to maximize capacity, not price ourselves out of the market for many. We want people to love our hotels and come back again, rather than leave feeling fleeced.”

It’s also about ensuring that guests don’t stray.

“Once here, of course, we’d rather they didn’t venture out spending money that could otherwise be spent with us. Hence, the food has to be great and varied – there is also a wood-fired pizza oven in the folly, the Hotel’s old Pavilion; the choices of drinks good and service and ambience relaxed, such that an afternoon drinking Champagne in the lounge is commonplace; plus, of course, there needs to be a spa, but we ensure ours is unlike any other, that it offers something a little different and appealing. At Combe, the massage rooms are installed in the potting sheds just off the infusion garden. It’s fun and out of the ordinary.”

It’s also clever – the consideration of each detail to maximize hotel capacity, repeat stays and spend on site is doubtless the reason why Hutson has got it so right throughout his career.

“I’ve had letters, of course, outraged, ‘How could you call that beautiful historic building The Pig?!’ But there is a strategy behind it: to remove any loftiness in order to attract more custom, from near and far, will ultimately preserve a much-loved hotel that wasn’t sustainable as it was. The same people who complain are usually those who’d rarely visited the place because they couldn’t afford to. Now they’re welcome to come and have a glass of rosé and flatbread from the pizza oven in the folly and don’t have to worry that they can’t afford it.”

And when they do, they can sit in the sun, sup their wine and look out over the myriad plants that make up The Pig at Combe’s lush kitchen gardens, then muse at the million details involved in making a hotel as pleasant to stay in as it is a commercial success.

Robin and Judy Hutson

The Pig at Combe opens on 19 July 2016. Room prices start at £145 mid-week to £165 at weekends. thepighotel.com

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Photographer Luke Brown discovered The Copper Works in Newlyn in the spring of 2014.

He had heard about craftsmen Michael Johnson and Shelley Anderson being in the process of creating an acroterion – a large classical architectural sculpture – for the roof of a new building at Eton College, and thought that it would make an interesting story to document. Since then he has been visiting them regularly, photographing different projects that they have been involved with.

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photostory

“One of the great things about being a photographer,” says Luke, “is that it can help you to gain access to some of the most interesting people and places around you. I have always enjoyed photographing people, especially when they are passionate about what they are doing.

“For me, The Copper Works is a magical space from another time in history. It’s a subterranean cave where people work hard with copper and hammers, fire and steam. Whenever I visit, I tend to leave my thoughts behind me and enter a world of calmness. With ear

mufflers on I can watch for hours at a time, amazed by both Michael and Shelley hammering away at sheet copper, moulding its parts into intricate shapes.

“Complex, hand-crafted architectural work in copper such as the acroterion are produced in very few places in the world, and the commission for Eton was the biggest project that The Copper Works has been involved with to date. I was very lucky to get the chance to photograph it and look forward to photographing similar future projects with them.”

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The Copper Works

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photostory

Michael beating a back section of the acroterion

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Michael and Shelley working out how to fit the ram’s head to the acroterion

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Michael and Shelley preparing to patinate the acroterion after it had been sand-blasted

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Michael and Shelley part way through patination process

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Michael patinating the ram’s head

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Front section of actroterion after patination has been completed

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LUKE BROWN Luke Brown is a freelance photographer living in West Cornwall.

He is available for photographing all types of subject matter, including the beautiful Cornish landscape, but is most inspired by people and townscapes, and is particularly interested in the way folk interact with each other in groups or as individuals, most likely due to his long background of youth and community work. “People can do the funniest and most unexpected things, which is why I take my camera everywhere I go,� he says. lukebrownphotographer.com

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The world’s first civil society intelligence agency, Open Briefing is a social enterprise that aims to keep those striving to make the world a better place safe and informed.

Words by Fiona McGowan.

S

ay ‘global intelligence’, and you conjure up an image of Men in Black-style agents, whispering into their wrists on street corners in far-flung parts of the world. Or perhaps a suave Bondesque character, gathering information from unsuspecting international villains. Or maybe a huge facility full of computer screens and dozens of boffins poring over encrypted messages from international terrorist cells…

Chris Abbott’s Open Briefing intelligence organisation is none of these, and as its founder and executive director, he epitomises none of the ‘spy’ clichés. Sure, he has an adventurous history – from leading an expedition into the Amazon at the tender age of 21, to running a survival training company with a former Royal Marine. And sure, he has worked with others to put influential politicians and military heads together with their arch enemies to try to resolve their problems. And he knows more about the covert activities of the UK special forces in places like Iraq and Syria than your average citizen. But his business is nothing to do with covert government fact-finding, and he is nothing like a spy. Living with his wife and young son on a smallholding near the remote Prussia Cove in Cornwall, Chris works exclusively for not-for-profit organisations and the general public. The intelligence he gathers from consultants around the world comes from ‘open sources’ – which means the information is not classified and is in the public domain.

Chris is an understated individual, humble about his background – but he has achieved a lot and has an impressive influence in his field. Having an MLit in Social Anthropology forms the bedrock of his 48

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motivational drivers today. Even before his Master’s, he had led an expedition deep into the Ecuadorian rainforest to connect with a tribe that hoped to branch out into eco-tourism. He raised funds, managed a Channel 4 film crew, negotiated an Ecuadorian bureaucratic minefield, dealt with a life-threatening attack by an aggressive tribe, and generally honed his skills for the career that he has now espoused.

Some years later, Chris took a job as a lowly intern at the Oxford Research Group (ORG) – a civil society organisation set up during the Cold War, dedicated to resolving conflict between nations and ideologies. It is very much focused on the long-game. “It’s called Track II Diplomacy,” explains Chris. “There’s a non-official, back-door communication going on between adversaries.

You’re just building relationships, building trust. There’s a lot of dialogue; bringing together different groups of people from military and government senior personnel.”

But it is not a speedy process. “It takes decades, sometimes, for any progress to be made.”

Chris rose rapidly through the ranks at ORG, going from researcher to deputy director in six years.

One of the lasting legacies of his time there was the implementation of a ‘Sustainable Security’ programme.

“We focused on ‘integrated threats’, so we didn’t just deal with things in silos, but as part of a puzzle,” he explains. “We looked at climate change, socioeconomic divisions, militarisation and resource competition…” Essentially, working out how to prevent an escalation of the basic problems of our world – in joined-up thinking. How refreshing.

Seven years after leaving ORG – “I could have stayed and maybe eventually run the organisation, but I wanted

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Chris Abbott pictured at his smallholding in Cornwall

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We’re dedicated to keeping the public informed about certain issues that are not in the public eye, or that the media hasn’t quite got a grasp of, because of a political agenda.

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PHOTO: defenceimagery.mod.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

to do something different” – Chris has two books, dozens of research papers and a lot of diverse experiences under his belt. Setting up his own consultancy was a no-brainer. Today, around 20 people work for Open Briefing – a mix of volunteers and paid consultants with a background in intelligence, military, law enforcement and government. On top of that are the researchers who tirelessly trawl though YouTube footage, personal contacts, published information or social media to get the on-the-ground knowledge for Open Briefing’s reports.

One of the main drivers for Open Briefing is to provide non-governmental organisations (NGO) with vital information before they send staff and volunteers into potentially dangerous situations. Chris also offers tailor-made training programmes for NGO staff. “Our emphasis is on the preventative stuff,” he says. “Doing proper risk assessments and proper training, so they don’t become a casualty or a kidnapping victim in the first place.” Once a client has completed the training, Open Briefing can also source and supply the equipment and training they will need ‘in the field’ – from the Karrimor SF rucksacks to the GPS units and the survival training. With a very diverse range of clients, Open Briefing has been commissioned to provide a fascinating array of reports: from corruption in the supply chain of pharmaceuticals from the West to the developing world, to identifying the helicopters used to drop barrel bombs on civilian areas in Syria.

Open Briefing is also dedicated to providing a public intelligence service: “Keeping the public informed about certain issues that are not in the public eye, or that the media hasn’t quite got a grasp of, because of a political agenda.” The reports and articles on the website connect the dots of migration, the impact of environmental crises, and the conflicts around the world.

“We’re currently tracking the use of ground troops in Iraq and Syria,” says Chris. “Although the government claims that there are no combat troops in the region, we know for a fact that special forces are operating there.

It’s ground troops via stealth, if you like, without public or parliamentary oversight.” Then there’s the steady rise of ‘remote-control warfare’. Drones, Chris says, are just the tip of the iceberg. “Remote-control warfare is all about fighting wars at a distance: using drones, special forces, private military companies, cyber war, mass surveillance.”

It seems that today’s technology has caught up with

A Royal Air Force Reaper RPAS (Remotely Piloted Air System) at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan

Open Briefing looked at climate change

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I’m firmly convinced that if civil society organisations weren’t there, things would be a lot worse. We make things better and we just keep chugging away.

PHOTO: defenceimagery.mod.uk. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

A soldier watches as a Tarantula Hawk (T-Hawk) Micro Remote Piloted Air System (RPAS) hovers over the desert in Afghanistan

science fiction. “Now, going beyond drone warfare,” Chris warns, “we’re looking at the rise of ‘lethal autonomous weapon systems’ – killer robots.” And there’s the recent calls from the US military for drones that will literally vanish after dropping their payloads. Or Robocop-style lightweight exoskeletons that can be worn by soldiers to make them stronger and faster. There is a genuine social purpose behind putting this information in the public domain. Just as there are controls with the use of biological and nuclear warheads, says Chris, there need to be controls on the autonomous, remotecontrolled killing machines of the future. “There’s a lot of pressure from civil society to stop that from happening,” he adds.

As if the main strands of work – gathering intelligence, supporting NGOs and scrutinising governments – are not enough, Chris believes that Open Briefing can expand further. “I want to bring in people who have different experiences and backgrounds to offer security services and the very best equipment and training to aid workers, journalists, activists and others striving to make the world a better place.” While the information that he considers can be nothing short of terrifying, he maintains a positive outlook on the world. “By the nature of the job, I tend to deal with the negative and the death and destruction of the world.

But we’re constantly trying to make it better. I’m firmly convinced that if civil society organisations weren’t there, things would be a lot worse. We make things better and we just keep chugging away.” It is perhaps being in Cornwall that helps with this upbeat attitude: he loves the independence of spirit and energy that he feels all around him. Life on a smallholding – with its chickens and wood-chopping and physical labour – is a hands-on existence that provides a welcome contrast to the complexities of the global crises that face him the moment he switches on his computer.

For more information, go to openbriefing.org. Open Briefing is a notfor-profit social enterprise supported by volunteers and funded by charitable grants and public donations. It is currently seeking major donations and corporate sponsorship to help fund the provision of new intelligence, security, training and equipment services to aid agencies, disaster relief organisations and other charities.

Chris is the author of 21 Speeches that Shaped Our World and Beyond Terror: The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World, both published by Random House.

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The Business

Each month, Michelmores shines the spotlight on an inspiring South West business, uncovering the real people behind the success. This month, we meet Andrew Hawkins, founder and Chairman of research and communications consultancy ComRes. After becoming a lobbyist then a corporate communications specialist – qualifying as a barrister in-between, Andrew explains how he set up and grew the business to become a key player in the industry, based in the heart of Westminster.

Portrait by Mike Smallcombe.

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promotional feature How did you come to set up your business?

I left university wanting to be a lobbyist or lawyer – I just wasn’t sure which. I ended up taking a job as a lobbyist, but studied for the bar exams in my spare time and was called to the bar in 1995. During my early days in Westminster, I worked for some very experienced, inspiring people who had been right in the centre of the political world − and I absolutely loved it. In the mid-90s I joined a political polling company, then moved to specialise in corporate communications, eventually landing some senior roles. In 2003, it was time to move on to something totally different.

Combining my previous experience, I set up ComRes in our spare bedroom.

What does ComRes do?

We use research to help our clients manage their reputation, public policy environment and communications – both external and internal. Our client base is a glorious mix of corporates, central government, charities, media, political parties, pressure groups and trade associations.

We work globally and are not afraid to take on tough assignments – like polling in the Maldives! I wanted to take the best of the market research world and bring it to the communications sector. Our political polling work is doubtless the most visible aspect of what we do but in fact, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

What made you set the business up when you did?

Until Tony Blair came along, the accepted wisdom was that lobbying campaigns were at their most effective when they were low-key. The 1997 general election changed all that. The New Labour government were highly sensitive to what people thought of them and this spilled across to the corporate world. At around the same time, policy making became more evidence-based and so we could offer clients an opportunity to help generate that evidence. The Internet also changed the research world for the better, making it possible for new entrants like ComRes to elbow our way in.

What are you working on at the moment?

The topic dominating the worlds of business and politics has to be Brexit, which has massive implications for all EU Member States and of course for the City of London.

No election in my career has attracted such a strong level of interest from City firms and hedge funds, keen to understand public feeling and the likely implications of being ‘in or out’. Even if Britain votes to remain, the impact from

the Referendum will ripple across the political world for years to come.

At what moment did you first feel your venture was a success?

Winning our first mandate to work with ITV News in 2010 was a game changing moment. Six years later we are still working with them, as well as our other high profile media clients like CNN and the BBC. We’ve now polled three general elections. In 2015 ComRes was the most accurate pollster, with a final poll anticipating a popular vote win for the Conservatives, but it turned into a bittersweet moment – great for us but, at the same time, difficult for the wider industry.

What piece of work are you most proud of?

There have been many instances when our work has informed a change in public policy. Recently we polled on whether the killing of Christians and Yazidis in Syria and Iraq should be classified as genocide, which helped persuade Parliament to vote in favour of a motion to support it. This type of work really matters and is immensely satisfying.

What is your favourite part of running your business?

The autonomy – which also means I am now completely unemployable! I also like splitting my week between London and Devon – I love the contrast and appreciate both ends of the trainline all the more because of it. Cycling through Hyde Park to our offices at Four Millbank, having left Devon early that same morning is great. I also enjoy getting involved with our cause-related clients. We have a charity partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation, who do a fantastic job of keeping children safe from online abuse and we’re hugely keen supporters.

What is the best piece of business advice you have ever received?

At university I had a summer placement at Shell UK and managed to wangle a coffee with the then Chairman Sir Bob Reid. As well as being one of Britain’s best one-armed golfers, he is a kind and generous business leader – not a description often heard these days – and encouraged me that the secret to career success was to “do something you enjoy and you will be good at it”. I am lucky to do something I really enjoy with a team of wonderful people. comres.co.uk @Andrew_ComRes

Michelmores is a Top 100 law firm supporting individuals, businesses and institutions in the private wealth sector for over 125 years.

“Michelmores is a powerhouse in the UK. They have invested both time and capital in the building of a strong team providing top quality private client work.” Judging panel, STEP Private Client Awards 2014

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As The Cornish Banjo Company, luthier Louis Bauress and banjoist John Dowling produce exceptional instruments – and it’s music to Fiona McGowan’s ears.

Photos by Martin Yelland.

I

n the 1500s, the first Africans were taken from their homes, shackled and put on ships to sail across the Atlantic. For the next 300 years, shipment after shipment of kidnapped human beings plied the seas between West Africa and the New World. They brought with them a few items from home that may have given some solace. One of them was an instrument made from a gourd with a skin stretched over it and strings attached to a bamboo stick. This was the first banjo.

Over time, the bamboo stick was exchanged for a fret board with five strings, and the skin was stretched over a ring of wood or metal. With its percussive aspect, it was popularised among slaves in America and the Caribbean as an accompaniment to dancing. Slave owners appropriated the instrument – learning to play it themselves, and even using it as a status symbol to demonstrate their slave-owning wealth. When slavery was finally abolished in the 1800s, the banjo was most commonly associated with African-American music. It was adopted by the trad-jazz scene in the 1950s, when a back or resonator was added to the ring, creating a more powerful sound to help it compete with the drum-kit and brass sections.

In more recent years, the banjo has brought to mind bluegrass music, and, through its association with Deliverance, frightening cultural stereotypes. But there’s been a sea-change in recent years: the likes of Mumford & Sons and Béla Fleck have re-invented the banjo sound, and given the instrument a new status.

Which brings us to an unexpected landing point for the banjo diaspora. Here, in a cold Cornish barn, banjo player and teacher John Dowling and luthier MANOR | Summer 2016

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The students these days don’t know about Deliverance; they know about Mumford & Sons. They hear the banjo and think: Ah – cool.

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Louis Bauress create handmade banjos. “I lecture at Falmouth University,” John explains. “The students these days don’t know about Deliverance; they know about Mumford & Sons. They hear the banjo and think: Ah – cool.” He picks up a banjo that is lying on a dusty wooden workbench to demonstrate its versatility. It gleams in the dingy light of the barn, its glossy green head and intricately inlaid mother-of-pearl fretboard begging to be touched. “Go on, John, bash something out for us,” grins Louis as he dips a biscuit into his milky coffee. John’s fingers race over the strings and pluck out the implausibly fast rhythm of a bluegrass tune. His skill is in no doubt, but the twangyness of the music makes my ears ring. Then, seamlessly, he moves his fingers higher up the strings, towards the fretboard, and begins to play Bach’s cello suite. It is resonant and beautiful, and I can’t quite believe that one instrument could produce these two dramatically different sounds.

The banjos produced here are clearly of superior quality, and the two men who run the business are the sort of enthusiasts you would depend upon to hand-craft a pitch-perfect instrument. Since the pair set up the business in 2014, Louis has spent hours and hours tinkering with designs, using archaic machines that you’d usually find in museums to carve and cut the wood, sourcing sycamore from local trees and experimenting with different methods of bending the wood to create the circular heads. They made a pilgrimage to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in East London to source recycled church bells for the metal tone rings that line each banjo head. “It’s where the Big Ben bells were made,” John says. He draws deeply on his e-cigarette and puffs out a plume of mist. “They’ve been specialising in getting good tonal metal for hundreds of years.”

There are so many variables in making these instruments – from the type of metal (an alloy of 80% copper and 20% tin) to the type of wood. Timber taken from different parts of the tree, explains Louis, produces a different sound. Like a pair of scientists, the two work together in their barn-laboratory to create the perfect banjo formula. “I’ve been making music for five years less than I’ve been breathing,” says John, who grew up playing the violin and took up the banjo as a rebellion.

“I’m very familiar with banjos and I know good setups and the sounds that I’m after, and what maybe should be done to get a good sound…”

“That’s totally why it works so well,” finishes Louis.

“Because the actual geometry of making them is not a problem for me at all. It’s being able to give them to someone who can play them and put them through their paces, and the subtle changes that need to be made – we need a good player, otherwise it doesn’t happen.”

Even the softness of the wood used for the bridge can affect how the banjo sounds. Louis goes into a detailed explanation of how a softer, more absorbent wood

feature

Each banjo is a collaboration, from beginning to end – the true test coming when John takes the banjo out of the workshop.

John and Louis

actually makes the strings sound more tinny, rather than tampering them and making them sound more mellow.

