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PPA MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR 2019

EVERY WEEK | FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Fine Arts eas e rom o local ct on ho e Great ideas for a perfect kitchen garden

ONE FAMILY SPECIALISING IN FINE FURNITURE SINCE 1866

A specially commissioned oil painting on canvas interpreting A Regatta On The Grand Canal by Canaletto.

The original, about 1740 hangs in the National Gallery, London and depicts the annual carnival regatta in Venice, in particular the one-oared light gondala race.

Some figures wear the 'bauta' - a costume of white mask and black cape, typically worn during the carnival and the floating pavilion on the left is from where coloured flags were presented to the winners. This painting is a companion piece to "Venice: The Basin of San Marco on Ascension Day" of the same date.

The canvas has been stretched and mounted in a hand made, bespoke 4" swept frame with slip in metal leaf finish..

Width 72" (183.5cm) | Depth 2¾" (7.6cm) | Height 48¼" (123cm)

£3,755

From a collection of oils on canvas, hand painted by individual artists in the manner of timeless masterpieces

NATIONWIDE HOME APPROVAL SERVICE | BESPOKE COMMISSIONS UNDERTAKEN OVER 1,000 ITEMS OF EXCLUSIVE CLASSICAL FURNISHINGS IN STOCK LONDON . .

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SUNNINGDALE, BERKSHIRE

A

n elegant and newly created classical country house by Consero London. The property is situated in one of Sunningdale's most desirable locations overlooking Sunningdale Golf Club.

6 B E D R O O M S | 7 B AT H R O O M S | 8 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C B R O O F T E R R A C E | S TA F F A C C O M M O D AT I O N | S W I M M I N G P O O L | G Y M & S PA | C I N E M A R O O M | G A R A G I N G ASCOT 3 MILES | WINDSOR 8 MILES

Guide price £22,000,000 Knight Frank London & Ascot james.crawford@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1065 james.cleland@knightfrank.com 01344 840 028 Ref: ASC130054

knightfrank.co.uk

T H E N AT I O N A L AG E N T S LO C A L S R E C O M M E N D

LONDON CUMBERLAND STREET SW1V

5

3

D

EPC

2

PIMLICO OFFICE

A 5 bedroom family home with private parking and great potential to redesign into a new and exciting configuration.

GUIDE PRICE: £2,800,000

jackson-stops.co.uk

Please contact

PROPERTY EXPERTS SINCE 1910

020 7828 4050 pimlico@jackson-stops.com

HENLEY-IN-ARDEN, WARWICKSHIRE

S

ituated within 56 acres of its own land, this wonderful country home has been transformed by the current owners and is presented to the market for the first time in over 50 years. The house offers over 6,500 sq ft of accommodation with a range of outbuildings, stables, manège and paddocks.

5 B E D R O O M S | 5 B AT H R O O M S | 5 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S B A R N A N D W O R K S H O P | H AY B A R N | S T O R E | 1 2 S TA B L E S | TA C K R O O M | M A N È G E | A P P R O X I M AT E LY 5 6 A C R E S H E N L E Y- I N - A R D E N 1 . 5 M I L E S | WA R W I C K PA R K WAY ( T R A I N S T O L O N D O N M A R Y L E B O N E F R O M 6 9 M I N S )

Guide price £3,200,000 Knight Frank London & Stratford jamie.robson@knightfrank.com 020 7861 1549 william.ward-jones@knightfrank.com 01789 206 951 Ref: STR190122

knightfrank.co.uk

Enchanting Hampshire House Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire Winchester Station: 11 miles (London Waterloo from 57 minutes), Botley: 3 miles Idyllic Grade II* listed country house with an intriguing medieval history. Set in stunning grounds, the house has well-proportioned rooms and an array of characterful period features. In view of the property are the ruins of Bishop’s Palace, for which the property owns the freehold. 6 reception rooms, 8 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, swimming pool, tennis court, attached annexe, studio, coach house, greenhouse, listed granary and outbuildings.

About 9.7 acres | Guide £2.475 million

George Nares Savills London Country Department 020 3930 2747 george.nares @savills.com

Steven Moore Savills Winchester 01962 656 217 smoore@savills.com

savills

savills.co.uk

Kent, Mersham

One of Kent’s finest country houses, beautifully proportioned with a glorious façade and in a wonderful garden setting Ashford International: 5 miles (London St Pancras 37 minutes), Canterbury: 18 miles Hall | Drawing room | Dining room | Playroom | Study | Snug | Conservatory | Kitchen/breakfast room | Cellar Master bedroom with 2 dressing rooms and ensuite bathroom | 5 Further bedrooms | 4 Further bathrooms (2 ensuite) 2nd floor kitchen | Games room | Cottage with 2 bedrooms | Garden | Pasture | Swimming pool | Period barn providing double garage and storage About 20 acres

60 Offices across England and Scotland, including prime Central London.

Simon Backhouse Canterbury Office | 01227 806 892

/struttandparker

Edward Lucas Country Department | 020 3642 4591

@struttandparker

struttandparker.com

Head to the Home Counties Knight Frank makes finding your dream home in the Home Counties simple. With quick and easy transport links to London, as well as the benefit of clean air and green space, the Home Counties are a top destination for country movers. From period family homes to exciting new developments, Knight Frank will help you connect with your perfect home.

Cobham, Surrey A luxurious detached family home located in a prestigious private road 5 B E D R O O M S | 6 B AT H R O O M S | 5 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C C

Guide price £4,150,000

Knight Frank Cobham charles.davenport@knightfrank.com 01932 800 718

Wargrave, Berkshire A stylish contemporary house on the banks of the River Thames 3 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 2 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C B

Guide price £1,975,000

Knight Frank Henley alexander.risdon@knightfrank.com 01491 818 416

Epsom, Surrey Located in a private road next to the RAC Woodcote Park 6 B E D R O O M S | 5 B AT H R O O M S | 4 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C B

Guide price £2,995,000

Knight Frank Esher adam.burlison@knightfrank.com 01372 887 320

West Byfleet, Surrey An outstanding Arts and Crafts house built in 1906 5 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 3 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C D

Guide price £1,995,000

Knight Frank Weybridge andrew.chambers@knightfrank.com 01932 809 978

Chinnor, Oxfordshire Unique and secluded home with enviable views 5 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 3 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C E

Guide price £1,395,000

Knight Frank Beaconsfield edward.ruggles-brise@knightfrank.com 01494 854 933

Ascot, Berkshire An attractive country house set in wonderfully mature grounds 8 B E D R O O M S | 4 B AT H R O O M S | 5 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S | E P C F

Guide price £3,900,000

Knight Frank Ascot tom.shuttleworth@knightfrank.com 01344 981 650

If you’re thinking of selling your home, or would simply like some advice on the market, get in touch today. We’d love to help you.

Connecting people & property, perfectly.

knightfrank.co.uk

BROMSGROVE, WORCESTERSHIRE

A

classic Queen Anne house, in need of refurbishment, in a picturesque setting with a group of traditional buildings. For sale as a whole or in two lots. The house with approximately 24.34 acres and a further 12.11 acres also available

5 B E D R O O M S | 3 B AT H R O O M S | 3 R E C E P T I O N R O O M S O U T B U I L D I N G S | B A R N S | PA S T U R E & PA D D O C K S | G A R D E N | G R A D E I I L I S T E D WORCE STER 7 MILE S | DROITWICH 4 MILE S

Guide price for the whole £1,350,000, Lot 1 £1,200,000 or Lot 2 £150,000 Knight Frank Worcester jonathan.bengough@knightfrank.com 01905 746 887 Ref: WRC140024

knightfrank.co.uk

Discover Elegance at Ease DISTINCTIVE ARCHITECTURE, RESIDENCES & HOMESITES GOLF CLUB • TENNIS • BEACH CLUB • EQUESTRIAN WINDSORFLORIDA.COM • 772 388 8400 OR 800 233 7656

property showcase

Eridge, £2,000,000-£2,250,000 guide price East Sussex

Anstey, Leicestershire

A delightful farmhouse with outbuildings and ancillary accommodation. Set in beautiful gardens and grounds of over 10 acres.

Contact: Tunbridge Wells 01892 310737

Fabulous three bedroom barn conversion offering an ideal fusion of original character and contemporary fittings throughout.

Contact: Melton Mowbray 01664 518924

Equestrian village house near Easingwold and York sitting in the heart of its own land and enjoying a high degree of privacy.

Contact: York office 01904 595677

Bolton, Cumbria

Winslow, Herefordshire

Meare Green, Somerset

£375,000 guide price

£565,000

£1,775,000 guide price

Huby, North Yorkshire

£925,000 guide price

£450,000

A superb four/five bed home with country views.

Recently renovated with grand proportions, stylish interiors and period features.

Contact: Penrith office 01768 257976

An immaculate stone-built farmhouse, detached cottage and outbuildings. Offering 68 acres in a quiet location with superb views.

Contact: Ledbury office 01531 577983

A beautifully presented and professionally extended three/four bedroom detached period cottage enjoying a semi-rural position.

Contact: Taunton office 01823 760844

Barham Green, Suffolk

Morrey, Staffordshire

Kilmahog, Stirlingshire

£775,000 guide price

A five bed period farmhouse set in 3 acres.

Overlooking gardens, grounds and neighbouring meadows on the edge of a village location.

Contact: Ipswich office 01473 679734

£595,000

A picturesque cottage with far-reaching views.

Set in delightful countryside conveniently placed for nearby village of Yoxall.

Contact: Lichfield office 01543 526804

£595,000

offers over

An Arts and Crafts house with stunning views of Ben Ledi. Strathlyn has five bedrooms, outbuildings and a large garden.

Contact: Edinburgh office 0131 268 9164

To view these and the fi est selection of premium proper ies, search See www.onthemarket.com/newandexclusive. Agents specify exclusivity. Agents’ Mutual Limited – A company limited by guarantee. Company No: 8381458.

Registered Office: PO Box 450, 155-157 High Street, Aldershot GU11 9FZ, England.

All these properties appeared exclusively with us 24 hours or more before Rightmove or Zoopla.

Woodseaves, Herefordshire

£525,000

Kipping’s Cross, Kent

£1,175,000 guide price

Ilkley, West Yorkshire

£1,245,000

A charming three bedroom cottage with detached barn, garage and mature gardens.

Located in the countryside near Hay-on-Wye. Contact: Hay-on-Wye office 01497 557981

A beautifully presented five bedroom oast house with equestrian facilities and detached barn, with lapsed planning permission.

Contact: Wisborough Green 01403 453768

An exceptional five bedroom detached family home appointed to a high standard, offering a good sized south facing garden. EPC C. Contact: Ilkley office 01943 613933

Upper Brailes, Warwickshire

Long Stratton, £450,000- £500,000 guide price Norfolk

Pixey Green, Suffolk

A fabulous detached family home constructed of local stone. Situated on a quiet lane on the edge of a popular village.

Contact: Moreton-in-Marsh 01608 503959

This unique three/four bedroom barn conversion offers a wealth of character, with original features in an excellent location.

Contact: Long Stratton 01508 338946

Stunning extended cottage with three bedrooms, four receptions and family annexe.

Set in approx. 1 acre with field views. EPC D. Contact: Framlingham 01728 572970

Llanasa, Flintshire

Castlemorris, Pembrokeshire

Broomfield, Essex

£650,000 guide price

£825,000 guide price

A beautifully proportioned family home with a detached two bedroom annexe, located in a conservation area in North Wales.

Contact: Chester office 01244 725690

£340,000 offers in excess of

Trecelyn is a beautifully finished property that boasts character and charm, and also benefits from a self-contained annexe.

Contact: Fishguard office 01348 427979

£725,000 guide price

£1,200,000

offers in excess of

A charming 1920s six bedroom detached family home perfectly set on 2.3 acres of stunning countryside with WWII pillbox.

Contact: Essex office 01621 467922

OnTheMarket at CountryLife.co.uk and set up a property alert today.

Registered in England & Wales. OnTheMarket.com and its logo are registered trade marks of Agents’ Mutual Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of OnTheMarket plc.

Spring international issue A N I NSIGH T I N TO E XC LUSI V E PROPERT IES F ROM A ROU N D T H E WOR L D ON SA LE M A RCH 25, 2020

Don’t miss your chance to advertise in our Spring international issue Booking/copy deadline: March 11, 2020 For more information on advertising, please contact Oliver Pearson oliver.pearson@ti-media.com – 07961 800887

Theodore Roussel RBA ARE NEAC, 1847–1926

Blue Thames, End of Summer Afternoon, Chelsea, c. 1888

oil on canvas 84 x 121 cms 331⁄8 x 475⁄8 ins

Signed lower right ‘Theodore Roussel’ ExhibitEd: Goupil Gallery, London, 1889. “London Impressionists” No 53 The Barbican, London, 1988. “British Impressionism”

Roussel came across to England after the Franco-Prussian war, and quickly orientated himself to the progressive impressionism that was being fostered in London, a city in his opinion more liberal than avant-garde Paris. With Walter Sickert, Francis Bate, Sidney Starr and Philip Wilson Steer he came to represent the impressionist faction at the New English Art Club and this led to his selection for the London Impressionists exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in 1889, at which the resplendent Blue Thames, End of a Summer Afternoon, Chelsea was exhibited.

The Studio, Lord’s Wood, Marlow, Bucks SL7 2QS Tel: +44 (0)1628 486565 www.messums.com E:info@messums.com New Gallery Opening Spring 2020: 12 Bury Street, St. James’s, London SW1Y 6AB

RONALD PHILLIPS FINE ANTIQUE ENGLISH FURNITURE

THE BRYNKINALT HALL TABLES ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN LINNELL 26 BRUTON STREET, LONDON W1J 6QL +44 (0)20 7493 2341

ADVICE @ RONALDPHILLIPS.CO.UK

RONALD PHILLIPS FINE ANTIQUE ENGLISH FURNITURE

THE TABLES: ENGLISH, CIRCA 1770 THE TOPS: JAPANESE, CIRCA 1650 RONALDPHILLIPSANTIQUES.COM

MACCONNAL-MASON EST 1893

Oil on canvas

19½ x 15½ in

JOHN WILLIAM GODWARD Pyrallis

Catalogue now available, 50 Works, £20 p&p

14 & 17 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6DB Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 7693 fineart@macconnal-mason.com www.macconnal-mason.com

MACCONNAL-MASON EST 1893

Oil on canvas

30 x 40 in

L.S. LOWRY

Station Approach, Manchester 1960 Exhibiting at TEFAF Maastricht, 7 – 15 March 2020, stand 330

14 & 17 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6DB Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 7693 fineart@macconnal-mason.com www.macconnal-mason.com

SIR KYFFIN

WILLIAMS

SIR KYFFIN WILLIAMS (1918-2006) Welsh Blacks in Anglesey Oil on canvas. Size: 48 x 48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm)

TRINITY HOUSE london

cotswolds

new york

san francisco

chicago

ENQUIRIES For information please contact the gallery: Tel: 44 (0)1386 859 329 or email beth@trinityhousepaintings.com

www.trinityhousepaintings.com

Exclusively presented by

THE COLLECTION OF SIR WILLIAM WHITFIELD CBE PART ONE | TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2020 | 10.30am PART TWO | WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 2020 | 10.30am AUCTION LOCATION Dreweatts Donnington Priory Newbury Berkshire RG14 2JE

VIEWING IN LONDON (highlights) 16-17 Pall Mall, St James’s, London SW1Y 5LU Tuesday 25 February: 10am – 5pm Wednesday 26 February: 10am – 5pm Thursday 27 February: 10am – 5pm

VIEWING AT DONNINGTON PRIORY Thursday 5 to Friday 6 March: 10am – 5pm Saturday 7 to Sunday 8 March: 10am – 2pm Monday 9 March: 10am – 5pm Tuesday 10 March: from 8.30am

ENQUIRIES Victoria Billington +44 (0) 20 3291 3539 contact@dreweatts.com Catalogue and free online bidding at: dreweatts.com

18 – 24 March 2020

Duke of York Square, King’s Road, London SW3 4LY theopenar tfair.com theopenar tfair

An inspiring destination for collectors and designers in the hear t of Chelsea

The Brian Sinfield Gallery | 127 The Hill, Burford, Oxon OX18 4RE | 01993 824464 gallery@briansinfield.com | www.briansinfield.com | Catalogue available on request

Solo Exhibition 8 th - 21 st March

B E N K E L LY

Winter in Knoydart An on-line and studio exhibition of new original oil paintings

THE COTSWOLDS

ART & ANTIQUES DEALERS'

ASSOCIATION

A Wealth of Art and Antiques in the Heart of England

Frosty Morning on Loch Nevis, Knoydart. Oil on canvas 30 x 20 inches.

William J Swann, The Manse, Ardvasar, Isle of Skye IV45 8RS 01471 844403 info@wjswann-art.com www.wjswann-art.com Studio visits by appointment.

For a full list of our members please visit

www.thecada.org Tel: 07855 443913

Philip Mould & Company

Phone +44 (0) 20 7499 6818

18–19 Pall Mall

art@philipmould.com

London SW1Y 5LU

www.philipmould.com

500 Years of British Art

S I R C E DR IC L O C K WO OD MOR R I S , Bt. (18 8 9 -19 8 2)

Connemara Landscape, 1936 Oil on canvas 24 x 29 in (60.9 x 73.7cm)

TOM ROOTH FINE ART PRESENTS

ELIE LAMBERT FROM PAST TO PRESENT: HALF A CENTURY OF PAINTING THE OPEN ART FAIR, LONDON SW3 4LY 18-24 MARCH 2020

For enquiries, please contact info@tomrooth.com or visit www.tomrooth.com for further details.

La Casina, Firenze, oil on canvas, 114 x 146 cm. Executed in 1998. Price upon request.

FORTHCOMING FINE ART AUCTIONS ENTRIES NOW INVITED Contemporary & Post-War Art – 16 April Edinburgh The Classic Tradition: 15th to 19th Century European Art– 22 April London Modern Made: Modern Art, Sculpture, Design & Studio Ceramics – 23 April London Scottish Paintings & Sculpture

– 04 June Edinburgh

LONDON 0207 930 9115 EDINBURGH 0131 557 8844 GLASGOW 0141333 1992 www.lyonandturnbull.com

GEORGE LESLIE HUNTER (SCOTTISH 1877-1931) STILL LIFE WITH MARIGOLDS Sold for £80,000 + fees Dec. 2019

Challenging, complex and contentious issues concerning fine art and antiques?

