EVERY WEEK
APRIL 6, 2022
Spring interiors special Cath Kidston, Robin Birley and Felix Conran
How to save your village pub Why our food depends on family farms ‘Summer is a-coming in: loudly sing cuckoo!’
Your indispensable guide to the capital
Mark Scott
THE NE W LONDON RESTAUR ANTS PUT TING A SPRING IN OUR STEP This time of year is synonymous with new beginnings, so April’s LONDON LIFE celebrates the myriad restaurants opening up across the capital (At a glance, page 32). Chef-led pubs, in particular, have been going from strength to strength. Unlike the gastropubs of old, the new generation is gloriously idiosyncratic, riffing as much on the interests of its founders as it does on traditional pub-grub tropes. In Notting Hill, Norma’s Ben Tish has opened The Princess Royal, or rather, re-opened it,
as it dates back to the late 1800s. Together with a Mediterranean-influenced menu that will delight fans of Mr Tish’s Sicilian-Moorish cooking, there’s a stylish oyster and crudo bar in the middle. It comes hot on the heels of James Knappett’s wood-panelled The George in Marylebone (pictured), where the upstairs dining room is pure comfort-luxe: there’s an English sparkling-wine bar and the menu takes classics to the next level, with steak tartare and hay-smoked egg yolk; homemade
wild-venison sausages with mash and onion gravy to follow. Meanwhile, 26-year-old Ruth Hansom is shaking things up at The Princess of Shoreditch, the only pub in London to be awarded three AA rosettes for its spectacular (and spectacularly good value) best-of-British tasting menu. And in Mayfair, The White Horse, from the team behind Michelin-starred Hide, styles itself as ‘London’s first wine-led pub’, with bottles from Hedonism Wines and seasonal small plates. Cheers! Emma Hughes
LONDON LIFE
News
The stage is set
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ONDON’S Donmar Warehouse is to stage a dystopian play in which a teenage jury hold their elders to account for crimes against the climate. The Trials, which is currently enjoying a run at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in Germany and will premiere here in August, is part of the Donmar’s just-announced summer season of performances. Other plays of note include the European premiere of A Doll’s House, Part 2, set 15 years after Henrik Ibsen’s original play, in June (www.donmarwarehouse.com).
All aboard
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HEN the new Elizabeth Line—also known as Crossrail—opens next month, passengers will be able to travel from Canary Wharf to Heathrow Airport in less than 40 minutes. The trains, which are capable of carrying 1,500 passengers (450 seated), can travel at speeds of up to 90mph.
A dam good time EAVERS are back in London after 400 long years. Two of the animals, which were hunted to extinction in the 16th century for their fur, glands and meat, were released into the grounds of Forty Hall Farm in Enfield to the north of the city, in mid March, part of a UK-wide experiment designed to help restore Nature and river habitats and reduce the risk of flooding. There are plans to install a ‘beaver cam’ once the couple has settled in so the public can keep abreast of their movements.
500
The number of days Hattie the cocker spaniel spent at the RSPCA’s Southbridge Animal Centre, earning the moniker ‘London’s loneliest dog’. In March, she found her forever home at last, with a couple in Surrey 22
Getty; Alamy; RSPCA; George Coppock; Chloe Hardwick
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News
LONDON LIFE
TUCK IN
Find your place
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HE carousel has finally stopped—and by that I mean the restaurant called Carousel has finally found a permanent space, on Fitzrovia’s Charlotte Street. The past few years have been a whirlwind for co-founders Ollie and Ed Templeton’s wildly successful pop-up, in which time they have welcomed a dizzying array of guest chefs and put on more foodie events than it was ever possible to keep up with. Staying put suits Carousel and its new townhouse digs include a wine bar, chef residency space, restaurant pop-up and private dining area (020–7487 5564; www.carousellondon.com). The wine bar is a triumph: the ‘best food I’ve had in London this year,’ exclaimed my dining companion. It’s a casual, tiled space populated with French bistroand high, bar-style seating. There’s a menu of minimum-intervention wines and delicious small plates: fresh, inventive and beautifully presented without ever looking pretentious. The chocolate mousse—and I do not say this lightly—is the best pudding on any menu in London right now. RP
Raise the bar
I Recommendations: potatoes, pickled onion, empirical hot sauce; chocolate mousse, hazelnut, olive oil
Changing plates
T Treat yourself
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ENT is coming to a close and with it the end of self-imposed, 40-day dietary requirements. Thankfully, there are plenty of brand-new sweet treats with which to reward yourself. In the past few days alone, Flor launched London’s first ‘laminated brioche bun’ and Crosstown Doughnuts has teamed up with Pip & Nut to create limited-edition ‘almond butter cinnamon scroll’ and ‘cinnamon scroll almond butter’ doughnuts (www.florlondon. com; www.crosstown.co.uk). Over in west London, Layla Bakery is gearing up for Alice Norman’s weekend-long residency. Her signature crullers—choux pastry, fluted, ring-shaped doughnuts—will be available on April 9–10 (www.laylabakery.com).