It is a complicated explanation that encompasses John talking about shouting to a friend underwater in the swimming pool, and Louis talking about whales. But the general gist is that softer wood is less dense and absorbs more of the deep sounds, making the higher tones more audible. The sycamore of the banjo head is sourced locally and then nurtured by Louis – “I have to watch it and season it and all of that” – before he cuts it up and steam-bends it to form the circular ring on which the metal tone rings sits. He holds up a flawlessly smooth wooden ring. “I had to put three bits of wood together to form that. It’s taken me months and months and months to perfect how to do it.” An array of steam-bent circles hangs above one of the work benches, clamped together, ready to be pressed by eight tonnes of pressure in a vice-like press that Louis has built himself.

This is highly labour-intensive work: the pair produce about 10 to 12 banjos a year – exclusively for commissions. In the workshop, there are banjos in different stages of completion: the lustrous green one with inlaid mother-of-pearl dolphins on the fret, a nearly finished open-backed banjo with its polished twistedwood strut exposed, a new resonator banjo for John, and a “not even cut out of the wooden sheet” electric banjo. Louis holds up a tray of tiny chips of mother of pearl and bone, showing how intricately he carves each piece for a truly personal touch on each instrument. This is an art form, and for a joiner who previously made high-end staircases and windows, it is a departure which

he’s espoused with characteristic resourcefulness. When he was first asked to do a bone inlay design, he says, he found a cow skeleton in a field, learned how to de-grease the bones (to stop the oils leaching out into the wood and spoiling it), then sliced them into tiny pieces and began to carve them.

No matter how perfect and carefully handcrafted the instrument, without a musician of John’s experience and passion, the effort would be wasted. Each banjo is a collaboration, from beginning to end – the true test coming when John takes the banjo out of the workshop.

“I take it home to where I normally twiddle,” he says.

“Mainly, I’m listening for any things that you wouldn’t know are there as you’re building it… you can only tell from trying it out. Louis can get all the frets exactly even, but if there’s one small discrepancy, it will show up when you’re playing. And then you go back and you adjust or refine it. It’s the very small things.”

The breadth and depth of their experience is extraordinary – particularly as it was only two years ago that they secured a £10,000 startup fund in a Dragon’s Den-style pitch. Before that, Louis was a joiner who had made some guitars in his spare time, and John was a respected banjo teacher, musician and lecturer. Both had dreams of making banjos to compete with some of the best of their kind. I’m no expert, but if the sounds that came out of that pretty green banjo are anything to go by, they are well on their way to becoming the Stradivariuses of the banjo world. cornishbanjocompany.com

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Culture Garden artist Frances Gynn | Doorstep Arts, Torbay South West must sees | Worth making the trip for | Worth staying in for

Beach Manoeuvres II by Nick Bodimeade, part of the Summer Show at Porthminster Gallery, St Ives, 2 July – 3 September porthminstergallery.co.uk

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As artist in residence, Frances Gynn has spent hundreds of hours, in all weathers, observing and recording aspects of the garden at Little Dartmouth. Kay Dunbar visits Frances in her studio, where they talk techniques, greenness and wabi sabi.

I

pick my way through a barn filled with agricultural objects from a life on the land, climb a wooden staircase and find myself in a painting-filled artist’s studio. Large oil paintings are stacked everywhere; a black and white drawing of a tree leans against one wall. A vibrant green from several large canvases casts a verdant glow over the space; it seems to drown me in fresh garden grasses.

Frances Gynn (or Fran, as she is usually known) is an artist who lives by the sea. She also has this studio down a Devon lane filled at the moment with primroses and bluebells. Eighteen months ago Fran was invited to be artist-in-residence at the private garden of Edward and Sally Benthall at Little Dartmouth. The garden was planned by the renowned garden designer and journalist Dan Pearson (who himself came from a background filled with art – he was brought up in an Arts and Crafts house with parents who were both artists). The South West coastline, the Devon landscape, the garden at Little Dartmouth: all these environments shape Fran’s paintings.

Each day she walks by the sea outside her home, and much of her art is inspired by what she collects and the narratives that emerge in that environment. The pale, watery palette of the materials found on the beach are reflected in her work. Of her technique she says: “I layer diluted oil paint and beach tar, rub away paint 60

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Chlorophyll I

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Acanthus

I do a lot of pouring of diluted paint. This creates layers and some elements get lost.

Cowslip

with sandpaper to mimic the sea’s wearing-away of objects, and take paint castings of found objects, which I incorporate into my paintings.”

In contrast to this seascape, when Fran is among the plants and shapes of the garden at Little Dartmouth, her work is influenced by this setting: the tower of white acanthus flowers outside the barn, a snake’s head fritillary, the dark grey water of the pond by the walled garden, the rocks that Dan Pearson places in his wild areas, the texture of the tree bark. These are depicted in watercolours, oil paints, black and white drawings, printing ink, pencil.

“When something attracts me I think, ‘How shall I best represent that?’” says Fran. “So I experiment with lots of different media until I find the right painterly language…

I do a lot of pouring of diluted paint. This creates layers and some elements get lost.”

The intervention of people in the landscape also figures in her work: “I’m interested in suggestions of human presence within nature and I convey the inspiration through representation or abstraction, or both,” she explains. Dan Pearson also writes about “when the hand of man is still visible but when nature 62

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has the upper hand”. The designer’s hands in the garden of Little Dartmouth, coupled with the painter’s interest in the human interaction with the land, make the match of artist and gardener particularly creative.

The green glow in the studio comes from a series of paintings called Chlorophyll. The colours are striking and quite different from Fran’s usual pale palette. “These were exploratory works,” she says. “I was getting to know the garden, making sense of it through the paintings. The greenness struck me when I first visited the garden.” In the corner of one green painting she has added a solid, brown pot. “I wanted to add something that brought in the human element.”

Another of the Chlorophyll paintings has a river of purple salvia running through it, the colour of the salvia contrasting vividly with the green. There are also some framed sketches of the greenness of the garden. I wonder if the sketches came first and informed the paintings but Fran says she was working on them concurrently.

Fran likes to work out in the open air. Not for her the escape of a warm studio. Many of her paintings have been created in wild weather, with wind and rain beating into

culture

Chlorophyl III

Insect in flight

her. She has spent many hours, in all weathers and seasons, absorbed in the spirit of this garden, and her minimalist paintings embody the philosophy of the garden’s design.

Her detailed drawing of the mature ash tree at Little Dartmouth is washed with rain. “Because I was out there in all weathers I call this ‘It is Raining Sometimes’.”

Soon a Private View will mark her 18-month residency at Little Dartmouth. Invitees were given a choice of several times to attend, all of them attached to some refreshments: tapas, cocktails or afternoon tea. I decide to combine cocktails with art and shall enjoy both.

I am particularly looking forward to seeing Fran’s monotypes of single, slender tree trunks that are to be displayed as an installation in one of the barns at Little Dartmouth. These are made by painting with printing ink on a metal plate and taking just one print from each plate. Fran has completed 20 of these monotypes of tree trunks and they will be displayed back-to-back. “I end up reducing everything to something more minimal. I usually start with a subject with a lot of information then reduce it and reduce it until I get to the essence,” she says. The simplicity of these monotypes, like most of her MANOR | Summer 2016

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The designer’s hands in the garden of Little Dartmouth, coupled with the painter’s interest in the human interaction with the land, make the match of artist and gardener particularly creative.

Frances at work in the garden

art, reflects the style of both Dan Pearson’s garden design and Frances Gynn’s pictures.

We move from the studio to the garden at Little Dartmouth. Dan Pearson is an expert in naturalistic perennial planting. Around the barns in the walled garden there are flower and vegetable beds reached by a sweeping path. Stripy tulips pop up in grass, under trees; a bed of sculptural acanthus plants flourishes in front of one barn. Beyond and within this Dan creates a spirit of wildness. There are groups of willow trees, boulders, stone walls, cowslips and a striking pond. In the distance, the sea frames his structure.

Both Fran and Dan are particularly drawn to the aesthetics of Japan; the Japanese notion of wabi-sabi influences many of Fran’s paintings. It is difficult to explain the meaning of wabi-sabi as there is no direct translation into Western culture, but the nearest explanation is that it represents a Japanese attitude focused on the acceptance of transience. Characteristics of wabisabi include asymmetry, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and a marrying of natural objects and processes. It is often described as a beauty that is imperfect.

This approach suits an artist who is trying to capture the incomplete, ever-changing garden.

Foxglove Digitalis ferruginea

The exhibition and garden at Little Dartmouth are open Monday 6 – Friday 10 June, by appointment only. francesgynn.co.uk Angel’s Fishing Rod Dierama

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Doorstep Arts is creating opportunities in theatre and performance for Torbay youngsters – and bringing top-quality professional work to the region in the process. Words by Kate Sermon.

T

o say Jade Campbell is a busy woman would be a massive understatement. Her drive seems to come directly from her ethos: to provide more varied and exciting opportunities for young people in her home town of Torbay.

This ethos is particularity focused on the young people who, due to deprivation or difficult circumstances, might never have had the opportunity for growth that Jade and her two partners in drama, Erin Walcon and Meghan Searle, give them.

Established in 2013, Doorstep Arts is now a thriving, growing organisation that runs a full programme of varied drama workshops across Torbay, for children aged four to 20. They utilise community centres and space offered in kind in order to keep costs as low as possible, and then they pass these savings onto the children. The latest coup is the Palace Theatre in Paignton, which has become their resident theatre.

This ambitious and far-reaching project is born of humble beginnings. “I grew up in Brixham, a

Opening act of Grit

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We want to develop more of a taste for theatre in the area, to get audiences in and provide opportunities for young people to grow and develop career pathways that they have never envisaged before.

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Children’s interactive theatre at The Doorstep

Jade at The Edge

PHOTO: ANDREW KNOWLES PHOTOGRAPHY

place that I felt passionately about because if its lack of opportunities for young people,” says Jade. “Coming from a theatre background – I studied at Dartington College of Arts – I knew that drama could be a process that could enable young people to find their voice.

I’m a firm believer in starting with the positives in a community and then building up from there.”

So, in 2011, Jade started a small project in Brixham, at The Edge Centre. She and her sister managed to get a small grant of £3,500, which they could use in any way they chose as long as it supported their process in starting up a drama group; they had already secured the space for free and they took the bold move of not paying themselves. In the beginning, Jade would place a pot in the room and suggest a donation of 50p, but never enforced this, knowing that most of the kids came from families on very low incomes. Instead, they spent some of the grant money giving their new drama group the opportunity to see professional theatre in London. This had a big inspirational effect on them. “Some of the kids had not even been out of Devon before,” says Jade. “We took them up to see The Woman in Black and they were just so excited. It was amazing. They were all hanging off the handrails on the tube and grinning like monkeys.”

One of their first projects was to devise a piece themselves based on something that the kids wanted to say.

The issue of cyber-bullying came up naturally in one of their exploratory workshops, and the process Jade facilitated enabled the children to work on the theme by looking at both sides of the issue and producing a piece which echoed the very real story of a young girl in their own community who had eventually taken her own life as a result of bullying. The performance was eventually dedicated to the girl, who was known by many of the group.

The success of seeing the children come alive and shine in the theatre space inspired Jade to take her own education to the next level, and she began an MA in Applied Theatre at Exeter University. Here she met her future Doorstep Arts partners, Erin and Meghan: Erin was a theatre lecturer at Exeter and Meghan was running Devon Youth Theatre at the Northcott Theatre.

“Meghan’s approach to working with young people was very similar to mine, but we do vary in facilitation style. We want our work to be aspirational, we devise original work with young people and pay attention to the

Erin and Jade supporting young people before a performance

culture

Threshold – a Doorstep Arts Showcase with local groups

Doorstep YouthTheatre working with Breaker Rikoshea

process that young people go through as much as the end product. I found what Erin and Meghan were doing very interesting. It took a year for the right project to come along for us all.”

But come it did, in the form of Mischa Eligolof, who worked in Arts Development for Torbay Council.

“Mischa had been in conversation with Battersea Arts Centre,” says Jade, “helping to write a bid with them for a collaborative touring network across seven regions.

This would have the effect of raising a new audience for Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) but would also raise the power of theatre within regional communities. At the time, and it might still be the case, the Arts Council saw Torbay as a cultural cold spot.”

Doorstep Arts, a community interest company, was born of this project as a way to address this cultural famine and enable affordable theatre to thrive. “Going to the theatre can be incredibly expensive – £50-plus per ticket for some of the West End touring shows. This is totally out of the realm of possibility for most families.”

Addressing this issue was part of the ethos behind working with BAC. Torbay was now part of a network that would encourage local talent to thrive and hopefully stay in the area. Doorsteps has since produced six festivals over three years under the BAC umbrella, and has just signed up to another run of the same for the next three years.

The working model is simple: Doorstep invites professional acts down to perform and links them in with the performances that the young people have devised during the numerous workshops that are run across Brixham, Paignton and Torquay. This means that the friends and families of the young theatre-makers get to see their children perform followed by an evening of great professional theatre. “We want to develop more of a taste for theatre in the area, to get audiences in and provide opportunities for young people to grow and develop career pathways that they have never envisaged before.”

Jade tells me about one young woman, Ellie, whose confidence has grown exponentially through being involved with Doorstep Arts. “She started off performing with her guitar, and the more she got up there, the more her confidence grew, until she asked Erin if she could help produce at a festival. She’s been brilliant; taking on ticketing, and webpage changes. She even came to Battersea with us, and through this has been shown a career pathway that may not have even occurred to her before. We see the next few years as a way to develop opportunities for the young people coming through us now, to stay and grow here at home, rather than being forced off to the cities. Ellie’s journey has been a dramatic one, in terms of understanding herself as an artist and her skill set, let alone her confidence, and we want to see young people like Ellie given more opportunities here in Torbay.” doorsteparts.co.uk

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South West must sees...

All set for summer

Revisiting Gwithian Beach by Jenny Hirst

This year’s Summer Show at Porthminster Gallery features new collections of paintings by Nick Bodimeade, Anne Davies, Jenny Hirst, Simon Turner and Ann Winder-Boyle, plus new ceramics by Stephanie Pace, Sarah Perry and Geoffrey Swindell.

2 July – 3 September at Porthminster Gallery, St Ives. porthminstergallery.co.uk

Shades of nature

Fallen tree, Stoke Woods, 300 x 70 cm

Exeter-based artist Richard Rochester works across a diverse range of materials but the core of his latest show will be a series of new drawings in charcoal. Beautifully atmospheric, the pieces range in subject matter from landscapes and urban scenes to wildlife, with the artist exploring the limits of charcoal as a medium.

9-15 July at Exeter Cathedral Chapter House. Opening times vary. richardrochester.co.uk

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culture

Two family events mark the 40th anniversary of Morpurgo’s charity Farms for City Children War Horse will be brought back to its birthplace in music and words at Nethercott Farm, Iddesleigh (where the charity Farms for City Children also began 40 years ago) on Friday 15 July 2016. A story concert, comprising songs and readings, will be performed by Michael Morpurgo and Ben Murray, the Song Man from the hit West End and Broadway show of War Horse, that played worldwide to more than seven million people and tours the UK again from 2017 to 2019.

To continue the celebratory anniversary proceedings, on Sunday 17 July 2016 Nethercott Farm will host a Summer Country Fair for the whole family, with street food, upmarket stalls, archery, apple pressing and much more.

Tickets for the War Horse Only Remembered event cost £18 for adults and £12 for under 16s and are available at farmsforcitychildren.org/product/tickets-forwar-horse-only-remembered. Tickets for the Summer Country Fair are £5 on the gate for adults; under 12s go free.

Chagstock This two-day, family-friendly festival continues to grow in popularity and ambition, while retaining its lowkey charm. This year’s headliners are The Stranglers and Donovan, but you can also expect sets from The Blockheads, Easy Star All-Stars and hotly tipped up-andcomers Cattle & Cane.

22-23 July at Whiddon Down, near Okehampton, Devon. chagstock.info

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Nature’s pharmacy In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the East India Company controlled much of the Indian subcontinent. Keen to exploit and export valuable natural commodities, the Company set out to record the flora of India and commissioned Indian artists to create detailed botanical illustrations. Many of the plants were known through their use in Ayurvedic medicine – one of the world’s oldest medicinal systems, it has been practiced in India for 3,000 years, using plants to treat ailments from skin complaints, wounds and stomach ache to internal bleeding, malaria and epilepsy. ‘Flower Power: Botanical Illustrations from India’ is an exhibition of rare and scientifically valuable works; surviving records of wages and the pigments and papers used help to tell the story of the artists and their specialist techniques.

11 June – 11 September at Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. Free. rammuseum.org.uk

Musk Mallow (Hibiscus abelmoschus)

Who’s the daddy?

Leo is 17. He’s on the triple shift of school, work and night feeds, and wants to be a dad to his six-month-old in every sense – that’s if his baby’s mum will let him. Or her step-mum, or his mum, or his step-mum. Those nans all want a piece of the pie… Pulling Out takes a look at unplanned parenthood from the male perspective, and is the latest piece from Documental Theatre, who make frank, funny and eloquent work based on research and first-hand accounts from the front line. The company’s last show, Score, about parents struggling with drug addiction, was superb.

21-25 June at Bike Shed Theatre, Fore Street, Exeter. £12, £10. bikeshedtheatre.co.uk

Take my hand In the 19th and early 20th centuries, North Devon was a world centre for glove-making, and the industry provided employment and craft skills for generations of local families. However, with the closure of local factories, this history is now in danger of being forgotten. Inspired by historical records from the former Pilton Glove Factory in Barnstaple, as well as machinery and equipment of the period, ceramicist Sue Rossiter is paying tribute to this rich heritage in ‘Hand to Hand’, an exhibition of white earthenware, terracotta and black clay forms that reference the different stages of glove production, such as stitching, stamping and pairing.

As part of the project, Sue will hold two workshops (on 18 June and 30 July) at the Sandy Brown Museum in Appledore, a former glove factory, and will be encouraging ex-glovers to share stories and reconnect with their past experiences and skills. Val Morris, Chairwoman of Torrington Museum, will give two talks about the area’s glove-making heritage, one at Torrington Museum (15 June) and one at White Moose gallery (27 July).

11 June – 30 July at White Moose Gallery, Barnstaple. Free. whitemoose.co.uk

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culture Worth making the trip for...

PHOTO: JAMES MILLAR

Killer queen Written by cabaret performer Tricity Vogue, and award-winning composer Richard Link, Heels of Glory is an allaction drag musical about arch-villain Allura Supreme’s (played by award-winning cabaret artist Sarah-Louise Young) secret masterplan to annihilate the world’s drag queens. All that stands in her way is budding young drag queen Honey (Matthew Floyd Jones of duo Frisky and Mannish) and her tomboy best friend Jay (Susan Harrison from Olivier award-winner Showstopper!). The show had sell-out performances at the Chelsea Theatre last year, and is headlining this year’s London Pride Festival with a full three-week run. Expect lashings of sequins and geysers of glitter!