SPECIALIST VALUERS SINCE 1992 · Trusts & Estates · Insurance · Expert Witness · Forensic · · Litigation · Matrimonial · Damage · Restoration · SOU THA MP TON · EDINBURGH · LONDON · LEEDS

drummondread.com

bada.org Explore the exceptional

AN INVITATION TO CONSIGN JEWELLERY FOR AUCTION ON 30TH APRIL 2020 CLOSING DATE FOR ENTRIES 28TH FEBRUARY

TO BE INCLUDED A gold bracelet mounted with nine hardstone intaglios Estimate £20,000 - 30,000* Including: (5th from left) An 18th century intaglio depicting a youth with flowing hair, signed Costanzi.

(7th from left) A late 18th / early 19th century intaglio depicting a Maenad holding a thyrsus staff and a cup with a butterfly, signed PIX for Pichler.

FOR APPOINTMENTS IN LONDON OR SALISBURY Charlotte Glyde | +44 (0)1722 424586 | cg@woolleyandwallis.co.uk

w w w. w o o l l e y a n d w a l l i s . c o . u k *Visit woolleyandwallis.co.uk/buying for additional charges on final hammer price

Aluminium made beautiful Conservatories | Orangeries | Atriums | Greenhouses www.marstonandlanginger.com

+44 (0) 1243 214550

COUNTRY LIFE VOL CCXIV NO 8, FEBRUARY 19, 2020

Mr Grayson Perry CBE RA Grayson, husband to Philippa Perry and father to Flo Perry, is an artist, broadcaster, lecturer, transvestite, television addict, worshipper of teddy bears and keen cyclist. His latest exhibition, ‘Grayson Perry: The Pre-Therapy Years’, is at The Holburne Museum, Bath, until May 25.

Photographed in Sussex by Millie Pilkington

Alamy

Contents February 19, 2020

Here’s looking at ewe: a group of Herdwicks huddle on a Lake District outcrop

sales and record auction prices, reveals Emma Crichton-Miller

Girl with a Pearl Earring, about 1665,

by Johannes Vermeer (Alamy)

Cover stories 48 ‘Where gentle Thames his winding water leads’ The River Thames has long inspired artists and poets. Huon Mallalieu casts an eye over the work of Turner and his contemporaries, from Pope to Zoffany 52 Broadening horizons Where once the behemoths of city auction houses dominated, local companies are thriving, with top-class country-house 34 Country Life, February 19, 2020

76 The future of the kitchen garden The spectacular Walled Garden of Gordon Castle, Morayshire, is proving more fruitful than ever since its restoration. Steven Desmond applauds the work

This week 44 Tied up in knots The modern media trail makes for an unusually urban winter, reveals Jamie Blackett 46 Martin Yeoman’s favourite painting The artist chooses an accomplished portrait by Velázquez 56 Gardens for all seasons All too many of Britain’s Winter Gardens, often architectural confections of iron and glass, have fallen into disrepair. Can they be saved, asks Marcus Binney

62 Travel Artistic treasures in Bruges and classic luxury in Barbados 66 Interiors No longer overheated glass boxes, conservatories are now elegant enough for the most stylish of houses. We pick the best for year-round comfort

Every week 36 Town & Country 38 Notebook 40 Letters 41 Agromenes 42 Athena 72 Property market 74 Properties of the week 82 In the garden 84 Art market 86 Exhibition 88 Bridge and crossword 89 Classified advertisements 94 Spectator 94 Tottering-by-Gently

COUNTRY LIFE

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Trade is a fine art B

RITAIN’S art and antiques trade is in good heart, despite concern about the impacts of coronavirus and political unrest in Hong Kong on Asian dealers and, nearer to home, uncertainty about Brexit negotiations. The virus, at least, should not be a longterm worry and, whatever transpires, Hong Kong is likely to remain an important centre of the art world.

At home, fairs have been producing good sales and there have been eye-catching prices at auctions—and not only at the top end of the market. In difficult times, the middle market usually suffers most, but it seems to be in a better state than during past economic downturns.

Last year, when the threat of no deal felt all too real, much work was undertaken by trade organisations the BADA and LAPADA, but there’s little more that they can do until we know more about the shape of our negotiations with the EU. In the meantime, however, dealers, collectors, auctioneers and exhibition organisers should be thinking ahead.

The trade is already wrestling with the Anti Money Laundering rules—ironically derived from EU legislation—plus likely ivory and other bans, and will now have to cope with new import-export regulations. It seems that businesses will not, in fact, get the grace period for dealing with customs forms originally offered as part of no-deal planning.

Contemporary art is increasingly international and antiques are a vital link to the past Worst affected will be smaller British and Continental traders, who rely on buying trips. Although auction houses and large dealers using agents and shippers can take the extra expense and bureaucracy on the chin, smaller dealers may find that they can

no longer afford to go a-roaming to foires and brocantes. It’s a two-way traffic; Europeans buying on this side of the Channel will be in a similar position, perhaps incurring a 5%-10% import levy, and a weak pound would make selling here less attractive. International museum loans could become more difficult, which would be a great sadness and make British culture the poorer.

Annisabelle Berès-Montanari, president of the Syndicat National des Antiquaires, the French equivalent of the BADA, is making ‘dealing with the possible consequences of Brexit on the competitiveness of the French art market’ her priority. That would seem to be wise.

The British trade is still more important: it is one of the glories of this country. In 1996, it accounted for 50% of the European market and it’s still a formidable earner.

Contemporary art is increasingly international and antiques are a vital link to the past. Those who are ignorant of history have little to offer the future.

PPA Magazine Brand of the Year 2019 PPA Front Cover of the Year 2018 British Society of Magazine Editors Scoop of the Year 2015/16 PPA Specialist Consumer Magazine of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Innovation of the Year 2014/15 British Society of Magazine Editors Columnist of the Year (Special Interest) 2016 Editor Mark Hedges Editor’s PA/Travel Rosie Paterson 555062 Editorial Assistant Phoebe Bath 555046 Telephone numbers are prefixed by 01252 Emails are name.surname@ti-media.com Editorial enquiries 555046 DeputyEditor Kate Green 555063 Managing & Features Editor Paula Lester 555068 Architectural Editor John Goodall 555064 Gardens Editor Tiffany Daneff 555067 Fine Arts & Books Editor Mary Miers 555066 ExecutiveEditorandInteriorsGilesKime555083 DeputyFeaturesEditorVictoriaMarston 555079 Acting News & Property Editor James Fisher 555089 Luxury Editor Hetty Lintell 555071

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Group Art Director Dean Usher Art Editor Emma Earnshaw Deputy Art Editor Heather Clark Designer Ben Harris 555245 Picture Editor Lucy Ford 555075 Acting Deputy Picture Editor Storm Johnson 555076 Chief Sub-Editor Octavia Pollock 555082 Digital Editor Toby Keel 555086 Property Correspondent Penny Churchill Acting International Property Editor Carla Passino GroupManagingDirectorAndreaDavies ManagingDirector StevePrentice AssistantBusinessDirectorKirstySetchell 551111 Photographic Library Manager Melanie Bryan 555090

Photographic Library Assistant Paula Fahey 555092 Marketing Manager Nicola McClure 555115 Antiques & Fine Arts Manager Jonathan Hearn 555318 CommercialDirectorProperty Paul Ward 0800 316 5450 Country Steve Earley 07961 783432; Oliver Pearson 07961 800887; Emma Lewis 07984180061 Head of Market: Country & Gardening Kate Barnfield 07817 629935

Katie Ruocco 07929 364909; Lucy Hall 07950 188233 Classified Advertising Sophie Bailey 555316 AdvertisingandClassifiedProduction StephenTurner 020–31482681 Inserts Canopy Media 020–7611 8151; lindsay@canopymedia.co.uk Subscription enquiries 0330 333 1120 Back issues 01795 662976; support@mags-uk.com

Interiors & Gardening Advertising Chloe Lummis 555345 LuxuryAdvertising Jade Bousfield 07583 672665;

Country Life, February 19, 2020 35

Town & Country

Edited by James Fisher

Good week for George Eustice MP The MP is the new Defra Secretary, replacing Theresa Villiers in last week’s cabinet re-shuffle. Mr Eustice worked at Defra from 2013–19 and comes from a farming background (Agromenes, page 41) Making the best of it An Australian couple quarantined on a cruise ship have had wine delivered straight to their cabin by drone. Jan and Dave Binskin, from Queensland, have been stranded off the coast of Toyko aboard the Diamond Princess for the past week and sought comfort from the Naked Wine Club, which sent them two bottles of Pinot Noir Turtles Fossils of a turtle that was about the size of a small car were unearthed in Colombia and Venezuela last week. Stupendemys geographicus was first discovered in the 1970s—the fossils suggest the animal was about 12ft long

Bad week for Flying badgers A badger that was hiding rom Storm Ciara shocked Super-drug staff when it fell through the ceiling and scuttled under the perfume counter. The nimal was captured by e Northamptonshire dger Group and subsently released sy footwear Four men who were stranded on Ben Nevis have thanked their rescuers with whisky, wine and chocolate. The tourists got into difficulty while trying to climb the summit during Storm Ciara. Three of the men were wearing trainers when they were found by the Lochaber Mountain Rescue team Removal men Piano virtuoso Angela Hewitt is mourning the loss of her ‘best friend’ after clumsy movers dropped her grand piano. The Fazioli F278, worth £155,000, is damaged beyond repair.

The Canadian musician took to Facebook, stating: ‘It’s kaput’ Phoebe Bath

36 Country Life, February 19, 2020

An oasis in the desert

T

HE CPRE asked and the Government answered. Last week, the charity published a report into rural transport services and declared that regions in England were at risk of becoming ‘transport deserts’. One day later, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced £5 billion worth of investment into regional bus services and cycle schemes.

The report was published last Monday and titled ‘Transport deserts: why reconnecting rural England matters’. It was conducted by the Campaign for Better Transport and commissioned by the CPRE. The key findings state that nearly one million people in the South-West and North-East alone either live in, or are at risk of living in, a ‘transport desert’. Furthermore, the report outlines that in the past nine years local authorities have cut spending on buses by 43% and that nearly 3,000 routes have been withdrawn, reduced or altered.

Last Tuesday, Mr Johnson announced his £5 billion increase in funding. The money will be spent on improving frequency and fares, as well as producing new ‘priority routes’ and purchasing 4,000 ‘zero-carbon’ buses in England and Wales. The investment will total £1 billion per year, for five years, and will be spent on every region in England and Wales apart from London. Mr Johnson said that the plans will ‘improve quality of life and productivity’ in rural areas.

Crispin Truman, CPRE chief executive, responded by saying that when it comes to investment, rural communities have ‘for too long, been at the end of the queue’. ‘If properly targeted, this investment could help tackle loneliness and isolation, reduce car dependency and slash our carbon emissions while encouraging more people to live, work and visit a more sustainable countryside’, he added.

Mooooo-dy teenagers T

HEY’RE moody, they’re unpredictable and they smell terrible. Oh, and they weigh 2,000lb. This week, scientists revealed that cows, like humans, also experience puberty and undergo ‘a similar phase of emotional confusion that disturbs their otherwise stable personalities’, according to the Guardian.

The research, conducted by the University of British Columbia in Canada, has focused on a previously unstudied section of the bovine lifecycle. It is hoped that the findings will improve animal health and farming practices.

‘Ideally, in the future, management practices would be tailored to the individual rather than the herd, so that all calves and cows have an opportunity to thrive on the farm and reach their full productive potential,’ said one of the authors, Heather Kneave. www.countrylife.co.uk

For all the latest news, visit countrylife.co.uk

Country Mouse In the eye of the storm

I

Ramble on S

OME 10,000 miles of historic footpaths in England and Wales are at risk of being lost forever. The Government has a deadline of 2026 to add paths to the official record, after which they will no longer be protected.

The walking group Ramblers is encouraging its members, as well as map enthusiasts and historians, to become ‘citizen geographers’ by using its new mapping site to identify missing footpaths. Jack Cornish from Ramblers warned that if ‘we lose our paths, a little bit of our history goes with them’.

The group is also calling on the Government to extend the deadline by at least five years so it can complete its work.

The CLA, however, believes the deadline should be maintained, saying that a ‘balance needs to be struck between the needs of Nature and the needs of the public’.

‘We need to think about the impact of having more public rights of way on the very wildlife ramblers want to protect and enjoy,’ said CLA president Mark Bridgeman. ‘For example, ground-nesting birds need to be protected from walkers and dogs.’

Gin when you’re winning

T

Alamy; Getty

HE ‘ginaissance’ is far from over, according to forecasts from the International Wines and Spirit Record (IWSR), which suggests that consumption of the tipple is likely to rise by 50% over the next four years.

There were fears that gin had reached its popularity peak, as sales of the beverage had nearly tripled over the past decade, from 24.3 million litres in 2010 to 61.7 million litres in 2019.

By 2023, that figure is expected to be 92.4 million litres.

The rise in popularity is believed to be down to the boom in flavours and the reframing of the spirit as a luxury drink.

‘It used to be a small glass, with a bit of ice, a tired slice of lemon, a tonic and a gin,’ Humphrey Serjeantson, research director at the IWSR. ‘The gin was probably Gordon’s and the tonic was probably Schweppes. What’s on offer now is very different.’

A note from COUNTRY LIFE:

W

E regret that, due to an industrial strike involving the magazine’s paper suppliers in Finland, the issue sizes of COUNTRY LIFE will be restricted for the next few weeks. www.countrylife.co.uk

T seems that there is now a new, named storm hitting Britain every weekend.

We’ve just been battered by Ciara and Dennis and the next one will be called Ellen—the Met Office compiled the list of alphabetical names from suggestions by members of the public.

Dennis reshuffled my garden with all the vigour that Boris Johnson showed his cabinet. He lost a chancellor; I lost a beech tree.

The storm names don’t seem to be in sync with the horrors of flooding or the inconvenience of power cuts and commuting delays.

We’ve got Hugh and Jan to come, who sound more like a couple you’d meet playing bridge than a destructive tempest. Only Noah has the proper ring to it.

These storms are becoming more commonplace. There is, of course, a need to combat the causes of climate change that are increasing these storms’ regularity, but we also need to do more to ensure that the flooding and destruction is minimised when they arrive. Planting trees reduces the speed of the run off, but simply keeping the countryside litter-free will help stop many of the drains becoming blocked. I hope that by the time Storm Willow blows into Britain, we will be better prepared. MH

Town Mouse

A

The return to earth

TRESPASSER has walked onto the line ahead of us. For their safety we must now proceed slowly.’ Hearing this announcement in a delayed train, crowded to bursting point by cancellations, I’m not sure how much sympathy there was among my fellow passengers for the trespasser. For myself, however, I felt completely inured to the inconvenience and annoyance of it all. That’s because this was the last leg of a long journey carrying me back from a magical week in Rwanda and I felt completely detached from the realities of London life.

The sense of calm didn’t last long. I arrived home to find one of the children in bed. They looked ill for perhaps as long as 30 seconds after I came through the door and then began ricocheting around the house. There was very brief curiosity, meanwhile, about my travels and particularly the animals I had seen. An absolute veto was passed, however, on the offer I made to show the children any photographs. That’s possibly because I made the mistake of sending some during my travels. I included a silly picture of myself in Rwandan costume that received the crushing online comment from one of the children: ‘That’s so cringeworthy I almost died of laughter.’ JG Country Life, February 19, 2020 37

Town & Country Notebook Quiz of the week 1) The caribou is also known by what alternative common name?

2) Quenya, Telerin and Sindarin are all fictional languages devised by which author?

3) What would an entomologist study?

4) Where are the 2028 Summer Olympics due to be held?

5) Which Oscar-winning actress starred in the comedy series Peep Show and Fleabag?

Riddle me this What is always on its way, but never arrives?

Edited by Victoria Marston

Oh, the agony!

Resident agony uncle Kit Hesketh-Harvey solves your dilemmas

Loose lips sink ships

Q

A good friend of mine overheard myself and another friend gossiping about her. I’m ashamed to say that we weren’t being very kind, but we do genuinely like and care about this person—I suppose we thought we were being funny. I fear that she’ll never speak to us again—how can we make it up to her?

C. L., Lincolnshire

A

Whoops. I still break out in a cold sweat recalling a bunch of us in a BBC hospitality room, savaging the sound guy, quite forgetting that we were all still on live lapel-mikes. The chap’s face as he appeared in the doorway, coldly announcing that ‘I’d better turn these off, don’t you all think?’, stalks my nightmares.

Even to savage somebody is an indication that you care. Possibly, she has learnt a few valuable home truths. I’m a great believer in the ‘accidental’ pressing of the Reply All button. Email me your problem again, but, this time, copy in not just your ‘another friend’, together with a random selection of neutral addresses from your contacts list, but the lady herself.

You won’t at present be able to open any reconciliatory discussion, but, after reading of your sincerely felt pain at the possibility of losing her, she just might.

Time to buy

100 years ago in

COUNTRY LIFE February 21, 1920

Eastern Star hamper, £24.95, Spicers of Hythe (01303 235625; www. spicersofhythe.co.uk)

T

1) Reindeer 2) J. R. R. Tolkien 3) Insects 4) LA 5) Olivia Colman Riddle me this: Tomorrow/the future

38 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe

Cornflower hand-painted soap dispenser, £34, Sophie Conran (0333 240 1228; www.sophieconran.com)

Front-stripe circular check-in suitcase, £380, Ookonn (0800 009 4123; www.matches fashion.com)

Thor Wool leather moccasin slippers, from £35, Moccis (0333 577 7500; www.moccis.co.uk)

www.countrylife.co.uk

Country Life Picture Library

HE old black pug in the photograph used to follow the two terriers every afternoon on their hunting expedition and would wait patiently beside the tree or rabbit holes, while the terriers worked, in hopes of a rabbit bolting his way; he seldom had any luck but he loved the game, and would fuss round in a very important way, like a clown at a circus, who makes a great show of helping everybody, but never does anything! Earth and rubbish would be sent out flying, full into the pug’s face, but he took it all as a visible sign ‘that something was doing’. When the terriers were too engrossed to take any notice, the pug walked gingerly round the tree two or three times and then took up his stand again at his old post, to assure his friends that all was quiet on the other side.—M. G. T.

‘Thus we never see the true state of our condition till it is illustrated to us by its contraries, nor know how to value what we enjoy, but by the want of it’

Another log on the fire By Oliver Preston Wines of the week Plums and prunes Morrisons, The Best Nerello Mascalese, Sicily, Italy 2018. £7.75, Morrisons, alc 13.5% A heartwarming Nerello Mascalese, one of Sicily’s star varieties. Aromas of dark plum and prune with hints of rose; sweet, ripe red-berry and blackplum flavours, as you’d expect from this sunkissed island, the residual sugar well supported by fresh acidity and a decent tannin structure.

