Innholdsfortegnelse for September 9, 2015 i Country Life

IT’S hoped that 10 new populations of red squirrels will be established in the Scottish Highlands over the next three years. The Caledonian Forest Wildlife Project, run by Trees for Life and the Highland Foundation for Wildlife, aims to boost numbers of the endangered native squirrel by 10% through relocating them from regions where they thrive to areas of native woodland, mainly in Wester Ross and Sutherland. Red squirrels have been absent from these areas since the 1960s, but it’s hoped that new tree planting should help them. Alan Watson Featherstone of Trees for Life explains that his charity is looking for areas of woodland of up to 500 acres, containing a mix of species, including Scots pine and broadleafs. One or two squirrels will be taken from each…

A SOMERSET fisherman is hoping that his business venture will help save our only native crayfish. The introduction of the American signal crayfish into Britain in the 1970s proved disastrous and, as a result, the Atlantic stream or white-clawed crayfish is now endangered. Ivan Stinchcombe is trapping signal crayfish along a three-mile stretch of river near Frome as well as in three private lakes and he has permission to trap in four other rivers in the area. ‘In theory, if other fisherman do the same, the rivers will eventually be cleared and it will become easier to restock them with white-claws,’ explains Mr Stinchcombe, who set up his business, The Crays, after becoming redundant. He has since discovered a high demand for his product at farmer’s markets, restaurants and hotels,…

IT was a spectacular summer for the flowering of wild orchids and the last of them are now blooming in numerous (chiefly southern) locations. Autumn lady’s tresses, Spiranthes spiralis, has slender spikes of fragrant white flowers packed along a twirling stem that, long ago, inspired the folk name ‘ladie traces’ (lady’s plaits). It morphed phonetically down the generations into decidedly unbraided ‘tresses’. In 1548, William Turner noted them in the pastures of Syon Park (now engulfed by west London); Gerard’s Herball of 1597 cites its earthy Elizabethan monikers: ‘In Latine Testiculus Odoratus: in English sweete smelling Testicles or Stones, not of the sweetness of the rootes, but of the flowers. It is called also Orchis spiralis, or Autumnalis, sweete Ballocks.’ Shredded roots therefore gained fame as a botanical Viagra. Gerard…

Moreton-in-Marsh Historic USP Research by the J. R. R. Tolkien Society has identified The Bell Inn as the inspiration for the Prancing Pony in The Lord of the Rings and the Four Shire Stone, two miles outside Moreton, as the original Three-Farthing Stone Ambience Down-to-earth Famous neighbours Lord Dulverton at Batsford Park (the Mitford seat), which has an arboretum (above), Richard Phillips and Charlie Longsdon (racehorse trainers) Watering holes The Marshmallow restaurant, which has a two-page list of teas, from Russian Caravan to Egyptian Mint; The White Hart, where you can curl up in the snug with your dog; The Red Lion at nearby Little Compton, a favourite with the Heythrop hunt Interesting shops Grimes House Gallery for an astonishing collection of cranberry glass, paperweights, paintings and art supplies; The…

ALTHOUGH I have occasionally hugged a guide after an outstanding day’s fishing, it’s rare for me to kiss one on arrival—but I make an exception in the case of svelte and accomplished Gilly Bate when she welcomes us to her beat on the River Test. As a fully qualified game-angling instructor, Mrs Bate is still something of a rara avis in chalk country, even though the sport is no longer the preserve of male clubland traditionalists. It’s estimated that just 5% of the country’s fisherfolk are ladies (one Minnesotan expert puts the worldwide figure at a heady 15 million), but girl power on the water is not in any doubt. Having once fished on practice days with both the male and female England fly-fishing squads, I know which team…

P AM AYRES, the poet, broadcaster, entertainer, occasional Country Life contributor and all-round national treasure, is selling her cherished country home in the Cotswolds and moving to a Georgian former vicarage in a nearby village. The project sounds simple enough, but, despite years of meticulous planning, she and her husband, Dudley Russell, are finding the downsizing process tough going. ‘I just want it all to be over, so we can move on to the next chapter of our lives,’ she says in that familiar gentle voice. It’s 40 years since Miss Ayres embarked on an unlikely career in show business and almost 30 since she and her husband bought the handsome Georgian, Grade II-listed Norcote House with 20 acres of land on the outskirts of Cirencester, following the death…