9-12, 15-19, 22-26 June at Chelsea Theatre, King’s Road, London SW10. £15 (£12). chelseatheatre.org.uk

Body music

PHOTO: PAUL BLAKEMORE

Here’s another chance to immerse yourself in Verity Standen’s astonishing choral experience, HUG, ahead of an international tour. Each audience member is blindfolded and hugged by a singer in a room flooded with multiple melodies; you experience the music through sound, breath and vibrations of the body.

It’s a dizzying feeling, intimate and emotional, and staggeringly beautiful.

18-21 July at Tobacco Factory, Bristol. £7. tobaccofactorytheatres.com

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For art’s sake

PHOTO: © KEITH ARNATT ESTATE

In the 1960s, artists began to abandon traditional approaches, making ideas the essence of their practice and suggesting new ways of engaging with the realities of the world beyond the studio, which ultimately led to a questioning of the function and social purpose of art. Featuring work by Keith Arnatt, Conrad Atkinson, Susan Hiller, Richard Long and Bruce McLean, among others, ‘Conceptual Art in Britain 1964–1979’ explores this pivotal period in British history, which changed the way we think about art to this day.

Keith Arnatt, Art as an Act of Retraction, 1971

Until 29 August at Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1. £12, £10.50.

Hearing voices What’s going through your mind when you watch a piece of theatre? Is this too intellectual for me, what else have I seen her in, how long until I can go for a wee? And what of the artist/writer/performer? The latest meta-theatrical exploration from comedian/storyteller Daniel Kitson, Polyphony asks these questions and attempts to answer them all at the same time, by distributing 15 iPods and 15 speakers among the audience and letting the voices thrash it out between them. It’s funny and enlightening and totally engrossing.

21-26 June at Tobacco Factory, Bristol. £12. tobaccofactorytheatres.com

Portraits of love In 1926, shoemaker Ab Solomons illustrated the wage packet he gave to his new wife, Celie. Throughout their marriage and up until her death in 1982, Ab drew or painted on this weekly envelope. Years later, when Danny Braverman was given a shoebox containing his uncle’s decorated wage packets, he created Wot? No fish!!, a funny, heart-warming and eloquent portrayal of love and marriage through all its ups and downs.

11-16 July at Battersea Arts Centre, London. £17.50, £15, £12.50. bac.org.uk

PHOTO: © THE VISITORS, 2012. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST, LUHRING AUGUSTINE, NEW YORK AND I8 GALLERY, REYKJAVÍK ©. ELISABET DAVIDS

True romance Born into a family active in Iceland’s theatre scene, performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson draws from a varied history of stage traditions, film, music and literature, from traditional Icelandic stories to opera music and contemporary pop culture. This exhibition – featuring video installation, painting and performance – is the first UK show of his work, which swings playfully between romantic melancholy and lightheartedness.

14 July – 4 September at Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2. barbican.org.uk

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Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors, 2012

culture Worth staying in for...

Femmes fatales It is summer in California, in the dying days of the 1960s, and Evie Boyd is a lonely teenager aching to find her place in the world. She becomes enthralled with a group of girls and their ‘leader’, the charismatic Russell, and is soon drawn into a way of life and decisions from which there might be no escape… With echoes of the Manson family, Emma Cline’s intoxicating debut, The Girls, is a beautifully written and psychologically astute portrayal of the need to belong. Cline was the recipient of the 2014 Paris Review Plimpton Prize, and you can get a flavour for her writing by reading her short story Marion, which is available on theparisreview.org.

The Girls is published on 15 June by Chatto & Windus

Tokyo dreaming Just released on the Tokyo-based Guruguru Brain label is House in the Tall Grass, the latest offering from Kikagaku Moyo. A little bit folky with a dash of psychedelia, this new album sees the Japanese band mellow out their experimental edge and lie back in the sunshine, decoding clouds. Suffused with lush melodies and harmonies, it’s like a gorgeous massage for the ears. Light some candles, burn some incense and let it carry you off to happy land.

House in the Tall Grass is available now on LP/CD/DL from gurugurubrain.bandcamp. With the vagaries of currency conversion and international postage, the CD costs about £15

David Jamin “La plage en été ”

Carinne Bouvard “Au vent II”

Oil on canvas 50x50cms

Oil on canvas 70x50cms

62 Church Street, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 3DS 01326 219323 | 07913 848515 | info@artworldltd.com | www.artworldltd.com MANOR | Summer 2016

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Diva on Dartmoor

This was early spring in Dartmoor but a day that evoked LA, which was exactly what we’d hoped for. In the same Hollywood vein, model Chloe-Jasmine got into character, and numerous swimsuits, shone by the pool and entertained us all with sudden bursts of song.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIMMY SWINDELLS STYLED BY MIMI STOTT

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Bikini top, £15.99; briefs, £15.99, both Zara; sunglasses (previous page, John Lewis, £25); beach ball, John Lewis, £3

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Bikini top, £17.99; briefs, £12.99, both Zara, sunglasses, John Lewis, £20

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Bikini top, £18; briefs, £14, both Topshop; sunglasses, Zara, £15.99

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Pleated maxi dress, Topshop, £32

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Seafolly Spot On tankini top, £85; briefs, £48, both John Lewis; sunglasses, Zara, £15.99; turban, stylist’s own

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Deep plunge swimsuit, Zara, £19.99; necklace, Zara, £29.99

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Photographer: Jimmy Swindells Model: Chloe-Jasmine Whichello Stylist: Mimi Stott Make-up: Maddie Austen Location: Moretonhampstead Pool

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The Art of Living Hearth & Cook brings a new experience to home lovers and makers.

Expertly gathered together in our showroom in Exeter is a selection of the finest products designed to transform homes and inspire wonderful culinary creations, including an extensive range of beautifully designed outdoor ovens from renowned Danish stove manufacturer, Morsø. Visit our showroom now to see many of these appliances in action or browse our website for more information.

• RANGE COOKERS FROM LA CORNUE AND ESSE • MORSØ STOVES & OUTDOOR LIVING RANGE • ASHGROVE BESPOKE KITCHENS Find us in Oaktree Place, 100 yards behind Carrs Ferrari & Maserati.

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Call 01392 797679 www.hearthandcook.com 14 Oaktree Place, Manaton Close, Matford, Exeter, Devon EX2 8WA

Food

Gidleigh Park tasting menu | Queen Bee Cakes Recipes from Riverford Organic Farmers | Foraging in Cornwall with Fat Hen Bites, the latest news and events from across the region | The Table Prowler

Wedding cake created by Emily Lovett of Queen Bee Cakes queenbeecakes.org.uk

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There is a definite art to creating a successful tasting menu – and Gidleigh Park’s new Head Chef, Michael Wignall, is pulling out all the stops. Words by Imogen Clements.

I

’d always been wary of tasting menus. Firstly, they’re not cheap. Secondly, where we have splashed out, I’ve found myself full by the fourth course with the remainder consumed under duress (due to the cost incurred) and in some discomfort.

There is an art to a good tasting menu. I would go as far as to say that it is the true test of a chef. It is underpinned by an expert knowledge of the science of food – its taste, texture – but also ensures that the ultimate experience is achieved on every level: sensorial, neurological and digestive. It’s what makes a good chef great.

To achieve this requires a broad knowledge of what works together, which requires a wide repertoire, and one that’s rarely confined to our own shores.

The research that Michael Wignall of Gidleigh Park has undertaken on his travels to find the optimal combination of flavours and textures is evident on each plate of his tasting menu.

And the result was superb. What we experienced at Gidleigh Park we agreed was a gastronomic gamechanger. Wignall delivered a faultless meal that was as exciting as it was exquisite. Every plate was a voyage of discovery and revealed a chef whose skill at combining local and global influences transported us beyond culinary excellence to some kind of idyll.

For example, the amuse bouche, which was a scintillating glimpse of the quality we were about to experience, included steamed nunu (dumpling similar to dim sum) filled with emulsion, pumpkin seed and sesame granola as just one of its three appetizers.

The first of the seven courses, the torched mackerel, was accompanied by wakame ( Japanese seaweed), bergamot oil and Salcombe crab; accompanying the John Dory (course four) was ong choy along with white onion purée, torched scallop, five spice jus and turnip; and the roe deer (course five) was further enhanced by shiitake 92

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and enoki, along with sweet and sour sweetbread, pearl barley risotto and sweet potato.

A sign of our enthusiasm was the constant questioning, and staff at Gidleigh were amenable and approachable, possibly a little more fun and less stiff than they have been on previous occasions – both Kay, the maitre d’, and Katherine, our waitress, whilst highly knowledgeable and respectful about their respective roles as representatives of this level of cuisine, were also laughing with us and cracking the odd joke.

A fine meal is never comprised of food alone. The wine flight at every stage of this menu was planned to precision to further enhance each plate – from 2014 G Boulay Sancerre that set off the mackerel through to the 2008 Dominio do Berzal Rioja Crianza that made the perfect weightier companion to the roe deer, to the 2013 Mas Amiel from Roussillon that set off the apple dessert (warm custard doughnut, tonka bean, toffee apple, cinnamon crumble and frozen rocks – not just any old apple dessert).

The sommelier, Renato Della Corte, happily answered all our questions and revealed a true passion and extensive knowledge for his trade that belied his age – he must have been around 30.

Often in fine dining you find that the fine doesn’t extend across all courses: the starter tends to be very fine (we are all sober and at our most discerning), the main course fine and the dessert less fine (we are all by now well fed and lubricated and less expectant). In Michael Wignall’s tasting menu, all seven courses were beyond fine, without exception. But just to be sure, we had the cheese plate, too (between us). There are certain food memories that stay with you; when a course is so good that weeks later you’re still thinking about it, wishing you could relive it. Michael Wignall’s cheese plate was one of those. Even at this stage of the meal we fought

food

Smoked ricotta with hen of the woods, watercress and black garlic

Every plate was a voyage of discovery and revealed a chef whose skill at combining local and global influences transported us beyond culinary excellence to some kind of idyll.

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John Dory with ong Choi

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The tasting menu has to convey a journey from start to finish, with each dish complementing the last. over each of the seven cheeses on the plate: from the soft goat’s Cerney Ash to the hard Kirkham to the strong Langres (washed, apparently, in Champagne), they were all deliciously different, a perfect selection building on strength, and just the right amount to lead you happily into dessert.

We got up from our table exhilarated by the meal, but such was the digestive skill of this tasting menu that we were still intrigued by the thought of petit fours.

They were delivered to us in the lounge with the ritual of a Chinese tea ceremony, the hot water poured over the glass teapot to warm it prior to infusing the fresh mint within for me – he had his usual double espresso – and alongside were 12 little petit fours. I know there were 12 because they arrived with their own minute menu, in its own petit envelope. No waiter needed to be asked what each was – they ranged from salted peanut truffle to cardamom marshmallow – and, needless to say, all 12 were consumed.

Gidleigh Park is one of the best-known hotels and restaurants in the UK. Voted Best Restaurant in the UK twice in the last four years by the Harden’s Sunday Times Food List, there are few Michelin-starred chefs who would happily pick up the mantle set down by Michael Caines MBE, who left the hotel in September 2015 after a stellar 21-year period. In Michael Wignall, owners Brownsword should be congratulated on their appointment. Also a two Michelin-starred chef – he’s won Michelin stars in every kitchen he has headed since 1993 – he is equally accomplished in his field, but the genius in his appointment is that he brings something entirely different but equally special to Gidleigh Park’s cuisine.

“As a chef, I am always excited about trying different combinations, taking inspiration from my travels, most recently Japan, but also the season and what produce that brings. I want my guests to feel the same way and appreciate this.”

And when interrogated on just how he achieves the perfect Tasting Menu, Wignall reveals: “The tasting menu has to convey a journey from start to finish, with each dish complementing the last. Each course has its own contrast in textures and flavours, without allowing anything to overpower. For example, if an ingredient is acidic, you need something to carry the acidity along but also tame it.”

As assumed, there is an infinite science to it, but also impeccable teamwork: “A huge part of the creation process for me and the team is trial and error. I encourage thinking outside of

Michael Wignall and the Gidleigh kitchen team

the box and challenging the norm. If something doesn’t work, we ask ourselves why and how we can make a dish better, so it’s also a learning process. Tasting as we go is, of course, essential but also thinking about our surroundings – trialling food in the kitchen is a completely different environment and experience to dining in the restaurant. We only ever put a dish on once we have tested and are happy with it.”

As we left Gidleigh, we both agreed that to have appointed a chef equally adorned with stars but too close in style to his predecessor’s cuisine would have been a safe but misplaced option. By appointing Wignall, Gidleigh Park has achieved what many thought impossible – to remain one of the UK’s most highly regarded hotels, thanks in large part to its food, whilst also evolving the offering.

If you try one tasting menu this year, try Michael Wignall’s at Gidleigh Park. It’s worth it.

The Seven-Course Tasting Menu is £110 per person To add the wine flight was £65 per person gidleigh.co.uk

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PHOTO: RACHEL HOILE

One of Emily’s wedding cakes

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At Queen Bee Cakes, there’s no such thing as cutting corners – as Emma Inglis discovered when she visited Emily Lovett on her family smallholding in Ashburton.

E

PHOTO: RACHEL HOILE

mily Lovett spends hours creating the elaborate garlanded cakes that grace many a wedding table in the South West. Adorned with seasonal fruits and flowers, crystallised botanicals and gold-flecked chocolate leaves, they are a paradigm of beauty.

“I want to give the bride and groom their dream wedding cake,” says Emily, who will often arrive at a wedding hours before the reception begins, with husband in tow (“he’s good at lifting and also with the technical things”), to set up her tiered creations, adjust and tweak, before decorating with colourful berries and sweet-scented blooms.

Only after everything is deemed perfect does Emily quietly retreat “to enjoy the beautiful surroundings that my husband and I so often find ourselves in.”

Being a cake artist seems the perfect fit for a girl who grew up in South Devon and discovered a passion for cooking in the kitchen of her parents’ honey farm. “I was making honey cakes to sell at the farmers’ markets from a young age, and my parents also run a B&B where fresh bread and cakes are always being made.” She studied cooking at Bristol College, and got her first job at the Quartier Vert restaurant in Bristol.

There were placements at Highgrove (“I saw the Prince of Wales through glass; he didn’t come into the kitchen much”) and Chez Panisse in California. “I was so inspired by that experience. So much seasonal produce was being sourced, and the people were very friendly.”

When time allowed, Emily went to Sussex and studied under Sarah Raven at Perch Hill Farm, where she learnt about creative floristry and growing cut flowers. But she credits her mum, Susie Lovett, with being her biggest influence: “She’s been my greatest inspiration. She studied at art college in London in the sixties, and worked for shops like Liberty doing window dressing and displays. She still helps me now.” Her father sounds no less creative: along with an interest in bees, “he’s a successful timber framer and carpenter.”

Cupcakes

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My favourite cake is a lemon, hazelnut and blueberry cake, with a honey and blueberry cream filling, decorated with fresh blueberries.

PHOTO: ASHLEY LOVETT

Flowers and honey come from Emily’s parents’ honey farm

Emily Lovett

With family so important, it is no wonder that Emily decided to return to Devon. She found work at the Riverford Field Kitchen and later on with friend Ella White at Ella’s artisan bakery in Ashburton. Setting up Queen Bee Cakes seemed the natural next step in her culinary journey.

Business has been brisk. Emily has tapped into a burgeoning organic movement and the local, sustainable food trend to make wedding and celebration cakes that are very du jour. She cooks with the highest quality ingredients using free-range eggs from ‘happy hens’.

Wild blossom honey comes from the family’s own hives, and fruits and edible flowers are sourced locally, or from her parents’ organic garden. Even her mother-in-law’s roses find themselves cake-bound: “I’m very lucky. She has a massive rose garden.”

The rise in popularity of the gluten-free diet is not overlooked – customers who want to avoid wheat are catered for. “I’m getting more and more requests for gluten-free cakes,” says Emily, who after our interview was heading down to Dorset to do an advanced course in gluten-free baking at River Cottage. “I think this is a trend that is set to grow and I’d like to be able to offer more gluten-free options.”

Emily’s striking wedding centrepieces draw on various aspects of the day – especially the venue, flowers and bouquet – but clients differ in terms of involvement.

“Some brides are very particular and want to know exactly what the cake will look and taste like. Others are more relaxed and trust me to do the very best for them.

Others simply want me to follow a picture.”

Queen Bee cakes compare favourably in price to other bespoke wedding cakes. “Every cake is priced accordingly, based on my time. My prices start from £250 and can go up to £650. But plenty of people will have the cake as a dessert and then I’ll charge per head, so between £3-£5, which then works out as quite an affordable dessert option.”

Summer is wedding season, and Emily’s diary is jampacked with engagements. A baby is due shortly and Emily plans to take a few months off. But she is confident that she will be able to balance Queen Bee Cakes with family: “It was partly why I set the business up. Being a chef in a restaurant does not suit having children.”

My interview with Emily is nearly over. She’s in a rush to get to the gluten-free baking course. “I thought you might ask me what my favourite cake is,” she says, before we say goodbye. It’s a good question for a cake designer, I say. Go on, then. What’s your favourite cake? “It’s a lemon, hazelnut and blueberry cake, with a honey and blueberry cream filling, decorated with fresh blueberries. Another favourite is a pear and chocolate cake that is popular with everyone.”

They sound delicious and a great deal more exciting than any sponge I’ve eaten recently. Would she pass on one of these recipes to MANOR readers? Generously, Emily agrees (see opposite). And let me vouch for it – I made it and it really was divine.

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queenbeecakes.org.uk

food

PHOTO: RACHEL HOILE

Queen Bee’s pear and chocolate cake INGREDIENTS

• 400g pears (about 4/5 large ripe conference pears) • 175g self-raising flour (sifted) • 225g unrefined cane sugar (125g light muscovado • • • • • •

sugar and 100g cane sugar) 200g butter (at room temp. and chopped into small pieces) 1 small/medium organic orange (zested and juiced) 125g dark chocolate (chopped) 3 large eggs (lightly whisked) 1 tsp vanilla extract Drizzle Icing: 50g dark chocolate, 25g butter and 10g local honey

METHOD

Pre-heat oven to 190°C (180°C for fan-assisted ovens).

Grease and line (with parchment paper) a 23cm springform cake tin.

Peel and chop the pears into eighths and mix with 25g light muscovado sugar and set aside.

Cream the softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (it will take at least 10 minutes).

Gradually mix in the eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest, and mix well.

Gently fold in the sifted flour, followed by the chopped chocolate.

Place the pear pieces on the bottom layer of the cake tin and arrange in a spiral pattern. Chop the leftover pear slices into small pieces and add to the cake mixture.

Place the mixture in the tin on top of the pears.