Unmissable events Exhibition February 20–March 6 New paintings by Frances Macdonald (right), Portland Gallery, Bennet Street, London SW1. Bold and vibrant pallet-knife paintings, capturing the drama of Scotland’s west coast (020–7493 1888; www. portlandgallery.com) Until March 29 ‘Jake Wood-Evans: Relic’, The Gallery, Winchester Discovery Centre, Hampshire.

More than 20 new works, including large-scale paintings and a series of curved canvases, fusing mythical and religious Baroque imagery with Modernist sensibilities (01962 873603; www. hampshireculture.org.uk) Music March 3 Max Raabe & Palast Orchester, Congress Theatre, Eastbourne, East Sussex. The German singer and his accompanying white-tie orchestra perform the songs of the 1920s and 1930s, before moving on to appear at Cadogan Hall, London SW1 (March 4), Symphony Hall, Birmingham (March 5) and The Brigewater Hall, Manchester www.countrylife.co.uk

Ballet March 14–May 16 Geisha, various venues. Northern Ballet premieres the new production, which tells the story of Okichi and Aiko in 19th-century Japan.

After the world premiere at Leeds Grand Theatre, the ballet will visit Sheffield, London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Tickets from £10 (0113–220 8000; www. northernballet.com/geisha)

(March 6). From 7.30pm, tickets from £22.50 (01323 412000; www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk) Art fair February 27–March 1 Collect: The International Art Fair for Modern Craft and Design, Somerset House, London WC2.

International galleries present ceramics, glass, metal, wood and textiles, made in the past five years by artists from Sweden, Uganda and Japan, in the beautiful rooms of the fair’s new venue.

There will also be installations on show and a programme of talks. General admission £23 (020–7806 2500; www.crafts council.org.uk)

Book now April 22–26 Talking Gardens, Highgrove, Tetbury, Gloucestershire.

Horticultural talks from the likes of COUNTRY LIFE contributor Alan Titchmarsh, Roy Lancaster and Rachel de Thame. Each event includes a tour of the gardens, as well as lunch or afternoon tea.

Tickets from £95 (0333 222 4555; www.highgrovegardens.com)

A rich expression of Japan Château Mercian, Koshu Gris de Gris, Fuefuki, Yamanashi, Japan 2018. £15.99, Boutinot, alc 11.5% Skin-contact Koshus give a richer expression of Japan’s indigenous variety.

Salmon pink in colour, this has candied-pear and strawberry aromas, juicy berry and yuzu zest on the palate, together with textured tannins and a citrus-peel-like finish.

Gracefully mature Château Milhau-Lacugue, Les Curées, St-Chinian, Languedoc, France 2008. £19.95, Yapp Bros, alc 15% A gracefully mature Syrah-Grenache blend, drinking perfectly now.

Velvety tannins enrobe seductive brambles, truffle, leather, tarmac, herbs and seaweed, with beautiful oak integration from 18 months in large barrels.

For more, visit www.decanter.com

The Old Vicarage, Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire SY9 5AF. February 21–23, 11am–4pm. Admission £3.50, children free This garden is filled with snowdrops—romantically offset by the low tower of the parish church, just across the boundary yew hedge—and the ruins of a 13th-century church are scattered through the grounds. The opening coincides with the annual Bishop’s Castle Arts Festival, to which the Old Vicarage contributes a stained-glass studio (www.ngs.org.uk).

Country Life, February 19, 2020 39

Letters to the Editor

Mark Hedges

Letter of the week

Our nest egg

The secret’s out

OU print some amusing and interesting letters, but I think I can go one better. A pair of robins nested last year in my ski helmet, which I had hung on a peg in my garage upon returning from holiday.

The four or five chicks fledged and I have now hung my helmet back on the same peg, hoping the birds will return this spring. It was a truly uplifting experience.

Jane Bottomley, North Yorkshire

I

N your excellent piece ‘Around Britain in 50 foods’ (February 12), the section on Patum Peperium claims that only one employee at Elsenham Quality Foods in Essex holds the secret recipe. Examining my latest tub of this wonderful delicacy, I see and regret to tell you that Elsenham is no longer mentioned and has been replaced

by AB World Foods, with an address in Lancashire and the legend ‘Made in the EU’. I fear that the lone keeper of the secret recipe may have been relieved of his role—I do hope they didn’t have to resort to force to extract it from him.

David Salter, Surrey

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

Times they are a changin’

I

WONDER on what day of the week Athena chose to visit Canterbury (February 5), as her experience doesn’t seem to resemble the city many of us living in this beautiful corner of Kent love. Yes, the high street is changing and not without its problems. The recent closure of the family-owned department store Nasons has left a hole. Unlike neighbouring towns, however, it remains a vibrant, interesting place to shop, combining high-street chains, independents and lovely places to eat and drink, with homes a spit from the main shopping thoroughfares. But don’t tell anyone—we like it just the way it is. Matt Baldwin, Kent

Y

Sealed with a kiss

A

S a retired army wife, I was moved

by K. J. Hampshire’s question to Kit Hesketh-Harvey (Town & Country Notebook, January 15). My husband had tours in Iraq and Afghanistan while we were raising our son. I hope the following suggestions might help. Keep in touch with your husband by writing ‘bluey’ airmail letters: they don’t cost a penny and there’s nothing like finding them on the doormat. Your husband will be working flat out, but he will miss you and the children, so get them to write, too. Keep to the children’s routine: their earlier bedtimes give you time to relax. Stay connected: during a tour, most families’ officers put on extra outings and coffee mornings. Go to stay with family or friends: having time away from camp is good for everyone.

Every blessing for your tour.

Gail Eagles, by email

Up in flames

Y

OUR readers may be interested to learn that, in the recent horrific bushfires in Victoria and New South Wales, falcons—my guess being whistling or black kites—were observed picking up embers from the fires and dropping them on unaffected areas, spreading the fire.

I used to work in north Queensland and would always stop to watch the kites follow the cane-cutting machines, looking for injured or dead prey. Some farmers used to burn the cane and seeing the birds swoop down so close to the flames was always a huge thrill—what a fascinating natural world we live in.

Steve Barnes, Brisbane, Australia

Contact us (photographs welcome) Email: countrylife_letters@ti-media.com Post: Letters to the Editor, COUNTRY LIFE Editorial, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Hampshire GU14 7BF TI Media Limited reserves the right to edit and to reuse in any format or medium submissions to the letters page of COUNTRY LIFE

N.B. If you wish to contact us about your subscription, including regarding changes of address, please ring Magazines Direct on 0330 333 1120

COUNTRY LIFE, ISSN 0045-8856, is published weekly by TI Media Limited, 3rd Floor, 161, Marsh Wall, London, E14 9AP, United Kingdom. COUNTRY LIFE Subscriptions: For enquiries and orders, please email: help@magazinesdirect.com, alternatively from the UK call: 0330 333 1120, overseas call: + 44 330 333 1120 (Lines are open Monday–Saturday, 8am- 6pm GMT excluding Bank Holidays). One year full subscription rates: 1 Year (51) issues. UK £213.70; Europe/Eire € 380 (delivery 3–5 days); USA $460 (delivery 5–12 days); Rest of World £359 (delivery 5–7 days). Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to COUNTRY LIFE, Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named Air Business, c/o Liberty Express Distributions USA LLC, Suite 201, 153–63 Rockaway Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at TI Media Ltd, Rockwood House, 9–16, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, RH16 3DH. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. BACK NUMBERS Subject to availability, issues from the past three years are £6 a copy (£8 in the EU, £10 overseas): 01795 662976; www.mags-uk.com. Subscriptions queries: 0844 848 0848. If you have difficulty in obtaining COUNTRY LIFE from your newsagent, please contact us on 020–3148 3300. We regret we cannot be liable for the safe custody or return of any solicited or unsolicited material, whether typescripts, photographs, transparencies, artwork or computer discs. COUNTRY LIFE PICTURE LIBRARY: Articles and images published in this and previous issues are available, subject to copyright, from the COUNTRY LIFE Picture Library: 01252 555090/2/3. INDEX: The COUNTRY LIFE Cumulative Index, in PDF format and updated annually, which lists all articles on country houses and gardens published since 1897, is priced at £42.50 plus VAT and is available from Paula Fahey (clpicturelibrary@ti-media.com) Editorial Complaints We work hard to achieve the highest standards of editorial content and we are committed to complying with the Editors’ Code of Practice (https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/cop.html) as enforced by IPSO.If you have a complaint about our editorial content, you can email us at complaints@ti-media.com or write to Complaints Manager, TI Media Limited Legal Department, 3rd Floor, Marsh Wall, London E14 9AP. Please provide details of the material you are complaining about and explain your complaint by reference to the Editors’ Code. We will try to acknowledge your complaint within 5 working days and we aim to correct substantial errors as soon as possible.

40 Country Life, February 19, 2020

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Alamy, Getty Images, Annabelle King

(with a daytime telephone number, please)

A whiter shade of pale

W

E have had this albino squirrel in our garden for the past six weeks. As you may be able to see in the photograph, he has one of our Red Sentinel apples in his mouth.

Lady Whitbread, Bedfordshire

Shuffling the pack for a strong hand

T Which way is up?

I

T was a pleasure to see the 1969 photograph of Beverley, the county town of the East Riding of Yorkshire where I was born, along with the flag of the East Riding in the same issue (February 5).

However, it is incorrect to say that the white rose on the flag of the East Riding of Yorkshire is upside-down— the rose may be used with either a petalor a sepal at the top.

Malcolm Watson, Isle of Wight

COUNTRY LIFE FEBRUARY 26 SCHOOL LIFE: praise for preps, burning topics and Olympic medals; lus Chatsworth’s rookery, historical dogs, and le p-year proposals

Make someone’s week, every week, with a COUNTRY LIFE subscription 0330 333 1120 www.countrylife.co.uk

HE pundits were wrong. Boris Johnson has shuffled his cabinet, but the machinery of government remains much the same. All that talk of fundamental change, of amalgamation of departments, of super-ministries and new ways of doing things, has turned out to be unfounded speculation.

Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s top adviser, may not have entirely got his way, but Mr Johnson has recognised the ‘bumpy road’ ahead and continuity has won over radical revisionism. Reorganising ministries is a fraught, costly and complex process.

It takes time for new structures to bed down and he hasn’t got that time. Brexit is not done and the timetable is uncomfortably tight. The world will descend on Glasgow in November for COP26 and he has to make it a success, not only for the planet, but for the credibility of his personal project, Global Britain. There’s a real risk of failure and the Prime Minister has rightly opted for a measured approach in what could be a difficult year.

It would have been a pretty mundane reshuffle were it not for the resignation of Sajid Javid, the Chancellor, forced out by the determination of Number 10 to control the Treasury. This is an old battle fought by successive prime ministers, long before Mr Cummings arrived. Number 10 has to win if the PM is not to be seen as weak, but some personal antipathies made it the more bitter.

As a result, Rishi Sunak, a doctor’s son educated at Winchester and Oxford, has replaced the bus driver’s son, product of a Further Education college. The question now is how long will the immensely able Mr Sunak put up with the hectoring Mr Cummings. Long enough, Agromenes would suggest, to establish himself as the indispensable guarantee

of financial stability in a Government led by a sometimes mercurial Prime Minister.

By the end of the year, Mr Johnson may no longer need his arch-campaigner, but he will need someone who can reassure the City and the world. Mr Sunak impresses all who work with him with his intellect and charm. Mr Cummings may have met his match.

And what a remarkable demonstration of diversity this cabinet represents: Chancellor, Home Secretary, Business Secretary, Attorney General—all from Asian backgrounds; the Home Office, International Trade, Intern-ational Development, Work and Pensions and the House of Lords all headed by women. This is something of which Britain can truly be proud.

For us country people, the changes that matter most directly are at Defra and Business (BIS).

George Eustice’s promotion to Secretary of State at Defra will have a mixed reception.

Although he comes from rural, farming stock in Cornwall—his family runs a diverse business that includes fruit and rare-breed pigs —and cares about the countryside, he has to demonstrate an ability to lead farmers in the fundamental changes necessary if agriculture is to flourish without production support and he has to deliver the Agriculture and Environment Bills. It’s a tall order and crucial for delivering Britain’s legally binding net-zero commitments.

Over at BIS, the clever and likeable Alok Sharma has been given the toughest job of all. Delivering the Government’s growth strategy is crucial to Mr Johnson’s success and so is a successful outcome in the UN climate change talks. Mr Sharma has to do both. The Prime Minister has every reason to accord him all the necessary resources and support because his success is crucial for all of us.

Boris Johnson has rightly opted for a measured approach in what could be a difficult year

Follow @agromenes on Twitter

Country Life, February 19, 2020 41

Athena Cultural Crusader

S

Quantity is seldom a measure of quality

TRATEGY documents, for all their importance, tend either to bore or irritate Athena. Let’s Create, published last month by Arts Council England as a strategy document for the decade ahead, is 20 pages long— if you omit to count 22 full-page illustrations and a concluding series of six spreads presenting blank writing paper, grid paper and musical stave—and falls decisively into the latter category.

This came as a surprise to Athena because the central message is one with which she completely agrees: that culture is for everyone and can be a powerful force for good. She approves, moreover, with the idea expressed in the report that it is the job of the Arts Council to ‘support positive change and innovation in the

cultural landscape, and to move everyone towards that vision of a country in which everyone can explore their own creativity and enjoy outstanding culture’.

What troubles her, however, is that the Arts Council apparently aims to achieve this by a process of levelling and reduction. In its eyes—the report assures us— all cultural endeavours are of equal value.

To underline the breadth of its interests, indeed, the word ‘artists’ has been substituted (although not very consistently, Athena notices) by the more inclusive term ‘creative practitioners’ to describe those who ‘work to create new, or reshape existing, cultural content’.

The word “artists” has been substituted by the term “creative practitioners” That may sound impressive, but it isn’t, because the thing that actually defines the breadth of Arts Council investment is not what falls in or out of its perceived remit, but money. What this heralds, in other words, is not an escape from an

inherited prejudice that values, say, opera and theatre over street art, but another tyranny: value judgement by metrics.

Henceforth, the number of people involved and the diversity of their background will be the determining factors in how money is distributed by the Arts Council.

That’s not in itself a bad thing—Athena greatly approves of popular artistic initiatives—but once it’s established as a principle within an institution that quality and quantity are inextricably linked, it makes it almost impossible to justify exceptions.

In the field of the Arts, the exceptions are very important indeed.

In his introduction to the report, the chairman of Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, describes one of his predecessors as characterising the institution’s mission as growing ‘few, but roses’. Now, he claims, ‘we can all be gardeners’. Athena doesn’t directly disagree, but she would observe that any measure of art that makes each one of us a ‘creative practitioner’ will be totally incapable of calibrating the achievements of those who do it really well.

For her own money, in short, she prefers the realistic modesty of Sir Nicholas’s predecessor’s vision to the exaggerated and misleading claims of his own.

The way we were Photographs from the COUNTRY LIFE archive

1950s

Not published

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42 Country Life, February 19, 2020

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Alasdair Alpine MacGregor/Country Life Picture Library

Clearing the way: a mobile milepost painter redefines the route between Little Glemham, Suffolk, and London beside the then remarkably tranquil A12.

01245 326500 WESTBURYGARDENROOMS.COM

SHOWROOMS IN LONDON & ESSEX

Farming life

Jamie Blackett

Tied up in knots Homo rusticus spends ‘Veganuary’ on the urban media trail

F

Jeremy Vine is scrupulously professional. We leave genuinely not knowing where he stands Stepping out of the Farmers’ Club onto the pavements of Whitehall, I realise that Homo rusticus has evolved differently in his outer skin from H. urbanus. The soles of my shoes are letting in water, something that never happens at home, as H. rusticus wears shoes indoors and wellies outdoors.

When COUNTRY LIFE asked me to write a farming column, it possibly envisaged a series of despatches from the tractor cab, but modern farming takes many forms.

January used to be a slack month, a time to enjoy the finer things in life without feeling guilty—the ones that haven’t been banned, anyway. It now seems to be an annual battle to justify our existence to an increasingly metropolitan public.

My grandfather would be astonished to learn that this is how I spend ‘Veganuary’.

In his day, farmers were secure in the

44 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Whatever the travails of modern farming, a walk on the shore will always soothe the soul

knowledge that when the leading politician of the day, Sir Winston Churchill, said ‘There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies’, the nation’s schoolchildren didn’t play truant to demand the end of the capitalist system and compulsory almond milk (produced by the, er, capitalist system). Now, there isn’t a single farmer in the country who doesn’t find himself debating ‘environmental issues’ on social media or in the snug of the Dog and Partridge (as he still calls it).

Today, it’s my turn to defend livestock farming, on Jeremy Vine’s show. I arrive early at Wogan House to eyeball the producers and make them promise that I will not be stitched up, as had happened to me on a radio interview earlier in the week, in a debate with a celebrity vegan, who was given not only the last word, but the first and most of the middle ones as well.

The charming girls on the switchboard smile sweetly and inscrutably when I attempt to persuade them not to put any such callers through. Schmoozing done, I attempt to do some work on my laptop in a corner of the green room, but the wifi in the nerve centre of the world’s premier broadcasting corporation doesn’t work. The producer tells me it’s never any good, which makes me feel better about our hopeless broadband at home.

My opponent is a charming girl young enough to be my daughter. She arrives late and flustered, and without a copy of her book

she is promoting, so I feel sorry for her and, with possibly misplaced chivalry, mentally cancel some of my attack lines about the prevalence of flatulence among vegans.

Then we are on. I needn’t have worried, Mr Vine is a charming host and scrupulously professional. We both leave the studio genuinely not knowing where he stands on the issue, which is just as it should be.

Back home, the sheep have crawled under a gate and are munching all the wheat the geese haven’t had. I relax by walking on the shore with the dogs. The knot murmurations have been dazzling this winter, more so than the better-known starling displays, as the knots change colour like the leaves of a cricket-bat willow when they turn. They are the Solway’s winter ballet, performed to the accompaniment of curlews and oystercatchers piping across the estuary.

This year, they’ve mastered a new choreography, splitting into two identical clouds of swirling, silvering stars before coming back together again. Suddenly, their mood changes and they form an angry flying saucer that repeatedly smacks the surface of the sea, the beat of their wings making an aggressive insect noise before bouncing off like a skimming stone down the tide.