HE founder of Hunter Gather Cook, Nick Weston (‘Back to Nature’s basics’, May 19, 2021), has designed a special spring menu for Dalloway Terrace— The Bloomsbury hotel’s popular alfresco restaurant. The starter is potted trout from ChalkStream with wild horseradish and Firle Estate pickles; the main is fresh tagliatelle with creamed morels, threecornered garlic and nettle pesto and the pudding is a Champagne rhubarb and elderflower-fizz jelly with Jersey cream. Hunter Gather Cook is an East Sussexbased foraging and cookery school.For more details of the restaurant and foraging, visit www.dallowayterrace.com and www.huntergathercook.com
T may be important for cocktails to be ornate, delicate and complex, but it is not important for the bars in which you drink them to be so. La Goccia in Covent Garden, for example, is one such place (020–7305 7676; www.petershamnurseries. com/covent-garden/la-goccia-bar). The latest addition to the fast-growing Petersham Nurseries empire, it features an uncomplicated, well-lit room, inspired not by the speakeasies of 1920s America, but rather by the natural world. Here is a spot to enjoy superb seasonal cocktails packed with herbs and botanicals, in comfort, without judgement and at a reasonable price. How refreshing it is to enjoy a wellmade drink, with good company, and without the kitsch pomp that pervades so many other bars. JF Recommendations: White Daisy; Bitter Orange Blossom
LONDON LIFE Editor Rosie Paterson Editor-in-chief Mark Hedges Sub-editors Octavia Pollock, James Fisher Art Heather Clark, Emma Earnshaw, Ben Harris, Dean Usher Pictures Lucy Ford, Emily Anderson Advertising Katie Ruocco 07929 364909 Email firstname.surname@futurenet. com
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LONDON LIFE
On foot
Historical footprints In the first of a new London Life series exploring the capital on foot, Carla Passino visits the City of London and journeys back many centuries in time Illustrated by Fred van Deelen 26 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
On foot
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MPEROR TRAJAN, a man well used to hero worship, would have been put out at the tribute that modern Londinium pays him. Dwarfed by the remains of the Roman wall behind it, his bronze—an early 20th-century replica of a 1st-century marble—is not only modest, but also a Frankenstein mix in which the head doesn’t match the body. It only takes crossing a ruins-peppered subway to travel ahead 800 years to Norman times and a much mightier emblem of royal power: the Tower of London. ‘William the Conqueror,’ explains joint chief curator Tracy Borman, ‘wanted to subdue the “evil inhabitants” of London by creating a symbol of Norman domination over the native Saxons. I think he did a pretty good job of it.’ Over the centuries, the Tower became the backdrop to ‘terror, torture and bloody executions’ and enduring mysteries, including the 15th-century disappearance of Edward IV’s sons and the equally bewildering, but far less tragic case of Col Blood, the man who tried to steal the Crown Jewels. ‘Instead of being punished, he was pardoned by Charles II and given a generous pension,’ says Dr Borman. ‘This has led to speculation that he was a government spy or that he held a secret that Charles was anxious to keep hidden.’ But the Tower has also been the setting for many Jubilee celebrations—beginning with Edward III’s in 1376, when it was the starting point for a procession that culminated with a weeklong joust at Smithfield. Having marked the 70th anniversary of The Queen’s accession to the throne with a 62gun salute, it is now getting ready to pay her a floral homage: ‘Open from June 1 until September 18, Superbloom will see more than 20 million seeds fill the moat with a spectacular field of flowers.’ Roman Britain re-emerges from the bowels of the City at All Hallows by the Tower, in Byward Street, one of the few churches to survive the Great Fire unscathed. Age, luck and the foresight of some of its vicars have made All Hallows a treasure trove of intriguing artefacts, from a Roman pavement and a Holy Land altar to ancient parish registers that were stashed in a cistern at times of turmoil. But it’s the tiny crypt of St Clare that really captures the heart. Here, embedded on the south wall, is a piece of molten lead, a relic of the fire that almost destroyed the church during the Blitz.