Place in the middle of the oven and bake for 45 minutes until golden and firm to the touch. Cook for an extra 10-15 mins if it’s still soft in the centre, but be careful not to burn the top of the cake.

When the cake is still warm, turn out (upside down) onto a large flat plate (with parchment paper on it to stop the cake from sticking to the plate).

Warm the juice of the orange with a little light muscovado sugar to make an orange syrup and drizzle over the cake, and leave to cool.

Melt the icing ingredients in a bain-marie, until silky and smooth. Drizzle this over the cake using a spoon or silicon pastry brush.

Leave to cool before serving.

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Gatherings of friends and family around long tables in the garden; platters spilling over with leafy salads; fritters, quesadillas… these summery vegetarian recipes prepared by Riverford cooks are surprisingly easy to prepare and perfect for sharing. All recipes and images courtesy of Riverford Organic Farmers.

Broad bean fritters Serves four These simple fritters (pictured opposite) make a good vegetarian main course but you could also serve smaller ones as starters or canapés for a summer party (they can be made in advance and gently warmed through in a low oven). Kids generally love them, particularly the dinky-sized ones.

INGREDIENTS

• • • • • • • • • •

300g podded broad beans (approximately 900g in their pods) 125g self-raising flour 2 large eggs 2 tbsp crème fraîche 125ml milk 200g soft, mild sheep’s or goat’s cheese, crumbled Small handful of mint leaves, chopped Small handful of chives, snipped or chopped A little sunflower or olive oil & a knob of butter, for frying Sweet chilli sauce, to serve (optional)

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, eggs, crème fraîche and milk until you have a smooth, thick batter. Crumble in the cheese. Stir in the broad beans, mint and chives and season with salt and pepper.

Melt a little oil and butter in a large frying pan. Add spoonfuls of the mixture (you’ll need to cook in two or three batches) and cook on a medium heat for two to three minutes, until golden brown on the bottom (you’ll see small bubbles appearing from underneath as they’re ready).

Flip and cook for two minutes or so on the other side, until cooked through.

Serve with sweet chilli sauce for dipping, if you like.

VARIATIONS

METHOD

Cook the beans in a pan of boiling water for three minutes, then drain and refresh in cold water. Peel off the outer skins and discard, leaving the bright green inner bean.

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• • •

Use a gluten-free self-raising flour if you prefer Use chopped up French or sliced runner beans instead of broad beans Vary the cheese – try a saltier feta-style sheep’s cheese

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Vegetarian ‘niçoise’ Serves four This is a vegetarian version of the Mediterranean summer classic. It uses capers in place of anchovies for saltiness – although you could use both. Marjoram is a similar herb to oregano, but slightly sweeter and with a floral aroma.

INGREDIENTS

• • • • • • • • •

600g new potatoes, scrubbed and cut into halves or quarters depending on size 8 eggs 300g French beans, topped and tailed 250g cherry tomatoes, cut in half crossways 2 large spring onions, very finely sliced 150g mixed salad leaves About 20 pitted black olives 2 tbsp capers (if they are in brine, drain then soak in cold water for 20 minutes then drain) Small handful of basil, shredded

METHOD

Put the potatoes in one pan with a good pinch of salt.

Put the eggs in another pan. Cover both with water and put on a medium heat. Once the eggs come to the boil, cook for eight minutes, drain and put in a bowl of cold water. Once the potatoes come to the boil, cook for 10–12 minutes, until easily pierced with a sharp knife.

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Scoop the potatoes out of the water with a slotted spoon. Add the beans to the potato water. Boil for five minutes, until they’re tender but still have a squeak when you bite into them. Drain and refresh in cold water, then drain again.

To make the dressing, whisk the olive oil, garlic, mustard and a squeeze of lemon juice together in a large salad bowl. Stir in the chopped marjoram or oregano, then season with salt, pepper and extra lemon juice or oil to taste.

Add the potatoes, beans, tomatoes, spring onion, salad leaves, olives and capers to the bowl and toss together in the dressing.

Peel the hardboiled eggs – doing this in water is easiest – then cut them lengthways into quarters. Using a wet knife will help keep the yolk and white together.

Tuck the eggs into the salad, scatter over the basil leaves and serve.

VARIATIONS

• •

Use roasted tomatoes for extra sweetness Add a few anchovies if you’re not vegetarian

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Vegetable quesadillas Serves four Good as a main course, these also make a colourful sharing platter for a larger gathering.

Serve them with a dollop of soured cream and guacamole.

INGREDIENTS

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

1 small to medium-sized butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1–2cm dice 1 red pepper, deseeded and cut into 1–2cm dice Kernels from 1 sweetcorn cob 1 red onion, peeled and finely diced ½ tsp ground cumin ¼ tsp ground coriander ¼ tsp paprika A good pinch of smoked paprika 1-2 red chillies (depending on heat and your preference for it), deseeded and finely chopped Light olive oil for roasting, frying and brushing 4 large flour tortillas 150g Cheddar, grated Large handful of coriander leaves Salt and pepper

oil in a large baking dish. Season with salt and pepper.

Roast the veg in the oven for 35–40 minutes, until tender, tossing once halfway through so it cooks evenly.

Remove from the oven and turn the temperature down low, to approximately 130°C/Gas 1.

Brush each tortilla on one side with a little oil and put one into a large non-stick frying pan, oil-side down. Sprinkle some cheese over one half, then the veg mixture, then a few coriander leaves. Fold the other half of the tortilla over to make a semi-circle, gently pressing down with your hands to flatten it slightly. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the underside of the tortilla is crisp and golden brown (keep an eye on it so it doesn’t burn). Carefully turn it over and cook the other side until crisp and golden. Keep warm in the oven while you cook the remainder. Cut each one in half to serve.

VARIATION

METHOD

Heat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5. Toss the squash, pepper, corn, onion, spices, chilli and two tablespoons of olive

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Spinach, olive and feta tart Serves six to eight This is a really adaptable recipe and a great crowd-pleaser. Using the pastry case as your base, you can vary the fillings as much as you like – see our list of suggestions below. Use a good ready-made shortcrust to save time if you prefer.

FOR THE PASTRY

• • • •

250g plain flour, plus a little extra for rolling out 150g cold unsalted butter, diced, plus a little extra for greasing the tart tin ¼ tsp fine sea salt 1 large egg, yolk and white separated

FOR THE FILLING

• • • • • • • • • •

Small knob of butter Splash of oil, for frying 1 large onion, finely diced 300g spinach, leaves stripped from their stalks 3 large eggs 200ml crème fraîche 200g feta 100g pitted black olives 1 tbsp chopped dill leaves, or 1 tsp dried dill Salt and pepper

Once the pastry has cooled, beat the eggs for the filling in a large bowl. Stir in the crème fraîche and crumble in the feta. Add the spinach, onion, dill and half the olives. Season with salt and pepper. Gently combine then pour the mixture into the pastry case. Press the rest of the olives into the top so they’re visible once baked. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the filling has just set. Remove and leave to cool to just warm or room temperature before cutting into slices to serve.

VARIATIONS

•

• • • •

METHOD

To make the pastry, put the flour, butter and salt in a food processor and blitz until it looks like breadcrumbs.

Add the egg yolk and pulse, adding just enough cold water so that the pastry starts to come together in a ball.

Roll the pastry into a smooth ball, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Meanwhile, melt a knob of butter with a splash of oil in a small frying pan. Add the onion and fry gently for 10 minutes, until soft and translucent. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Boil or steam the spinach leaves for two to three minutes, until wilted. Drain and refresh in a bowl of ice-cold water. Once cooled, drain again and squeeze the spinach really well several times to get rid of any excess liquid. Roughly chop the leaves.

Heat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Lightly flour a work surface and rolling pin. Lightly grease a 23cm tart tin with butter. Roll out the pastry to a rough circle, a little bigger than needed to line the tin. Lay the pastry in the tin, pressing it into all the crevices. Trim any overhanging pastry. Chill the pastry in the fridge for a further five minutes.

Put a baking sheet in the oven. Line the pastry case with baking parchment and fill with baking beans or dried, uncooked pulses or rice, making sure all the crevices are filled so the pastry doesn’t rise. Place the tin on the hot baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Lift out the paper and beans, and bake for a further 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven, brush lightly with just enough egg white to coat and seal the base (this helps prevent a soggy pastry bottom), then leave to cool completely.

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• •

Use chard leaves or spring or summer greens instead of spinach. To include chard stems, chop them small and fry along with the onion. In winter, substitute with shredded kale or even cabbage Try other veg, such as fried courgette, asparagus or beans Add a few sun-dried tomatoes with the olives.

Vary the herbs – try thyme, basil, oregano or marjoram Add some garlic – fry some shredded wet garlic with the onion, or add some shredded wild garlic leaves just before baking Use chopped spring onions instead of onions (these need minimal frying) Ring the changes with the cheese – try blue cheese, Cheddar Parmesan, or simply use up what you have in your fridge

food

Warm roasted pepper and lentil salad with olives and halloumi Serves two Halloumi is a very useful cheese to have in your fridge. It gives vegetarian dishes a salty hit and its firm texture means it stands up to frying or grilling, which brings out the flavour. If you’d prefer to make the dish vegan, it can stand up without the halloumi. As well as adding peppery flavour to salads, watercress wilts into soups, stews and warm salads too, giving extra nutrients, INGREDIENTS

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

4 red peppers 2 tbsp sunflower or light olive oil 1 small red onion, finely diced 2 carrots, finely diced 2 celery sticks, finely diced 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped, grated or crushed 100g Puy-style lentils, rinsed in a sieve under cold water 1 bay leaf ¼ tsp dried oregano ¼ tsp ground cumin ¼ tsp dried mint 1 tbsp red wine vinegar 100g pitted black olives 1 pack (150–200g) halloumi, cut into 1–2cm-thick slices Small glug of extra virgin Olive oil 50g watercress Small handful of chopped fresh mint and/or parsley, to garnish Salt and pepper

celery and fry on a low heat for 15 minutes, stirring now and then. If they look as if they might catch at any point, add a splash of water. Once softened, add the garlic and cook, stirring, for two minutes.

Add the lentils, bay leaf, oregano, cumin, mint and 300ml water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20–25 minutes, until the lentils are tender. Keep an eye on the liquid towards the end and top up with a little extra water as needed. Almost all the liquid should have been absorbed by the end of cooking. Once done, remove from the heat if the peppers aren’t quite ready.

Roughly chop the peppers into strips and stir them into the lentils with the vinegar and olives. Remove the bay leaf and season to taste. Set aside while you fry the halloumi.

Heat a dry non-stick frying pan, add the halloumi slices and fry for about two minutes on each side, until golden. Gently warm the lentils if needed, then stir in the watercress and extra virgin olive oil and serve with the halloumi slices on top, scattered with the fresh herbs.

VARIATION

• METHOD

Char and peel the peppers. While they’re cooking, heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the onion, carrot and

Instead of halloumi, crumble over some feta or goat’s cheese riverford.co.uk/recipes

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Getting the kids to eat their greens can be a nightmare – unless you’re on a Fat Hen foraging course, when they’ll be munching them straight from the hedgerows. Words by Fiona McGowan

Fiona’s daughter Freya tries a sorrel leaf

y five-year-old son picks a leaf from the edge of the muddy track, carefully inspects the base where it connects with the stem, then stuffs the whole lot into his mouth, chewing happily. “Mmmm – lemony!”

He smiles up at me. This is a child who will not eat any form of salad, for whom the mere smell of spinach, kale or any other leafy greens makes him gag. My eight-yearold daughter squelches through the mud, waving a piece of white-flowered wild garlic at me. “This is actually a three-cornered leek. I love it!” And she chews happily on the garlicky green stem. At home, she would baulk at eating anything flavoured with garlic, and anything vaguely spicy is enough to cause histrionics.

What is going on here? We are participating in a childfriendly foraging experience with the Fat Hen foraging and wild cookery school. Run by wild-food aficionado Caroline Davey, with some input from her three lively children, it’s an incredible eye-opener. Located west of Penzance, en route to Sennen Cove and Land’s End, Caroline’s handsome farmhouse and renovated stone barn lies halfway along an unprepossessing rough track. The children pile out of the car and join several others milling about on a big climbing frame and an even bigger trampoline until we’re all beckoned into the barn by the tall, lean figure of our host.

I have never eaten raw nettles. Apparently, you fold them into a little package with the underside exposed and the stingy side inwards. Maternally, I fuss over my son’s folding and make sure that he pops it into his mouth with the correct care and attention. His eyes widen as he chews. “It doesn’t sting,” he says in surprise. I am more lackadaisical in helping my eight-year-old, however, and she cries out in pain. She’s stung the inside of her cheek and tears seem imminent… It’s my turn – I fold the leaf carefully and put it in my mouth. Immediately a shock

of pain shoots into my tongue. Tears prick my eyes as I stoically chew the leaf and swallow it. I feel slightly dizzy with the pain and sympathise with my daughter. First foraging test: slightly failed. Feeling vaguely numb in my head and wondering if nettle stings have some sort of hallucinogenic effect, I sit down for the next course.

Most children, I’ll wager, have never made pasta from scratch. It turns out to be surprisingly straightforward, but more time-consuming than the majority of families can handle. Gently educating the assembled children on the uses and benefits of nettles (great for allergies and arthritis, among many other ailments), Caroline whizzes up a big bowlful of nettles in the blender and then mushes up a load of beetroot. “We’re going to make red, green and white pasta,” she explains, before setting the children loose with big bowls, eggs, loads of expensive-looking Italian pasta flour and plenty of table space to get cracking.

And mixing. And kneading. The tricolour of pasta dough having been child-handled for the correct length of time, the lumps are wrapped in cling film and we are ushered outside. This being Cornwall, wellies and waterproofs are, of course, de rigueur. With my tongue still throbbing and my head a little woozy, striding out into the damp Cornish morning is something of a relief.

“My first experience of foraging was in Kashmir as a seven-year-old,” says Caroline as she leads us out of her garden and towards a path bordered by hedgerows. “We were staying on a houseboat, and the local flower seller used to take me out on the lake in his flower-filled shikara boat to pick the seeds of the lotus plant.” The magic has stayed with her – and the travels around the world as a child gave her an experimental ethos. She talks about how she still salivates just thinking about the smells of the Hong Kong street markets.

But it was the pivotal and hugely traumatic loss of her father to bowel cancer when she was just 13 that formed the root of

M

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PHOTO: JAMES BOWDEN

Caroline’s combined passion for wildlife and ecology, imbued with those formative years of travelling and experimenting with varied foods, has finally led her to this remote spot in West Penwith.

Caroline Davey showing how to make fresh pasta

her interest in nutrition. Her combined passion for wildlife and ecology, imbued with those formative years of travelling and experimenting with varied foods, has finally led her to this remote spot in West Penwith, surrounded by a group of children grasping a motley array of wicker baskets.

Sorrel, we learn, is found in hedgerows everywhere.

It is a long, tender, oval-shaped leaf with the distinctive feature of having two ‘ears’ where the stem meets the leaf.

My son picks a leaf and looks at me. “Is this right?” I look at Caroline, concerned that I will somehow poison my child. “Yes,” she smiles in her non-effusive but confident way. He nibbles it and then tears great big chunks off. I hide my surprise and watch all the other children happily munching on leaves (and all the other parents hiding their surprise). We wander along the hedgerow, for all the world like people from a century or more ago – albeit a bit more luridly dressed in our bright Gore-Tex. The children stack up wild garlic, navelwort (“Navel is another name for the belly button,” says Caroline. “Oh yes, it looks like an inny,” responds one of the children) and sorrel leaves in their baskets. We stand by and watch as Caroline digs around in the soil for pig nuts. “They have the same sort of leaves as carrots,” she says, pointing to a small, fine frond.

“But the carrot family has some very deadly plants as well, so never pick this unless you are told it’s the right one.”

Finally, after a lot of fingernail-blackening grovelling, she unearths the root. The ‘pig nut’ has the appearance of a small hazelnut. It is covered in mud. “We’ll take this back and wash it, and you can all try it,” says Caroline, putting it in her wicker basket. My daughter is carefully filling her basket with leaves, while my son is stuffing them in his mouth. His tongue is turning yellow.

Back at the farmhouse, the children shed their boots in a massive muddy pile. Hands washed, it’s time for the next stage of the tagliatelle-making: rolling out the pink, green

and yellowish lumps of dough, then pressing contrasting coloured pieces into them, and using fabulous old-fashioned metal mangle devices to squeeze them and shear them into strips. The children drape each variegated strip on a drying rack in front of the woodburner while the water boils. The wild garlic is blended with hazelnuts (the children gorge on handfuls of nuts – “That’ll spoil their appetite,” I mutter to myself), parmesan and a little oil and lemon to make a delicious pesto. Within minutes, a salad of sorrel and navelwort, drizzled with a garlicky dressing, is served with steaming fresh tagliatelle, richly coated in foraged pesto.

Watching Caroline’s children devouring the pasta and salad while mine miserably pick at their plates is enough to make me weep. While they’re happy to chew on wild garlic, sorrel and navelwort that they’ve picked from the hedgerow, the moment it’s presented as a ‘meal’ on a ‘plate’, they want nothing to do with it. They love Caroline’s homemade elderflower cordial, though – and the creamy homemade vanilla and blackcurrant ice cream is enough to bring smiles back to their rosy cheeks. Energy replenished, they storm back outside to bounce and climb and scream and shout and kick and argue and laugh. And guess what? Every child went all that time without ever looking at a screen. Job well done. fathen.org

FAT HEN Fat Hen is a plant that was eaten as a vegetable from Neolithic times until the 16th century, as it’s rich in vitamin C and its seeds were ground to make flour. It is now regarded as a weed, as it hosts insects that can damage crops and is thought to spread a virus that is damaging to crops.

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Bites Lazy Sundays If you love long, lazy Sunday lunches then try grazing your way through an afternoon at Exeter’s Hotel Du Vin (formerly Magdalen Chapter). Their new French Market Table simply groans with hors d’oeuvres of fresh seafood, charcuterie, pâtés and rillettes, fresh salads and artisan breads. And this is just starters!

Hotel Manager Guillaume Lesage said: “We’re thrilled to be adding a touch of culinary theatre to the restaurant each Sunday. The French Market Table means our guests can dine late into the afternoon as the conversation and wine flows – exactly what Sundays are all about!” After feasting from the Market Table, diners move on to seasonal roasts and other traditional favourites. These are followed (before a nap) by irresistible (and rather rich) puddings.

Hotel du Vin’s Market Table Sunday Lunch is £22.95 per person for four courses and £9.95 for children under 12. hotelduvin.com

Mena Hweg Named Critics’ Choice at the Sommelier Wine Awards was a sweet wine produced by Knightor: Mena Hweg (in Cornish, mena = hill, hweg = sweet). It also won a Gold Medal. The judges described the wine as “a delicate delight offering seriously good value, this entranced all who had the chance to taste.”

