Innholdsfortegnelse for 11-Oct-2017 i Country Life

Where mountain lions roam Extraordinary, momentous: most superlative adjectives are not enough to describe West Creek Ranch-agents call it ‘one of the finest residences and land parcels in the world'. Straddling Mesa County, Colorado (6,412 acres) and Grand County, Utah (507 acres), the expansive property encompasses the soaring Precambrian cliffs of Unaweep Canyon, a bear and mountain-lion habitat, real dinosaur footprints, the historic ruins of Driggs Mansion and high plateau country, including a log cabin and helipad with views of the La Sal Mountains, making up what the agents call ‘some of the most enduring and treasured natural geological wonders in the canyonlands of the American West'. There are also equestrian and bison pastures, fishing ponds, a grass airstrip and hangar, stables, a spa, an astronomical observatory and a trout…

‘It has to come from wanting to create the house of your dreams’ WHEN times are tough and confidence in the market is low, the eagerness of buyers to tackle expensive and lengthy renovations anywhere, but especially overseas, tends to wane. With no prospect that the effort and investment will be recovered when it comes to selling the property on, people prefer to take on something that requires little restoration. In the past 12 months, however, there has been a significant uptake in interest from those actively looking for fixer-uppers throughout coveted second-home areas of Provence and Umbria. ‘The trend to buy and renovate historical properties in places such as Gascony has been long-standing, because there are a large number of châteaux at relatively good prices,’ says Jack Harris of…

Courmayeur Tucked at the foot of Mont Blanc, the pretty village of Courmayeur, with its boutique-lined streets and sweeping mountain views, has long vied with Cortina d’Ampezzo, in the Dolomites, for the title of Italy’s most fashionable ski resort. Lately, however, the Mont Blanc village has inched ahead—thanks to world-class food. First, a clutch of local restaurants, including Rifugio Maison Vieille, Château Branlant and La Chaumière, put Courmayeur on the world’s culinary map with hearty mountain dishes such as chestnut dumplings with fontina cheese and nettle sauce. Then, in 2014, came the launch of the first Momentum Ski Mountain Gourmet Ski Experience, a weekend in which top British chefs took over the reins at several Courmayeur haunts. Now an annual event, it sees stars such as Heston Blumenthal, Claude Bosi…

LEADING female artists and designers such as Dora Batty, Laura Knight and Zandra Rhodes, whose work has featured in London Transport and Transport for London advertisements over the past century, are on display in the London Transport Museum’s ‘Poster Girls’ exhibition (October 13 to summer 2018), on Covent Garden Piazza, WC2. Ever since Frank Pick began his innovative approach to promoting the London Underground in 1908 by commissioning bright, chance-taking, young and established artists to design posters, advertising for London’s public-transport systems has been widely admired and the museum’s collection of poster art is one of the best in the world. Among the most prolific of the female artists was Dora Batty, a tutor in textiles at London’s Central School of Art and Design, whose work was characterised by…

Quiz of the week 1) The concept of 15 minutes of fame originated with which artist? 2) Which acid is produced in the muscles during exercise? 3) Who founded the Salvation Army? 4) Cereology is the study of what? 5) In which year did the demolition of the Berlin Wall begin? 1) Andy Warhol 2) Lactic acid 3) William Booth 4) Crop circles 5) 1989 Wicked words Analysing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it E. B. White The nature of things Seahorses IF proof is sought to confirm life being stranger than fiction, there’s no need to look further than the seahorse. Everything about this creature turns our expectations inside out. Literally, in the case of its skeleton, which,…

The tradition of choral Evensong in Britain is easy to take for granted, yet the fact that we can walk into churches across the country and enjoy the live performance of music in outstandingly beautiful buildings at no cost is something of a miracle. It's an endeavour, moreover, that involves people of every age and demands the commitment of many thousands across the country on a day-to-day basis. For those frustrated by the detail of working out when and where the service is to be celebrated, look now at www.choralevensong.org. It covers Britain and Ireland. Hopefully, it will encourage more people to take advantage of this extraordinary living tradition.…

IT was an atmospheric evening at The Grange in Hampshire about 10 years ago—mist rising over the water meadows, a giant chess set looming out of the dusky garden, an owl hooting—when one of Jo Longden’s supper guests declared: ‘What you need in this unbelievable setting is llamas.’ ‘Bring it on,’ was Mrs Longden’s response, but she was still somewhat startled when, the following morning, a trailer arrived and Mia and Matilda were disgorged into an enormous field. ‘As they cantered off into the distance, I asked where their headcollars were, to be told: “Oh, no—they’re wild”.’ Through books, websites and the British Camelids Association, the Longdens learned a lot about llama husbandry, including that their 14-month-old acquisitions might live until they were well over 20, that horses are initially…