LONDON LIFE
If All Hallows escaped the Great Fire only to endure German bombing, St Magnus-theMartyr, in Lower Thames Street, suffered from both. The two churches are separated by the length of Eastcheap, where a boar curiously peeks from under the arches of the former Victorian warehouse at No 33 —a reference to Shakespeare’s Boar Head’s Tavern, which once stood here. Towering behind the building is the curious shape of Rafael Viñoly’s’ Walkie Talkie’, its hypertrophic head projecting over the slender body. The skyscraper’s top three floors are home to the Sky Garden, thick with plants, but also bars and restaurants for refreshments seasoned with (literally) dizzying views of London. Closer to the ground, the Leadenhall market —once the Roman forum, now a Victorian masterpiece better known to the world as Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley—promises enticing, dairy-centric dishes at Cheese. Straight south from Leadenhall, St Magnus—the head of the old London bridge from 1176 to 1831—stands slender and white between the Thames and Pudding Lane. When a fateful spark caught on the flour at Thomas Farriner’s bakery on the night of September 2, 1666, it was the first City church to go up in smoke. Now, an ancient fire engine takes pride of place in the heavily panelled narthex, a relic of the 1704 rule that every parish should have firefighting equipment. But it’s St Magnus’s interior, rather than its fate, that captured T. S. Eliot’s imagination in The Waste Land: its ‘Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold’ a stark contrast to the ‘oil and tar’ sweated by the river and the soulless crowd, that earlier in the poem, flowed ‘down King William Street/To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours’. St Mary’s itself, which stands like an island parting Lombard Street from King William Street, is notable not only for Hawksmoor’s Baroque architecture, but also because it is a memento of the fight against slavery. One of its rectors was John Newton, author of Amazing Grace and a slave-ship captainturned-anti-slavery campaigner. He lived long enough to see the fruits of his efforts, with the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act coming into force in 1807, nine months before his death. Only a few steps from St Mary’s, St Stephen Walbrook, the church where the Samaritans was founded, rises on the same site that, in Roman Londinium, would have been a temple to Mithras. Sandwiched between Mansion
‘Age, luck and vicars’ foresight have made All Hallows a treasure trove of artefacts’
April 6, 2022 | Country Life | 27
LONDON LIFE
On foot
House, with its monumental proportions and Corinthian columns, and a curvy office building that seems inspired by the torso of the Michelin Man, it looks tiny and unassuming. Yet, ascend a few steps and any pretence of modesty vanishes into a circular marvel bathed in light, where a spare, round altar, sculpted by Henry Moore and surrounded by kneelers designed by Patrick Heron, sits under Wren’s masterpiece—an intricately decorated dome that was a model for St Paul’s. None of Wren’s grace and restraint appear around the corner in Threadneedle Street, where the Bank of England rams grandeur down every passer-by’s throat. Sir Herbert Baker’s wedding cake of a building—which replaced Sir John Soane’s Palladian original —was intended to match the Bank’s exalted role. However, its cornucopia of columns and caryatids didn’t encounter much praise: Pevsner called it the greatest architectural crime in the 20th-century City of London. Perhaps, in designing the Bank, Baker suffered from a compulsion to outshine Sir William Tite’s The Royal Exchange, another building that drips pomp from every corner. But if the pediment sculptures of merchants fashioned in the style of Classical gods are an arresting pastiche for all the wrong reasons, the giant, gilded, grasshopper weathervane
that tops the clock tower is endearing. It’s a reminder that much of the City’s trade has its roots in the genius of 16th-century merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, whose crest was a golden grasshopper on a green mound. A visionary impressed by the Antwerp bourse, he funded the creation of a London exchange, to which he added two floors of shops, complete with an all-important alcohol licence.
‘Ascend a few steps and any pretence of modesty vanishes into a circular marvel bathed in light’ It’s this retail heritage that remains alive here: much of the interior courtyard, now topped by a glass roof, is taken up by Fortnum & Mason’s Art Deco-inspired bar, perfectly colour-coordinated with the Tiffany & Co boutique behind it, and by windows sparkling with gemstones (Boodles, as well as Tiffany), watches (Bremont, Watchfinder & Co) and silver (the sinuous shapes of Georg Jensen). Even older than The Royal Exchange is another centre of the capital’s commercial power, Guildhall, in Basinghall Street, built in 1411 above cavernous crypts dating from
1042. It’s through it that London claims a venerable connection to ancient Troy. Story has it that it was none other than Brutus the Trojan, a descendant of Aeneas, who, having presided over the defeat of Welsh giant Gogmagog, went on to live in a palace built on the site. More modestly, but not less importantly, the area was home to a Roman amphitheatre, the ruins of which are visible from the Guildhall Art Gallery, which re-opens in April (Hawksmoor Guildhall is well placed almost opposite the gallery to provide meaty fortification). Remnants of London’s ancient past also crop up at the foot of the pedestrian network that links Guildhall to Cripplegate. Sneaking above the traffic, the high walks knit together Roman foundations and Saxon walls, the (medieval, albeit heavily restored) St Giles Cripplegate and today’s soaring glass-and-steel blocks, all sheltered in the Brutalist embrace of the Barbican, the hammered concrete walls of which, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the Blitz, are a mighty foil for the glimmering waters of the central ponds. On a lucky day, a rapper may improvise a performance on a walkway up above a crumbling bastion— a poetic tribute that Trajan might have appreciated more than his lacklustre bronze. For more details of the route and stops along the way, visit www.countrylife.co.uk