Seconds later, a seal pops his head up, wondering what all the fuss is about.

Jamie Blackett farms in Dumfriesshire and is the author of ‘Red Rag to a Bull —Rural Life in an Urban Age’

www.countrylife.co.uk

Sheri Blackett

OR the sake of posterity, I had better acknowledge in this issue that we have left the EU. The immediate question is what to do with the signs around the farm? These proclaim the generosity of the EU for funding various ‘schemes’ under the familiar blue-andgold flag (thereby letting the neighbours know what a subsidy junkie I have been).

I consider taking them down and storing them safely so that I can fondly imagine my great-grandchildren taking them on the Antiques Roadshow: ‘Back in the early 21st century, before laboratory food, there were people called farmers, who were paid public money for public food by an empire called the European Union and then along came Brexit and the British Government changed the policy to public money for public goods.’ However, my instinctive fear of officialdom prevents me, in case some apparatchik of the Green State comes and asks for all the money back.

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My favourite painting Martin Yeoman The Lady with a Fan by Velázquez

Martin Yeoman is an artist.

His next exhibition will be with Jenna Burlingham Fine Art at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, London SW1, from March 17 to April 4

There is a sublime and sensual beauty about all aspects of this painting. When I began studying in the 1970s, I fell in love with not only her beautiful face and eyes, but also the drawing of her hands, clearly seen within the white gloves, together with the depiction of extra material on the end of each glove finger. The blue silk bow and the cross from which it hangs are yet more marvels of painting and drawing, the bow being reminiscent of the delicate petals of an iris.

The whole work to me demonstrates the highest level of painting

The Lady with a Fan, 1640, 37½in by 27½in, by Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), Wallace Collection, London

HE 19th-century French art historian Theophile Thoré-Bürger, famed for ‘rediscovering’ Vermeer, thought this portrait had no rival as the best of Velázquez and of Spanish painting in general.

It was in 1624 that Diego Velázquez was appointed court painter to Philip IV of Spain, in succession to the dead de Villandrando.

The resulting demands on his time—the king, alone, accounted for 34 portraits— meant he had little time to paint people apart from the royal family; indeed, he also painted fewer religious pictures than any of his Spanish contemporaries.

46 Country Life, February 19, 2020

It makes this portrait a rare exception.

For all its renown, the sitter and even her clothes are the subject of irreconcilable debate. Some say she is the artist’s wife or daughter. Academics incline to Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse—a 1638 letter mentioned that Velázquez painted her portrait when she was exiled in Madrid under Philip’s protection.

The notoriously low-cut dress is also a clue, as it was a French fashion of the time and led in Spain by the Duchess. Two years after she left the country, the fashion was banned nationwide, except for prostitutes.

Unfortunately, the face here bears no resemblance to her other portraits.

Many aspects of the painting have commended its mastery: the way that highlights make a perfect pattern as they intersect with black and the ribbon and rosary beads relieve an otherwise dull area; the way the apparently random, inconsequential red dot by the ribbon adds surprising warmth to the whole.

The portrait was first recorded in the collection of Lucien Bonaparte, a younger brother of Napoleon, and acquired by the 4th Marquess of Hertford in 1847.

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Bridgeman Images

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John McEwen comments on The Lady with a Fan

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Down to a fine art

Protecting your fine art requires a certain expertise, advises Castleacre’s Guy Everington

Q

Should we think differently about protecting fine art?

A

In our experience, collectors rarely just view their collection from an investment perspective and usually have a strong attachment to individual works of art, whether bought, inherited or commissioned—this is a central consideration for us as fine-art insurance brokers. We don’t just review the market to find the right insurance for our client, we look at how we can help prevent distressing claims.

The Blind Girl, 1856. Artist: John Everett Millais, Oil on canvas. Birmingham Museums Trust

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What is the advantage of specialist fine-art insurance?

If you make a claim, your insurance should return you to the same position you were in before the event occurred; this might be replacement, repair/restoration or monetary compensation. Fine art poses unique risks that standard insurance does not address: • Will you be able to make a full claim for the loss in value of a pair of vases, if only one is damaged?

• If the value of a painting suddenly increases because the artist has died, will your cover automatically increase?

• Will your work of art be insured in transit if you take it abroad or loan it to an exhibition?

• What happens if you have bought a picture in good faith, but a third party later claims title to it (known as defective title)?

Fine-art policies will protect against these risks.

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How should you view changes in art value when you are protecting your collection?

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Understanding fluctuations in market value has an important influence on the claim outcome. An insurer will base any compensation on the most recent valuations their client has provided, unless values have been pre-agreed—this is one of the reasons it’s important to ensure a collection is regularly reviewed by a professional valuer. We often advise on the advantages and disadvantages of cover based on the changing market value (low or high auction estimate, retail value)

Treasured possessions: fine art poses unique risks not covered by standard insurance

or set pre-agreed values, but it will depend on personal preference. All insurers will differentiate between higher value pieces that require individual valuations and descriptions (known as specified works of art) and lower value art grouped together as unspecified.

In the case of a fine-art policy, the specified item limit is at a much higher level, so a piece valued at £50,000 or less may not require an individual description or valuation.

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How can you help reduce the risk of loss or damage to fine art?

Fine-art insurance protects against loss, damage or theft, but insurers will ask that certain security measures are in place. We help our clients review security and can advise on alarms, movement sensors, window and door locks and positioning of smoke detectors. If a collection or individual piece is of national or international

significance, we suggest it is added to the Art Loss Register’s positive database—this is an internationally recognised record and a deterrent to potential thieves.

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What helps recovery following a fineart claim?

Planning ahead for worst-case scenarios can be hugely helpful and we often work with clients and insurers to develop a disaster recovery plan, which ensures everyone knows how to respond and who to contact in the crucial early stages. Swift emergency removal, specialist storage of fine art and access to restoration specialists are often vital in protecting against further damage or loss. Fine-art insurers offer invaluable experience and provide access to the right expertise when it matters most.

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‘Where gentle Thames his winding water leads’ Huon Mallalieu reflects on the influence of the Thames on the work of Turner and other artists and writers of his time

O

NE of the first decisions made by the Bank of England’s Banknote Characters Advisory Committee after it was joined by the historian and curator Sandy Nairne was to put J. M. W. Turner on the new £20 note that is to be launched tomorrow. The reverse of the banknote shows the painter’s youthful self-portrait in front of The Fighting Temeraire being tugged along the Thames Estuary to her final berth, one of his and the public’s favourites of his works. It was doubly fitting that Mr Nairne should have been involved in the choice, for not only is 48 Country Life, February 19, 2020

he a former director of the National Portrait Gallery, but he has come up with a line in praise of the River Thames that deserves to stand with the famous quotations by Spenser, Morris and John Burns: ‘A curving spine for the history and landscapes of England,’ he wrote in a blog.

The river could be said to have had the same importance in Turner’s life, from his birth in Covent Garden a couple of hundred yards from it in 1775, to his death in 1851, only feet above the riverbank at Chelsea.

At various times, he lived beside it—at Brentford, Isleworth, Hammersmith and

Twickenham—and he owned the Ship and Bladebone public house at Wapping. He saw the Thames not only with the eye of a painter, but with that of a sailor and of a fisherman.

One of the reasons he took his final house in Chelsea was that, from an eyrie on the roof, he had his ‘Dutch view’ to the east and his ‘English view’ to the west. By these, he meant the river eastward down to the Nore and the North Sea, which had inspired the sea-pieces he had painted in emulation of and competition with the Van de Veldes, and, to the west, the reaches from Chelsea up to Windsor, which had enchanted painters and www.countrylife.co.uk

fingers to have painted it and it must have been often in his mind when on the river.

At the heart of that western ‘English’ stretch was Richmond Hill, from which the sinuous river directed the eye to Windsor Castle in one direction and to the dome of St Paul’s in the other. In the foreground were Ham House, Marble Hill and Lady Diana Beauclerk’s Little Marble Hill, Orléans House, Strawberry Hill and, most importantly, Pope’s Villa. A little further away, beyond Hampton Court, was Garrick’s Villa with the Temple to Shakespeare and, nearby, the great aristocratic palaces of Syon, Osterley and Chiswick.

When Osias Humphrey was painting at Richmond, he was mightily impressed by the social, as well as the physical, eminence of the viewpoint. ‘From this Terrace one looks down upon the Thames, a sublime translucent Mirrour...

On the Hill near the Park Gate is a villa of the Duke of Ancaster’s and beyond it within the Park the Lodge of Princess Amelia. Under the Hill to the westward, in a rich Dell, is one singularly beautiful of the Duke of Montague. Over this villa are the woods of Petersham, a seat belonging to the Earl of Harrington. Beyond this again are the Earl of Dysart’s Groves at Ham.’ Also in the view, from 1813, was Turner’s own Solus, or Sandycombe, Lodge at Twickenham. Despite one interpretation of that first name, this was not an ideal place to build for any artist in search of solitude. Painters crowded there to interpret the views in high Claudean manner and literary pilgrims flocked to savour the scenes ennobled by the verses of Alexander Pope and James Thomson.

Of the two poets, Pope (1688–1744) is the more familiar today; even for those who have never read his poems, phrases from them are common currency. ‘Hope springs eternal’, ‘to err is human’, ‘fools rush in’, ‘a little learning’, ‘the proper study of Mankind is Man’, ‘do good by stealth’, ‘who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?’, ‘poetic justice’, ‘vital spark’—all are Pope’s.

The fame that he enjoyed was all the more remarkable for his disadvantages. His birth to Roman Catholic parents, only a month before that of the Prince of Wales signalled the end of James II’s reign, meant that he could have little formal education and that, under a statute brought in after the Gunpowder Plot, he would be prohibited from residing—in practice, owning property— within 10 miles of the City. Twickenham itself is a mere 11 miles away. From the age of 12, Pope suffered from tuberculosis spondylitis, known as Pott disease, which gave him a severe hunchback and restricted his height to 4ft 6in.

Furthermore, as a Tory satirist, he made himself plenty of enemies, as well as admirers.

Pope’s literary contribution to the idealisation of the Thames comes largely in the 1713 Windsor-Forest, a metaphor of qualified optimism prophesying that a glorious Augustan future awaited Britain as a result of the Tory-led Peace of Utrecht.

Ye sacred Nine! that all my soul possess, Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless, Bear me, O bear me to sequester’d scenes,

He saw the Thames not only with the eye of a painter, but with that of a sailor and of a fisherman

View of the River Thames from Richmond Hill, about 1820, by Hofland, well known to Turner and, like him, a keen fisherman

poets since the 17th century. Competition with artists whom he regarded as his peers was always a driving force for Turner and it may well be that his early rivalry with his friend Tom Girtin also played a part in his final choice of dwelling place. He is said to have considered Girtin’s White House at Chelsea to be the one watercolour that outclassed his own—he told the collector Chambers Hall that he would give two www.countrylife.co.uk

Tom Girtin’s White House at Chelsea, a watercolour Turner admired above his own

Country Life, February 19, 2020 49

Turner’s luminous Sunset on the River, 1805, one of 18 sketches on mahogany veneer

and Kew’, wrote The Seasons when staying in rooms at The Dove at Hammersmith, a pub that is still one of the joys of the river.

Turner rented a house almost next door in 1806, which was also close to the former home of Hogarth, whom he admired.

A neighbour was Philip de Loutherbourg, whose theatrical style he appreciated— or, according to Mrs de Loutherbourg, who disliked Turner, appropriated. Not far away was another colleague, the aged Johann

The river’s Society side in Zoffany’s Mr and Mrs Garrick by the Shakespeare Temple

50 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Zoffany, who died at Strand-on-the-Green in 1810, and at Fulham was William Sharp, head of the remarkable musical family that, 30 years before, Zoffany had painted giving a concert aboard their specially built yacht, with Fulham Church behind.

If not on such a scale as the Sharps, Turner designed boats for himself, making many designs that might combine unusual rigs, such as lateen and sprit sails, and he spent much time on the water, sailing, fishing and painting. Among his colleagues, his closest friends included the architect John Soane and the sculptor Francis Chantrey, both men who, as he had himself, had risen by talent from humble beginnings and were keen fishermen. If no more, Soane was a powerful influence on Turner’s designs for Sandycombe Lodge and Chantrey presented him with a marble relief to display there over a fireplace.

At Twickenham, Turner’s compulsion to outdo past and present rivals was fully fed.

Canaletto had painted Old Walton Bridge in 1754, in less Venetian weather than most of his English subjects, and William Hodges, having returned from his Pacific voyage with Capt Cook, Richmond Bridge. Samuel Scott, the marine painter and friend of Hogarth, and his pupil William Marlow had both lived in and painted Twickenham and Marlow had also depicted Richmond Hill and Terrace from the Twickenham bank.

Among the artists who had looked out from the hill were the Flemish-born topographer Peter Tillemans, an asthmatic who moved there for his health in 1733; the vedutismo painter Antonio Joli, who painted www.countrylife.co.uk

Bridgeman Images; Tate; Alamy; Dulwich Picture Gallery; Turner’s House Trust

The bowery mazes, and surrounding greens, To Thames’s banks, which fragrant breezes fill, Or where the Muses sport on Cooper’s Hill.

Cooper’s Hill overlooking Runnymede had almost as wide a view as Richmond and, in 1642, the poet Sir John Denham had located the nine muses there. In 1727, the muses moved downstream when, in his immensely popular quartet The Seasons, Thomson (1700–48) lauded the prospect from Richmond Hill: Heav’ns, what a goodly prospect spreads around, Of hills and dales, and woods, and lawns, and spires, And glitt’ring towns, and gilded streams, till all The stretching landscape into smoke decays...

The Matchless Vale of Thames; fair winding up to where the Muses haunt.

The Muses reappeared in Thomson’s An Ode on Aeolus’s Harp, to which Turner paid tribute with his 1809 Royal Academy exhibit, Thomson’s Aeolian Harp, in which he imagined a garlanded tomb on Richmond Hill and the summer sun declining over lush river banks. A year earlier, his tribute to Pope had been a sadder vision, Pope’s Villa in its Dilapidation, showing the house shortly before it was demolished by the then owner, Baroness Howe, who could not abide the intrusions of literary tourists. Turner also wrote a rather lewd poem featuring Lady Howe.

Thomson, who died at Richmond after ‘taking cold on the water between London

Turner’s home revived Sandycombe Lodge, which has recently undergone a most sympathetic restoration, was built in 1812–13 to Turner’s own design, on land that he had bought five years earlier.

After several false starts, he settled on a tripartite form, perhaps inspired by Sir Robert Taylor’s Asgill House at Richmond, and incorporated elements that strongly suggest that Soane offered advice. The simple interior includes a painting room, a dining room, what may have been a small library, a kitchen and cellar below and two bedrooms above, one for the painter’s father and one for himself, from which he could then have seen the river.

Until March 29, there is an exhibition in the lodge of five small oil sketches of the river lent

by Tate. These are plein air works, painted on his boat or the banks. They use oil paint with a watercolourist’s dash and, unusually, are painted on thin mahogany veneers. They are quite lovely and part of the appeal to a modern eye may be that several share the aspect ratio we are used to in cinema screens. This is the first time, since Turner sold the house in 1826, that any of his original works have hung there. Sandycombe Lodge is the property of the Turner’s House Trust and I am grateful to chair Catherine Parry-Wingfield, who wrote the guidebook and an admirable booklet, J. M. W. Turner and the ‘Matchless Vale of Thames’, on which I have drawn heavily here. Visit www.turnershouse.org

www.countrylife.co.uk

Sunlight breaks through stormy skies in Canaletto’s Walton Bridge, 1754. The bridge, which was built four years earlier, was considered a feat of engineering

from the hill in 1749; and Turner’s contemporaries George Barrett, William Havell and Cornelius Varley.

The leading mid-18th-century portrait painter Thomas Hudson settled at Twickenham and his most eminent pupil, Joshua Reynolds, had William Chambers build him Wick House on Richmond Terrace itself.

Thomas Gainsborough followed his great rival and is buried at Kew beside his friend the artist Joshua Kirby and close to Zoffany.

A less original, but still accomplished, artist who made a speciality of this stretch of the river was Thomas Christopher Hofland (1777–1843). He would have known Turner well, as he was a founder of the Artists’ Benevolent Institution, of which Turner became chairman and treasurer, and he was also an enthusiastic fisherman.

Country Life, February 19, 2020 51

John Axford, chairman of Woolley & Wallis, who started the house’s hugely successful Asian Art department when the need arose

Broadening horizons

A

S my car takes the winding road off the main A339 towards Donnington Priory, Siri announces my destination, ‘Dreweatts 1759’.

The date is absolutely part of this wellknown auction brand. Only Sotheby’s, which traces its origins back to 1744, predates it.

Dreweatts, founded by Thomas Davis, a cabinetmaker and land agent from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, is one of a sprawling regional network of auction houses —Sworders (1782), Mallams (1788), Cheffins (1825), Lyon & Turnbull (1826), Woolley & Wallis (1884)—that sprang up from the late 18th century to serve a growing appetite for this particular method of exchange.

Industrial capitalism had created the need to pass stuff on, from one generation to the next, 52 Country Life, February 19, 2020

or from the debt-ridden to the newly rich.

By the 20th century, there were auction houses in almost every market town, selling everything from houses to livestock to furniture and fine art. Today, a handful of names —the London duopoly Christie’s and Sotheby’s with their near-neighbours, the more generalist Bonhams and the more specialised Phillips—dominate the higher ends of the market. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the mass of regional houses has risen and fallen repeatedly as economic circumstances and peoples’ habits and tastes have changed.

In 2020, however, as a new decade opens, the situation for regional auction houses in Britain is buoyant. Their names increasingly appear in the media attached to record auction prices, rediscovered masterpieces

or prestigious country-house sales. A number has carved out specialisms that have seen the ambitions of smaller houses grow, leading some, in pursuit of an international, moneyed clientele—Lyon & Turnbull, Sworders and Dreweatts, for example—to open London offices. Others, including market-leader Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury, have maintained strong local roots, as well as reaching out internationally. In a perhaps surprising departure, new auction houses have also opened, taking up the local slack left by the angling of these older institutions for more specialised or far-reaching business.

All have seen their businesses change radically in the past 20 years, as the internet has opened access universally, not only to auction catalogues and to bidding, but www.countrylife.co.uk

Andrew Sydenham/Country Life Picture Library

As Britain’s leading metropolitan auction houses cut their regional activities, their provincial counterparts are doing better than ever, says Emma Crichton-Miller

Jonathan Pratt, who joined 18 months ago from Bellmans, reveals that his very first job was at Dreweatts in the 1990s.