‘ Every time I walk into the hot shop, it excites me. It’s wonderfully frenetic CHINK: two glasses make contact in a toast. Flawlessly transparent, luminous and weighty, they began their existence as fiery orange orbs in a sleepy Devon town. Their maker, Dartington Crystal, has been expert in the art of turning molten silica sand, lead oxide and cullet into beautiful, solid, transparent objects for half a century. Originally a tiny shard of an arts-and-country crafts movement created in the 1920s at Dartington Hall in Totnes by American heiress Dorothy Elmhirst and her husband, Leonard, Dartington’s golden jubilee, on June 12, marked the moment the factory, set up 65 miles away in Torrington, began fashioning breathtakingly simple, timeless and useable glass pieces on an industrial scale. Akin to a…

CONCEIVABLY because their father spent their formative years relentlessly extolling the virtues of the pastime, my sons James and Tom have managed to reach their thirties without ever having fished for salmon. This summer, I resolved to remedy that—but where in the world to take them with a virtual guarantee of success? Twice the size of Texas, with more coastline than the lower 48 states put together, and famously sold by the Russians in 1867 for less than two cents an acre, Alaska takes its name from the native alaxsxag, meaning ‘great country’. There are also several thousand salmon rivers and we were heading towards the Bristol Bay area, to the mighty Alagnak river. It’s a longish schlep to get there (six flights for one of the boys) and…

THE Serpentine Sackler Gallery stands at the kink of West Carriage Drive, the red-tarmacked road that swoops through Kensington Gardens in London’s W2. The yellow-brick neo-Classical building, with its Palladian portico, is a broad and solid presence behind the glossy black railings. Settling lightly upon its more sheltered side is a fluid, bright-white extension with a roof that dips repeatedly down to the ground and whose rounded walls are made of watery-blue glass. The extension was designed by the late pioneering architect Zaha Hadid and it remains her only permanent building in central London. When the Royal Parks offered a lease for the former gunpowder store in 2009—the building had more recently provided rather grand storage for the Mall’s flagpoles— the Serpentine Gallery jumped at the chance to develop a…

WHEN I reported the Northern Antiques Dealers Fair in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, in September 1992, I began by quoting the 10th Viscount Downe’s remarks in opening the very first fair, in 1951. His words seem even more relevant today than they did 25 years ago and, as the fair, under new ownership, has reverted to its original name, I venture to repeat them here. He said: ‘In these days when the terms “austerity”, “utility” and “short supply” have such real meaning for all of us in Britain, it is surely a welcome treat to be able to visit such an exhibition… for here we can examine and appreciate works of art made by craftsmen whose guiding principles were the striving for perfection and loyalty to their craft.’ Back in…

‘English people like to have a second home here, because it’s just a 1½-hour flight’ IT’S best to compare Berlin, says Sven Henkes, managing director of Knight Frank’s associate office, Ziegart, to an elevator on the rise. ‘Some people joined years ago, on the minus levels, and now we’ve reached the ground floor. Now is the best time to jump into the elevator, while it’s going up.’ Oliver Blum, managing director of luxury estate agency John Taylor, agrees: ‘Berlin is booming!’ Like any capital city, Berlin has its good and bad neighbourhoods. The best include Charlottenburg, Berlin’s Mayfair, which contains the Kurfürstendamm, the German equivalent of the Champs-Élysées, lined with boutiques and five-star hotels. The architecture is also varied, with a mixture of old and new, says Mr Henkes, but…

KNOWN throughout the world as the spice island for its exports of nutmeg and mace, Grenada is, by comparison to Barbados, largely untouched by tourism—especially at the top end of the market. However, this is about to change, albeit in a very gentle way. It’s not the first time that wind has caught in the development sails on the island. Back before the recent financial crises, British property developer Peter de Savary, a citizen of the island since 2006, had grand plans; in the end, it was only a new marina in the capital, George Town, that came to fruition. Now, several years on, the tide is turning again and, leading the way, is Silversands (www.silversandsgrenada.com), a new five-star hotel due to open at the end of this year, located…