At home in City of London
Monkwell Square, £2.5 million Roman ruins can hardly get closer than to this house, which overlooks a landscaped square incorporating a section of the London wall. Entirely renovated by architects Inside-Out, it has two floors of living space and four bedrooms upstairs. The roof terrace takes in views across the square to the Barbican. Hamptons (020–3369 4371)
28 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
Crown Square, £6.9 million For striking views of the Tower of London, few places beat One Tower Bridge, on the opposite bank of the Thames. This four-bedroom home makes the most of the panorama, with floor-to-ceiling windows in the living and dining area, the separate kitchen and the main bedroom. Knight Frank (020–3944 6318)
St Katharine Docks, £2.25 million Situated 10 minutes’ walk from Tower Hill, this apartment overlooks the St Katharine marina and the Shard beyond. The open-plan living and dining area has floor-to-ceiling windows and a private balcony, as do two of the three bedrooms. Residents have access to 24-hour concierge service. Savills (020–7456 6800)
LONDON LIFE
The great and the good Here’s looking at London’s Necropolis Railway
Seasonal suggestions
• In 1854, the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company tried to gain a monopoly on London’s burial industry by opening a railway line connecting central London and Brookwood Cemetery, a graveyard in Surrey that was, at one time, the largest in the world • The trains utilised existing tracks belonging to the London and South Western Railway. When they arrived at the graveyard, the carriages were shunted down a dedicated line into one of two stations—one for Anglicans and one for non-conformists. The train compartments and station waiting rooms were also partitioned by both religion and class • Although the graveyard and railway line were built in response to London’s burial crisis—limited space meant that the oldest graves were regularly exhumed to make room for new bodies—the London Necropolis Railway was not a success. Between the opening date and 1941, an average of 2,300 burials took place every year, against an anticipated 10,000–50,000 • The London terminus was badly damaged in April 1941 and trains ceased to run. The building was sold off for office space, although the original façade (left) on Westminster Bridge Road remains
London really comes into its own in April. The weather normally plays ball and there’s a sense of space, because so many families disappear off on holiday. Make the most of it by travelling on foot where possible. What to do Watch the Wintershall Players’ free, full-scale performance of The Passion of Jesus, at Trafalgar Square on April 15 What to eat A pastry-to-go from Cédric Grolet’s counter at The Berkeley hotel—the famous chef’s first patisserie outside of France. Don’t leave it too late: M. Grolet’s trademark Noisette and Citron cakes are made fresh every morning and once they’re gone… they’re gone (www.the-berkeley.co.uk) What to buy Tickets to The Treehouse, a new hospitality experience at the Wimbledon Championships 2022. Enjoy food and drinks by Michelin-starred chef Tom Sellers and a viewing spot over Centre Court and No 1 Court (www.keithprowse.co.uk)
Shop of the month
John Sandoe Books
10 –12 BL ACKL ANDS TERR ACE , SW3
Open Monday to Saturday, 9.30am–5.30pm, Sunday, 11am–5pm (020–7589 9473; www.johnsandoe.com) 30 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
OWN one of the more charming tributaries to the King’s Road, John Sandoe has been keeping west London in everything from cookery to poetry since the 1950s. Today, it sprawls across three handsome 18th-century cottages, the windowboxes stuffed with hale geraniums. Inside, books (some 30,000 of them) are split across a hodgepodge of tables, lined up on shelves and neatly arranged on the narrow staircases. Readers jostle for the first-floor window seat. It feels wrong to get snagged on appearances, especially when the booksellers and selection are so top-notch, but the effect is absurdly lovely. The co-owner of Sandoe’s, Johnny de Falbe, hosts a popular podcast for the shop, with writers such as David Mitchell and William Boyd coming on to talk about their new releases. The shop also produces a quarterly catalogue that recommends newly published books across every genre for the current season—sign up for a free hardcopy or download it from the shop website. Jo Rodgers
Illustration by Polly Crossman; Getty; Alamy
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The great and the good
LONDON LIFE
M Y P L AT E O F V I E W
Luca, 88, St John Street, EC1
A green space R E D H O U S E , B E X L E Y H E AT H , DA 6
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T was the apple, cherry and plum orchards that drew William Morris to Hog’s Hole— the hamlet in which he built his country retreat, Red House. Today, these orchards are long gone, swallowed up by ever-expanding suburbs, but an oasis-like garden and small orchard remains. A huge, rose-smothered
tunnel bisects one side; elsewhere, there are cut-flower gardens, patches of wildflowers and a charming new Garden Snug, inspired by Morris’s own designs and those of his architect Philip Webb, framed by hawthorn hedges and hazel fence. Back in the orchard, head gardener Rob Smith works hard to propagate the trees. Natasha Goodfellow is the author of ‘A London Floral’ and ‘A Cotswold Garden Companion’ (www.finchpublishing.co.uk)
Psst... pass it on
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T’S been 22 years since 12 granite boulders from Struie Hill in Scotland were placed in Hilly Fields park in Lewisham, south-east London (currently The Mayor’s London Borough of Culture 2022), to celebrate the spring equinox. The stone circle—the stones themselves date back some 400 million years—is the only one of its kind in London.