For both, what has been essential to their current confidence has been the decision to focus on the traditional categories of a fineart auction house, such as Fine Art, Clocks, Silver, Ceramics and Glass, Jewellery, Fine Furniture, Asian Art and so on. Although Sotheby’s and Christie’s cream off the very top end of this market, the dramatic withdrawal of Bonhams and Phillips from the regions since the late 1990s has created an opportunity for smaller, local auction houses to step into the very broad middle market, accessing treasures in their immediate hinterlands. The strategy of Dreweatts, within this market, has been to aim high with a mix of well-presented, decorative interiors sales, single-owner or country-house auctions and some highly curated specialist events.

‘We would like to be really good at what we do,’ Mr Bailey says. ‘We have brought in new specialists, we present well, we market well and we attract a strong buying base.’

Mr Pratt adds: ‘We now have three academicpaintings researchers.’ In addition, unlike some auction houses, Dreweatts has the facilities to display things well. ‘We can dress things up,’ points out Mr Pratt, gesturing to the beautifully restored Georgian rooms.

The company will offer, in March, the Collection of Sir William Whitfield CBE, the sale of contents of a Queen Anne House put together over 40 years, for which Dreweatts is collaborating with Colefax & Fowler to create complete room settings. ‘We won this sale because other auction houses could George VI limedoak Coronation chair and stool from Oakley House, sold

by Dreweatts for £4,800

Jonathan Pratt, managing director of Dreweatts 1759, now thriving in Berkshire

also to the vast hinterland of information that had previously been the sole preserve of scholars and dealers.

When you arrive at Dreweatts’s picturesque headquarters, on the outskirts of Newbury in Berkshire, within easy reach of London and Oxford, it’s hard to believe that the business in its current incarnation is less than three years old. Donnington Priory dates back to 1393, the current building to 1655. It was bought by the company, www.countrylife.co.uk

then Dreweatt, Watson & Barton, in 1978. Dreweatts itself is now owned

by London Art advisory and valuations firm Gurr Johns, but George Bailey, the current chairman, is sanguine about the myriad structural evolutions that the serene continuity of name disguises: ‘It’s a good, old fashioned name,’ he says; moreover, many of the specialists have been with the business a long time.

Indeed, the new managing director,

Country Life, February 19, 2020 53

only take one or two objects, whereas we will take it all and do a really nice job,’ explains the chairman. His CEO confirms that, as do all the leading auction houses, Dreweatts invests in well-produced catalogues, with thorough research and good photography of every lot, as well as trying to reduce its carbon footprint by reviewing the production processes. The catalogue is as much a demonstration of values and a declaration of intent as it is a selling tool.

So far, the strategy seems to be working.

At the sale of the collection of Eustace Gibbs, 3rd Baron Wraxall, brother of the former owner of Victorian Gothic-Revival Tyntesfield, Somerset, the careful placing within the catalogue of a limed-oak George VI Coronation chair with a matching limed-oak Coronation stool, upholstered in green velvet, within a section of the sale devoted to royal memorabilia, enabled the modest lot (estimated £100–£200) to achieve £4,800 (including 25% buyer’s premium, plus VAT).

Other notable triumphs include a delicate Chinese celadon Dragon and Phoenix vase from the Yongzheng period (1678–1735), which soared to £290,000 on a £6,000– £8,000 estimate; and a beautiful 2ft-high

pink-marble carving of a female nude, dated 1928, by the sculptor John Skeaping (1901–80), Barbara Hepworth’s first husband, which sold to Cork Street dealership Browse & Darby for £90,000 (£111,600, including premium) in May 2017, creating a new record for the artist.

‘We are all chasing the high-value pieces that are fresh to market,’ Mr Bailey remarks.

Although they cannot compete with Sotheby’s and Christie’s, local auction houses will certainly compete with the best of the rest.

When I try to catch John Axford, the new chairman of Woolley & Wallis and a familiar face to fans of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, he is in Rome, visiting a client. Mr Axford has been with the auction house for 26 years. It’s the leading provincial salesroom

When he declared it required a specialist Chinese sale, the Asian art department was founded on the spot

in the country, responsible for 11 of the 14 lots to have made more than £1 million outside London. The first was the Alexander vase, a curvaceous Yuan dynasty (1271– 1368) blue and white vessel bought by William Cleverly Alexander in 1876 for 66 gns and then by the vendor’s ancestor for £10 in 1900. It was recognised in a routine valuation as valuable and, when the vendor declared that it required a specialist Chinese sale, Mr Axford founded Woolley’s Asian art department on the spot. In 2005, the vase made £2.6 million hammer price, more than £3 million with buyer’s premium, from a modest estimate of £250,000.

Since then, the Asian department has become so successful that its main website is in both English and Chinese. Another coup was the sale of The Pelham Water Buffalo, an Imperial spinach-green jade piece of the Qianlong period (1736–95), found wrapped in a 1940 newspaper. It sold in 2009 for £3.4 million hammer, then the world record for a jade carving. Mr Axford comments: ‘The things we do, we want to do as well as anyone.

We occupy the top slot.’

Tribal Art is another niche his company fills successfully, having worked in 2016 with

Busby The Withypool, 1929, signed and dated lower left

by Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris (British, 1889–1982) Busby was founded in Bridport in May 2013 by Hugo Busby, a former master of foxhounds with contacts throughout Dorset, as well as further afield in London and surrounding counties.

‘The model we set ourselves was to treat people as we would like to be treated,’ he says, adding that, nearly seven years on, the house is growing rapidly. This lovely landscape by Cedric Morris came from the estate of Alec Waugh and, estimated at £10,000–£20,000, sold for £45,000 hammer price (exclusive 19.5% fees) to the London dealer Philip Mould, a specialist in British pictures. This is a record for a Morris landscape. The house says: ‘We can deliver, if we get the opportunity.’

Duke’s Auctioneers of Dorchester Fine and rare celadonglaze pear-shaped teapot, Qianlong (1736–95) seal mark This tiny 5in-high teapot, shaped like a pear, the spout linked to the body by a ceramic tassle, with a miniature, beautifully modelled peach and pip on its lid, was discovered during a routine valuation in Dorset and put into Duke’s Asian Art sale on November 11, 2019. According to Duke’s Asian Art specialist, the pot, with imperial seal, was almost certainly made for the Qianlong Emperor himself. Estimated at £1,000– £2,000, it had already attracted interest at a pre-sale viewing in London during Asian Art Week. On the day of the sale, 10 telephone bidders, with others bidding online, fought the price in £20,000 increments to £800,000, more than £1 million with fees. Apparently, as the gavel came down, the packed saleroom burst into applause.

54 Country Life, February 19, 2020

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the dealer Entwistle to sell, by private treaty, a 16th-century Benin bronze head for a worldrecord price for African art. ‘The really big change came with digital photography and the internet,’ Mr Axford comments. ‘Some 95% of our buyers for Chinese art are in China and Hong Kong. We have sold important collections from Lisbon, Rome and South Africa and we source pieces in Canada and the US. We just happen to be in Salisbury.’

For Lyon & Turnbull, based in Edinburgh, the catalyst for transformation was the withdrawal of the London-based auction houses from the regions. Gavin Strang, managing director, points to the moment in 1999 when a group of ex-Phillips auctioneers, including his current vice-chairman, Paul Roberts, acquired the Lyon & Turnbull brand name from a business that was then defunct, with the intention of creating an international auction house for Scotland.

‘We inherited almost nothing but the name.

We didn’t want to be generalist. We wanted to have specialist sales and to add value to the middle market.’ Mr Strang defines that as £1,000–£50,000, ‘or even £1,000–£20,000.

That is where we mostly operate’.

As well as having a predictable strength in Scottish pictures, the house also specialises in the sale of collections. Christopher Forbes gave it the contents of Old Battersea House to sell in 2011 and, in 2012, Donald and Eleanor Taffner shipped their renowned Glasgow School collection to Edinburgh. Lyon & Turnbull cross-market with Philadelphia auction house Freeman’s in the US and rely on a mix of excellent personal relationships The 18th-century Chinese Qianlong vase that was bought for £1 in a charity shop, because the vendor ‘liked it’, and sold for £484,000 by Sworders

Chorley’s A Limoges enamel draw purse, probably by Jacques II Laudin, early 17th century, set with portraits of a lady and a gentleman in Court dress in polychrome enamel This piece was the unexpected star of a sale on January 28 from Spetchley Park in Worcestershire. Chorley’s, established in 2006, is based in the grounds of Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire and specialises in country-house sales, drawing on its network of private clients across Gloucestershire and the surrounding counties. Sotheby’s had already auctioned 750 items from this Regency house, the seat of the Berkeley family since the early 17th century, achieving £3.1 million in December, but this unusually well-preserved item had been overlooked. Cautiously estimated in this Attic Sale at £1,500–£2,000, it achieved £17,000 (with fees), drawing bids from as far afield as America and Asia. Many of the pieces had not been seen on the market since they were originally purchased by the Berkeley family on the Grand Tour or travels further afield in the 19th century. Thomas Jenner-Fust, Chorley’s director and auctioneer, comments: ‘This is what buyers want— unseen country-house contents from great estates.’ www.countrylife.co.uk

with clients and the sheer effort put in to marketing, display and the sale itself. On the day, it has three online platforms, as well as the saleroom. The demise of Christie’s South Kensington has opened the middle market in London, so Lyon & Turnbull has also taken the opportunity to do pop-up sales in London.

Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, based in Essex, has seized this opportunity, too. Chairman Guy Schooling, who has overseen the house’s transformation from a threeman operation about 30 years ago to its current position in the top five regional houses, ascribes part of that to the Chinese market. ‘About 15 years ago, we found suddenly that there were Chinese buyers on the phone and Chinese pieces were making 10 times their estimates.’

At that point, such pieces were still easy to find, overlooked, in British collections.

Even last November, Sworders sold a Chinese imperial Qianlong famille rose vase that was bought for only £1 in a charity shop for £484,000 (with premium). Today, the firm has someone scouting for works in Taiwan, mainland China and Hong Kong for six weeks every year and, since 2019, conducts its Asian sales in London.

Another boost has been the decision to create specialist sales that ‘helped draw pieces to us, which then made four to five times what they would have made in a general sale’. Areas of expertise are 20th-century British and European Art, 20th-century design, jewellery and Arts and Crafts.

As Mr Schooling says: ‘You have constantly to evolve. It is a very active market. We are always having to find new areas to explore.’

No longer sleepy, nor even very regional, the provincial auction houses seem in rude health, open to the world and the future.

Lyon & Turnbull ‘The Barncleuch’ puritan spoon —an important Scottish 17th-century puritan spoon

by George Cleghorne, Edinburgh 1653–1655 Lyon & Turnbull’s annual August Scottish Silver sale at its main auction room in Edinburgh is a significant event for collectors in the field. According to legend, this spoon was discovered in the grounds of Barncleuch House, Dumfries.

It bears the initials of Quintin Hamilton of Barncleuch (who died in about 1680) and his wife Marion Denham and is the earliest surviving Scottish silver ‘puritan’ spoon, so called because the plain styling was popular for a relatively short time during and just after the Commonwealth. This example is one of only nine surviving Scottish puritan spoons and sold for £34,800, more than double the high estimate of £12,000–£15,000—a record for Scottish silver.

Country Life, February 19, 2020 55

Gardens for all seasons Winter Gardens have had a difficult late 20th century.

What lies ahead for these extraordinary architectural creations, asks Marcus Binney, and might they be about to enjoy a revival?

W

INTER GARDENS live dangerously. Inspired by the splendour and popularity of Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, completed for the Great Exhibition of 1851, architects aspired to create People’s Palaces and, from the first, they have been uncertain investments. The earliest were built by entrepreneurial Victorians, who saw soaring iron and glass roofs as the architecture of a new age, appropriate for conservatories, exhibition halls, covered markets and railway termini.

Winter Gardens were usually erected in seaside resorts and spas with the intention of extending the summer season into spring and autumn and even winter itself. In addition, they might provide indoor attractions on cloudy and rainy summer days. They began simply as glasshouses, luxuriant with plants and foliage, but quickly acquired further spaces for promenading, eating, drinking and entertainment (Fig 2).

To add to their appeal, their architecture was deliberately spectacular. Take the Winter Gardens at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, designed by local architect J. T. Darby in 1876–78, with a balloon roof to rival that of the Petit Palais in Paris. It was conceived with a skating rink, for a sport then briefly 56 Country Life, February 19, 2020

enjoying great popularity. In 1895, the town corporation invested a further £10,000 in the building, but it was demolished in 1942.

Where these buildings have survived, the race is now on not merely to return them to their former glory, but to allow them to earn their keep. The most famous recent campaign of this kind perhaps concerns the Blackpool Winter Gardens (Fig 3). They opened in 1878 and grew by stages to include the Empress Ballroom of 1896, the Olympia exhibition hall of 1930 and the Opera House of 1939.

The race is on to return these buildings to glory and allow them to earn their keep All these have been saved by Blackpool Council, which purchased the complex in 2010. Restoration of the ornate ceiling of the Empress Ballroom after a plaster fall was followed by a spectacular £1.9 million rescue of the Spanish Hall with an Art Deco interior

by Andrew Mezzei in the manner of a 1930s atmospheric cinema. The original glassroofed Winter Garden, which began in 1878

as a glazed concert hall, was designed by a local architect, Thomas Mitchell of Oldham.

The fortunes of nearby Morecambe Winter Gardens, which also opened in 1878, have been more chequered. In its golden days, Morecambe aspired to be more stylish than Blackpool, as Oliver Hill’s chic 1933 Midland Hotel underlines. The seawater baths, bars and ballrooms added here in 1896 were demolished in 1982, but one spectacular building from this expansion survives: the theatre built in 1897 by Mangnall and Littlewood, designers of many festive structures that enlivened northern cities (Fig 5).

The interior of the theatre, which had capacity for 2,500 people, had plasterwork as rich and frothy as a Continental opera house. In the early 1900s, it hosted the leading music festival in the country, which was supported by Elgar. He wrote five original pieces for the festival and judged largescale choral competitions here. When I first saw it in 1986, however, water lay in pools on the floor and dripped through the ceiling.

Enterprising city architect of Lancaster Charles Wilson and local MP Sir Mark Lennox Boyd determined to attempt a rescue. Demolition was averted, but progress was slow for lack of funds and looked even worse when a Heritage Lottery Fund bid was rebuffed. www.countrylife.co.uk

Alamy; Martine Hamilton; Allun Bull/Historic England

Now, a newly constituted trust with Vanessa Toulmin, a professor of Entertainment History, as its chair offers hope. ‘Our future,’ she says, ‘lies in a wide range of live performances. The stage will be restored with seating for 1,500. Already, more than 15,000 people a year are taking tours of the theatre.’

As yet, £153,000 has been raised for the work, including £123,000 from Historic England and £30,000 from the Trust. The long-term aim, however, is to raise £10 million in stages, to establish the theatre as a creative centre for music in North West England.

In the course of its restoration work, the trust is making discoveries all the time. ‘We took off paint’, Prof Toulmin explains, ‘and found the original mirrors of 1897.’ Still to be decided is whether the interior should be restored to seamless glory or whether there should be some exposed archaeology or arrested decay, a course that was followed at the recently reopened theatre at Alexandra Palace, London N22.

Another spectacular Winter Garden that similarly awaits revival was built at Torquay, with stepped tiers of beautifully fenestrated walls, to the design of John Watson and William Harvey in 1878–81, at a cost of £12,783. The ironwork was by Jesse Tildesley of the Crescent Ironworks, Willenhall, www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 1 top: Art Deco Classicism: the restored Winter Gardens at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset. Fig 2 above: The Winter Gardens at Margate, Kent, in the late 19th century Staffordshire. It could seat 1,000 for concerts.

Alas, it was not considered a commercial success in booming Torquay, but salvation came in an unusual way.

In 1903, the surveyor of Great Yarmouth, J. W. Cockrill, conceived the idea of moving the Torquay structure to Norfolk ‘to lengthen the season with better-class visitors, and

on wet days to provide for 2,000 persons under cover’. Transported by barge, the building arrived in sections and, reputedly, not a pane of glass was broken.

Despite decades of popularity, the Great Yarmouth Winter Garden finally closed in 2008. It is now in desperate need of repair as the cast-iron frames rust, the wooden Country Life, February 19, 2020 57

Fig 3 above: The Floral Hall of the Winter Gardens at Blackpool, one of the spaces recently restored to public use. Fig 4 facing page: The 72ft-high Sheffield Winter Gardens, begun in the 1990s as part of a covered route between the railway station and the city centre fixings of the glass rot and the panes fall out.

Internal gutters dispersing rainwater present increasing problems. As Darren Barker of the Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust explains: ‘The biggest challenge is the central lantern, which has been held up by a form of giant Zimmer frame—an eyesore in itself.’

The idea is to design a more elegant support that will also provide access to a new mezzanine gallery with views out to sea and over the plants at canopy level. Hope now rests with a bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Yarmouth is the more deserving due to the enterprising and determined way it has rescued other landmarks, such as the Venetian Canals at the other end of the seafront. This was an employment scheme set up after the First World War, when the town’s fishing industry was in decline.

An insight into what such a restoration project might achieve is provided by the example of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset (Fig 1). The Winter Gardens here are a spectacular example of 1930s Classicism, with a dome and flanking colonnades all stylishly long, low and streamlined in the Art Deco manner. Here, there is no glasshouse, but a balconied ballroom beneath the giant oval

58 Country Life, February 19, 2020

dome. In recent decades, it was run by the council and used for weddings and events, but revenues did not keep up with costs.

When demolition threatened, more than 7,000 people signed a petition to save it.

Although listing was rejected by English Heritage, the locally based Weston College was seeking to expand its courses from training to higher education and, with access to educational funds, it was able to secure a £15 million investment for restoration and new teaching facilities.

It’s not only as revived buildings, however, that Winter Gardens are making their mark. In recent years, Sheffield has perhaps excelled above all other cities in Britain in the creation of a handsome and popular public realm. Here, a completely new Winter Garden has been conceived, with a Millennium Gallery, as part of a covered pedestrian route from the station to the city centre (Fig 4).

Bob Kerslake, who became chief executive of the council in 1997, says: ‘Sheffield had been hit by the rapid decline of the steel mills and the World Student Games, although successful, involved heavy outlay on facilities.

There was no mood for public expenditure.’

However, it was also the golden moment,

when the Millennium Commission was looking for trophy projects on which it was willing to spend up to £50 million each.