Inspired by the sweet wines of Germany, Mena Hweg is made from Schonburger – a Germanic grape variety suited to cool climates. Adrian Derx, who owns Knightor Winery near St Austell, said: “In many ways this is a niche wine, given the fashion for much dryer wines with higher alcohol. However, it is actually wonderfully versatile and refreshing; it’s great as an aperitif or palate cleanser, and also works well with Asian food.” knightor.com

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PHOTO: SEAN GEE

Van du Vin Carlyon Beach on the south coast of Cornwall is hosting a number of intimate wine tastings on the beach over the summer run by local wine expert Clio Collar. On the evening of 1 July, Clio will be serving up a selection of Rieslings from her Van du Vin (a Mercedes Sprinter van converted to house a bar and wine-serving hatch). Clio feels the Reisling grape variety has been much overlooked, and has been since the 1980s in favour of other varieties like Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio. “This is a real shame,” she says, “because Riesling is actually one of the most incredible and versatile grape varieties and produces wines with unique flavour profiles, intense aromas, outstanding freshness and a natural acidity that allows the wines to age for decades in the bottle.

“In the tasting we’ll be trying very different wines from Germany, France, USA and Australia in styles that will give you aromas and flavours of nectarine, apricot, peach, pineapple, lime, lemon, honeycomb, rubber and… petrol!

This may sound unappealing, but don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!”

Clio’s Reisling Wine Tasting will start at 6pm, then afterwards a bonfire will be lit on the beach and food will be available from pop-up installations run by Ostraca and Sam’s.

Carlyon Beach, Friday 1 July at 6pm. Tickets (£20-£27) are available from Cornish Riviera Box Office.

Food with a view Porthminster Kitchen is offering a new private dining service in two boutique apartments above the restaurant.

Guests can indulge in very special breakfasts, lunches and dinners served in the comfort and privacy of their apartment, which overlooks the harbour and St Ives Bay. The restaurant serves its own particular refreshing and playful take on Cornish cuisine, made from fresh local ingredients. The apartments are let by Luxury St Ives. porthminster.kitchen

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Cool box It’s time to dig out the pretty baskets and wafty dresses and pack a picnic. And to add panache to your alfresco feast, Trill Farm has come up with a picnic-inspired Summer Seasons Box. Everything in the box has been made or grown at Trill by the community of small businesses that work there and share the collective ethos of healthy, responsible and sustainable living.

Alongside a selection of inspiring picnic recipes, the box will be filled with: • Trill summer soap • Summer relief spray • Summer body oil • Protective hair oil • Wooden picnic bowl • Beeswax picnic wrap • Citronella candle • Trill speciality herbal summer tea • Broad bean bundle from the Trill garden • Set of picnic preserves by Trill’s chef-in-residence, Chris Onions • Summer cordial by award-winning chef Daphne Lambert Trill Summer Box is available to order now. It costs £85 and will be dispatched at the end of June. trillfarm.co.uk

Small beer It’s just a year since John and Jess Magill started producing craft beer at Powderkeg Brewery and they have already brewed 150,000 pints. “We’re doing something we love, so it doesn’t all feel like hard work,” say the Woodbury Salterton-based brewers. “Our customer list reads like a list of the top spots to hang out in Exeter and beyond. We have also made inroads into Bristol, where we’re up against a swathe of cool new breweries, but John’s well-honed beer stands up against any of them.”

Traditionally, Devon has been a brown bitter county but the Brewers Association now defines nearly 200 distinct beer styles, of which maybe six or seven were being produced in Devon before the craft beer renaissance.

“We’ve been keeping the beers different and interesting without pushing the boundaries too far,” says Jess. “Our two core beers are Cut Loose pilsner and Speak Easy pale ale, and we have two specials at the moment: a deep and smooth six-month matured pale ale with citrus notes called Citra VSOP (4.3%), and a new IPA called Mosaic RyePA (5%). The addition of rye adds a spicy note while the Mosaic hop adds tropical fruit flavours. Watch out for a cooling summer special brew coming soon.” powderkegbeer.co.uk

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The Table Prowler The Cornish Arms, St Merryn I was joining the party a day late. The ‘party’ comprised my own family minus me and another. In The Cornish Arms I was looking for a traditional little country pub and this was out of season – neither a bank holiday nor a school holiday weekend – so was surprised to find a pub with an enormous tarmacked car park chocka with 50 or 60 cars, many of which were deluxe 4x4s. Where were all these people? The little white-washed, slate-roofed Cornish pub visible from the road, it turned out, had an enormous modern extension at its rear, making it less a pub, more a mega-restaurant serving around 150 covers. And it was busy, with lots of London/Home Counties-looking types. I was confused for a moment, then enlightenment dawned: this was not a pub; it was a Rick Stein pub, hence the popularity. Locating the party, my seven-year-old greeted me warmly with a shiny, black, heartshaped pebble she’d found on the beach. It melted my own just a little before both families sat down to eat classic Rick Stein holiday fare: fish and chips, crab linguine and a hamburger with more chips. The fish and chips were just ok. The batter wasn’t as golden and crispy as it could have been – it needed longer in the fryer – and the fish, while clearly fresh, wouldn’t have suffered from more cooking. Presentation was poor, with the fish floating in a pool of very soupy mushy peas.

The chips came as an aside.

The linguine was very good, apparently, and the burger was delicious according to the eight-year-old and her mother who helped her eat it. The service was fast – we weren’t kept waiting, despite the fact that the place was heaving. It’s hard, though, for food not to

suffer in a mammoth restaurant, and ours had clearly been thrown onto the plate too soon. I’d happily have waited longer but this place was clearly a machine well-oiled to deal with the number of covers.

It was, the mums agreed, mediocre to good, which, from a global TV celebrity chef, was disappointing. On the plus side, The Cornish Arms is brilliant with families – our kids got up and down from the table throughout to play outside, and every dish could be sized to children’s portions. The desserts were also out of this world – chocolate mousse with honeycomb crunch taking the biscuit, so to speak.

Once back at the campsite, the campfire lit, I realized I’d left the heart-shaped pebble on the table. I jumped in the car and drove the 15-minute journey back to retrieve it. The table had been cleaned and re-laid. I asked the manager who said that he’d seen it and put it to one side (my heart leapt), then after five minutes emerged from the kitchen to say that, no, sorry, it had been thrown away (my heart sunk, but I remained hopeful). He looked at me askance, and explained that they weren’t sure in which bin and that it would be covered in leftovers. Hope now firmly abandoned, I’m afraid this further coloured my impression of The Cornish Arms: too oversized to be delicious, and serving too many people to care about one little person’s heart-shaped pebble. rickstein.com/eat-with-us/the-cornish-arms Food 7 | Service 8 | Ambience 8 | Location 8

The Springer Spaniel, Treburley, Launceston There are a lot of good pubs serving good food in West Devon and I’ve eaten in a good few of them, but I had never heard of The Springer Spaniel. The recommendation came from a friend, whose opinion on culinary matters I trust, and when I found out it has been acquired by MasterChef winner Anton Piotrowski, I was keen to pay it a visit at the earliest opportunity. Although not resident chef, Piotrowski has developed the menu.

Located in Treburley, a hamlet near Launceston, the pub is decorated in calm, earthy colours without being overly shabby chic and it was pleasing to see locals drinking at the bar, at which we started the evening. My wife and friend each had a berry and mint mojito from the Waggytail Cocktail menu and I enjoyed a cold pint of Springer Pilsner while our 15-year-old son perused the soft drinks selection. The cocktails got the thumbs up and were sipped while we waited to be shown to our table.

There’s a choice of the tasting menu or a la carte and we went for the latter. It’s a joy sometimes to have a limited but intriguing selection of dishes and after the usual changes of mind starters were chosen. My wife and friend were very pleased with their crab salad, pea panna cotta and apple, which was light, refreshing and full of flavour. Son’s maple-glazed pork cheek was soft, sweet and unctuous, but he found the sweet potato and mustard fritter a little rich for his young palate. I had the crispy frog’s legs with a wild garlic and parsley dressing, which was beautifully piquant. I was reluctant to share, but gave in when our friend declared she had never tried them. A look of ‘still not sure’ crossed her face as she nibbled on the tiny drumstick.

The ramen glazed short rib of beef almost had a clean sweep in the main dish choice, with only me not tempted. I chose the wood pigeon,

which I love. The two breasts were a touch overdone for my taste, but the heart and pork crackling-coated leg were excellent, and the slightly bitter turnip fondant helped cut through the rich flavours. The beef came with the biggest chips any of us had ever seen, triple cooked to perfection. The meat itself was generous in size, but slow cooked so that the gentlest prod from the fork caused it to slip from the bone. All declared it delicious, but again the robustness of the dish defeated Son, and put paid to him having dessert.

Ah, dessert. He made it on MasterChef, and I was excited to see it on the menu – Piotrowski’s signature dish Treby’s Gone Carrots. It was presented in a terracotta pot and featured a real baby carrot poking up through chocolate ‘soil’ with a scoop of citrus sorbet on the side.

The waitress then placed a small ‘garden’ in the centre of the table and after telling us the story of the pudding’s creation, liquid nitrogen ‘mist’ floated out from the foliage to recreate the weather on the night Piotrowski got his inspiration. The drama meant the two of us who had ordered the carrots didn’t take much notice of my wife’s sticky toffee pudding, and when we took our first bites we pretty much forgot about everything else, especially when, to our delight, we discovered the chocolate soil contained popping candy. We both agreed – it was the best pudding we had ever tasted. Full stop.

And there’s not much more to say. The prices were very reasonable, atmosphere convivial and service excellent. But that pudding… thespringerspaniel.co.uk Food 9 | Service 10 | Ambience 8 | Location 8

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Signature dish PHOTO: LAURA ANDREWS

Naomi Devlin is a nutritionist and unashamed foodie. Using wholegrains and sourdough cultures, she loves to get excited about the flavourful possibilities of free-from and runs courses in gluten-free baking at River Cottage Cookery School. Naomi lives in Bridport with her husband, son and a ginger cat in a sustainable house they built themselves.

“One of my favourite childhood memories is scrambling around blackberry bushes with my mum, clutching an increasingly full carrier bag. A fruity pie with buttery wholemeal shortcrust was the inevitable result of our berry-picking trips, accompanied by a feeling of triumph at having snaffled something so delicious for free. When I found out that I had coeliac disease many years later, it was my mum’s nutty pastry I craved most and yet struggled to find amongst the bland white commercial gluten-free products for sale. After many crumbly experiments and tears of pie-less longing, I found that I could combine gluten-free wholegrain flours, almonds and linseeds into a pastry that was actually better than the original (sorry Mum), malty and delicious with just the right amount of shortness, yet sturdy enough to contain those juicy blackberries. In place of a pastry top, I covered the berries in a generous helping of muscovado frangipane and a handful of flaked almonds. I like the frangipane only just cooked, still a little gooey where it meets the blackberries, more of a pudding Bakewell than the icingtopped versions of Mr Kipling.

“Ten years on, you can find me at the award-winning River Cottage Cookery School, sharing my hard-won gluten-free knowledge with coeliac sufferers, curious foodies and chefs looking to expand their repertoire to include something delicious and gluten free. Bakewell tart is a perennial favourite, although the filling might be rhubarb or raspberries according to season, and at Christmas the tart gets a layer of boozy mincemeat instead. Pastry can be daunting and gluten-free pastry even more so, but I always relish the chance to spend time in a cool corner of the kitchen, coaxing flour and butter into the taste of home.

Blackberry bakewell tart Serves six INGREDIENTS

• • • •

Butter for greasing ½ quantity sweet shortcrust pastry or almond pastry (recipe oppositie), chilled Tapioca or potato starch for dusting 1 egg, beaten, for brushing

For the dressing

• • • •

250g blackberries Grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon 40g light muscovado sugar, to taste 2 tsp cornflour, blended to a paste with 1 tbsp water

For the frangipane

• • • • • • •

100g ground almonds 40g potato starch (or an extra 25g ground almonds) 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder 100g salted butter, softened 100g light muscovado sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 large eggs

For the topping

• 20g flaked almonds EQUIPMENT

• 23cm loose-bottomed flan tin METHOD

Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6 if using 112

MANOR | Summer 2016

shortcrust, or 180°C/Fan 160°C/ Gas 4 for almond pastry. Butter the sides of the flan tin; line the base with parchment.

For the fruit filling

Put the blackberries, lemon zest and sugar into a small pan and cook until the juices have run and started to reduce a little, 10 minutes or so. Add the cornflour paste and cook, stirring, until thickened. Set aside to cool.

Roll out the pastry between two sheets of cling film dusted with tapioca or potato starch and use to line the flan tin. Prick the base with a fork. Trim off the excess pastry. Line the pastry case with parchment and baking beans. Bake ‘blind’ for 10 minutes, then take out the parchment and beans. Brush the pastry case generously with beaten egg and bake for a further five minutes until golden and cooked through. Let cool. Lower the oven setting to 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4, if necessary.

For the frangipane

Sift the ground almonds, potato starch, if using, and baking powder into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and beat well until smooth and fluffy.

Spoon the fruit filling into the pastry case, spoon the frangipane on top and level the surface. Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake for 50 minutes, or until the frangipane is cooked. To test, insert a skewer into the frangipane layer: if it comes out with no wet crumbs clinging, it’s done. Serve warm or at room temperature, with cream if you like.

food Almond pastry Makes 450g (1 quantity)

Almonds are wonderful in pastry, lending the centre a satisfying chew and crisping the outside much like a toasted nut. Coconut flour gives a chewier crust – I prefer mine made with desiccated coconut. The pastry is easier to roll out between two sheets of baking parchment or cling film, dusted with tapioca or potato starch. If the pastry becomes sticky as you roll it, chill again once rolled flat and then line your tart, or squidge it into the case with your fingers. This pastry will work as an alternative to shortcrust in any of the tart recipes, but it is too delicate for pasties and turnovers.

For sweet pastry

• • • • • • • • •

250g ground almonds or coconut flour 50g light muscovado sugar 30g arrowroot or tapioca starch 20g ground linseed 1 tsp ground psyllium husk A large pinch of sea salt 45g cold unsalted butter, lard or coconut oil 1 medium egg 1–1½ tbsp water

METHOD

Blackberry bakewell tart

River Cottage Gluten Free by Naomi Devlin features 120 ingenious recipes for breakfasts, bread, pastry, soups, salads, snacks, main meals and puddings. As well as those featured here it also includes prosciutto and egg muffins, blinis with crème fraîche and smoked salmon, leek and bacon quiche, courgette hummus, luscious lemon cake and chocolate fondants. It’s available to buy from rivercottage.net

Sift the ground almonds or coconut flour, sugar, arrowroot or tapioca starch, linseed, psyllium and salt into a bowl and rub in the fat with your fingertips.

Beat the egg in a separate bowl until frothy, then add just enough to the pastry mix with 1 tbsp water to bind. Bring the dough together using your fingertips or a fork to avoid warming the fat and knead the dough lightly. Add up to another ½ tbsp water if it is crumbly.

Chill the pastry for several hours before rolling out.

The pastry freezes well for up to two months. Defrost overnight in the fridge and use chilled.

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Space

The best architecture in the South West Shopping for space | Designer’s Q&A

PHOTOS: CHARLES HOSEA

Outhouse, RIBA’s South West Building of the Year

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On 29 April 2016, The Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare played host to the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) South West Awards 2016.

T

he evening was hosted by Michael Holmes, Content Director for Centaur Media, and amongst the sizeable audience assembled for the three-course gala dinner there were 16 expectant architect firms, shortlisted from 49 initial entries, with projects stretching from Gloucestershire to Cornwall.

Ten projects were to be awarded a RIBA South West Award 2016 and five named category winners, including the South West Building of the Year and South West Architect of the Year.

The winning projects varied widely in terms of brief, and we showcase five of the winners: three domestic residences, including Building of the Year; one educational establishment (which also won Architect of the Year); and one public service provider, namely a motorway service station. Alongside each we outline the brief and summarise what, in the words of the judges, made the building award-winning.

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OUTHOUSE Architect: Loyn and Co Architects Date of Completion: January 2015 Client company name: Private City/town: Brockweir, Gloucestershire

PHOTOS: CHARLES HOSEA

First up, Building of the Year went to Outhouse, a purposebuilt, highly sustainable home for two artists, constructed as a replacement dwelling in a remote location within the Forest of Dean.

Commissioned in 2010, the brief was to create a live/work dwelling that was sensitive to the site and met the clients’ needs. This included their passion for the landscape and environment along with their requirement for two artists’ studios and a gallery-like space to display their art collection and lifetime’s worth of special belongings.

From the outset the surrounding natural environment provided the primary source of inspiration for the proposals. The form of the building is derived from the landscape (the slope, trees, levels and the views) and from the site history. The single-storey, low-lying replacement dwelling is embedded into the site, cut into the slope of the hillside.

The footprints of the three existing buildings on the site have been conserved and converted in the new dwelling from ‘inside’ to ‘outside’ spaces; the encompassing roof created by continuing the existing upper field along and over the building. This provides a highly insulated, intensive green roof as well as linking and binding the spaces together.

While the footprint of the dwelling is significantly increased, its visual impact is considerably reduced, hidden from view from the north. The internal accommodation arranged around the ‘inside outside’ courtyards is organised and split by a central gallery space with the artists’ studios set into the hill served by north light.

Keith Brownlie, chair of the jury, said: “The design eloquently and effortlessly tackles many familiar issues: the blurred relationship between interior and exterior space, the penetration of light into a deep single-aspect plan, the control of sustainability without flaunting it. It had us at ‘hello’.”

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PLYMOUTH SCHOOL OF CREATIVE ARTS Architect: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios Date of Completion: March 2015 Client Company Name: Plymouth School of Creative Arts Plymouth School of Creative Arts was procured under the government’s Free School programme together with the English Cities Fund who which owned the site and is sponsored by Plymouth College of Art. The budget for this school was at an all-time low and required a very creative approach to the interior and exterior to respond to the very high aspirations set by the client, the site owner and Plymouth City Council.

Intensely committed input from the whole team supported a remarkable outcome: school architecture for children aged four to 16 built for £1,450 per m2 – two-thirds the figure for typical Building Schools for the Future project.

Construction began in October 2013, with the school being fully occupied in March 2015. The 6,920m2 building contains functionally specific zones, such as its theatre, teaching kitchen, labs – all substantially glazed on their internal faces – and a dance studio and recording/music rooms.

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School-building is not only an architectural issue, but a societal, political and educational issue. The Red House, as it has become affectionately known, tells the story of a very special school. It embraces some unconventional teaching methods founded in arts and culture where knowledge and creativity can flow between teachers and peers. Three interlocking spaces create clarity, legibility and a unique teaching atmosphere. There is no ‘art room’, art is made everywhere. The school’s values guided the design of this building, and the building reciprocated by putting those values on show. This school could be a new prototype for creative learning.

It is a building of the arts, a gateway to Plymouth, and a new heart to the local community.