London curiosities ON THE FACE OF IT
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NTRANCE to the former Guildhall School of Music on John Carpenter Street, EC4, designed by Sir Horace Jones 1885–87. The façade incorporates the names of great composers and terracotta panels of instruments over the side doors. JG
When you’re in the fortunate position of eating out several times a week for work, you can develop snow-blindness (yes, my diamond shoes are pinching). If much of what you eat is really good, your baseline for superb moves accordingly. At Luca in Clerkenwell, however, the word passed my lips on no fewer than half a dozen occasions during the course of a note-perfect dinner. The first one was when I walked in. A modern Italian that focuses on homemade pasta and the best seasonal British ingredients, Luca was opened by Isaac McHale and business partners Johnny Smith and Daniel Willis (of Clove Club fame) in late 2016. I visited soon afterwards, but somehow haven’t since, and I’d forgotten how utterly lovely it is. The warm mid-century wood and terracotta banquettes feel very Fellini and the lighting after dark makes taking photos near-impossible, which means it’s perfect for actually enjoying your food and each other’s company. There’s a pasta-making room, acres of marble and brass and a leafy terrace, too. We went for the £75 Prixe Fixe menu. The second ‘superb’ was prompted about five minutes after that by Parmesan fries. Chips dusted with sawdusty shavings are best left in the early 2000s, but these are nothing of the sort: think churros, molten within and Betjeman-burnished without, simultaneously the lightest and richest things you’ve ever tasted. Next, roast Orkney scallops with Jerusalem artichoke and nduja. They came in the shell, looking like something painted by Botticelli. The nduja had caramelised under the grill into a crisp yet fudgy, intensely savoury crust. We had ours with a glass of Krimiso Catarratto Aldo Viola, a Sicilian orange wine with marzipan notes that cajoled another s-word, together with wistful sighs. After that, there was no stopping me: the burrata with heritage tomatoes and tropea onions, the whipped salt cod, the smoked sheep’s ricotta ravioli, the Hereford beef fillet, all prompted superlatives. I won’t leave it five years before visiting again—and, next time, I might wear my diamond shoes. Emma Hughes
April 6, 2022 | Country Life | 31
LONDON LIFE
The great and the good
April at a glance We’re all guilty of ignoring what’s on our doorstep, so we’ve made it easier for you. Here’s what’s happening this month
Above: Pastry pleasure at Richoux. Below: Florentine dining at Trattoria Brutto. Bottom: Mexico comes to Kol
32 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
Top: Revived Richoux. Above and below: Tasty treats at Brother Marcus
Steven Joyce; Paul Winch-Furness / Photographer; Charlie Mckay; Steven Joyce
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N Notting Hill, The Pelican–a dog-friendly, oak-panelled pub on All Saints Road, W11– has finally opened after a long refurbishment and soft launch (www.thepelicanw11.com). Just down the road, The Ledbury has re-opened at the same site it vacated in June 2020 (www. theledbury.com). In Borough Yards, part of Borough Market, SE1, there’s already fierce competition for a table at Brother Marcus, an all-day-dining, eastern-Mediterranean restaurant and the third site from the eponymous group (www.brothermarcus.co.uk). In central London, Richoux is back at 172, Piccadilly, W1, after its parent company fell into administration in 2021. It had long struggled to keep up with competition in Green Park and St James’s and had become something of a gimmicky tourist trap, but new owners Jamie Butler and Lewis Spencer have promised to ‘create a Richoux that is relevant for diners today’ (www.richoux.co.uk). In Marylebone, you’ll find Kol, which creates mouth-watering Mexican food out of British ingredients. The burnt-orange walls and oxblood-red leather banquettes are like a much-needed dose of vitamin D (www. kolrestaurant.com). Finally, further east, there’s Trattoria Brutto, EC1, a Florentine trattoria that’s already winning rave reviews from critics (the £5 negronis might be playing a part) and the Caravan group’s latest outpost in Canary Wharf, E14 (https:// msha.ke/brutto; www.caravan restaurants.co.uk).
AHOY THERE LONDON LIFE
CITY SAILOR From Chelsea to the canals, Londoners are taking to the water in search of a more peaceful way of life. Jo Rodgers clambers aboard
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Photographs by Richard Cannon
OT far from World’s End, the Chelsea neighbourhood of 1970s council blocks and top-tier antique dealers, there’s a turn-off toward the Thames that you could pass 100 times without noticing. Next to the Embankment, a pair of planked wooden doors open to a quiet boatyard with a few handfuls of moorings, including the sunny houseboat of Alexandra Pringle (LONDON LIFE Interview, June 2, 2021), a publisher, and her husband, Rick Stroud, a writer and film-maker. A sturdy green gangway (‘the Waitrose delivery drivers are sometimes very nervous,’ says Alexandra) takes you over the riverbank to a red front door, flanked by hale plants, in terracotta pots and dolly bins, and a brass ship bell.
‘It feels like going on holiday. You feel everything fall away and it’s extraordinary’ When Alexandra moved onto the boat, Veronica, in 1995 (‘I married into it’), Rick was already living here, having relocated from a 30-acre estate in Wiltshire. He had established a couple of rules: no fussy houseplants, nothing breakable. Rick’s daughter, the bestselling author Clover Stroud, lived aboard for a year in her late teens and ‘trashed it,’ he says. ‘I had calls from the housekeeper constantly.’ Today, the beadboard walls are lined with shelves displaying Alexandra’s collection of 18th- and 19th-century ceramics, as well as thousands of books. Paintings by friends hang above curios collected from
Facing page: Alexandra Pringle in the galley of Veronica. Above: The view of the Thames
France and India—and the antique shops up the road. A fruiting lemon tree, a gift from one of the publisher’s authors, grows in a large tub in a corner of the sitting room. Twenty-seven years into living here together, they both say they can’t imagine being anywhere else. ‘Stepping onto the mooring,’ says Rick, ‘it feels like going on holiday. You feel everything fall away and it’s extraordinary the effect that has on you.’ Alexandra describes a familiarity with the river birds and tides, as well as the local traffic of kayaks, rowboats and Thames Clippers, that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else in London. But the type of person who wants to live on a houseboat is ‘not a completely regular person,’ she adds. ‘It’s for people with a romantic spirit.’