Normandy, France €398,000 (£366,233) Dating back to the 18th century, this charming thatched, timber-framed cottage in the Montfort-sur-Risle commune of the Eure département is less than two hours from Paris and 45 minutes from Deauville. It has four bedrooms, 3½ acres of meadow and orchard, two barns and a guest house. Chestertons International (020–7201 2071) Nova Scotia, Canada, CAD$279,000 (£173,431) Scented with sea air from nearby Digby harbour, this delightful Dutch colonial property resembles an upturned ship. It has four bedrooms, a pretty verandah overlooking the garden and a grand oak staircase. Tradewinds Realty (001 902 526 2462; 020–7467 5330) Mallorca, Spain €490,000 (£450,035) This lovely stone house in the village of Alaró, in a peaceful valley in the southern Tramuntana mountains, has been beautifully refurbished in a boutique style…

WITHOUT help, heavy horses will die out within a decade, says the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), which has started a crowdfunding campaign to raise awareness of the plight of breeds such as the Suffolk Punch, which is now down to some 70 mares in the UK, Clydesdale and shire. Once a familiar sight in both town and country, these gentle giants were invaluable in ploughing fields and pulling carts. They were put to use in the First World War, hauling heavy artillery to the trenches, and thousands died. Although their numbers increased again after 1918, the rise of the tractor robbed them of their purpose and numbers have dropped steeply. The RBST is asking the public to donate money to the National Livestock Gene Bank, whose work is vital…

ALTHOUGH perhaps not as well known as his withering put-downs, a love of horses was a vital facet to Sir Winston Churchill, as explored in a new book, Churchill at the Gallop, published on October 13. In fact, he rode more than any other Prime Minister before or since, enjoying it ‘more than anything else’, and is known to have said: ‘Don’t give your son money. As far as you can afford it, give him horses.’ Following in the wartime leader’s hoofprints, author and former amateur jockey Brough Scott traces Churchill’s story from childhood rides at Blenheim to Sandhurst and beyond. Covering his 21st birthday, when he was shot at on horseback in Cuba and his part in ‘the last great cavalry charge’ at the Battle of Omdurman—‘I had first…

A DAM COX, proprietor of Yorkshire Pianos, compares the intricate works under the piano lid to what’s concealed beneath a car bonnet. ‘When we look at the windscreen wipers or lights, we don’t think about how they actually work. If you imagine this process to be as complicated as it could be and then multiply it by 10, that’s how complex it is,’ he explains. ‘It’s an intricate machine made out of wood at a level of precision not seen much outside the making of musical instruments.’ Yorkshire Pianos, based in an old forge on the Duke of Devonshire’s Bolton Abbey estate in the Yorkshire Dales—hence its Cavendish range—is the only commercial, traditional piano maker in Britain (once, there were more than 300). Mr Cox trained in piano technology at…

‘Middle America is in revolt against the experts’ AGROMENES has been on his travels. Reluctantly leaving behind his best harvest of pears for 30 years and the English countryside at its autumn best, he flew to the USA, only to find that embarrassment there at the antics of Donald Trump exactly parallels our own increasing bewilderment at the Brexit process. Even the staunchest Republicans—bankers, corporate lawyers and fund managers—are ever more exasperated by the vacuity of this president. Their fierce loyalty to the Constitution is deeply troubled, yet the increasing polarisation of politics provides them with little hope of any bipartisan resistance. Many years of gerrymandering of electoral boundaries means that most members of the House of Representatives have to satisfy their core supporters, not the wider electorate. Republicans are,…

‘ Whippets are known as the poor man’s racehorse’ MY love, I realised early in summer, knows no hounds. That is to say, having always been a gundog man—specifically, a pointer man—I suddenly found myself yearning for a sighthound, specifically a whippet. The craving came over me in May, in Fontainebleau, where I happened to see Oudry’s delightful painting of Louis XV’s two whippets, Misse and Turlu. After that, I could think of nothing except how much more fulfilling life would be with a blue whippet puppy by my side. Then, in June, an opportunity unexpectedly came up to acquire such a dog from a reputable amateur breeder in Wales. I showed a photograph of the puppy to the twins. We agreed that, when their mother had said mildly—well,…

‘I hopped and skipped over snaking water channels to reach the dunes MY summer was wonderfully hill-filled, including a week in Snowdonia, during which I climbed eight of its biggest peaks, and—joy of joys—trekking to the top of the 12,225ft Mount Rinjani on Lombok. That last effort was more intense than anything I’ve experienced before, so my return to Cambridge was less a wistful look back at the hills than a happy reunion with flatland walking. I’ve resumed my morning riverside walks and an invitation to give a lecture at South Creake saw me heading happily for the north Norfolk coast. I love places where the land meets the sea and the Norfolk coast has its own special qualities. The adjective that springs to mind is ‘endless’, as huge…