Village house with a swimming pool Gloucestershire, £2.25 million Latimers, Weston-Subedge 6 bedrooms, swimming pool, workshop, disused tennis court, 1.8 acres Jackson-Stops & Staff (01386 840224) This house was once used as a summer residence for the Bishops of Worcester and later became an inn named The Conquering Hero. Today, it occupies a fine position in this village, which boasts a popular pub and a busy village hall. Grade II-listed, the house has a pretty landscaped garden, with a formal rose garden. Recently built farmhouse with land Gloucestershire, £2.25 million Church Farm, Little Rissington 4 bedrooms, carport, studio flat, farm buildings, 35 acres Savills Smiths Gore (01451 832832) Church Farm was constructed in 2002 in the Cotswold vernacular, using predominantly reclaimed stone. Occupying an elevated position to make the most…

WHEN my journalist friend Jenny McCartney told me she had never taken her driving test, I was surprised. She, in turn, was surprised by my surprise, claiming that she’d never really needed a car, because she lives in London. I had to explain to her that being without a car in the country, where I live, would be like trying to play football with only one leg: not impossible, but not very easy either. My 17-year-old son is taking lessons and can’t wait to pass. For the time being, however, I have to ferry him around the country lanes whenever he wants to visit friends and, with what Hindus would surely identify as a fine example of karma , I’m reminded of how my poor mother used to drive…

AUGUST always used to signal the end of summer flowers. Thirty years ago, dahlias were grown in allotments or only used for picking and annuals were rarely seen except in cottage gardens. Orange was frowned on and, apart from the scarlet splendens used in the bedding schemes of parks, very few people had heard of salvias. Today, we’re lucky that the old taboos have vanished; new plants arrive all the time and the late-summer garden lasts until the first frosts strike. I love September, when flowers are gaudy and taller than I am. Now, in the beds below the house, dahlias have succeeded tulips, peonies or roses as the showstoppers. Dahlia Admiral Rawlings, Babylon Red, Pontiac, Winston Churchill and a good crimson D. coccinea teeter over a haze of smaller…

THIS week’s Country Life sees the launch onto the market, at a guide price of £2.65m through Knight Frank (01242 246959), of the Grade II*-listed Abbey Old House in Cowl Lane, Winchcombe, which dates from the 16th century, with later additions and alterations in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The grounds on which it stands are part of the Scheduled Ancient Monument of Winchcombe Abbey, founded by King Kenulph of Mercia in 798 and eventually demolished after the Dissolution. Abbey Old House stands in a magical three-acre garden setting in the heart of this ancient Saxon town, seven miles from Cheltenham, and was a virtual wreck when its present owners bought it and embarked on a remarkable 10-year renovation programme. The result, says selling agent Nick Chivers of Knight…

MASTER pianist Artur Schnabel once observed that, at dinner parties, he preferred businessmen to musicians: the businessmen were keen to discuss music, but the musicians only wanted to talk about money. Although this may seem a witty reversal of the usual commercial and artistic stereotypes, it’s true that anyone working in the Arts knows all too well that technical skill and aesthetic talent may be necessary for professional success, but if you don’t take care of business, you may not have a profession at all. These hard realities are particularly pressing in today’s super-competitive scene and the new autumn schedules show musical institutions responding with high-profile publicity and innovative fare. The Royal Opera (020–7304 4000; www.roh.org.uk), for instance, launches its season with Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, the less often…

WHEN the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) was founded in 1856, it was intended to present the public with a parade of the heroes of British history ‘as warriors or statesmen, or in the arts, in literature or in science’. The collection was meant to be both celebratory and exemplary, chiming with the opinion of Thomas Carlyle, an early trustee, who believed that seeing the images of great men was key to understanding the past, as portraits were worth ‘half-a-dozen written biographies’. However, Carlyle’s view of history came under literal attack in 1914, when suffragette Margaret Gibb took a meat cleaver to his portrait in the gallery in protest against a male-dominated society that denied women the vote. Attitudes to history change constantly, just like portraiture itself; we now live in…

Supporters The Women’s Institute Keep Britain Tidy Clean Up Britain RSPB Garfield Weston Foundation The CLA The CPRE Women’s Weekly Golf Monthly The Countryside Alliance Horse & Hound Angler’s Mail The Moorland Association The Wildlife Trusts The BASC The National Gardens Scheme ‘Let’s make Britain beautiful for Her Majesty’s 90th birthday’ Mark Hedges, Editor ‘I hate the hand that comes out of a car and drops litter in the street. I hate that! It just fills me with fury!’ Joanna Lumley, actress What a load of rubbish How much litter is there? About 2.25 million pieces of litter are dropped on the streets of the UK every day Thirty million tons of rubbish are collected from England’s streets each year. That’s enough to fill Wembley Stadium four times over…