Daisy Knatchbull, founder of The Deck— the first women’s tailor to have a shopfront on Savile Row—rents a houseboat in Little Venice and echoes many of the same qualities. ‘[There’s] nothing better than waking up on the water, being around Nature and living a slower paced life, as well as being able to do things like feed ducklings out of our window,’ she says. ‘It really does feel as if you are living somewhere outside of London. It is also incredibly beautiful in the summer with the sun shining in all day, due to the lack of high-rise buildings.’ The director of the houseboat estate agents Waterview, Soren Ravaux, feels that Nature is often what draws people to the water in the first place. ‘Buyers seeking houseboats want to tap into a certain kind of lifestyle,’ he says. There’s April 6, 2022 | Country Life | 35
LONDON LIFE
Veronica’s size means that Alexandra can easily host 10 people for supper, or even up to 20 for visiting authors or for fundraisers
a romance to living on the water, waking up to birdsong and having the freedom to change where you live whenever you feel like it.’ In St Katharine Docks in East London, Katie Fontana, co-founder of kitchen designers Plain English, chose to live on her 1926 motor launch, Stork, because she and her partner, Greg Powlesland, were used to an outdoor lifestyle at their home on the Helford River in Cornwall. ‘We are sailors and were in need of a London base,’ she says. ‘When we saw Stork, we fell in love and thought it would be a brilliant idea to have her as a houseboat.’ Unlike many modern houseboats, however, Stork’s age and slimmer size means that she is slightly more like a boat and less like a house. ‘You have to get in the routine of filling the water tanks once a week and doing your laundry elsewhere,’ reveals her owner. ‘We [do] entertain, with the occasional cosy supper, as the table only seats four. Although we did once have a musical gathering of singing and playing for about 10 of us, all crammed into the deckhouse. We had a visitation from the marina manager, as the residents had complained!’ ‘[Entertaining is] my favourite thing to do and people love the novelty of having dinner on a boat,’ says Daisy. ‘We made sure to get a table that seats 12 so we could get lots of friends round for dinners or Sunday lunches.’ On Veronica, there is room to comfortably invite 10 people to a supper party. But if 36 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
‘In this part of central London, Rick Stroud explains, the water levels can rise and fall 24 ft’
The red front door, flanked by hale plants, that leads to the floating home Veronica
Alexandra has a visiting author in town (writers Ann Patchett and George Saunders have both been given celebratory dinners on Veronica) or is hosting a fundraising event, ‘we can get some trestle tables in and seat 20’. What about the downsides? ‘Sadly, the rubbish that sometimes appears in the canal,’ says Daisy. ‘It’s actually quite upsetting to see what is carelessly tossed in the water.’ Alexandra mentions a wariness of flooding —although rare, it can happen if a boat becomes stuck in the riverbank mud at low tide and doesn’t rise with the waterline. In terms of practical services—gas, electricity, sewage—things can now be as seamless as they are on land, but she recalls a time when ‘the angel of our lives was a plumber called Martin’. Katie has a similar reservation. ‘Upside [of houseboat living]: instant community of like-minded friends. Downside: starting your day wrestling with broken loo seats in the marina shower blocks!’ The tide was out when I stepped off the gangway onto Veronica, but after an hour, there’s a sudden swelling beneath us and a swoop of lightness. I set my mug down on the fruitwood dining table, surprised. In this part of central London, Rick explains, the water levels can rise and fall 24ft. We’re on the up. Alexandra grins. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she says. ‘That creaking and whispering. I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
LONDON LIFE
You don’t actually live in London anymore, do you? No, we moved out of the city to Rutland in 2015. I got married and my husband has a business out here, so I went from the East End to a village with only a pub. Clearly, I had reached the age where that was fine! Is there anything you miss about full-time life in the capital? When you open your front door in London, creativity is right in your face, whereas I find in the country I have to go in search of it a bit. It’s absolutely there, but I have to make more of an effort.
What drew you to the capital originally? I grew up in Co Durham, but I wanted to pursue acting and drama schools were mainly in London. I was 19 and lived in South Kensington, sharing a room with two other women right at the top of the building.
‘You get young, trendy people going there and old couples, too. I just love that pub’
T H E C A P I TA L A C C O R D I N G T O ...
Ruth Gemmell
The actress talks to Harry McKinley about her favourite pubs and getting into character inside the National Portrait Gallery
When you’re back in town, what do you make a beeline for? I know that I should be going to the theatre or galleries more, but I simply like walking around the city. There’s something about London, with Brutalist buildings next to the tiniest alleyways with little pubs. I adore that juxtaposition. One of my favourite memories is when Antony Gormley had his statues everywhere, which encouraged you to look up and see the skyline of the city. I always head back to the East End. The last time I was there, I walked along the canal and we ended up down by the river at The Grapes (76, Narrow Street, E14), which is part-owned by Ian McKellen. It’s a really narrow little pub and, at the back, there’s a balcony above the river. I clearly just walk and go to pubs!
Do you have any favourite peoplewatching spots? Absolutely. At cafés, sitting by a window and watching the world go by. When I was a student, we would go to the National Portrait Gallery, find a picture and base our own character on the person within it. I’m not nearly that inventive now.
As an actress, you must enjoy getting under the skin of people; observing.