Brownlie said, “This is an intelligent design and the architects’ success in delivering a great project on an extraordinarily constrained budget and programme is recognised and applauded by the jury.”

This project also picked up Architect of the Year for Andy Theobald, making it two years in a row for the Bath-based practice to win Architect of the Year.

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PHOTO: PERCY DEAN

PHOTO: PAUL MILLER

GLOUCESTER SERVICES Architect: Glenn Howells Architects Additional Architect: AFL Architects Date of Completion: May 2015 Client: Westmorland Ltd Gloucester Services is a game-changer in the motorway service industry. Located between junctions 11a and 12 on the north and southbound sides of the M5, the project consists of four buildings: two main retail facilities and two petrol stations. It is the brainchild of the Dunning family, founders of Westmorland Ltd, who opened their first Motorway Service Area (MSA) at Tebay, Cumbria, in 1972.

Glenn Howells Architects (GHA) were appointed in January 2009, planning was achieved in December 2010 with the northbound site opening in June 2014 and southbound in May 2015.

GHA worked with the client to design buildings with minimal impact on the immediate landscape, the views and the environment.

The buildings are designed to virtually disappear into the surrounding landscape under a wildflower roof.

Locally sourced materials were used along with traditional craftbased skills. Internally, the timber roof is exposed and the retaining walls are dressed in Cotswold dry stone.

Gloucester Services also champions its locality through the

homemade food served in its cafés and farmshops. The business works with around 130 local (within 30 miles) and over 70 regional producers to actively source local produce. The building is set out simply with the servery at the heart, and visitors are drawn then to the glazed rear of the building and into a garden space to enjoy the wider landscape of the Cotswolds.

The beauty of the project is that it dispels preconceptions of a traditional MSA. Gloucester Services rejected the generic approach of typical motorway service areas that have little or no relationship to their regional or environmental context. Unlike any other MSA, Gloucester Service has become a local amenity with visitors also enjoying access on foot and bike, to take advantage of the unique environment and local produce on offer.

From parking to departure, the project is designed to be peaceful and separate from the motorway. The value may be hard to measure but this intangible benefit delivers an inimitable sense of place.

Brownlie said: “Not since the glorious infancy of the British motorway network, when motorists would travel to the perceived sophistication of motorway services, has a new example of the type itself been worthy of the journey, if even the stop.”

This project also won Client of the Year, awarded to Westmorland Ltd.

PHOTO: PAUL MILLER

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PHOTOS: JAMES MORRIS

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space THE OWERS HOUSE

while balconies shade the lower floor rooms. From the west, the upper timber level sits atop a chalky brick base to appear to ‘float’. To the northern side, a flat-roofed living room incorporating kitchen, dining and utility spaces, projects out into the site in a dramatic cantilever above the dropping site – so that the living room gains fabulous views out across the estuary.

Architect: John Pardey Architects Date of Completion: December 2014 Client: Private City/town: Feock, Cornwall Sitting on the banks of the Fal Estuary, the site faces west with views south towards the sea. Immediately below the site lies the Grade II listed house Creek Vean, designed by Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, then practicing as Team 4. Built in 1966, it is perhaps the finest house built in the 1960s in England. The presence of such an important modernist house immediately below the site sets a very high standard indeed.

The design of The Owers House takes a cue from Creek Vean in splitting the house into two distinct elements – a bedroom/study wing that sits along the contours, and a living wing that runs against the slope. A bridge provides access into a glazed hallway between these two forms.

The building appears as a slightly mysterious ‘blank’ walled house onto the lane, with a bridge inviting entrance into a glazed atrium via a solid front door concealing the view until opened. The walls are clad in a dark timber cladding, heightening the sense of mystery and evoking traditional tarred Cornish fishermen’s buildings. To the southern side, a two-storey wing contains bedrooms and study spaces. Bedrooms are fully glazed and set back beneath an over-sailing roof offering,

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space SAND DUNES Architect: Arco2 Architecture Ltd Date of Completion: July 2015 Client: Private City/town: Newquay, Cornwall Embedded within the Cornish landscape sits this locally crafted house aptly named Sand Dunes. A new-build residence, with a contemporary presence, formed using local craftsmanship and materials.

This family holiday home has been designed carefully within the context of the surrounding coastal landscape and adjacent buildings, aiming to sit seamlessly within the scenery. Sand Dunes comprises three buildings: the main house for family living, along with a guest annexe, and a pool house. The main dwelling is a two-floor, sixbedroom house, with living accommodation on the ground floor, bedrooms and bathrooms on the first. The further two buildings are made up of a guest annexe and pool house, with the three

Cornish stone with reclaimed Delabole slate at first floor. The first floor walls and roof of the main building and ancillary annexe and

interconnected buildings posing an interesting juxtaposition, with a varying use of natural materials cladding their exterior facades.

Due to the outstanding ‘sand dune’ location, a key objective was to frame the sea/ landscape views, connecting the building to the ever-changing beachscape below. Particular interest was taken to ensure sea views were not obstructed for the properties behind.

The site is subject to the full force of the Atlantic; with this in mind, traditional locally sourced Cornish materials have been used wherever possible. The main building is externally clad in local

pool house comprise a pre-insulated space frame panel system developed and made in Cornwall, containing 300mm of dense reclaimed sheep’s wool.

Sand Dunes has greatly contributed to the rapidly changing landscape of Mawgan Porth and helped to set a precedent for development within the cove, utilizing contemporary building techniques, yet promoting links to Cornish history through its use of traditional materials.

Brownlie said: “Quite simply it made the judges happy.”

PHOTOS: MARK ASHBEE

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24A West Street, Ashburton, Newton Abbott, Devon TQ13 7DU

Tel: 01364 653613 www.barnesofashburton.co.uk MANOR | Summer 2016

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Al fresco living As summer approaches, our focus on living shifts outdoors. Invest in al fresco cooking, refresh your garden furniture, and pretty it up with light floral touches – of the real and printed variety. Remember the candle-lit lanterns and sumptuous throws for when the night draws in and you’re gathered around the fire pit. Compiled by Phoebe Tancock.

Bench, Marks and Spencer, £149

Marks and Spencer

Vase, Homesense, £7.99

Botanical Tealights, Homesense, £12

Picnic Hamper, Marks and Spencer, £59.50

Throw, Next, £70

Dinner Set, Next, £30

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Jug, Marks and Spencer, £19.50

space Morso Grill Forno, Hearth & Cook, Exeter, £595

Hammock, Amara, £71

Deckchair, Amara, £165

Lantern, House of Fraser, £18

Tealight Holders, Next, £14 Cushion, Next, £14

Sofa, Marks and Spencer, £499

Chair, Marks and Spencer, £249

Throw, House of Fraser, £85

Lantern, Lorraine at Home, £29

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Q&A Edmund Stephens is a designer and cabinet-maker, highly regarded for a level of craftmanship that delivers both elegance and practicality to the luxury market.

Having studied Furniture Design and Craftsmanship, he spent six years working in a professional workshop before founding Shawstephens in 2006 (Shaw is his maternal grandmother’s name). Ten years on, his workshop has expanded considerably – he now manages a team of six designers, with projects and commissions for collectors and design agencies across the UK, Europe and America.

Who is your market?

We work directly with private clients, often through their interior designers where long-standing relationships are formed over several years. We also work with multi-disciplinary design agencies where our work may comprise the new identity of a luxury property developer or beautiful packaging for an awardwinning whisky distillery. Our catchment has grown over the years; traditionally, all our work found its way to London and the Home Counties, whereas now we’re also working closer to home in the South West. We’ve also recently completed projects in New York, Sicily, and the Swiss Alps.

What are you currently working on?

Much of our work is planned and commissioned months and sometimes years in advance, so at any one time we might be working on several pieces of furniture in the workshop, with projects at design development stage in the studio for the following year. At present we’re working on two properties in Salcombe: refurbishing a master bedroom and making a collection of freestanding furniture. Six faceted leather columns are midassembly, destined for an incredible New York apartment in August, and we’re about to start work on a rather special bespoke kitchen in London. What we do is pretty diverse, but always pitched at the luxury end of the market.

Murphy Dining Table

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What are your key/trademark pieces?

I can’t say we have a particular piece we’re known for, although we designed and made a wooden diving board for a pool house several years ago, which always seems to capture people’s imagination. I enjoy combining our cabinetmaking skills with complementary materials and craftspeople, so there is nearly always an element of bespoke metal or leatherwork incorporated into our furniture. Perhaps it’s our ability to draw on a trusted network of artisans to complete the more complex pieces that might be seen as one of our key attributes.

What has been your most challenging project?

We were commissioned to make a panelled library for a private client in North London. At the time, it was the largest job we’d been involved in, and presented technical and logistical issues from day one. It combined traditional frame and panel work in American black walnut, with leather and bronze detailing, which all needed to fit together perfectly over walls nine metres long.

We fitted panelling and cabinetry around beautifully carved stone arches, and installed a hidden door accessing a secret hallway. From start to finish, the project ran for almost three years, and I learned a lot about planning, schedules and running a large commission from a distance. I’d love to tackle it again now, with a few more years’ experience, but it was a fantastic project to be involved with.

space Why would people use you rather than go elsewhere?

Our clients come to us to commission exclusive bespoke pieces.

Nearly all of our work comes through recommendation and repeat business, so the reputation and portfolio we’ve built over the past ten years certainly gives new clients the reassurance that we’re good at what we do. I also believe that we bridge a gap between the ‘one-man bands’ and much larger commercial workshops, meaning we’re small enough to be able to adapt to every bespoke brief, and big enough to cope with sizeable projects without too many layers of project management.

Who in particular has been a source of inspiration for you?

I was mentored by Lulu Lytle of Soane Britain as part of Walpole’s Crafted Programme a number of years ago, which helped me focus on the idea of my business becoming a luxury brand as opposed to a furniture-making workshop. We’re still on the journey but Lulu really inspired me to promote our skills as British artisans and that true luxury is inextricably linked to traditional craft skills.

Diving board

What would be a dream job?

A dream job might involve a collaboration with a British heritage brand, combining our design and making skills with luxurious materials and innovative detailing to create an heirloom-quality piece for exhibition. shawstephens.com Castle Point Cabinets

Investment at Bovey Cas!e Bovey Castle has seen the first phase of a bedroom refurbishment with 22 individually styled rooms redesigned in a subtle, restful scheme featuring a pastel pallet.

Features of the rooms include, comfortable oversized beds, sumptuous soft furnishings, full size breakfast tables for in-room dining’, bathrooms with marble tiling, granite detailing and walk in rain showers, as well as family friendly rooms with adjoining children’s rooms.

Luxury Break Enjoy a two night getaway staying in a new room, with breakfast on both mornings and dinner in the Great Western on one evening.

Prices start from £559 for two nights, based on a couple sharing a classic room.

Terms & conditions apply. Book your refurbished bedroom at Bovey Castle by calling 01647 445007 & quote ‘Manor Magazine’.

North Bovey, Devon, TQ13 8RE T: 01647 445000 E: info@boveycastle.com www.boveycastle.com /boveycastlehotel @boveycastle MANOR | Summer 2016

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UNLOCK THE DOOR TO YO U R L U X U RY P E R S O N I F I E D

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Escape 48 hours in...Seville | Carn Cobba, a Cornish holiday residence in a stunning location

The Royal Bathroom in the Alcรกzar of Seville

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escape

Great food, fantastic culture and lashings of glorious sunshine, the Andalucian capital has it all. Words by Imogen Clements.

Plaza de EspaĂąa, Seville

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eville must rate as one of my favourite destinations. I confess: I’m a certified Hispanophile, having lived there for three blissful years, and this capsule city has everything I love about the country.

Firstly, there’s sunshine, which is something to be aware of – it gets very, very hot. Only mad dogs and Englishmen go on holiday to Seville in the high summer months. You will spend most of your time inside and the rest shadow-hopping or submerged in a pool attempting to cool off. To enjoy Seville at its best and not in a constant state of profuse perspiration, go in the autumn or the spring – top and tail your summer.

Secondly, there’s the food. Spanish tapas, consumed al fresco with a glass of heady Rioja or a cool, dry Albariño, has to be one of life’s greatest pleasures. The Spanish excel at it and I would always choose tapas over any sit-down three-course meal when in Spain. There is an abundance of choice. As a Spaniard once pointed out to me, London is shop, shop, shop, more shops, bar, whereas Spanish cities are bar, bar, bar, more bars, shop.

Seville, in my opinion, all the more so, and serving some of the best tapas in Spain, better even than that more famous gastronomic hotspot, San Sebastian.

Worthy of note is La Bodega, a highly popular, somewhat harshly lit, large tapas restaurant, which has a sizeable kitchen serving an extensive menu of tapas at very reasonable prices. It may be characterless in décor, but it’s the food that counts, and you know a good tapas bar by the speed and straight-faced efficiency of the bar staff – all invariably men, all racing back and forth taking and delivering orders like their pay was dependent on it. There is no chat beyond the barking of orders between staff. This is the business of tapas done well. Despite the lightning service, there were people straining at the bar for the staff ’s attention, such is the popularity of La Bodega.

One of the best and oldest tapas experiences in Seville is served at El Rinconcillo on Calle Gerona.

Established in 1670, it is said to be Spain’s (not just Seville’s) oldest restaurant – the bar has changed little in the last hundred or so years and still serves quite delicious fare, particularly the Espinacas con Garbanzos (chickpeas and blanched spinach infused with garlic) and Pavías de Bacalao (large chunks of salted cod, battered). The fino is the aperitif to kick off proceedings, best consumed with a dish of olives or a media-ración plate of Jamon Ibérico, claro.

If you’re after more glamour and people-watching while perched at a table al fresco, head to Casablanca for 3pm tapas. Casablanca is adjacent to Seville’s famous cathedral and opposite the spectacularly beautiful Alcázar. Again, a highly professional bar, a little more glossy that El Rinconcillo but equally tasty – try their famous Tortilla a la Whisky – chunks of Spanish omelette that have been sautéed in a garlic whisky sauce.

Migas

Tortilla al whisky

Spanish tapas, consumed al fresco with a glass of heady Rioja or a cool, dry Albariño, has to be one of life’s greatest pleasures.

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A carriage waiting by the Giralda

Gardens of the Alcรกzar

Orange trees

Cathedral ceiling

Hotel Casas del Rey de Baeza

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Flamenco dancers at rest

Relax and Recharge The almejas are equally exquisite, although there is the large version (bigger than mussels) or the smaller, and for me more agreeable, coquina.

From your spot on a corner table of Casablanca, you can view the horse-drawn carriages trotting past, carrying tourists on scenic tours around the city. “Pah, such a tourist thing to do,” my younger self would have scowled. But my older, less self-conscious self, thought, “Shall we?” I can vouch that touring Seville in a leather upholstered elegant trap pulled by a beautiful horse is something everyone should do at the beginning of their stay in the city. It is decadent; restaurants pass you little copas of wine as you trot past and you get a quick look at all that’s worth seeing in the city, so that you can prioritise. It’s a lovely way to travel and the drivers give you a commentary on each of the key landmarks. It costs ¤50 for 45 minutes – frankly, money well spent.

And so, to laying your head. I have been to Seville several times and on the last three occasions have stayed at the Hotel Casas del Rey de Baeza. It is stylish without being lavish, the bedrooms boast elegant, pared down décor (with, in our case, French windows that opened onto the courtyard below) and, best of all, there is a small but sufficient rooftop pool with bar. A pool in Seville is advisable – you will want to sit out in the sun, and

by March and well into October it’s warm enough to do so in a swimsuit. After a hard day’s climbing the famous Giralda (minaret) of Seville Cathedral (one of the oldest and the third biggest church in the world), and swooning at the extraordinary Moorish beauty of the ancient Alcázar Palace, you will want to rest by the pool for a couple of hours before heading out to watch some flamenco.

Yes, flamenco. I know, I know, it sounds corny, but to see flamenco done well, don’t pay through the nose at London’s Peacock Theatre – get a flight to Seville instead. There is touristy flamenco and there is the raw, guitar-pumping, floor-stomping passion that you really only see in Seville, the birthplace of flamenco. It is some of the most spine-tingling and soul-stirring I’ve watched.

So that’s it, in 48 hours: food, wine, culture and unfettered sunshine, all easily accessible and wrapped up with a healthy dose of Andalucian alegría! I can’t wait to get back there.

Open for Day Spas, residential packages and membership Sunday lunch £22.50 per person Non-residents most welcome for morning coffee, cream teas and meals throughout the day

This family-run country house hotel on Dartmoor is bursting with traditional character and friendly service from people ready to make you feel at home.

South Devon Hotel of the Year 2015 AA Silver Award 2015 Spa and Wellbeing Experience,Visit Devon Awards 2015

Ilsington Country House Hotel NEAR HAYTOR, DARTMOOR

Ilsington Village, Dartmoor, Devon Tel: 01364 661452 www.ilsington.co.uk

Allow yourself to imagine a simpler, more beautiful place, like nowhere else in England.

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HOW TO GET THERE British Airways fly five times a week from London Gatwick to Seville Airport, operating on Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. britishairways.com

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Carn Cobba is the perfect base from which to explore the magic of the Cornish coastline. Words by Fiona McGowan.

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ennor Head is a part of Northwest Cornwall that is steeped in history and mystery. Along this section of coast, the greenstone cliffs and rock outcrops are interspersed with velvety green hillsides falling steeply down to sandy coves and narrow, rocky zawns. Perched at the head of a steep fold in the coastal rim is a long, low building that follows the contours of the land. This is Carn Cobba, one-time home of author and bibliophile Eric Quayle, and now a rather fabulous holiday residence.

The location is both secluded – it is a good few hundred yards down a narrow track beyond the clustered houses of Zennor village – and accessible: it’s only a few minutes from the coast road that winds its scenic way to St Ives, which is just four miles away. The cosmopolitan harbour town offers art, culture and good food in abundance.

Eric Quayle’s book of Cornish folk tales, Magic Ointment, beautifully illustrated by Michael Foreman, features myths of pixies, fairies, giants and witches set in the environs of West Penwith. It is no surprise that such legends came to the fore in a landscape such as this. The grounds of Carn Cobba are magical and liminal – the lawn around the house drops away steeply to a series of grassy terraces enclosed by stone walls and abutted by a rushing stream. There is no child who would not be captivated by the landscaping of little granite bridges, hidden twists and turns, fairy dells and paths leading up and down the bracken-clad hillside. A large pond – 134

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coated in springtime with a black blanket of tadpoles – sits just below the house, glittering in the sunlight and offering melancholy beauty on the greyest of days.

The gardens are very much an attraction of Carn Cobba: no matter what the weather (and it is variable in this part of the world), they provide an adventure for families, and a pleasant place to stroll. Walk to the very lowest terrace through the semi-tropical plants, and a small wooden gate exits straight on to the South West Coastal Path. Right below is the stunning inlet of Zennor beach, with its striking clear turquoise waters.