1 In 1863, work began on a major new bridge that would improve the connection between the City and the West End. The resulting structure bears images representing commerce, agriculture, science and fine art besides a small colony of brightly painted dragons 2 This is one of a small cluster of 19th-century street lamps, each ornamented with its own dragon, that exists in the very heart of the City. What monetary nucleus overlooks them? 3 The boundary of the City administration is marked at 10 points by sculptures of dragons. All but one of these was modelled on a pair removed from the Coal Exchange following its demolition in the 1960s. This is the exception, made by C. B. Birch, erected in 1880 and probably not much noticed by journalists…

Pitch Blue, estate emulsion, £43.50 for 2 1/2 litres, Farrow & Ball (01202 876141; www. farrow-ball.com ) ‘Pitch Blue has that timeless appeal and depth of colour. It can look extremely lively when paired with shades such as All White’Charlotte Cosby, Farrow & Ball Invisible Green emulsion, £45 for 21/2 litres, Edward Bulmer Natural Paint (01544 388535; www. edwardbulmer paint.co.uk) ‘Invisible Green begs to be combined with interesting pictures and furniture. It has a confident air that helps create atmosphere and calm in a room’Edward Bulmer, Edward Bulmer Natural Paint Orange Aurora, Tuscan Red, Attic II absolute matte emulsion, £42 for 21/2 litres, Little Greene (020–7935 8844; www. littlegreene.com ) ‘This painting fills a room with joy,…

‘ There would be splendid hams, terrines and smooth, pink pâtés MY last Continental holiday with my parents, when I was 16, was taken in France in 1970. Ostensibly a motoring and camping trip in Dad’s comfy Renault 16 with a tent and sleeping bags in its roomy boot, there was also a vague promise of ‘a couple of nice hotels here and there, where the cooking will be worth the stay’ from Mum. To be honest, I suspected that she had been as keen as I for this to be more than ‘perhaps a couple’. Most creditably, the parents had recently become quite excited over my growing love of cookery, so this trip was both a pleasure for them (they had always enjoyed fine French food and had…

IN the Victorian period, it was said that ‘the City of Westminster proper—that triangular slip of the metropolis which lies between the Thames, St James’s Park, and the Vauxhall Bridge Road, can boast at once of some of the noblest and the meanest structures to be found throughout London… In Westminster we have the contrast between rich and poor as marked as in St Giles’s and St James’s, for almost within a stone’s throw of the seat of the great Legislature of England there are, or were till recently, more alms-houses, more charity schools, and more prisons, more ancient mansions, and more costermongers’ hovels, more thieves’ dens and low public houses, than in any other part of the metropolis of equal extent’ ( Old and New London , 1878).…

THE Spanish resort of Sotogrande has not been especially fashionable in recent years. Like its glitzy neighbour Marbella, it was hit hard by the Spanish property crash and, as newer, more cutting-edge high-end resorts sprang up elsewhere, it fell off the radar of high-net-worth individuals who were seeking privacy and exclusivity. However, 2014 heralded a new chapter for Andalusia’s largest resort, an almost 5,000-acre piece of prime coastal land near Gibraltar that stretches back to the Sierra Almenara mountains. The 52-year-old resort was acquired by Cerberus Capital Management and Orion Capital Managers from the NH Hotel Group for € 225 million and new CEO Marc Topiol has begun to turn things around. ‘Sotogrande has a large number of residents who had been there 40 or 50 years, but it needed…

‘Get to know the locals–Hong Kong is fun and there’s a lot happening’ HONG KONG is an assault on the senses. Every corner teems with neon signs, chirping birds and the intense aromas of great food. The streets are thick with voices and bamboo scaffolds, the harbour is a perpetual motion of barges and boats and, in the evening, skyscrapers flash lights across the bay in a triumph of colour over darkness. Even the countryside, well protected by country parks, is an exhilarating mix of tropical flowers, crashing waterfalls and squeaking monkeys. This vibrancy makes Hong Kong an exciting place to live, but, with so much to take in, the city can seem daunting to newcomers. Edina Wong, head of residential services at Savills Hong Kong, recommends diving straight in:…