With cultural destinations, do you still have a soft spot for the National Portrait
38 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
Do you have a lesser-discovered spot? There’s a fantastic pub called The Palm Tree (127, Grove Road, E3), near Mile End. It’s almost a time capsule. Inside, it’s all tungsten lighting, dark furniture and there’s a bandstand in the corner. They play jazz and, above the bar, there are photographs of all the musicians and singers. You get young, trendy people going there and old couples, too. I just love that pub.
Gallery or is there another favourite? Tate Modern, without a doubt, particularly the Turbine Hall. I find that place inspirational and the installations are basically free for all. You can breathe in that space. I remember Olafur Eliasson’s artificial sun and thinking they should bring it back every year, because people would lie down as if they were on the grass watching the sunset. That was beautiful. What does London do better than any other city? The things I would pick could probably be attributed to any city: it’s diverse and cultural, with the parks, the markets, the old and the new together and the community. I wouldn’t say other cities don’t have those things, but they’re so intrinsic to my London. Ruth Gemmell portrays Lady Violet Bridgerton in ‘Bridgerton’. The second season is now on Netflix
Joseph Sinclair; Alamy
What would coax you back? To be able to buy in my old neighbourhood, just off Columbia Road [in Bethnal Green]. I loved my house and my neighbours. I’m still very much in touch with them. Another thing that I love about London is the markets and Columbia Road Flower Market is my favourite.
Property market
Carla Passino
Shiver me timbers Two magnificent properties put the spotlight on a construction method that not only shaped England’s past, but also remains surprisingly current ‘One of the most striking examples of the golden era of British timber framing’: Grade II*-listed Wingfield College in Suffolk. £1.75m
S
IR JOHN DE WINGFIELD made quite the catch at the Battle of Poitiers. The veteran of Crécy had taken hostage none other than the Sire d’Aubigny, captain of the French king’s bodyguards. As skilled with numbers as he was with the sword—he was the Black Prince’s senior administrator, as well as a soldier—Sir John sold the French aristocrat’s ransom to Edward III for 2,500 marks (about £1,666 at the time and £1.8 million in today’s money). Sadly, he didn’t have much time to enjoy his fortune: the plague took him by November 1361, but not before 132 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
he had made a provision in his will to found a new chantry college. His wife, Alianore de Glanville, complied and Wingfield College in Wingfield, Suffolk, was built in 1362. Now listed Grade II*, the college, which is for sale through Savills at £1.75 million (01473 234831), is one of the most striking examples of the golden era of British timber framing. Not that anyone would notice at first glance —a stuccoed façade from the 1760s conceals the true nature of the building. ‘To the rear, however, its medieval origins are clearly visible,’ says COUNTRY L IFE’s Architectural Editor,
John Goodall, who has contributed to a book on the house, Wingfield College and its Patrons: Piety and Prestige in Medieval Suffolk, and calls it ‘a near miraculous survival’. When it opened, the college was home to a Master and nine chaplains, whose duties included praying for Sir John, the Black Prince and Edward III, as well as running a boarding school. ‘The community,’ explains Dr Goodall, ‘served the fine neighbouring parish church of Saint Andrew, where the tombs of Sir John and the later patrons of the college—the powerful de la Pole family—survive.’
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Above and below: The interiors of Wingfield College retain their period charm
The de la Poles became Wingfield’s patrons after Sir John’s daughter, Katherine, married Michael de la Pole, the scion of a wool merchant family from Kingston upon Hull, who would become Lord Chancellor and 1st Earl of Suffolk during the reign of Richard II, only to lose the title during the Merciless Parliament of 1388. All his properties were ‘confiscated in reciprocation for the extortionate fines he devoured’, according to Thomas Favent’s History or Narration Concerning the Manner and Form of the Miraculous Parliament at Westminster in the year 1386. Honours were restored to Sir Michael’s son, also named Michael, in 1398, starting a trend that would
see the family lose (or come close to losing) title and land across the centuries, not least when William, 1st Duke of Suffolk, was exiled for corruption—a rather more mundane reason for his downfall than his Shakespearean reputation as a manipulative lover and a murderer. His end, however, was as gruesome as in the second Henry VI play: captured at sea as he was heading to France, he was beheaded; his body was first taken to Wingfield, but later buried in Hull. Despite these ups and downs, the de la Poles went very close to becoming England’s new monarchs—quite the rise for a family of merchant origins that had initially been
teased in Parliament for its modest pedigree. William’s son, John, married Elizabeth, sister of Edward IV and Richard III, and their children became the York dynasty’s heirs. But John, Earl of Lincoln, died after supporting the ill-fated attempt to put Lambert Simnel on the throne, Edmund was beheaded by Henry VIII, and Richard, nicknamed the White Rose, died fighting for his claim in the Battle of Pavia. Henry VII and Henry VIII had clearly had enough of the family because they kept the last born, William, prisoner in the Tower of London until he died—a massive 37 years, the longest time anyone had ever spent at the Thameside fortress. April 6, 2022 | Country Life | 133
Property market
Grade II-listed Hunton Court in Kent hides its timber origins behind a Georgian-style façade and sits in some 132 acres of grounds. £10m
