Innholdsfortegnelse for Sep/Oct 2025 i Britain

Follow the Thames River as it meanders north out of London, bumble through Bourne End, Marlow or Cookham, and you’ll discover one of England’s most spectacular landscapes: the Chiltern Hills. As elegant – and English – as cucumber sandwiches. Huge vistas open up atop these gentle chalk hills. Morning mists fringe copper beechwood-topped escarpments. Deep valleys are carpeted with rolling slopes of wild flowers. Above, red kites wheel lazily in the high thermals of the open skies. Millennia of human settlement have shaped this special place, and the area is full of mysterious archeology, ancient remains sitting side by side with royal hunting grounds. The Chilterns have inspired a legion of quintessentially English writers and creatives, including poets Wilfred Owen, Alfred Lord Tennyson and TS Eliot. Arthur Lasenby Liberty, founder…

With its Victorian slate buildings and skyline of sepia fells, Ambleside is great base for exploring the Lake District, but is also a charming place in itself, with centuries of history woven through its pretty streets. There has been a settlement here since Roman times, and today’s visitors can walk in the footsteps of centurions at Ambleside Roman Fort, just a short stroll from town. Dating from the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (AD 117–138), it’s believed the site was used by soldiers into the 4th century. It is set in a peaceful field by the shores of Windermere, and it’s amazing to imagine how, nearly two thousand years ago, this was the bustling centre of a network of Roman forts in and around the Lake District. The stone remains…

Nestled in the Bay of St Malo, less than an hour from the UK, the Islands of Guernsey combine the feel of a European beach holiday with small-town charm. Whether you’re looking to relax and recharge or have an island adventure, this is the ideal getaway. Enter our competition to win a fantastic trip to Guernsey for two, with return flights from the UK, spending two nights at the historic Duke of Richmond Hotel, whose facilities include an on-site pool, restaurant and bar, with views over St Peter Port harbour. Guernsey’s bustling capital makes a wonderful base, with plenty of dining options, from Italian eateries to French brasseries and dishes celebrating local produce. There’s an abundance of things to see and do, especially for anyone with an interest in history:…

The fact that he would one day inherit Mapperton House in Dorset was not lost on Luke Montagu, 12th Earl of Sandwich, 55, even as a young boy. “In common with many families from this sort of background there are family trusts,” he says. “You don’t have a choice as to whether or not you are a beneficiary. I never had the sense that I could have avoided taking it on, nor did I ever think that I would want to avoid it.” He took over the running of Mapperton in 2016, but it wasn’t until the Covid-19 pandemic hit that the reality kicked in for his wife Julie, who grew up in Illinois. “That’s when I realised, ‘Wow,’” she says. “This is a business but it’s a family business…

STAR LETTER MISSING MOAT As an unapologetic American Anglophile (my mother was born in Hertfordshire and emigrated with her parents to the United States when she was a child), I enjoyed your feature on moats immensely [Vol 93 Issue 4]. But I kept waiting to see the moated castle I once gazed upon that is in Kent. A friend took me on a sightseeing tour, culminating with a visit to Saltwood Castle, and told me the story of the castle as a stopping-over point for the knights, supporters of Henry II, who came from France to Canterbury Cathedral to slay Archbishop Thomas Becket. While we were viewing the castle from outside its surrounding wall, a man flew up the drive in a little MG, stopped to scowl at us and…

The day that 11-year-old Lord Henry Thynne, the future 6th Marquess of Bath, found out that Longleat House in Wiltshire would one day be his, following his brother’s death in France in 1916, he walked around to the front of the great Elizabethan building. Gazing up at it, he said aloud, “I will never be able to look after you.” He was, he remembered, “terrified of this enormous building.” Henry Bath, as he became in 1946 after the death of his father Thomas Thynne, 5th Marquess of Bath, was one of the great pioneers of the stately homes ‘industry’ as we know it today. Longleat, the house his ancestors built between 1568 and 1580, had long been a place where the footmen’s hair was powdered for big house parties, there…

Linthwaite House, in the heart of the Lake District, is an elegant former Edwardian country house, which has been sensitively and lovingly transformed. This luxurious hotel boasts a string of richly deserved accolades, including one Michelin Key and an AA Inspector’s Choice four-red-star award. There are 36 elegant, individually furnished guest rooms, some with private hot tubs and all with in-room spa treatments. One reader and their guest will win a very special stay at Linthwaite, in one of the hotel’s superior guest rooms, and will experience the culinary delights of this gourmet destination first-hand. Linthwaite offers two distinctive, yet relaxed, dining propositions. There’s casual all-day dining provided in the breathtaking Bar & Conservatory, curated by head chef Gerald van der Walt, showcasing seasonal, locally sourced produce. This is complemented…

One December morning in 1851, 76-year-old Admiral Booth expired “without a groan” in the modest house where he lived with Mrs Booth overlooking the River Thames at Chelsea. As the news spread, however, it became apparent that all was not as it seemed. The beak-nosed, ruddy-faced old ‘seadog’ was none other than the artist JMW Turner, fêted today as perhaps our greatest landscape and marine painter, and a father of modernism. In his lifetime his pioneering studies of light, colour and atmosphere, storm-tossed boats, golden ‘Turner skies’ and swirling abstractions brought him both celebrity and notoriety. But he also lived a parallel, fiercely guarded private life, content in his later years to be mistaken for an admiral and the husband of his mistress-cum-carer Sophia Booth. So, what would Joseph Mallord…

HISTORY Lighting up the Dark Ages A brand-new display has opened at the Tower of London, transporting visitors to the courts of Henry III and Edward I and exploring the lives of medieval Londoners. Housed within some of the oldest parts of this historic structure, St Thomas’s, Wakefield and Lanthorn Towers, the Medieval Palace has been brought to life with splendid royal colours and textiles. A soundscape with music from the Middle Ages, crackling fires and incantations in Latin effectively conjures up the atmosphere of the building’s day-to-day life in medieval times. An array of replica medieval objects are available to touch, alongside displays of precious artefacts including a toy knight from around 1300, coins minted for Edward I at the Tower of London, and a medieval fish trap discovered…

“You put a hat on your head and you smile,” says Roger Snook. It’s as simple as that. And as I step into ‘T. Snook Hatters – Known in Both Hemispheres’, it’s very hard to disagree. My senses are immediately assaulted by an explosion of colour and texture: hats stacked like French macarons on every available surface; scarves, socks, bandannas and bow ties vying for attention on vintage racks and walls. Overhead, a rainbow of fedoras hangs from the rafters. I’ve walked into the Mad Hatter’s dressing room – and I’m grinning like the Cheshire Cat. This is a shop that demands your attention, and it’s caught the interest of more than one noteworthy trendsetter over the years. The shop’s current owner, Roger Snook, has supplied hats to an expanding…

What does the role of a textile conservator involve? The role is to manage change that occurs naturally in the ageing process of a textile and stabilise it. It’s the prevention of decay, any waste, or loss. How might a typical day at your studio look? We unveil the previous day’s work in our northwest London studio – everything is covered in tissue with signs of ‘please do not touch’! We go through with the studio manager and the project conservator to work out if there are any problems. Then in the office I’ll sit down with the studio manager to discuss new projects that have come in and how we’re going to approach them. Sometimes we will need to request photographs from a client to accompany their query. Though,…