WE’RE pretty self-selecting, we readers of COUNTRY LIFE . The magazine’s pages are dedicated to the best the countryside has to offer: its natural beauty, the buildings that enhance its landscape and the art and artefacts that embellish its historic homes. Invasion and revolution haven’t entered our calculations for 70 years. Instead, we have the good fortune to celebrate the continuity that has preserved this heritage and surrounds us today with stability and certainty. It’s not surprising, therefore, that the scenes at Calais and Budapest, the grisly revelations of bodies in locked vans, washed up on beaches and crushed under railway trains and the desperation of refugees from foul regimes in Syria and Eritrea have disturbed even the most comfortable of us. Once we’re past blaming it all on the…

William Agnew has been a London-based sculpture dealer for 36 years ‘ This is a picture I would love to own and have at home. Odoni reminds me of collectors like the German émigré Paul Wallraf, who was very kind to me when I was starting my career and who also had a house in Venice. The picture brings to mind situations I have been in: as Odoni gestures to hand back my terracotta of Diana of Ephesus, I feel he is about to say “you know I like it,” (and he has not let go of it—a good sign...) “but you also know I think it is expensive!” ’ John McEwen comments on Portrait of Andrea Odoni A1505 document already described Lotto as ‘very famous’, yet it is…

A school since 1928, Westonbirt is the finest ensemble of Victorian architecture, landscape and gardens in the Cotswolds. As Michael Hall explains, its stature is being greatly enhanced with conservation by the Holfords of Westonbirt Trust IT has often been commented that the salvation of many of England’s largest country houses in the 20th century was the demand for boarding schools. Among the first to spot this potential was the Rev Percy Warrington, incumbent of Monkton Combe, near Bath, who, in 1923, founded the Martyrs’ Memorial and Church of England Trust to establish public schools at Canford and Stowe. The trust, which still exists as the Allied Schools, founded 10 schools in Britain and one in Kenya. Among them was Westonbirt, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire, which opened as a girls’ public…

THE eager visitors who poured into the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851 to admire manufactured products from all over the world cannot have failed to notice that the underlying theme was a celebration of Britain’s industrial achievements. One of the highlights of this festival of arts, crafts and technology was a ‘Mediaeval Court’ designed by A. W. N. Pugin, which featured a Great Stove covered in tiles manufactured by the Minton factory. Those curious to see more Minton designs could visit the company’s stand, where a fuller range of products was on display. There stood dining-table centrepieces, one of which was decorated with draped figures representing the four seasons, Parian ware in all its pale purity, friezes inspired by the Renaissance ceramicist Luca della Robbia, terracotta figures, candlesticks,…

Arabella Youens that there’s currently considerable demand for village houses WHEN Bank’s Farm in the picture-perfect village of Bledington, near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, was launched on the market in COUNTRY LIFE on June 10, Strutt & Parker’s man in Moreton, David Henderson, had a flurry of requests for viewings—60 in total—and it sold for more than its guide price of £1.5 million (01608 650502). The idyllic four-bedroom farmhouse, built of Cotswold stone beneath a Stonesfield slate roof, has an enviable position overlooking the green in its classic north Cotswold village. ‘Although it needs a lot of work doing to it, the house ticks many boxes for today’s Cotswold buyer,’ explains Jonathan Bramwell of The Buying Solution (01608 690780). ‘Bledington is one of the best villages in the area because…

Ysenda Maxtone Graham is engrossed Decorative arts/memoir The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts Edmund de Waal (Chatto & Windus, £20 *£16.50) EDMUND DE WAAL has a way of making you care about handmade ceramics in a way no other writer does. He did it first in The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of his family’s wartime trauma through the prism of a collection of Japanese netsuke. Reading that book, I remember feeling the netsuke in the palm of my hand, so beautifully did he describe them. Now, I have felt white shards of porcelain, breathed in the dust, lived the lives of pottery pioneers, felt the intense heat of the kiln and cared about 18th-century cups with handles more than I ever thought I could. The best writers…

WHEN Joris (George or Georg) Hoefnagel was born in 1542, Antwerp, his native city, was the second largest metropolis north of the Alps and, shortly before, it is said to have accounted for 40% of world trade. His father dealt in diamonds, tapestries and luxury goods and the young Joris travelled to France and Spain for the business. However, by 1568, the beginnings of the Revolt of the Netherlands cut trading links between Antwerp and Bilbao and he stayed in London for some months. Although he described himself as a self-taught artist, he may have had lessons from Hans Bol and he was already accomplished enough to draw Windsor Castle and Nonsuch Palace and paint his only known large panel, a Marriage Feast at Bermondsey, which probably includes portraits…