The path curves sharply downwards and then away to the west, towards Gurnard’s Head, where a fantastic gastropub provides a welcome respite to those venturing further along the rise and fall of the clifftops.

The house itself is like an echo of the landscaping of the grounds. Once again, this is particularly beloved by children: it is a maze of corridors and rooms, all decorated in a homely yet super-high-end style. The centrepiece is the large living room with a massive wraparound bay window and a soft, circular seat that invites you to lounge on its scattered cushions. The views out across the lawns and down to the sea are exceptional on a clear day. Even when the sea mist presses up against the house, or the rain draws in curtains beyond the windows, the layers of garden give the place a sense of magic. With two ‘wings’, each containing its own set of bedrooms and luxurious bathrooms; a converted loft space with an

escape office, living area and further bedroom; and a basement living room, there is enough space in the house to be comfortable no matter what the weather. With all this room, it would be ideal for extended families or larger groups coming to stay – without ever getting on top of each other.

The literary provenance of the house and its previous owner are resonant in the many bookcases bursting with reading material – it is hard to resist a yearning to browse the shelves and curl up on a sofa for hours… Or perhaps take a handful of paperbacks outside and pick your way along grassy paths to a pair of steamer chairs in a stonewalled alcove overlooking the gemstone inlet far below.

With all that space to explore and relax in, it could be tempting to stay put, perhaps with the occasional foray down to the cove below. Only a five-minute walk away is the Tinner’s Arms: a welcoming pub with a large garden and a great atmosphere. The Chapel Café in Zennor is a delight, too – sit inside the lofty converted chapel, or out in the big back garden, and enjoy an array of teas and homemade treats. St Senara’s Church dates back to Norman times, and is central to the legend of the Mermaid of Zennor – in which a mysterious woman with a gorgeous voice seduced ‘the best singer in the parish’. He followed her home one day, and they were never seen again. After a sighting of a mermaid soon afterwards, the locals concluded that the mysterious woman was, in fact, a mermaid. Today, visitors can see a church bench which was carved with a mermaid to commemorate the story.

This is one of the most delightful sections of coast path in the whole of Cornwall – its dramatic drops and dips, cliffs and coves, bright gorse and teeming wildlife making it visually stunning, as well as an inspiring (and challenging) walk. For those looking for more of a challenge, Bosigran cliff, a 10-minute drive west of Zennor, is a great placed to learn to rock climb. Even absolute beginners and youngsters can get roped up and scramble perfectly safely up routes here: local outdoor activity companies such as Lizard Adventure will provide expert guides to give guests the experience of a lifetime.

If all that’s a bit too hardcore, there are masses of activities to be found in and around the nearby coastline: from strolling around the quaint streets of St Ives to playing golf on the links with incredible views at Lelant, or just pottering about on the sandy beaches and coves.

Cornish Gems has a wide selection of luxury accommodation in the region, including Carn Cobba: cornishgems.co.uk For rock climbing, kayaking and coasteering, contact Lizard Adventure: lizardadventure.co.uk The West Cornwall Golf Club is an 18-hole links course at Lelant: westcornwallgolfclub.co.uk

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Charlotte Dear hits the open road in the new Porsche 718 Boxster.

A

s a journalist, one gets briefs many and varied.

There are those that take you a while to get inspired by, and there are others that are best described as dream briefs – the ones that take you into a parallel world that you will probably never occupy, but in which one must immerse oneself fully to accurately convey the experience to the reader. It was with that professional attitude that I embraced the instruction from the Editor to test drive the new Porsche 718 Boxster.

Nigel Hadaway, Porsche Exeter’s Manager, greets me on a sunny Wednesday afternoon with keys in hand and leads me to the neat, black, Boxster convertible that will be mine for a day.

Is there such a term as ‘auto-erotic’ with reference to cars, rather than, well, the self? Or perhaps the self, in reference to cars? Ahem. No matter, but I apologise for the occasional seemingly auto(motive)-erotic statement. It seems they’re unavoidable when describing sports cars such as these.

I turn the ignition switch and the roar of the four-cylinder turbo-charged engine sends a thrill down my spine and triggers a smile on my face (see what I mean). I’m already filled with a whole new sense of auto-bliss, and we’re not even moving.

It’s a warm spring day so taking the roof off is a must.

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Like James Bond, I can do this with the touch of a button while moving. It takes a mere nine seconds while travelling at a speed of up to 30mph (any faster and you’d risk taking off, presumably). The moment I exit Marsh Barton and hit the open road, this car is willing me to go faster, as if it knows there’s the space. It’s champing at the bit to prove its 0-60 in 4.5 seconds and show off its top speed of 177mph – such a shame that UK speed cameras mean this is one experience I’ll never know.

We are in Devon, so I decide to head to Dartmoor National Park which, as everybody knows, is our South West equivalent to the Colorado desert for blissful open road driving. With my Porsche navigation on – displaying the route not just on the central touch screen but also on my instrument display – I head west. As I drive, I’m comforted by the relatively few number of buttons on offer: everything within my reach seems fairly self-explanatory, from the multi-function sports steering wheel to adjust the music and send me into sport mode or sport plus for every type of nippy overtaking, to adjusting my heated seat. Following the gentle bends that wind through Dartmoor’s craggy landscape, past medieval farmhouses and groups of ponies, I get the impression that the

promotional feature

The drive is so receptive that this is what driverless cars might feel like in a few years, and yet I am anything but out of control. car feels just as at home and connected to its surroundings as I do. The drive is so receptive that this is what driverless cars might feel like in a few years, and yet I am anything but out of control. The engineered chassis and mid-engine design make for a perfectly balanced drive – this is a car that is as agile as it is biddable.

As I pull up at a traffic light, I feel a touch self-conscious in a car that is demonstrably more powerful and prestigious than the one I’m used to. That said, I smile and don’t feel the least bit inclined to mouth “it’s not mine!” to the white van driver alongside, who is admiring my sleek Porsche styling and the purr of my mid-mounted sports exhausts. Instead, for the sake of you, dear reader, I adopt and embrace my new persona, turn up the stereo with a cool scroll of a thumb on the steering wheel and enjoy my sweet but brief taste of this lifestyle. As I do so, my mind begins to wander: what other aspects of my life might be like in this new parallel universe – I’d be wearing much more expensive shoes for starters.

Fortunately, from my position behind the wheel, no one can see my shoes – dead giveaway.

Home for me, and my Porsche tonight, is a beef and arable farm. Now very used to my new wheels, and with noticeably less ground clearance than I’m used to, I expertly slalom the potholes and piles of mud, before heading off-road to herd up the remaining cattle for the evening feed… only joking, Nigel – there was no off-road, honest!

The Boxster is perhaps not the most obvious choice for farm use, but it is also by no means a city car, or to be saved for special occasions. As two-seater sports cars go, this is a practical choice to be enjoyed in everyday life. The front and rear boots make it just as functional for a weekend away or for collecting a child from school, complete with sports bags and a hockey stick. Although you will still need an estate car to pack up the whole family for those further afield staycations.

When the time comes to relinquish my new friend, I reluctantly pull up outside the Porsche showroom in a bay next to another beautiful beast, and notice that even the parking sensors adopt a cool, calm and collected tone. Nine seconds later and the roof is back in place, and as I lock the door behind me with just the touch of my finger on the handle, I’m tempted to stroke the car before I leave it. Having handed the keys back to Nigel slowly, I steer my somewhat inferior carriage away from that splendid, smooth, stimulating and stylish piece of engineering that is the Porsche Boxster, and head home to write it up.

The 718 Boxster is available from £41,739; the 718 Boxster S (as driven) is available from £50,695. Contact The Porsche Centre Exeter to arrange a test drive. Call 01392 822800. porsche.co.uk/718

Flights to over 30 destinations this summer for business or pleasure

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In Help Your Child at Home, Professor Ruth Merttens provides parents with advice on how they can assist their children’s learning. In the eighth part of this exclusive series for MANOR, she focuses on helping teenagers with reading.

T

he first thing that needs to be established in relation to teenagers, is why it is important for them to read – not just to be able to read, but to actually spend time reading.

Reading is the single skill of most significance when it comes to not only educational or academic success but also professional achievement and employment. If young adults can’t or don’t read, they are less well-informed, less able to participate in higher education and much less likely to succeed. So reading is, quite simply, vital.

Secondly, reading enhances emotional and mental well-being. This is especially so in relation to narratives.

Stories – of all types and genres – enable us to re-cast the experiences of others as our own. We share in another

person’s pain, pleasure or curiosity. This is especially true during our teenage years. Adolescents are exploring their own boundaries. They are investigating questions of identity, their own and other people’s. They are also hungry for new experiences. Narratives of different sorts provide safe and varied ways of doing all these things. Without engaging in dangerous liaisons or life-threatening activities, they can exercise their own inquisitiveness and nosily pry into the intimate details of other people’s lives.

Then there are pragmatic reasons why reading is useful when bringing up adolescents. It makes lots of things easier, from homework to travel. Listening to an audio book, on CD or downloaded, transforms a long car MANOR | Summer 2016

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journey or helps us to relax before sleep. A story started coming back from Granny’s can be finished lying in bed, sometimes by reading the second half of the book. It is said that the secret of patience is to have something else to do whilst you are waiting, and personally, I am never without my e-books! Waiting for the train can become a positive pleasure as it enables me to finish my chapter!

Teenagers are easily bored – and reading fends off boredom! Once the immersion has occurred, once they are ‘hooked’, they have a perpetual defence against tedium.

SUPPORTING STRUGGLING READERS Even at the age of 13 or 14, there will be some pupils who have failed to develop the ability to read fluently and easily. It is absolutely crucial that they do acquire this fluency, and so parents, as always, have a key role to play.

Unfortunately, secondary teachers of English are not trained to teach reading, so they do not always have the expertise required to help a struggling reader. It may be necessary to talk to the pupil’s tutor about locating this know-how elsewhere in the school, since each teenager’s needs are so different. Some have simply not grasped the principle of phonics – namely that the sounds that come out of our mouths can be written as graphemes (letters) on paper to form written words. In this case it is helpful to go back to basics and introduce a sustained phonics

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programme – there are now age-appropriate ones available. Other struggling readers are able to decode the text – i.e. read the words – but this takes such effort and is so slow that it is hard to keep the sense flowing. What these children require is practice and lots of it; reading texts appropriate to their age but also of the right level so that they can begin to improve the speed and fluency of their reading.

It is absolutely worth putting effort into this, and I have found that bribes help a lot! We know that particular adolescents really improve their reading in leaps and bounds once they start reading frequently. So if they get a cash incentive to read each book, the bonus for them is clear, and the improvement in their fluency will make each subsequent book easier to read. We have then reversed the downward spiral of ‘it’s too hard and so I don’t read’ where their fluency never improves. We now have a positive upward spiral where each book read has made it more pleasurable to read the next one. Plus their confidence is enhanced and this again increases the pace of improvement.

ENCOURAGING TEENAGE READING Sadly, it is probably now a majority of 13- or 14-yearolds who fit the category of ‘can-read-but-don’t’. Again, a bribe may help to kick-start a change of attitude here.

But, mostly, it is about persuasion rather than command – teenagers are susceptible to rational argument, even if it is the ‘argument’ part that turns them on, rather than the ‘rational’ bit! Reading, I assure them, is pleasurable! You can be nosy – discovering intimate details about characters (who sometimes remind you of family or friends). You can be curious to find out what happens, turning the pages ever faster. You can be inquisitive, wanting to find out exactly how something works or just everything about a particular football team or type of music.

In persuading reluctant readers, I also appeal to self-interest. No-one succeeds in education if they are not able to read longer texts rather than just snippets.

And later on, in getting and sustaining a good job, your general knowledge and ability to display not merely literacy but a degree of literateness and familiarity with literature will be crucial. Reading makes you articulate; it gives you both things to talk about and the vocabulary to talk with. It also widens your experience and extends your horizons. Reading helps us, in the words of Paul Celan, “cast nests north of the future�. We can imagine different possibilities, explore the ‘what-if ’ scenarios, and create new ambitions. It also provides a ready means of escape from the ‘here-and-now’. It is no accident that we can be described as ‘lost in a book’. Books allow us to dive out of our situation and into a wholly new world.

Sometimes parents complain to me that their teenager is only ever reading on their iPad or tablet and never has an actual book in their hand. The important question here is ‘what’ are they reading? Is their reading basically

school restricted to short texts, small clips of information or gossip? Are they just reading extracts, and never the whole thing? Do they simply read when they need to know how to do something or want to check a fact or event? If so, we have a problem, as reading only short texts will never produce the benefits, educational or emotional, discussed above.

The trick is to move your teenager along from reading ‘snippets’ to reading books. These can be virtual or hard copy, it doesn’t matter, but they must be books – longer, well-structured narratives, biographies or informative texts. And once teenagers find a book they really enjoy, of whatever type, it will be far easier to convince them of the benefits of reading.

SOME ‘DOS AND DON’TS’ • DO read yourself. This is the single most influential factor in keeping teenagers reading. If you read, if you enjoy books and are seen by your children to talk about them, discuss them with others and generally enthuse, the chances of your adolescent child reading are greatly enhanced! So if you haven’t yet got into books yourself, start now!

• DON’T think that because your adolescent is constantly reading short snippets on their phone or tablet that will do. Not just the educational but the emotional and intellectual benefits of reading only accrue from reading longer texts – novels, stories, biographies, longer information texts, reports and so forth. So encouraging them to read books, either virtual or hard-copy, is of the essence.

• DO share audio books, either online, downloaded or on CD. Once your teenager is gripped by an audio book, it is a very short step to reading it. And listening to books, especially if they are not abridged, gives many of the benefits of reading – enabling them

•

•

•

•

•

both to share the experience of others and to become more literate.

DON’T be fooled into thinking that what we read on the internet must be true. Encourage a healthy scepticism in your children. How do we know that what we are reading is factually correct? What is its provenance? From what source is the author getting his/her information? We want to inspire a generation of critical rather than compliant readers.

DO provide a wide variety of different types of text for your teenager. We stick poems around the house, encouraging any family member who comes across a good one to stick it on a mirror in the hall. This also applies to ‘quotes’ or newspaper cuttings. Poetry especially appeals to this age group, as it’s a genre where the writer can ‘do more with less’, as Hardy put it.

DON’T allow only virtual texts. Paper has its place, and it is a different experience reading a book in hard-copy from reading it in electronic form. Both are fine, but if children never experience real books, if they never read print on paper, they become familiar with only one medium, and lose the sense of books as important cultural artefacts.

DO remember that many so-called children’s books, e.g. Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, are wholly suitable for adolescents and adults. Indeed, each of these three appear in collections of adult literature as well as children’s.

They are very suitable for your teenager – and total page-turners!

DON’T forget to keep reading yourself – for pleasure. Encourage your teenager to read for pleasure! There is a very real enjoyment in being lost in a book that, once discovered, is likely to stay with them for life.

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school GAMES AND ACTIVITIES These activities help children to act as literate people – discussing, puzzling over and joking about books, using their knowledge of characters and titles, and expanding their vocabulary.

Which word?

Preparation: you will need a dictionary, A6 pieces of paper and pens.

H for Harry Potter

This is a really good car game as no materials are needed!

Here are some suggested words where adolescents may not yet be sure of the meaning: Anathema, audacious, cartel, dichotomy, facsimile, garrulous, histrionic, infamous, jubilant, lampoon, monocular, novice, pedantic, peccadillo, reciprocal, stipulate, temperance, univocal, volatile, winsome, zenith

To play • Player A thinks of a fictional character. This character can be human, animal or fantasy (like a robot). They can be in a book, film or TV programme. They can be dead or alive!

• Once they have thought of their character, they say the initial letter of the name, e.g. S (if their character is Smaug) • The other players try to guess the character they are thinking of BUT they can only guess it by asking questions themselves.

• Each player thinks of a character beginning with that letter. E.g. Tom might think of Snape from Harry Potter.

• They ask Player A a question about the person they are thinking of. E.g. Are you the potions master at Hogwarts?

• If Player A can guess who they are thinking of, they can say “No, I am not the potions master.”

• But if Player A cannot think who they are thinking of, they give up. Tom then reveals his character, e.g. Snape.

• Player A then has to give everyone a clue. E.g. I am not human.

• Players continue thinking of characters beginning with that letter, e.g. S, and asking questions until they either guess the character or else have enough clues to work it out!

Look up some more of your own!

Play again!

Bet on a book

Charades

Best played with three to four people but can be played with two.

To play • Take turns to look up one of the words below.

• Without anyone seeing, write a simple definition on a piece of paper.

• Now write an invented definition on another piece of paper.

• The other players have to guess which is the correct definition. They each vote.

• Players get a point for being right. You get a point if they are wrong!

• Let a different person look up a word and write the two definitions (one real, one invented).

Preparation: you will need pieces of A6 paper and a pen. Also each player needs a stack of small denomination coins, e.g.

1ps, 2ps or 5ps.

A good game for supper time – can be played with 4 or more To play • One of you thinks of a book title.

• You write the title on a piece of paper but you miss out three quarters of the letters. You try to provide at least one word in the title with its initial letter.

• You then place the title and one or two coins in the centre of the table. (The money is your bet that they won’t guess it.)

• Players have ONE minute to look at the title.

• Each player then bets that they know the title. If they are very confident, they can bet two coins. If they are less confident, they bet one coin. If they don’t know, they don’t bet.

• Once the bets are in, go round the table. Players write the title on a piece of paper then hand it to you.

• You check. The pot of money in the middle is shared between those who are correct.

• Another player takes a turn to write the title.

This is a Victorian parlour game and it is still very popular!

It is a great evening game, with snacks and drinks and the more players the better. The game has certain conventions for number of words, sounds like and so on – these are easily found online.

To play • Everyone writes three or four book, film or TV programme titles on separate pieces of paper. Each piece of paper is folded so you can’t see the writing.

• Place all the folded papers in a hat.

• Players take it in turns to take a piece of paper. They open it and read the title.

• They have to mime the title – no speaking!

• They first indicate if it is a film, book or TV programme by miming using a cine camera, opening a book or drawing a square in the air to represent a TV. • Then they hold up the number of fingers required to indicate the number of words in the title, e.g. six fingers for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

• Then they either mime each word or mime the whole thing.

• The other players can shout out guesses as soon as they think of them.

• Once the title has been guessed, someone else has a turn.

• Continue playing till the hat is empty.

HELP YOUR CHILD AT HOME PART NINE In the next part of this exclusive series, Professor Ruth Merttens will focus on helping your teenager with writing. If you have missed an issue and would like to access a part of the series, please write to school@manormagazine.co.uk

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Informal and relaxed.

Stylish and quirky.

Tranquil and secluded.

Introducing a very special Cornish wedding venue that’s all fun, no fuss.