THE CLA, Woodland Trust and Confor joined ranks in a joint statement to Forestry Minister Thérèse Coffey at the Conservative Party Conference last week, calling the current situation unacceptable and requesting an increased woodland-cover stance after Brexit that reflects ‘the many benefits [trees] can deliver’. The key points of the statement, which is signed by CLA president Ross Murray, Woodland Trust chief executive Beccy Speight and Confor CEO Stuart Goodall, are that the UK’s biodiversity and recreation would benefit from more trees in the UK; that tree planting should be sustainable, both environmentally and economically; that landowners who manage woodland to the UK Forestry Standard should be rewarded; that timber should be used more often in construction; and, lastly, that, as forestry is a £2 billion business supporting 80,000 jobs,…

THE Queen’s House in Greenwich occupies a crucial position in British architectural history. It is the earliest surviving, neo-Classical villa—a luxurious and coherently planned house set in private grounds—in the country, designed by Inigo Jones in 1616. Last year, on its 400th anniversary, it had a complete overhaul, with new wiring, heating and environmental controls. In addition, every floor that could be lifted was raised and inspected. The roof structure above the King’s Presence Chamber was also examined and confirmed as part of Inigo Jones’s work. As part of its refit, the Queen’s House also had a complete re-hang, so that there are now 450 artworks in place, where there were only 160 before. Among them are paintings by Rubens, Gentileschi and Canaletto, as well as numerous topographical views of…

‘It was humbling to realise such a brief storm could cause such devastation Michael Fish, broadcast meteorologist I drove to Television Centre from my west London home via Chiswick at about 4.30am. I didn’t realise that a storm was raging because I stuck to main roads with no trees lining them. There probably was damage, but it was dark and I couldn’t see it. Once at the studio, I remained ensconced inside for hours and news of the storm was slow to filter through. By lunchtime, when I finished my shift, people had started to ring in with information. The forecast I gave has plagued me, not helped by the fact that the following day was a Saturday, so no one was in the press office and stories were made…

‘We now find ourselves peering from beneath giant paddle-shaped leaves’ A NATION of gardeners is bound to be eternally on the search for something more exciting in the view from the kitchen window. Every now and again, a deep-seated yearning for something with a bit more get up and go breaks through the polite surface. Away, then, with the drizzle-flecked windowpanes looking out onto familiar favourites and in with a vision of desert-island scenery. Something of this nature has just occurred in the heathland of Surrey, in the august setting of RHS Wisley, not hitherto noted for revolutionary sentiments. Until recently, a handsome and instructive rose garden stood on the spot where we now find ourselves peering from beneath the giant paddle-shaped leaves of banana plants across a planting…

SURELY the perfect exhibition to greet Tristram Hunt in his first year as V&A director is ‘Opera’. No other museum could mount such a show. And let’s not forget that Dr Hunt is a former MP. The show’s subtitle is ‘Passion, Power and Politics’, reflecting that it can be a highly political artform. This observation may be unwelcome to the listener, who simply wants his ears to be seduced by beautiful music rather than being reminded that some of the meanings behind that music may be alien to his own political philosophy. All too often, this disconnect is addressed by directors who impose their own—perhaps inappropriate—ideas that are at odds with the nature of the piece. Wagner suffers particularly from the contemporary cult of Regietheater, in which the director’s vision…

NO Frenchman goes to England for pleasure, or resides there by choice,’ confidently asserted the French novelist and critic Hector Malot in 1862. However, within less than a decade, several of his artistic compatriots were flocking to the city, seeking refuge from the horrors of the Franco-Prussian War. The grim reality behind this exodus will be illustrated in the opening section of this exhibition with a series of works depicting scenes of battle, executions and iconic buildings reduced to rubble during the siege of Paris. Some French artists fled to the provinces, but others, including Charles-François Daubigny, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, James Tissot and Alfred Sisley, crossed the English Channel and established themselves in London. There, they found a French community in Soho, a congenial watering hole in the French-owned…

Biography Mr Lear Jenny Uglow (Faber, £25) JENNY UGLOW has loved Edward Lear from childhood. There is, of course, much to love about this man of whimsy: his nonsense verse, parrots, irrepressibly funny letters and general character of being a whimsical, runcible uncle. If there’s also something to debunk, Mrs Uglow is lenient. Beautifully written and published, with a charm appropriate to the subject, her new book is the gentle product of deep research. I was engrossed. Lear often complained of being someone who, ‘at the age of 14 and a half, was turned out into the world, literally without a farthing—and with nought to look to for a living but his own exertions’. This was not ‘literally’ true, although he did always struggle for money and mourn his lack…