Mr Kerslake continues: ‘The planning department had devised a plan, The Heart of the City, centred on improving public realm... I said “I will put my name on this so it’s my head that rolls if we fail”.’ The competition for the building was won in 1995

by Pringle, Richards, Sharrat, with a design that incorporates a series of parabolic arches with a distinctive silhouette affectionately likened to a toast rack. As the architect John Pringle commented: ‘In a city famous for its steel, the arches are of wood-laminated timber sections fabricated in Bavaria.’

Andy Topley, who evolved the masterplan with architects Allies & Morrison, explains: ‘We conceived the idea of a covered garden for all seasons, which would provide shelter on wet and windy days. The Pringle solution was attractive because it was so cheap—only £5.5 million.’

Mr Kerslake was determined it should be well kept in the long term, with both fulltime security and a gardener always on site.

‘We’ve never had an incident of vandalism in 10 years,’ remarks Mr Topley. www.countrylife.co.uk

Fig 5 above: The terracotta frontage of the Winter Gardens theatre at Morecambe, Lancashire, returned from dereliction. Fig 6 below: A. B. MacDonald’s Winter Garden and People’s Palace, opened in 1898, in Glasgow. It currently stands shut, awaiting £5 million repairs Although the building evokes a tropical palm house, the plants inside are all from the world’s temperate zones, so the interior does not need expensive heating. The 72fthigh ceiling allows taller species, such as Norfolk Island pine and eucalyptus, to reach an impressive height and to create a leafy canopy at a high level. Mr Topley notes: ‘Public spaces work when they have activity at the edge to animate them.’ Two hotel restaurants are open at the Sheffield Winter Garden, which has its own cafe, as well as park benches to sit on.

What’s exciting is that there are more Winter Garden proposals on their way.

Another resort seeking to revive its fortunes through the creation of one is Bognor Regis, although the £50 million scheme is on hold following a change in the make up of the local council. The design incorporates an eye-catching wave roof, developed by the regeneration group Urban Delivery.

A still more ambitious scheme for an Eden of the North is now emerging, fired by the success of Sir Nicholas Grimshaw’s golfball hothouses in St Austell. The site being considered is the seafront at Morecambe, just in front of the Winter Gardens.

Despite these new initiatives, the list of historic Winter Gardens under threat remains depressing. After Torquay lost its glasshouse, it built a handsome replacement in the form of a seafront theatre; the Pavilion was completed in 1911 by the borough surveyor 60 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Henry Augustus Garrett. It is designed in an attractive Art Nouveau style, clad with patent Doulton white Carrara-ware and ornate ironwork. The octagonal corner towers have copper domes. The town’s recently retired mayor Gordon Oliver secured its listing when it was threatened with demolition in 1973 and, although it stands empty, it is still maintained.

Urgent repairs, however, are needed in Glasgow, where the domed glass roof of the Winter Garden is attached to the recently restored People’s Palace (Fig 6). Both were designed by city engineer A. B. MacDonald and opened in 1898. The Winter Garden needs at least £5 million spent on it, so, until work begins, it will be shut indefinitely.

More hopeful is the future of the Winter Gardens at Eastbourne in East Sussex,

which comprise a Floral Hall, Gold Room and Devonshire Hall, designed by Henry Currey for the 7th Duke of Devonshire in 1875. They are now used for events, music and shows and restoration work is underway with financial help from Historic England.

An impressive £54 million investment programme includes a new conference centre.

Winter Gardens need no longer be a dying breed. EU money may have been lost, but the NLHF and Coastal Communities Fund, as well as the Prime Minister’s investment programme in the North, provide new sources of funds. In reviving them, seaside towns are rediscovering their own history and learning how entertainment, supported by the booming events and conference trade, can bring both locals and visitors back to the British seafront. www.countrylife.co.uk

TravelIn the know

A

Bruges, Belgium

S the medieval trading capital of Flanders and the home of the world’s first stock exchange, Bruges was a leading centre of the finest craftsmanship, Arts and luxury goods by the 15th century—the golden age of the Dukes of Burgundy, whose court was the most fashionable in Europe.

Anybody interested in the cultural and religious world of the early Flemish Masters should come to this restored Gothic city and wander the network of waterways that connected it to the sea, explore the cobbled

streets of the mercantile Hansa quarter, listen to the carillion of 47 bells ringing out from the belfry towering over the cloth hall and marvel at the inventiveness of the step-gabled facades.

William Caxton, an English merchant in Bruges, published the first book printed in English here in 1473 and the city gave refuge to two exiled English kings, Edward IV and Charles II (who raised the first troop of the Life Guards in Bruges in 1658).

Today, the city is a magnet for tourists, but there’s still much evidence of its medieval glory. MM

Where to eat

Where to stay

Patrick Devos on Zilverstraat 41: the well-known chef offers a fresh, gastronomic experience in a historic house with a garden in the heart of Bruges (www.patrickdevos.be).

Café ’t Klein Venetië on Braambergstraat: find a seat on the terrace and enjoy the wonderful view over the Rozenhoedkaai (www.kleinvenetie.be).

Twijfelaar in Eekhoutstraat: a bistro with Belgian/French cuisine (www.detwijfelaar.be).

The Classical façade of Hotel De Tuilerieën (www.hotel tuilerieen.com) overlooks Den Dijver, one of the city’s oldest canals, shaded by weeping birches and an easy stroll from Markt, the central square. Inside, all is gracious and peaceful. Many of the 48 rooms and suites have traditional chimneypieces and furnishings, but still feel fresh and luxurious. There’s a cosy bar, terrace and pool with sauna. In the late 16th century, this was the home of the Spanish alderman Juan Perez de Malvenda, who rescued a relic of the Holy Blood and hid it here for six years (it’s now in the city’s Basilica of the Holy Blood).

62 Country Life, February 19, 2020

This is the Year of van Eyck (Exhibition, page 86), who lived here from 1432–41; follow in his footsteps with a local guide (email david.serlet@telenet.be).‘Van Eyck in Bruges’ at the newly renovated Groeningemuseum will run from March 12 until July 12 (don’t miss the outstanding permanent collection). It includes an altarpiece of the Madonna he painted in 1435, still in its original frame (below).

Absorb the wealth and luxury of the Burgundian courtly culture with a visit to the Gothic mansion of the Gruuthuse family, which is now a museum devoted to the history, craftsmanship and many mercantile networks of Bruges. (www.museabrugge.be) Other houses of the city’s elite members of the Order of the Golden Fleece include Bladelin Court on Naaldenstraat and Prinsenhof on Geldmuntstraat, the once vast palace of the Dukes of Burgundy, which is now the fivestar Hotel Dukes’ Palace.

Sint-Janshospitaal—incorporating medieval sick wards, a church and 17th-century pharmacy—houses paintings

by Hans Memling and other Flemish Masters. The exhibition ‘Memling Now’ (April 4–September 6) will look at his influence on artists today.

The best artisan chocolate-maker is the third-generation family business V-Chocolatier at 29, Philipstockstraat. There is a chocolate museum (Choco-Story) at 2, Wijnzakstraat.

Polyphonic music was conceived here; the Gold 2020 festival of voices/music from the Bruges Renaissance runs from May 20–24 (www.concertgebouw.be/en/gold-2020).

Van Eyck’s Madonna with Canon Joris Van der Paele, about 1435

Alamy; Musea Brugge

City of arts and crafts

What to do/see

www.countrylife.co.uk

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Travel The great escape

A paradise of palms and pastels

A

IRY and elegant, Cobblers Cove encapulates the Caribbean colonial style as reinterpreted in the 1960s by the theatre designer Oliver Messel, who remodelled several houses nearby. Set in a lush garden flanked by beaches, the plantation-style Great House and its encircling chalets feel English yet tropical, unpretentious yet luxurious, evocative of another era, yet contemporary and chic.

Lulu Lytle of Soane Britain has captured the essence in her redecoration of the principal rooms—ask for the Camelot or Colleton Suite—with pretty sprigged fabrics, rattan furniture and ‘Messel green’ paintwork. Designer Sam Godsal, whose parentsin-law bought the place in the 1960s, has refreshed the garden chalets, which have painted fretwork verandahs and boarded ceilings with long-sailed fans. Wicker furnishings and screen printed linens complement the Cobblers’ palette of pastel shades and brilliant whites, best seen in its candy-striped parasols.

Public spaces are really outdoor rooms, the restaurant (voted the island’s best) an 64 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Cobblers Cove, Barbados While you’re there • Take a boat trip and go fishing or swimming with turtles • Book Jovaughn Warren of Conquer Terrain for a guided hike across the island (about three hours), from the wilder Atlantic east coast, through typical Bajan villages and up onto a ridge, and then down through sugar plantations to the hotel on the Caribbean coast • Wander into Speightstown and enjoy the quaint charm of this early colonial settlement, which dates from 1630 and was once the island’s busiest port • Visit St Nicholas Abbey, a 1650 plantation house now preserved as a museum,

open-air terrace lapped by the sea. In the evenings, we drank lethal Cobblers Cooler rum cocktails as whistling tree frogs competed with the piano’s ‘spouge’ routine.

One night, we dined on the day’s catch in a pagoda-roofed gazebo straight from a Messel stage set. MM

where the distillery still produces rum.

Take a ride on the Heritage Railway steam train, which runs through the estate’s mahogany groves up to the viewpoint on Cherry Tree Hill, evoking journeys on the original Barbados Railway, which operated from 1883 to 1937 • Attend a Pentecostal service for the full Caribbean evangelical experience.

Join in the singing and dancing led by a preacher and choir on stage and marvel at the congregation’s vibrant Sunday best • Complementary activities include sailing, snorkelling and other water sports; there’s also a tennis court, gym and spa

Inspiring Travel Company offers seven nights at Cobblers Cove from £2,165 per person, based on two adults sharing a Garden Suite including breakfast, flights, transfers and Barbados Airport Executive Lounge (01244 435113; www.inspiring travelcompany.co.uk/cobblers-cove) www.countrylife.co.uk

Sanctuary Makanyane, South Africa

I’d rather have a passport full of stamps than a house full of stuff

0207 147 7087 www.turquoiseholidays.co.uk

Through the glass lightly

Classic elegance This orangery with simple internal columns is painted in Taylor Cream and finished with roof and side pinoleum blinds to provide dappled shade in summer, privacy and comfort during winter. Prices for orangeries by Vale Garden Houses start from £48,000 (01476 564433; www.valegardenhouses.co.uk)

The latest and most stylish structures for year-round enjoyment

Prime time A glazed gable and floor-to-ceiling windows in this oak-frame garden room offer good views of the garden and bi-folding doors allow uninterrupted access. The insulated slate-tiled roof keeps the room cool in summer and warm in winter. A similar garden room would cost about £65,000, from Prime Oak (01384 296611; www.primeoak.co.uk) Hot house The Tatton glasshouse from the National Trust Greenhouse Collection is made of low-maintenance aluminium, powder-coated to your choice. It measures 2.9m by 5.1m (about 9ft 6in by 16ft 9in) and costs £21,450, including installation, but excluding building works (01730 826900; www.alitex.co.uk) 66 Country Life, February 19, 2020

www.countrylife.co.uk

FOR THE FINEST CONSERVATORIES, ORANGERIES AND ROOFLIGHTS

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High light Made from sustainable, lightweight and high-strength aluminium finished with a durable polyester powder coating, this bespoke conservatory costs from £3,000sq m, excluding building works, from Marston & Langinger (01730 779911; www.marstonandlanginger.com). Shown with Alitex Hidcote greenhouse (left), 2.6m by 3m (about 8ft 6 by 3ft 4in), £11,250 including installation, excluding building works (01730 826900; www.alitex.co.uk)

Finishing touches Smart choice The hardwearing, water-resistant Regimental Stripe rug, from £52, is made from recycled plastic bottles, yet is surprisingly soft underfoot, from Weaver Green (01548 431902; www.weavergreen.com)

Take a seat A curved, woven back adds interest to the simple Taino bench, £545, OKA (0333 004 04 www ok com)

Made from natural rattan on black powder-coated steel legs are Vivi plant stands, from £185 each, from Vincent Sheppard (00 32 5646 1111; www.vincentsheppard.com)

Classic good looks This traditional orangery design features dwarf walling in red brick to match the existing home, two pairs of French doors to provide convenient access to the garden and a large roof lantern to allow maximum natural light into the room. Bespoke conservatory and orangeries, from about £40,000, excluding building works, David Salisbury (01278 764444; www.davidsalisbury.com)

Natural beauty This oak orangery is designed to complement the existing honey-coloured, Cotswold-stone house and features a Cotswold-stone slate roof and glazed roof lantern. A similar orangery would cost about £60,000, Julius Bahn (0344 417 1400; www.juliusbahn.co.uk) www.countrylife.co.uk

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White hot This generously sized orangery with sky lantern is made from Western Red Cedar, painted in fresh white. A similar 4m by 9.5m (about 13ft by 31ft) design would cost about £100,000 from Montpelier Joinery (01384 279933; www. montpelierjoinery.com) Good outlook This timber extension frames the sea views in a design by Living Space Architects, constructed by Carpenter Oak. Prices for a similar custom structure cost from about £2,000sq m (01803 732900; www. carpenteroak.com)

Room with a view Constructed from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified timber and painted in New Salt Stone, this orangery is designed to offer a sheltered view of the glorious surroundings. Prices from £54,000, Westbury Garden Rooms (01245 326500; www.westbury gardenrooms.com)

Finishing touches Seamless finish Lengths of cane are invisibly joined by Soane Britain’s rattan craftsmen to create The Rattan Ribbon table £5 000

Woven in Classic Lloyd Loom conservatory style: Chatto armchair, £745, Neptune (01793 427450; www.neptune.com) Take it outside From Nina Campbell’s first collection of indooroutdoor endurance fabrics is Bahama Basket Coral, £168 per metre, available from Summit Furniture (020–7795 3311; www. summitfurniture.com)

70 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Light music Made from Pebble Grey powder-coated aluminium and supported with a steel sub frame, this bespoke greenhouse is by Griffin Glasshouses. A similar structure would cost about £200,000 (01962 772512; www.griffinglasshouses.com) www.countrylife.co.uk

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Property market

Penny Churchill

Kent believe it The market in the garden of England is seeing a Dutch bloom Set in 20 acres of formal gardens, 17th-century Grade II*-listed Stone Green Hall offers more than 8,500sq ft of accommodation. £2.85m

W

HEN, in December 2009, domestic rail services were first introduced on the high-speed (HS1) line between Ashford International station and London St Pancras, commuting times from Ashford to central London were slashed by more than half, from 84 minutes to only 37 minutes. At the time, property search agent Colin Mackenzie fully expected to see a surge of activity in the market for country houses in east Kent, an area previously shunned by commuters because of its abysmal rail links with the capital. ‘In reality’, he says, ‘that surge never happened—until now, when buyers are finally waking up to the charms of this part of Kent, which boasts some of the best Georgian houses to be found anywhere in the county.’

Low-lying areas of east Kent had long been prone to flooding until, in the 17th and 18th centuries, Dutch engineers came to drain the flood plains of the River Stour around Canterbury. Many of them settled in the

72 Country Life, February 19, 2020

area, especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that saw Mary II and her husband, William of Orange, installed as joint monarchs of England and Scotland. Waves of Dutch immigrants flowed into east Kent and elsewhere, bringing with them their skills in the manufacture of wool, building and creating the formal gardens that were a speciality of the Netherlands.

Yeomen farmers of east Kent were quick to reap the benefits of Dutch expertise, among them one John Mantell, described by genealogists as ‘a grazier, of Tenterden’, who made his fortune farming sheep on the reclaimed Romney Marsh. By the early 1700s, the Mantell family owned several large landed estates in east Kent, where existing farmhouses were often gentrified in a conspicuous display of new-found wealth.

Such a house is Grade II*-listed Stone Green Hall in the farming village of Mersham, three miles south-east of Ashford and 18 miles from Canterbury, which,

according to its listing, dates from ‘the 17th century or earlier [and was] clad and extended between 1704 and 1712 for the Mantell family’. One of east Kent’s finest country houses, the hall, set in 20 acres of outstanding formal gardens, woodland and pasture, is for sale through the Canterbury office of Strutt & Parker (01227 473707) at a guide price of £2.85 million, only because the owners, who are based overseas, rarely have time to enjoy it.

Stone Green Hall is built in red-andblue brick around a timber-frame core and its symmetrical garden front, added in 1712, is the epitome of Queen Anne elegance. The hall stands at the end of a long private drive on the edge of the village and comes with an adjoining two-bedroom cottage and a period barn. The house offers more than 8,500sq ft of living space on three floors including, in the 18th-century part, an entrance hall, drawing room, library and snug, with the master and two more bedwww.countrylife.co.uk

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Above: Stone Green Hall’s Gothic-style gazebo. Above right :Grade II-listed Denne Manor comes with a barn conversion. £3.495m

room suites on the first floor, and three further bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen on the second floor.

Opposite the drawing room, in the older part of the house, is the dining room, the large ceiling timbers of which are the remaining evidence of the original farmhouse, but with wide windows that make it a wonderful room for entertaining. From here, a door leads to the spacious farmhouse kitchen and on into the distinctively shaped conservatory, reminiscent of one of Kew’s famous glasshouses.

The beautifully maintained gardens are a major feature of Stone Green Hall. Matured and developed over many years, their structure is provided by a series of tall clipped yew hedges, creating a series of ‘rooms’ linked by formal lawns. Each room has its own special character, being either formally planted with shrubs within box hedging or designed to create enchanting secret corners—one concealing the heated swimming pool, another an ornamental pond overlooked by a Gothic-style gazebo.

Dutch gables are a prominent feature of manors and country houses throughout east Kent, where the same agents are offering two houses for the price of one in the shape of Grade II-listed Denne Manor and its awardwinning Kentish barn conversion at Shottenden, two miles from Chilham, 10 miles from Ashford and nine miles from Canterbury.

For sale at a guide price of £3.495m for the whole, the immaculate 4,300sq ft manor and its 3,390sq ft listed barn, set in 9½ acres of gardens and paddocks, can either be used together as the ultimate living and entertaining environment or as separate, yet adjoining homes, with the option to offer either, or both, for long- or short-term rentals, says selling agent Ed Church.

Originally home to the Chilham branch of the Denne farming family, Denne Manor (previously known as Denne Farm, then Denne Manor Farm) dates from at least the mid 17th century. Research carried out by its current owners shows that the main alteration to the house took place in the early 18th century, when the original timber frame was

concealed behind new brick walls of an early Georgian character, with Dutch influences showing in the east and west gabled walls.