Although the college was initially spared from this turmoil, managing to find a patron in the new Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, and his wife, Mary Tudor, it didn’t survive the Dissolution of Monasteries. Some of the buildings were demolished and the rest adapted as a house, its medieval vestiges progressively buried under layers of plaster. They were only revealed in the 1970s, when the then owner, Ian Chance, carried out a renovation. Today, says Dr Goodall, ‘Wingfield combines well-lit, 18th-century panelled rooms with some splendid medieval ones, including the truncated remains of the collegiate Great Hall’, where the supposed portraits of Charles Brandon and Mary Tudor still grace the linenfold panelling. The combination of ‘very classic, very Georgian rooms’—chief among all, the elegant drawing room, with its fine fireplace and original paintwork—and the medieval timber-frame rooms, which include the kitchen and some of the six bedrooms, as well as the Great Hall, works unusually well, according to selling agent Tom Orford, making Wingfield ‘an amazing house’. He is as taken by the gardens, ‘spectacular in an understated way’, and the layout, ‘unusually modern for a property of that age’, as by the architecture. ‘When you have been selling [properties] for such a long time, it’s quite rare to get seriously excited by a house, but this one did it for me.’ 134 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
Grade II-listed, 14,075sq ft Hunton Court, near Maidstone, in Kent— initially launched three years ago (COUNTRY LIFE, July 31, 2019) and relaunched last week by Strutt & Parker (01227 473707) at a guide price of £10m—is another building that hides its timbered origins behind a Georgian look. The house, once known as Court Lodge, had a turbulent history:
He had the not-sobright idea of rebelling against Mary Tudor first built in the 13th century and part of an estate that had belonged to the Canterbury’s Christ Church Priory, it was handed to Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry VIII’s High Sheriff for Kent, after the Dissolution of Monasteries. Wyatt was a man of many talents: a diplomat and a gifted poet, he also managed to navigate the choppy waters of the Tudor Court and keep his head intact, despite having been accused first of adultery with Anne Boleyn, which earned him a spell in the Tower of London, then of treason. His son, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as gifted with political nous: he had the not-so-bright idea of rebelling against Mary Tudor and lost both the estate and his life. Although Hunton Court’s story recalls that of Wingfield College, traces of the medieval
timbers are rather more subtle at the Kent house, where they make an appearance in the attic and in some of the eight bedrooms. Most of the rooms have a Georgian flavour, the result of a remodelling by 19th-century owner Henry Bannerman. He added the grand Georgian-style façade and the hand-painted panels—a triumph of cherubs, birds and flowers—in the drawing room (one of five stately reception rooms). They became the backdrop to British political history in the early 20th century, when the house passed to Bannerman’s nephew, Henry CampbellBannerman, who served as Prime Minister between 1905 and 1908 and championed the introduction of free school meals. Matching the beauty of the interior are the 132-acre grounds, with their 18th-century parkland, lakes and magnificent stone bridges. Having dominated British architecture until the 17th century, timber-frame buildings now look set to make a comeback, after the National Audit Office suggested that using UKgrown timber in construction can help reduce the industry’s impact. ‘New-build timber-frame homes have great environmental credentials,’ explains Jamie Freeman of Haringtons buying agents. ‘The carbon footprint is minimal, as 90% of wood consumed is sourced from British and European forests. As they are visually more traditional in form, they are a little easier to get planning permission for, too.’
Properties of the week
Annunciata Elwes
Capital investments Pieds-à-terre that prove it’s never a bad idea to buy in London
SW1, £2.6 million This raised-ground-floor apartment occupies one of the prettiest buildings on Hans Crescent and is as luxurious as one would expect from a place mere moments from Harrods on one of the most sought-after streets in Knightsbridge. It has two bedrooms and
everything is of the highest quality, from the oak herringbone flooring and tall sash windows to the Italian marble bathrooms, Lutron lighting and Miele kitchen appliances. The building has a resident caretaker and there are 113 years remaining on the lease. Alexander Millett (020–3968 1080)
SW11, £2.5 million Ideally located across the water from Chelsea’s Cheyne Walk, the vast, open-plan sitting room at this threebedroom apartment in Albert Bridge House directly overlooks Battersea Park, candy-hued Albert Bridge (the prettiest in London, in this writer’s opinion) and the River Thames. There are two bathrooms and two balconies; the flat also benefits from underground parking and ‘an impressive entrance lobby with excellent porter service,’ say agents. Savills (020–8877 4823) 136 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
9000
Properties of the week
W2, £1.55 million An unusual new-build mews house, stylishly done, on Rainsford Street, Paddington, offers three bedrooms, three bathrooms and private parking on its quiet cul-de-sac, all within walking distance of the delights of Marylebone, Mayfair and Hyde Park. Lurot Brand (020–7590 9955)
138 | Country Life | April 6, 2022
W11, £3 million There’s a Scandinavian twist to this adorable house on Notting Hill’s St Lukes Mews, recently reimagined by architects Andy Martin Associates. Bespoke Schotten & Hansen Siberian larchwood walls and seamless concrete floors appear throughout, including in the sleek kitchen, where a frosted-glass wall invites in natural light and from which the terrace can be accessed. Upstairs are three en-suite bedrooms (there’s arguably a fourth in the basement, where there’s another bathroom, too), including a master with a windowseat. Above all that is a sunny roof garden designed by Tania Urban, with a hot tub under a veranda and an outdoor kitchen. Knight Frank (020–3468 1728)