For more information or to book a viewing contact: jane@petiteweddings.co.uk www.petiteweddings.co.uk or call Jane, on 07411 117294 MANOR | Summer 2016

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BIGBURY ON SEA, South Devon

â– Guide

Price ÂŁ1,750,000

Only a few paces from the wonderful beach at Bigbury this stunning property has just been refurbished to an extremely high standard with a luxury feel throughout. A superb holiday let investment opportunity.

EPC Rating E. Web Ref 91962.

Magnificent breathtaking panoramic sea views | Contemporary 5 bedroom house | Garage and Boat House For further details please contact our Prime Waterfront & Country House Department on 01548 855590

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Property The Bulletin | Property of note: Seal House, Dittisham, Devon Snapshot comparative

Barnabas House, Darmouth, Devon On the market with Marchand Petit. Guide price: ÂŁ695,000. See page 159 marchandpetit.co.uk

MANOR | Summer 2016

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NEAR EXETER, South Devon

â– Guide

Price ÂŁ3,250,000

A spectacular Grade II Georgian country house in the finest English countryside with meticulous interior design including a swimming pool, sauna, gym, tennis court, cinema room, snooker room and beautiful landscaped gardens. No EPC required. Web Ref 81904.

Superb Country House | Wonderful gardens of approximately 7 acres | Excellent access to A30 and Exeter For further details please contact our Prime Waterfront & Country House Department on 01548 855590

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property

The Bulletin What will the results of the EU referendum mean for the South West’s housing market?

Charlotte Dear consults the experts.

O

n 23 June, British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens over the age of 18 who are resident in the UK, along with UK nationals living abroad who have been on the electoral register in the UK in the past 15 years, will vote to decide whether Britain should leave or remain in the European Union. As campaigners on both sides fight to achieve as many votes as possible, conflicting threats and promises can obscure our judgment and cast a haze over the right course of action. So what could Brexit mean for the South West property market?

As ever, there is a lot of “on the other hand…” with this one. Britain Stronger in Europe campaigners fear a Brexit outcome will trigger financial shock, causing a crash in confidence, business investment and a short-term drop in GDP of 1-2%. Weaker real incomes would therefore result in a fall in house prices and a substantial hit to the property market. Lower immigration as a result of Britain’s exit from Europe would also translate into a decline in housing demand, forcing prices down further still.

There are those, however, who feel that a Brexit could turn out to be not so bad for the South West property market in particular. Unlike London, the South West is not typically a region of foreign property investment, so the effects of a fall in European house buyers in the UK might not necessarily reach as far as the West Country. As Prunella Martin of Marchand Petit explains: “Rather than the Russian investors of the capital, the top end of our property portfolio mainly consists of expat buyers with a five-year plan to return to the UK. Having spent happy childhood holidays in Cornwall or Devon, a nostalgia for this corner of the country is quite often the driving force behind these clients’ investments.”

Together with those looking to up sticks and relocate to the South West from abroad and the Home Counties, Brexit could also mean a boost to the property market when it comes to second and third home buyers.

According to Peter Symons, Senior Property Partner at Stags, “The concern for the London market if we do exit is that less European money will be coming in, which could in turn affect us in the South West. Conversely, this outcome could also mean that fewer British buyers will be looking to invest on the Continent, choosing instead to buy property in the UK, and more specifically in the South West.”

Whatever the result of the referendum, it’s likely to be the debate that is the most influential force when it comes to the property market. As Jonathan Cunliffe of

Savills explains, “History shows us that all too often it is the uncertainty itself before such an event that is more damaging than any outcome. Markets hate uncertainty more than anything else. For those who say house prices will crash, look at Norway and Switzerland, where property is hardly cheap. We just don’t know, but one thing is for sure, it will be good to have any uncertainty behind us.”

So is the South West property market suffering the damage of this national uncertainty? According to James Baker of Strutt and Parker, when it comes to the core market of properties worth between £200,000 and £800,000, this doesn’t appear to be the case: “Although I predict a possible pause just before the referendum, when it could be a good time to buy, we have not noticed a change yet. When it comes to waterside homes in particular, buyers aren’t going to let any political event stand between them and their dream home, and for that reason prices will stay the same. If we leave, there could be a period of uncertainty for six months or so, but by 2017 the prices will have recovered. We British worry too much – despite the darkest fears surrounding the Stamp Duty change, a market pause only lasted a week or so before returning to normal. In this area, there will always be a high demand for property.”

Perhaps it is too soon to call, but the common stance towards the referendum, whatever the outcome, is one of optimism. The South West might suffer along with the rest of the UK for a brief spell, but it is going to take a lot more than a Brexit win to discolour the lure of the West Country.

MANOR | Summer 2016

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Salcombe, Devon

Stunning Salcombe property with far reaching waterfront views.

Kingsbridge 6 miles, Exeter 46 miles (London Paddington 2 hours 4 minutes) (All distances and times are approximate) A stunning new build property in an elevated position on the edge of Salcombe. The flagship property in the best position within the Batson High View development. 4 bedroom suites, 4 reception rooms, garden, terrace, double garage and parking.

Guide Price ÂŁ1,250,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/ EXE160032 148

MANOR | Summer 2016

To find out how we can help you please contact us. christopher.bailey@knightfrank.com 01392 976832

Kingston, Kingsbridge, Devon

A charming, rural family home in a peaceful location Modbury 3 miles, Bigbury-On-Sea 5 miles, Kingsbridge 8 miles, Plymouth 14 miles (All distances are approximate)

To find out how we can help you please contact us. mark.proctor@knightfrank.com 01392 976832

This lovely barn conversion offers flexible accommodation, an impressive garden and far-reaching views across the rolling South Hams countryside to the sea in the distance. The property has 6 bedrooms and an adjoining 2 bedroom annexe. EPC: D

Guide Price ÂŁ975,000 KnightFrank.co.uk/ EXE130218 MANOR | Summer 2016

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property of note

With breathtaking views over the River Dart, Seal House in Dittisham offers the best in contemporary waterside living.

Words by Charlotte Dear.

K

evin and Sue Jelley moved to Seal House in the South Hams three years ago and set about restoring, extending and transforming the 1950s property into the stylish four-bedroom waterside home it is today. The couple previously lived on the other side of Dittisham village, so this was not a big move for them but it was a sizeable undertaking – renovating the somewhat tired building to make the water its focal point took nine months.

Seal House has been carefully and considerately designed for outdoor living and every last detail has been planned with the waterside location at its core, from the portholes in the entrance gate and front door to the vast deck beyond. As you step out of the openplan kitchen through the large glazed doors onto the wrap-around, wood-panelled terrace, the nautical influence is prominent, something that Sue is proud to describe: “We always say it’s like living on the bow of a boat – because we’re raised up, when you sit down for a cup of coffee and look through the railings to the river, the garden below disappears and it’s just you and the water. Thanks to the nature of the plot, it is an extremely private place; aside from the odd kayaker passing by, you never feel overlooked.”

The interior is packed with contemporary and quirky features, from the curved wood-panelled ceiling of the entrance hall to the open-tread spiral staircase in the kitchen. “We’re not interior designers but we’ve always enjoyed renovating houses and we designed the whole thing ourselves,” says Sue. “This is definitely not a minimalist house – we’ve filled it with lots of shapes, quirks and textures, and very little white paint!”

It is clear that Kevin and Sue designed the open-plan 40ft kitchen and living area with both modern living MANOR | Summer 2016

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When you sit down on the terrace for a cup of coffee and look through the railings to the river, the garden below disappears and it’s just you and the water.

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property of note

and entertaining in mind. Bespoke solid walnut cabinets and marble worktops are interspersed with state-of-theart Miele appliances, which include a steam oven, coffee machine and Grohe boiling water tap, conveniently situated on the breakfast bar, allowing for a spectacular view of the river while doing the washing up.

The master bedroom, accessed off the main reception room, includes a walk-in wardrobe and ensuite with a stylish freestanding bath and large walk-in shower. Fullheight sliding glazed doors flood this room with natural light and open out onto the decked terrace, making it the perfect spot for a morning cup of tea. Two further double bedrooms share an ensuite shower room on the ground floor, while a mezzanine level above, currently used as a study, enjoys some of the best views through the signature eyebrow window.

Unsurprisingly, due to its cleverly considered design throughout, the house is also very eco-friendly. A thermal wrap around the exterior of the property retains the heat within, while underfloor heating throughout provides a warmth that can be easily adjusted when needed. The contemporary wood-burning stove in the sitting area is surrounded by heat-retaining bricks, making this space even more inviting after a long day on the water.

A self-contained annexe with an open-plan kitchen, sitting and dining room, bedroom, ensuite bathroom and French windows to the decked terrace adjoins the main property. This additional space can act as a private holiday apartment for friends and family or permanent accommodation for an elderly relative. “If you live in

Devon, people tend to come and stay for a lot longer than just one night, so it’s ideal for them to have a bit of space for themselves,” Sue explains. “It also means guests can make themselves a cup of tea in the mornings, which is great for us too!”

A detached pool house with heated swimming pool has been fitted with floor to ceiling sliding glazed doors, offering bathers views across the landscaped garden, whatever the weather. The sloped grounds lead right down to the water’s edge, with steps onto the beach and a public slipway running down the side of the garden. It is the perfect place to launch a sailing boat, rib or kayak. For those who prefer to stay on dry land, when the tide is out the River Dart Trail runs from the bottom of the garden, leading to an impressively scenic walk to Dartmouth over Fire Beacon Hill and along Old Mill Creek.

A short walk along the peaceful no-through lane will bring you to the picturesque riverside village of Dittisham. Complete with a village green, medieval church, sailing club, two pubs and the popular Anchorstone Café, this is a small village with a lot to offer and a distinct community feel. Dittisham also provides a seasonal passenger ferry service to the port of Dartmouth with all of its galleries, restaurants and boutiques – a handy way to avoid struggling to find a parking space during the popular summer months.

Seal House is on the market with Marchand Petit.

Guide price: £1,900,000. marchandpetit.co.uk

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NEAR DARTMOUTH, South Devon

â– Guide

Price ÂŁ875,000

An outstanding opportunity to purchase a prime coastal development site with a magnificent location above Slapton Sands and spectacular sea and coastal views across Start Bay. EPC Rating G. Web Ref 90357.

Spectacular sea views | Access to beach via the coastal footpath | Prime development site For further details please contact our Prime Waterfront & Country House Department on 01548 855590

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TOTNES, South Devon

â– Guide

Price ÂŁ1,350,000

Fabulous Georgian country house with well proportioned rooms, high ceilings and generous accommodation. Beautifully presented with many character features set in approximately 9 acres and located in beautiful rolling South Hams countryside. No EPC required. Web Ref 76990.

Superb Georgian country house | Local beaches nearby | 7 miles from Totnes For further details please contact our Prime Waterfront & Country House Department on 01548 855590

MANOR | Summer 2016

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PROPERTY & ACQUISITION AGENTS

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We value your home, not just your property.

At Wilkinson Grant and Company we work hard to get the best price for your property.

But it's what our dedicated team of professionals do above and beyond this that sets us apart. We understand how invasive selling your home can be for you and your family and take great care to make the process as smooth as possible from the start to completion all us to find out more

Exeter: 01392 427500 • Topsham: 01392 875000 www.wilkinsongrant.co.uk WORKING FOR PEOPLE. DEALING WITH PROPERTY. 158

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PROPERTY & ACQUISITION AGENTS

property

Snapshot comparative A selection of properties from around the South West along with a London bolthole for less than £750,000.

Barnabas House, Dartmouth Guide price £695,000

Devon

Barnabas House is a detached period property built for the Admiralty in the 1870s and was owned by the Crown Estates until the 1970s. The light and spacious accommodation is arranged over four floors and provides two reception rooms and three double bedrooms, one en suite. There are wonderful views over the River Dart from all the principal rooms and from the large decked terrace. marchandpetit.co.uk

The Close, St Veep, Lostwithiel Guide price £750,000

Cornwall

With five bedrooms and three bathrooms, The Close forms the majority of a former rectory in St Veep, a lovely hamlet not far from Fowey. The rectory is situated immediately behind the 14th century St Veep parish church, and although attached along one elevation, it has the feel of a detached house, with the gardens enjoying privacy, wonderful countryside views and a heated outdoor swimming pool. savills.com

Poole, Sandford, Nr Exeter Guide price £745,000

Devon

A Grade II listed, well-proportioned, four-bedroom thatched house in a tranquil location with superb views over open countryside. Set within 5.5 acres of its own land and approached by a private drive. The present house is early 18th century and is listed Grade ll, with parts dating back to the 16th century. The house has a detached garage block with an integral store and a separate self-contained studio flat above. savills.com

London bolthole

Flat A, Old Design Studios, Fulham Guide price £749,950 A two-bedroom, two-bathroom conversion maisonette with attention to detail throughout. This property has been completely redeveloped and the layout offers well-balanced entertaining space, a master ensuite with dressing area, a second ensuite and a separate cloakroom. Mirabel Road runs north off Dawes Road and is close to the shopping and transport facilities of Fulham Broadway. struttandparker.com

MANOR | Summer 2016

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KITCHENS

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Over 25 years experience

www.kkandj.co.uk INTERIOR DESIGN

Cornish Interiors

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&

Ashbury Hotels

0800 955 0285 activityhotelbreaks.co.uk Enjoy the grandeur and magnificence that Dartmoor has to offer on one of our 16 guided or self guided walks.

PLUS enjoy 70 SPORT, CRAFT AND LEISURE ACTIVITIES including: Golf on 7x18 hole course options Tennis on 8 Indoor & 5 Outdoor Courts 13 Indoor Bowls Rinks 17 Tutored Crafts including Pottery* Plus you can relax in one of our 2 state of the art HYDRO SPAS featuring Saunas, Steam Rooms,Hydro Pool, Spa Baths - FREE OF CHARGE! *Minimal material costs apply

October 4 Night Midweek Breaks from £295pp ALL BREAKS FULL BOARD EATING OUT

Father’s Day Weekend Treats 18th - 19th June Breakfast/Brunch • Gentleman’s Afternoon Tea • Father’s Day Lunch

Abbots Den Brasserie & Garden Room Restaurant Two dining experiences under one roof...you choose Lunches • Suppers • Snacks Award-winning Afternoon Teas

6 En Suite Rooms •Large Private Car Park

The

Salty Monk Sidford Sidmouth

t: 01395 513174 w: www.saltymonk.co.uk e: saltymonk@btconnect.com MANOR | Summer 2016

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BLACK BOOK

Peter Clements runs a marketing agency that specialises in film and is based in Dartmoor, Devon. Dad to two young children and slave to the sea (as a lifelong windsurfer and surfer), he shares with us some entries in his little black book.

We are lucky to live within walking distance of a beautiful stretch Gwithian must rate as one of Britain’s most beautiful of the Teign Valley. With its maze of woodland paths, steep beaches – a huge sweep of sand backed by dunes situated valley slopes, streams, rivers and craggy tors, I treat it as a wild between Godrevy Lighthouse and St Ives. St Ives flickers on playground for me and the children. No soft play area required a distant shore but here there is nothing but sand and sea, – here there is a multitude of activities: walking, picnics, cycling with the lighthouse calmly watching over you. We’ve lit fires expeditions, dens, treehouses, salmon spotting, owl listening, bird on the beach to toast marshmallows and watch the sun go watching, and new this year – down with a wine/beer, and adder spotting. We’ve been told by by day, of course, I revel in the the National Trust park wardens perfect surfing and windsurfing where they hibernate. That conditions that Gwithian remains a secret… provides.

Crowning the valley, of Located nearby are three course, is Castle Drogo. The of my favourite cafes: The castle’s good, but the gardens are Godrevy Café, The Blue breathtaking. As members, and Bay Café, serving excellent living nearby, we treat them as our coffee and cakes (many gluten own, playing croquet and tennis on free) from a converted shipping the lawns followed by ice cream or container high in the sand dunes, a cream tea in the National Trust and, further inland, Scarlet café over dominoes. in Lelant, whose unlikely Not top of everyone’s building is nestled between a Teign Valley bucket list, but special to me, is garden centre and an A-road Crediton. Work takes me there roundabout, but is home to an at least a couple of days a week amazing array of wines and and more often than not we deli produce straight from the find ourselves in the Crediton Med. There is a restaurant with Coffee Company. The coffee delicious Mediterranean-inspired obsessives that run this place make cooking and even the basic stuff, sure you always get a delicious like the tomato pasta that my brew, with Jack crafting the lattes, kids had last time we were there, and Dan meticulously making blew me away. minute by minute adjustments Polzeath is well known Surfers at Polzeath to the temperature of his roaster as a lovely beach and surfing to ensure the natural flavours of location, but it’s when you every variety of bean are carefully explore the beaches around it brought to life. An artisan that it really comes into its own. approach, so he tells me, that’s Daymer Bay is a short walk completely at odds with the tactics along the coast path to the west of mass market manufacturers (with rockpools and the magical and coffee shops where all coffee little St Enodoc church, where is dark roasted at very high Betjeman is buried. Head out temperatures to ensure consistency on the coast path to the north of flavour, regardless of the origins and you’ll come across Cowrie St Enodoc church, Daymer of the bean.

Bay – a place where we’ve spent And by some stroke of luck, there is also now, right next hours lying around, sifting the shingle looking for highly door in this pretty Georgian square, the Baobab Café, with prized (to us) cowrie shells. Then it’s back to Polzeath to the Eran bringing the very best Middle Eastern food to Devon.

Surfside Café for lobster burgers and craft beer, which you A fresh entry in my black book and double underlined, it also can enjoy outside on benches with sand between your toes. happens to be the most child-friendly café you’re likely to flotillamedia.co.uk come across!

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MANOR | Summer 2016

What Car? Best Coupé 2016.

The iconic Audi TT. Winner for the ninth time.

Exeter Audi

Denbury Court Marsh Barton Exeter Devon EX2 8NB 01392 825425 www.exeter.audi.co.uk Official fuel consumption figures for the Audi TT and TTS Coupé range in mpg (l/100km): Urban 30.1 (9.4) – 54.3 (5.2), Extra Urban 46.3 (6.1) – 70.6 (4.0), Combined 38.7 (7.3) – 62.8 (4.5). CO2 emissions: 168 – 116g/km.

The What Car? Best Coupé 2016 winning model is the Audi TT 2.0 TFSI 230PS Sport, £30,215 ROTR. Model shown for illustration purposes only is a TT Coupé 2.0 TFSI quattro 230PS S tronic S line available at £35,710 ROTR with optional metallic paint (additional £550 RRP inc VAT). Fuel consumption and CO2 figures are obtained under standardised EU test conditions (Directive 93/116/EEC). This allows a direct comparison between different manufacturer models but may not represent the actual fuel consumption achieved in ‘real world’ driving conditions. Optional wheels may affect emissions and fuel consumption figures. Correct at time of print (February 2016). More information is available on the Audi website at audi.co.uk and at dft.gov.uk/vca MANOR | Summer 2016

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MANOR | Summer 2016