In 1849, The Times carried an advertisement for ‘Denne Manor Farm, the only freehold property likely to be sold in the large parish of Chilham… environed by the estates of Lord Sondes, James Wildman and Edward Knight, Esquires, with views in several directions of great extent and beauty’, and a residence offering ‘excellent accommodation for a family of respectability, with a beautiful meadow in front having all the appearance of a lawn’.

Today, Denne Manor and its converted timber-frame barn continue to enjoy peace and seclusion in a glorious rural location.

The manor house offers comfortable family accommodation in two principal reception rooms, a large kitchen/breakfast/family room, five bedrooms and four bathrooms, with contemporary living on tap in Denne Manor Barn, with its huge open-plan reception room, kitchen/breakfast room, five bedrooms and four bath/shower rooms.

Go West (Kent) For sale at a guide price of £3.15m through the Sevenoaks office of Savills (01732 789700), The Mount House at Brasted, near Westerham, offers the convenience of village living and an easy commute from nearby Sevenoaks, with trains to London Bridge and Cannon Street/Charing Cross taking 23 mins and 32 mins respectively. Set in 5½ acres of park-like gardens, grounds and woodland, which include an avenue of trees bounded by wrought-iron fencing, the Grade II-listed early Georgian house, which dates from 1720, incorporates Regency, Victorian and later modern additions. With more than 7,000sq ft of interior living space, including four grand reception rooms (an impressive drawing room, an elegant dining hall, a fully panelled library and a charming breakfast room) and bedroom accommodation on two floors, including three bedroom suites, six further bedrooms and four bath/shower rooms, The Mount House, listed Grade II, brings grand country living to town with grace and aplomb. www.countrylife.co.uk

Country Life, February 19, 2020 73

Properties of the week

Edited by James Fisher

Barnstorming Eccentric layouts, period features and modern comforts make the converted barn an ideal home

Worcestershire, £2.25 million Hidden down a long driveway at the foot of the Cotswold Hills, Peasebrook Farm is the perfect barn for the equestrian-obsessed owner. The facilities would make Paul Nicholls blush, with extensive lorry parking, a mirrored outdoor arena, a mirrored indoor arena, a lunge ring and 23 stables. Inside, the house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, which surround a 47ft reception room and open-plan kitchen. Strutt & Parker (01608 653308) Cheshire, £895,000 Basking in 4.6 acres of paddocks and gardens, L-shaped Rowes Ground, in Chorley, is a five-bedroom brick barn conversion with beautiful views across Cholmondeley and the Peckforton Hills. A large open-plan kitchen/ dining room, with a four-oven Aga and island with granite surfaces, sits beneath the firstfloor living room, which is accessed by a spiral staircase. Two of the bedrooms exist in an annexe suite and the large garage has scope to be incorporated within the existing property. Jackson Equestrian (01743 709249)

Hertfordshire, £850,000 What’s better than a barn conversion? Well, a barn and grain-store conversion, naturally.

Situated in a private, gated development in the village of Little Wymondley, The Granary was converted in 2005 to provide 2,600sq ft of accommodation on two floors. The highlight is surely the grain store, which, on the ground floor, has a bespoke rounded kitchen, with a circular sitting room on the floor above. Four bedrooms and bathrooms sit either side of the doubleheight family room that occupies the middle of the property. Michael Graham (01462 441700) Kent, £1.195 million Would you like to arrive at your property by driving over a bridge? Of course you would, and The New Barn near Hever, Kent, provides just that opportunity. Formal and informal entertaining are the key features, with large open-plan sitting and dining rooms complemented by terraces within the landscaped gardens for warmer months. The New Barn comes with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and the master suite has a roll-top bath from which to enjoy views over the countryside. Savills (01732 789700) Suffolk, £699,000 Lavenham has long been a jewel in Suffolk’s crown and the delightful timber-frame Priory Farm Court must surely be one of the reasons why. Standing within well-maintained and picturesque gardens, the property offers three bedrooms and three bathrooms over two floors, with a magnificent double-height dining hall, kitchen/breakfast room and study, all finished to a high specification.

Jackson-Stops (01284 700535) 74 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Buckinghamshire, £1.75 million Converted barns surely don’t get much better than Grade II-listed The Tithe Barn in Taplow. Dating from the 14th century, the property has been refurbished to a high standard, with new integrated appliances throughout. With the total size of the property coming in at just under one acre, The Tithe Barn boasts six bedrooms, five bathrooms and a separate self-contained annexe and swimming pool. Knight Frank (01494 689275) www.countrylife.co.uk

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The future of the kitchen garden Gordon Castle Walled Garden, Fochabers, Morayshire

Steven Desmond applauds a ground-breaking restoration that balances productivity with beauty Photographs by Britt Willoughby-Dyer and Ed Bollom

T

HE country-house kitchen garden, such a deserved visitor attraction throughout this country, is, in most cases, a miraculous proof of life after death. Forty years ago, most such places had all but faded from the public consciousness. The great rectangle of tall brick walls typically stood in a curiously isolated position behind great shelterbelts, the old doors firmly shut. Within was a scene of silent abandonment, at best a great court of sheep-grazed grass, at worst a plantation of Christmas trees or a caravan park, all presided over by a grim row of collapsing Edwardian glasshouses. There seemed no prospect of a brighter future.

What a change in modern times. Wherever we go nowadays, we expect to walk into that distinctive space and find a busy scene of productive order, with trained fruit against the walls and labels announcing the presence of Lord Derby, Peasgood’s Nonsuch and the Revd W. Wilks.

The causes of this thrilling revival are many and various.

No one should imagine the economic world of Mr Asquith’s Britain has returned. What matters is that, in each case, a happy combination of expertise and enthusiasm with a degree of commercial flair has breathed new life into these unique features. The spirit of Harry Dodson surely looks down benevolently upon them all.

In terms of sheer vastness, the walled garden at Gordon Castle, on the lower reaches of the Spey east of Inverness, is as gaspinducing as any of its contemporaries. Ben Stokes could barely hit a cricket ball from

one wall to the other. These walls arose in 1803 as part of a new project on the site of the ancient Bog of Gight, not, at first hearing, the obvious setting for the production of fruit, vegetables and cut flowers.

Yet all went well, especially in the second half of the 19th century, the golden age of head gardeners commanding their forces of departmental foremen, journeymen, improvers and pot-boys. The great man here was John Webster, among whose legacy we find to this day the apple Beauty of Moray (no phrase could be more apt in this lovely stretch of country) and the plum Gordon Castle, the fruit of which hung from the branches at the time of my visit.

Although the garden suffered the decline typical of its contemporaries in the middle years of the 20th century, that door was never closed. Notable head gardener Willie Robertson started at the castle in 1948 and managed to keep at least the wall fruit going until the change of attitudes came in modern times. His is the name on everyone’s lips here when we talk of heroes in a crisis.

The present scheme dates from 2012, an astonishingly recent date when we take in the splendour of the scene on view today. At first sight, it is hard to imagine that there could ever have been any period of decline, but, gradually, the ingenuity of the transformation becomes apparent. Angus and Zara Gordon Lennox made good choices at the outset when they chose Arne Maynard to design a new planting layout and Craig Hamilton to make a key architectural contribution.

The big difficulty in the first instance was surely the fact that the whole vast space can be taken in at a glance on entering. This rather puts the lid on piecemeal development over a series of phases. Fortunately, there was never any intention simply to re-create

It is gasp-enducing.

Ben Stokes could barely hit a cricket ball from one wall to the other

In this ingenious reimagination, the borders of the old walled garden have been kept, with a core of fruit and vegetables surrounded by ornamental planting

Country Life, February 19, 2020 77

the past, which might rapidly have run into the sands of impracticality. Instead, the whole project has been ‘reimagined’: the handsome bones of the ancient layout have been retained, but with a core of fruit, vegetables and cut flowers surrounded by a wider series of specialist ornamental gardens.

One helpful focus for all this grid-plan magnificence is the surviving Garden Cottage in the centre of the north wall. This is an unusual location for the head gardener’s residence and it is an unusually handsome example, but it forms a powerful centrepiece from which the old and new layouts clearly derive. The broad walk south from it is, once again, resplendently lined with linear flower borders, largely now composed of colour-graded cut-flower beds.

This clever idea, effectively producing a cutting garden that looks like a sequence of Jekyllian borders, neatly achieves the elegant blend of tradition and modernity ideally suited to this place. The whole scheme is intelligently brought together by placing a big square pool in the centre of the layout, where the two cross-walks converge.

This is happily entitled the Dipping Pond, the traditional name for this typical feature of kitchen garden, into which gardeners have always dipped their watering cans before marching off to all parts. Curiously, there never was such a pond here before.

Its creation certainly helps to orientate the visitor in this world of colourful order.

The Garden Cottage forms a centrepiece from which the old and new layouts derive In the north-eastern corner of the garden, handily placed near the visitor entrance, is a very interesting group of buildings. These occupy the former site of the range of productive glasshouses. In a kitchen garden, we usually expect to find these stretched out along the north wall, making the most of the sunshine, and their unconventional grouping here, huddled in one corner, must have been intended to avoid the cruel action of the morning sun on frosted plant tissue.

All but two of those glasshouses have now gone. The big one that remains, a long, freestanding structure of Edwardian appearance, was built by Mackenzie and Moncur of Edinburgh, one of the half-dozen great names of the day. In the summer months, it is chiefly given over to a positively regimental display of tomatoes in big clay A spectacular view of the kitchen garden from head gardener Ed Bollom’s drone

78 Country Life, February 19, 2020

A living kitchen garden: the Edwardian greenhouse by Mackenzie and Moncur is filled with heritage tomatoes and basil. Produce such as apricots, aubergines and artichokes reappears in delicious form in the Classically-inspired cafe designed by Craig Hamilton

pots alternating with equally big pots of basil, filling the air with glorious scent.

Nearby is an elegant intruder on this scene, a building of such distinction that it comes as quite a shock to realise it is a cafe.

Now, of course, many gardens open to the public provide this desirable facility, but surely few can offer a site of such sober grandeur. The moment I set eyes on it, I recognised my old friend the Primitive Doric style, imagined by Sir William Chambers in his mid-18th-century daydream of an ancient world. The portico features four vast trunks of rough-hewn timber as the column shafts, with rudimentary fitments of base and capital at either end: the speculative origin of Classical architecture. This is a terrific architectural effort by no less a master than Craig Hamilton and ranks alongside the orangery at Kensington Palace for tearoom superiority. Not the least of its impressive aspects is that the building was constructed by the estate workforce using local timber.

80 Country Life, February 19, 2020

It is a fine thing to have persuaded two such distinguished designers to bring this great project together, but without a firstclass head gardener, the whole thing might quietly dwindle away. Fortunately, the right man is in post, in the form of Ed Bollom, Pershore-trained with experience of working at Highgrove and Chatsworth. Like all such characters, he revels in the endless challenges here and I notice that, as well as all the conventional pruning skills needed for trained fruit, he has now set himself the task of mastering the Lorette system of pruning apples and pears into shapes, combining exceptional beauty with maximum productivity. This can only mean that he revels in the mystery of his craft, too.

Ed’s workforce consists, in the modern way, of professionals and volunteers alike, a mixture that must keep his mind active beyond the usual constraints of the working day. This is no task for the fainthearted, but I recognise a man with the bit between his teeth and

the evidence both of his happy staff and the excellent standard of cultivation speaks for itself. I was certainly thrilled to witness large numbers of ripe apricots grown outdoors in a garden that lies north of the Cairngorms.

Everyone here recognises the need to balance productivity with beauty to draw in the crowds. Thus, alongside the texture and colour of receding rows of perfect brassicas of every kind, the eye is everywhere engaged by the long lines of pale blue and white sweet peas trained on bamboo canes and the quiet theme of use and beauty promoted by the widespread use of stepover cordon apples to frame and define the borders.

Perhaps the best dual-purpose note of all is struck by the many slender rows of globe artichokes, as good to look at as to eat. This is the future of the kitchen garden.

Gordon Castle Walled Garden, Fochabers, Morayshire, is open daily, from 10am to 3pm. Booking essential for afternoon tea (01343 612312; www.gordoncastle.co.uk) www.countrylife.co.uk

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In the garden

Charles Quest-Ritson

Trumpet majors

Spain is the epicentre of the genus Narcissus The botanical name for a daffodil is Narcissus, which commemorates the beautiful youth who came to a bad end in Greek mythology. All daffodils are narcissi, but not all narcissi are daffodils; some are jonquils, for example. Botanists have found Narcissus a difficult genus to classify. Part of the reason is that botanists themselves are divided into two

Britain has two wild daffodil species, the Tenby and the ordinary trumpet. In Spain, one can find up to five hybridising in the wild

subspecies, the lumpers and the splitters. King of the splitters was Adrian Haworth who, in 1831, recognised 150 species; the chief lumper of Victorian times was John Baker in 1875, who would allow only 16.

Parts of the genus Narcissus are, in any case, in a very rapid state of evolution. This needs explaining. Some genera are so stable that they have not changed for millions of years: cycads and ginkgos, for instance.

Others are in the process of splitting up into many different species. Take the true daffodils, for example, the ones whose large flared trumpets are known as coronas to the botanists and are backed by broad petals that they call the perianth segments. In Britain,

Horticultural aide memoire Plant shallots If shallots can be started now, so much the better.

Soil conditions permitting, fork through the wellmanured bed you should have prepared over the winter and bring it to an even tilth. Set a tight line and place each shallot set a foot apart along it. With a trowel, insert each shallot until its nose just pokes out above the soil. Remove the line and hoe out your footprints. Then busy yourself installing a low tunnel of netting over the lot, taking care to secure the ends and edges, or the birds and rodents will have them all out by morning. SCD 82 Country Life, February 19, 2020

we have only two closely related wild species, the Tenby daffodil, Narcissus obvallaris, and the ordinary trumpet daffodil N. pseudonarcissus. In Spain’s Picos de Europa, however, you can visit colonies of four or five different species within a short distance of each other. As they sometimes overlap and still hybridise with each other, Narcissus remains a fertile field for botanical confusion.

Spain is the epicentre of the genus Narcissus, from which the species has spread out in all directions. The strangest is Narcissus viridiflorus, which is leafless (the flower stem does the photosynthesising), and green-flowered. For this reason, the flowers are not conspicuous, although a good size, and, often, you smell their strong sweet scent before your eye focuses on them. I have only seen N. viridiflorus once in the wild, growing on the edge of wet clay olive groves behind Algeciras.

Other species have proved very adaptable in the wild, which has helped them expand their natural range. Such species as Narcissus triandrus, known as Angel’s Tears, and N. bulbocodium, the hoop petticoat, grow from sea level to the snow line and flower

from January to June, according to the altitude. Moreover, they often occur naturally side by side.

And yes, they hybridise, too.

One March, we drove through the Cantabrian Mountains when the turf was spangled with Narcissus bulbocodium far and wide. It was still yellow with narcissi nearly two months later, but the early species had been replaced by millions of trumpet daffodils called Narcissus nobilis. One valley was due to be flooded as a reservoir—Spain is big on hydroelectric power— and all these bulbs, plus the town of Riaño, are now nearly 100 yards under water.

Many years ago, I collected a few bulbs of a small jonquil growing in the limestone mountains above Almuñecar in Andalusia. It caught my eye because it grew in rocky crevices on a hillside that had recently been devastated by the worst forest fire in living memory.

I brought the bulbs home and gave some to Wisley’s botanist who told me, excitedly, that he thought it might be a new subspecies. I was enormously flattered, and fancied telling everyone that, of course, Narcissus gaditanus subsp. quest-ritsonii was named after me, didn’t they know?

Then the botanist changed his mind and said that it was not a new subspecies, but only a form that did not merit separate naming. Nevertheless, it is still in cultivation among the cognoscenti and, if you go to a show run by the Alpine Garden Society, you may find it exhibited with a label saying Coll: Q-R. When I see it, I gaze upon it with pride—it’s beautiful, and it’s mine. But that’s what the young Greek Narcissus thought about his reflection. And look what happened to him.

Charles Quest-Ritson wrote the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses Next week Edgeworthia www.countrylife.co.uk

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AS there ever such an obliging and ubiquitous plant as the daffodil? Wise gardeners have them in flower from December to May. Impossible to kill, they will thrive in any soil or position, competing successfully with grass, tree roots and herbaceous plants for nourishment. Their greatest need, judging by the conditions in which they grow in the wild, is for plenty of water at their time of maximum growth.

Were they not so easy to cultivate, we should esteem them much more highly. The city of Aberdeen has planted mile after mile of its roadside verges with daffodils, great swathes of them, one variety at a time.

Many English expatriates in tropical climates pine for them, just as we might yearn to grow their exotic orchids in England.

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Art market

Huon Mallalieu

Jewels of the new BADA The Open Art Fair is as high quality as its predecessor, with superb Queen Anne furniture and a Swordfish model

T

HE organisers of the Open Art Fair, Thomas Woodham-Smith and Harry van der Hoorn, are approaching their first outing since buying the majority shareholding in what was the BADA’s annual fair with due caution.

Anger among the association’s membership was largely due to the secrecy with which the negotiations had been conducted, rather than to the fact of the sale, as many exhibitors recognised it was time for change.

It is sensible to make alterations gently and, as Mr WoodhamSmith tells me, this year’s fair, at Duke of York Square, King’s Road from March 18 to 24, will allow them to find out what will be necessary. A transitional period, might one say?

The interior has apparently been redesigned—Mr van der Hoorn is the owner of Stabilo, stand builders to the world’s top fairs—with an emphasis on informality. Although the new title proclaims that exhibitors

no longer have to belong to BADA, most will be familiar to visitors.

Only 10% or 15% of about 100 dealers will be non-members this time, among them a couple of Continentals, and the aim is that this should be a cost-effective operation for all, unlike some of the grandest fairs. Catering will be in the hands of Caravan, with Gimlet in charge of the bar.

The range is as wide as ever and quality certainly seems no less. Millington Adams, formerly of Mobberley, Cheshire, now in Wells, Somerset, presents one of the most impressive bureaubookcases I have seen in a while.

It is a Queen Anne mirrored double-dome piece in burr walnut with lesser dome pediments on the sides (Fig 1). The turned walnut finials are apparently original, as are the turned bun feet, and the walnut veneers are beautifully matched. The interior is fully fitted and has hidden jewellery and sovereign drawers.

The dealer proudly, and rightly, states that the unusual mouldings

Fig 1: Queen Anne bureau-bookcase. With Millington Adams define what might be described as hipped domes—‘it is the depth of these mouldings and the sweeping movement that they create that is so special’. Together, the domes and finials give a sober piece of furniture an air of Oriental lightness and levity. Almost 7ft high, it is priced at £39,000.

Also sizeable, and with a much more sizeable price—£320,000

—is a pair of famille rose porcelain vases and covers from the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor (1722–35) with Gibson Antiques, a ‘by appointment’ London dealer.

The vases are painted with panels of figures, birds, flowers and foliage and the covers are topped by seated hound finials.

They come with handsome, but later, scrolled gilt-wood stands.

Fig 2 left: George Chambers’s portrait of his home. With John Bennett. Fig 3 right: Primroses by William Henry Hunt. With Karen Taylor 84 Country Life, February 19, 2020

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Fig 5: Silver-gilt pearl, amethyst and green chrysoberyl necklace. With the Peartree Collection

Fig 4: Erté set design for the 1961 ballet film Edition Speciale. With John Adams Two other ‘by appointment’ dealers have caught my eye, both with paintings. John Bennett, formerly of Walton Street, has a number of interesting 18thto early-20th-century paintings, including several of gardens.

One should really be offered at the summer Masterpiece Fair, as it shows the Ranelagh Gardens Rotunda, which used to stand where that fair and the Chelsea Flower Show now take place.

From 1742 until it was demolished in 1805, the Rotunda was the central feature of Ranelagh. The

work is by Joseph Nicholls, whom the dealer calls ‘one of the best English comparatively obscure painters of 18th-century London views’, which is about right.

One of this dealer’s garden paintings attracts me because it is by George Chambers (1803– 40), arguably the best English marine painter of his century.

Furthermore, it is not only by him, but contains a self-portrait (Fig 2). Although described here as a country house, it actually shows 6, Park Village West, Regent’s Park, W1, into which

Pick of the week One of the most popular paintings in the National Gallery—determined by postcard sales, I believe —is Akseli GallenKallela’s Lake Keitele, and it is certainly one of my favourites. Now, the Finnish master (1865– 1931) is also represented in the Musée d’Orsay, thanks to a private sale negotiated by Sotheby’s.

The painting Palokärki (Great Black Woodpecker), also known as Wilderness, had been intended to go to auction in New York last November, when it was estimated at up to $2.5 million (about £1.9million). It dates from 1892–94, shortly before the death of his daughter from diptheria hardened the painter’s style and subject matter. Nevertheless, it represents a turn away from a romantic French realism towards the emergent Nordic symbolism in landscape. He was becoming a Finnish nationalist and, for him, the woodpecker represented the spirit of the country emerging from the Russian Empire. The sky hints at his closeness to Munch, with whom he shared an exhibition in Berlin.

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Chambers moved in 1833, the year of this 19½in by 24in, £6,500, oil painting, shortly before his election to the Old, now Royal, Watercolour Society. His biographer tells us the house ‘combined the advantage of a town residence with country air’. The artist, with palette and brushes, stands by his wife and an older guest, Normally, he painted indoors and ‘his colours and brushes were kept in a mahogany case, designed by himself and having the appearance of a piece of drawing-room furniture’, but there it is on the garden table.

A little flower, rather than garden, piece is with Karen Taylor of London. It is a typical 6¼in by 8in watercolour study of primroses (Fig 3) by William Henry Hunt, who was elected to the Old Watercolour Society in 1826.

A charmer, it is also at £6,500.

John Adams, formerly of Pimlico Road, offers a 7in by 15in gouache by Erté (Romain de Tirtoff, 1892–1990), at £7,500, a set design for a 1961 ballet film, Edition Speciale, directed

by Louis Cuny (Fig 4). It reminds me, mistily, of something I used to read to my children, or perhaps a jigsaw— it would make a good one.

Mr and Mrs Arthur Gaskin met as students at the Birmingham School of Art, married and worked together as artists and then jewellery designers. Usually, they credited themselves together, as above, but the design and making of the £12,950 necklace (Fig 5) with the Peartree Collection was ascribed by

Studio Magazine, 1908, only to Georgie Gaskin (1866–1934).

It is in silver-gilt, pearl, amethyst and green chrysoberyl, colours that suggest it might have been a suffragette piece.

Hatchwell Antiques of the King’s Road Furniture Cave, SW10, specialises in aeronautical items.

An exceptional offering here, at £48,000, is a mounted 79in-high French 1:7 scale wind-tunnel development model of an Espadon SO-6025, or Swordfish (Fig 6), designed under the direction of Lucien Servanty. The singleseater interceptor flew for the first time in November 1948.

Online silver specialist Forrest & Fraser is making a stylish entrance to its first-ever fair with a 19¾in diameter £20,000 Paul Storr salver of 1829 that carries the arms of Middleton and an inscription to Capt Robert Gambier Middleton, who served under Hood and Nelson.

Fig 6: Wind-tunnel development model of a Swordfish.

With Hatchwell Antiques Next week Flowers for Maastricht

Country Life, February 19, 2020 85

Exhibition Jan van Eyck (1390–1441) in Ghent

The lustre of life HE biggest ever exhibition of paintings by Jan van Eyck, which recently opened in the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, gets off to a slow start. You have to wade through five rooms of introductory exhibits and an explanatory video before you see an original van Eyck. When you finally clap eyes on the dazzling depiction of Adam from his Ghent Altarpiece, however, I guarantee you will stop in your tracks.

Adam stands nearly life-sized, a mane of dark, curly hair scraped back from his temples, his brow faintly puckered with anxiety and a glint of sadness in his slightly downcast eyes. He has the grace, the poise and the physical beauty of youth. Yet he represents much more than that. Made in 1432, this is the first life-like depiction of a male nude since antiquity—a million miles from the figure-painting conventions that had dominated European art for centuries.

Van Eyck could work on both a monumental scale and in miniature Medieval imagery had its own visual force, of course. It, too, could express drama, pathos, power and passion. But it was not often concerned with the accurate depiction of naturalistic detail. By contrast, so powerful is the illusion of reality conjured by van Eyck, so convincing the blush on Adam’s cheek, the shadows under his eyes, the tension in the sinews of his neck, that he almost has the presence of a real man.

The precision of the painting is astounding. The blue shows through the veins of his hands,

86 Country Life, February 19, 2020

Extraordinary delicacy: The Madonna at the Fountain (1439)

the hairs on his legs are picked out with flicks of a tiny brush and Adam’s right foot is turned out so that the toes—which have been foreshortened—break the fictive frame. They seem to jut forward into the real world beyond the flat panel.

This ‘optical revolution’, as it is called in the title of the exhibition, seems to have come out of nowhere. Suddenly, in about 1430, a handful of painters attached to the Burgundian court in Flanders started to paint differently. The change must have emerged partly from

debates about the theory of art among what was a remarkable group of highly intellectual courtiers. Also crucial were developments in the technology of oil paint as an alternative to the duller, egg-based mixtures that had been the staple of artists for centuries.

Van Eyck, the leading painter at court, was not only a brilliant observer and imitator of Nature, but he understood how to apply this oil in thin layers to exploit its translucent qualities and blend colours while still wet. Its plasticity allowed him not only

to paint in the finest detail, but to evoke the subtlest of light effects. He learned how to suggest the glow of sunlight in a room, the sheen on brass, gold, or ceramic tiles. He was able to depict the textures of fur, fabrics or fringes in a way that had never been seen before.

A key limitation in our understanding of his work, however, is that so few paintings have survived. Apart from the altarpiece, only about 23—mostly rather small—panels are still extant. The achievement of this exhibition, spread over a dozen rooms in the Ghent museum, is to have gathered together more than half of those, plus nine paintings from his workshop, early copies of lost works and a selection of paintings by his Italian contemporaries Masaccio, Uccello and Fra Angelico.

Uniquely, this exhibition also includes eight recently restored panels from the Ghent Altarpiece, together with Adam and Eve (as yet unrestored). It is a juxtaposition that will never again be possible because, in October, the altarpiece will be reassembled and installed in a new visitor centre in the cathedral of St Bavo, for which it was originally made.

The result is a showcase of van Eyck’s astonishing virtuosity.

He could work on both a monumental scale (Adam) and in miniature (an illumination of the birth of John the Baptist in the Turin-Milan Book of Hours).

He could depict the complex interior of a Gothic cathedral and the delicacy of a flowery mead. His landscapes may not be painted with perfect perspective, but he was one of the first artists to observe the way that colours diminish and focus blurs with receding distance. Meanwhile, the fictive sculptures that decorate some of the altarpiece panels are brilliant examples of trompe- l’oeil painting. www.countrylife.co.uk

www.lukasweb.be/Hugo Maertens; Getty; Kunsthistoriches Museum Wenen

T

Nick Trend admires the 600-year-old art of the revolutionary Flemish painter

But for me, it is his portraits that steal this show. Before van Eyck, European portraiture was almost entirely limited to stylised depictions of royalty, the clergy and religious donors. He broke the mould by depicting, as well as these, ordinary citizens—his wife, Margaret, for example, and his friend the goldsmith Jan de

Leeuw. Six hundred years later, they still look us directly in the eye with that life-like lustre that van Eyck conjured so brilliantly from his oil paints.

‘Van Eyck. An Optical Revolution’ is at the Museum of Fine Arts, F. Scribedreef 1, Ghent, Belgium, until April 30 (00 32 9 210 1032; www.vaneyck2020.be/en)

The central panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, ‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’, remains on display at St Bavo’s Cathedral in the city centre (www.visit.gent.be/en) Next week Baroque in Britain at Tate Britain

Above left: The recently restored main panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. Above: Portrait of Jan de Leeuw (1436), a 35-yearold goldsmith from Bruges

Crossword

Bridge Andrew Robson

A prize of £15 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened.

Solutions must reach Crossword No 4617, CounTry LIfe, Pinehurst II, Pinehurst Road, Farnborough Business Park, Farnborough, Hampshire GU14 7BF, by Tuesday, February 25. UK entrants only.

T

ACROSS 1 Indolent indifference of girl I perform duet with (9) 6 Read a room (5) 10 Striking way to get on?

(3,2,3) 11 Begin a meal outside (6) 12 Pelts golf target with fruit pods (5,7) 14 Festive pie (4) 15 Fit a cert into bet (8) 18 Libertarians lose rent review in South American city (8) 19 Change term when sit out varsity (4) 21 Drew crib for time periods in employer’s houses (4,8) 24 Agree to present notice (6) 25 More happy to shout support of premier (8) 26 Include the French to confuse (5) 27 I leave field with boxes for minerals (9)

DOWN 2 Sour in placidity (4) 3 Overcharge for beams and fishes (9) 4 Tool right to wrap in cloth (6) 5 The firm piece (8,7) 7 Short day for parliamentarian is a hit (5) 8 Doctors are using stylists (10) 9 Reportedly not a quick drink (4,3) 13 Just attitude of a carny?

(4-6) 16 Overhear to fall below roof’s edge (9) 17 Let everyone be married with a ring (7) 20 Admitted to a sin (6) 22 Live with healthy daughter (5) 23 Close on driver’s left (4)

HE biennial European Open Championships give anybody a chance to travel to an interesting place and compete against the world’s best players. In 2019, the venue was Istanbul and, although I didn’t do especially well, old acquaintances were renewed and much enjoyment was had.

Pre-tournament favourites Zimmerman failed to qualify in the Teams because their declarer made a small error on this Four Spades from the last match. Plan the play on the two of spades lead.

Dealer North Both Vulnerable

852 10762 AQ86 QJ

KQJ4 AKJ4 9753 3 106 Q853 N K2 ✢ W E K10872 S A973 9 J104 A9654

4617

TAIT

West

1♠ 4♠(2)

Pass End

North 1♥ 3♠(1)

ADDRESS Tel No TI MedIa LIMITed, pubLIsher of CounTry LIfe wILL CoLLeCT your personaL InforMaTIon soLeLy To proCess your CoMpeTITIon enTry and Then IT wILL be desTroyed

SOLUTION TO 4616 (Winner will be announced in two weeks’ time) ACROSS: 7, Brasserie; 8, Sedan; 10, Announce; 11, Morsel; 12, Stag; 13, Marooned; 15, Macabre; 17, Jasmine; 20, Perceive; 22, East; 25, Device; 26, Detailed; 27, Rider; 28. Swineherd. DOWN: 1, Orang; 2, Escort; 3, Teenager; 4, Dilemma; 5, Heirloom; 6, Madeleine; 9, Emir; 14, Daredevil; 16, Archives; 18, Abetting; 19, Meadows; 21, Item; 23, Slight; 24, Beard.

Winner of 4615 is Michael Winterbottom, Lancashire

88 Country Life, February 19, 2020

A62 J98 QJ8 KQJ5

East Pass Pass

(1) Six losing tricks facing partner’s presumed nine for a One-overOne response.

(2) Holding eight losing tricks, South is one better than partner has presumed, so bids up a further level.

NAME (pLease prInT In CapITaLs)

Dealer South Both Vulnerable

KQ10954 N K10532 W✢E 64 S -

The Bidding South

the overruff. Winning West’s Spade lead with dummy’s Knave (key play), declarer crosses to the Ace of Clubs and ruffs a Club (with the four). He cashes the AceKing of Hearts and ruffs a Heart with the seven.

He ruffs a third Club with the Queen (as West sheds his last Heart) and ruffs dummy’s fourth Heart with the nine (as West is unable to overruff). He ruffs a fourth Club with the King of Spades and that’s nine tricks in the bag, with the Ace of Spades to come. Game made.

Our second Istanbul deal is a case of duck or no dinner. Plan the play in Five Clubs after West has advertised six Spades.

At the table, declarer played a low Spade from dummy, beating East’s ten with the Ace. His plan was to score all his remaining six Spades to give a total of 10 tricks via seven Spades, the Ace-King of Hearts and the Ace of Clubs.

At trick two, declarer cashed the Ace of Clubs, then ruffed a Club (with the Knave). He cashed the Ace-King of Hearts (throwing a Diamond) and ruffed a third Heart (with the three). He ruffed a third Club on which (crucially) West discarded his last Heart. He then ruffed dummy’s Knave of Hearts with the seven, hoping West couldn’t overruff.

However, West overruffed the seven of Spades with the eight.

When he promptly returned his third Spade, crashing declarer and dummy’s two remaining Spades, declarer had to concede two down.

Let us replay. The cross-ruff is surely the best plan. However, declarer needs to win the first trick in dummy, preserving his higher Spades in hand to prevent

J7 Q764 9753 A106

83 A AK102 987432 The Bidding South 1 4

West 2♠(1) Pass

North 3♠(2) 5

East Pass End

(1) Weak jump overcall (although rather too strong given the shape, perhaps).

(2) Good Club raise, sensibly unwilling to bid Three Notrumps given his holding only one Spade stopper and weak Hearts.

West led the King of Spades and declarer won dummy’s Ace (East playing the Knave to show his doubleton) and led the King of Clubs. East won the Ace and led his second Spade. West won and tried a third Spade and East was able to ruff with his ten of Clubs—down one and an elegant Trump Promotion.

Let us replay. Declarer knows from the bidding that Spades are six-two. He must duck West’s King of Spades lead (key play). He wins the second Spade with dummy’s Ace and leads the King of Clubs as before.

However, after winning the Ace, East has no Spade to lead. Declarer can win his (say) Heart return and cross to dummy’s Queen-Knave of Clubs, drawing East’s Clubs. The rest is plain sailing—11 tricks and game made. www.countrylife.co.uk

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Spectator

Jason Goodwin

Out with the new, in with the old

T

HEY keep saying that vinyl’s making a comeback. I don’t know that I believe them. Izzy came back from Busby, the auction house where he works, with the news that a famously cool singer had put her record collection up for sale and I’m not surprised. Who wants to grapple with turntables and scratched records, like something out of Borgesian nightmare, when even a phone is a limitless jukebox?

However even if vinyl is a busted flush, other old things seem to be forever on the brink of a return, such as milk bottles or Polaroid cameras. I googled ‘old stuff making a comeback’ just now and landed on an American website called www. familyhandyman.com that promises the return of, in order, wicker furniture (‘The first piece of wicker furniture landed in America on the Mayflower in 1620’, apparently), wallpaper, gold (taps and so on), macramé, sunburst motifs, houseplants, conversation pits (whoa! What?) and

—at number 15—shag carpets.

Now I know they’re making it up.

My own predictions, for what they are worth, would be for the return of fountain pens and safety razors, based on the fact that I have recently bought both.

The fountain pen actually takes cartridges, but it was less than a fiver at WHSmith and I could not resist. I’ve grown slightly disgusted by all the biros and rollerballs and felt-tip pens that gather dust in pots on the chimneypiece and don’t work when you need them and the new pen writes very well. I will lose it in a week, for sure, but I’ll perhaps buy another now that I’ve invested so heavily in black ink cartridges.

Walter got an old-fashioned safety razor over the summer.

It has a screw-action handle that raises two brackets to release and replace the blades and, after I’d played with it a bit, I went out and got one for myself. It’s bad enough to think that all the toothbrushes you have ever used in your life are sitting in a hole

TOTTERING-BY-GENTLY

Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation

By Annie Tempest

in the ground somewhere.

They’re only bristly and at least last a few months. Applied to disposable razors, it’s a thought to keep you awake at night.

My own predictions would be for the return of fountain pens and safety razors For a whiff of excitement in the bathroom, you can’t beat the old-fashioned safety razor and a packet of old-fashioned razor blades, wickedly thin and sharp on both edges. They used to come in a small plastic box, so when one was used up, you slid it safely back into the box through a slit on the bottom.

Now, they come in tiny cardboard containers. You can use them to clean glass, cut paper and

put a professional swipe on top of your sourdough. Even better, the bathroom is no longer littered with the dulled plastic corpses of razors with joystick handles and absurdly testosterone-fuelled names, such as Mach 1 and Xtreme and Fusion 5.

As for the razor blades, which used to be made by Wilkinson Sword, here’s a funny thing.

They are all, without exception, manufactured in countries that are not quite Third World, but not absolutely at the top table, such as Russia and Egypt.

I get a definite thrill from seeing the words ‘Made in Russia’ on the cardboard box. Retro or not, I think we are going to be making trade deals with all these interesting countries and, personally, I look forward to seeing ‘Made in Egypt’ or ‘Manufactured in Australia’ on more small household items.

I have a solid vice on the workbench, an old Record, with Made in England embossed in cast iron on the face. Now that’s due for a comeback, surely?

Visit Tottering-By-Gently on our website: www.countrylife.co.uk/tottering

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94 Country Life, February 19, 2020

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