Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Feb-2019 i Country Life

The paraglider ONE summer evening in 2002, artist James Lynch had what you might call an epiphany, one that would profoundly influence his work. Walking near his Somerset home, he saw a figure drifting gently up and down a hillside, suspended from what looked like a pink parachute. ‘He was hovering about 5ft off the ground and had such perfect control, we were able to chat to each other,’ recalls Mr Lynch. ‘It was the first time I’d seen a paraglider and I was bowled over. He told me where I could learn to do it.’ Within weeks, Mr Lynch had taken to the air himself and so, in a sense, had his paintings: in many of them, the landscape is seen from above, a bird’s-eye view of a mosaic…

RARELY in life does so much thought go into the planning of just one day. Depending on the complexity of the event, decisions can be required on everything from the colour of the lining of the envelope in which the invitations are sent to the style of the bride’s garter. With this in mind, we’ve addressed some of the bigger choices: city versus country, stand-up versus sit-down reception, summer versus winter. We’ve also tackled the lonely conundrum that faces just one person: the choice of outfit for the mother of the bride, which most agree should be chic, but not too showy. In addition, there’s an update on the latest beauty treatments and accessories that are available to the modern bride, plus advice from seasoned experts on how to ensure…

LONG before it became known as the city of dreaming spires, Oxford was an important Anglo-Saxon and medieval town at the confluence of the Rivers Cherwell and Thames, its development constrained by wide alluvial floodplains to the east and west. By the early 1800s, however, Oxford’s prosperity was underpinned by the power and wealth of the fast-expanding university colleges, which owned much of the land within the city walls. With housing sites in the city both scarce and expensive, two of Oxford’s shrewdest developers—prominent local solicitor Crews Dudley and tallow chandler George Kimber —set out to create Summertown in 1820, a new, out-of-town residential estate on a one-mile-square site between the Banbury and Woodstock Roads, a mile and a half north of Oxford city centre. Dudley and Kimber’s development…

BAGPIPES are as much a part of Scottish culture as whisky, the kilt and Nessie, but they’re actually an Ancient Egyptian import thought to have been introduced into Britain by the Romans. Regional variations emerged and it was one of these that, 40 years ago, caught bagpipe-maker Dave Shaw’s eye. ‘I see the process involved in making something and simply get a mania for it. That’s what happened with the bagpipes,’ admits the Co Durham-based craftsman. There was no childhood connection, either, save for a bagpipe-trilling farming neighbour of his father’s. ‘He would walk up his mile-long drive each evening, practising his bagpipes —even now, it’s an evocative sound.’ Mr Shaw harboured ambitions of becoming a vet, but his failure to secure a place on his chosen course led him…

I’VE become a white-van man. Or, I suppose I should say, now we’re here in the Charente, un homme camionette blanche. We needed some farm transport. Lately, the skies have been the sheen and the colour of boiled fish-eye and the polished-for-sale Citroën Berlingo on the forecourt of the village garage matched. The van fitted the purchasing mood of the day, then I drove it around and found it fitted some more. A little white van is the French farmer’s vehicle of choice. Everybody locally assumes the driver of a 10-year-old Berlingo is local, so I was continually hailed down for a chat. On finding I was l’Anglais, the only Englishman in the village, they then introduced themselves. New acquaintance was made. The Berlingo has been social integration on wheels.…

One of the most remarkable objects at this fair is a late-15th-or early-16th-century Venetian glass two-handled bowl with gold-and-enamel decoration, to be shown by Mayflower Antiques of Bewdley. It is 3 1/4in high and 5 5/8in in diameter and is made of slightly grey cristallo glass. Around the lower part of the bowl are enamelled sinuous squiggles of a type known as San Bernardino rays. The formidable preacher Saint Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444) was a puritanical reformer with particular bugbears about sodomy and usury, who was quite lucky not to meet the same fate as Savonarola a few decades later. He had a strong devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus, signified by the IHS monogram in a flaming sun. I am not convinced that the decoration here derives from…

THE Lexus RX 450 is a boulevard SUV that I rather liked in its five-seat incarnation. I liked its zany, spaceship styling, its comfort and, most of all, its magic-carpet ride. It really did float about the place rather beautifully. Now, the luxury arm of Toyota has added a few inches to this hefty hybrid and squeezed inside them an extra row of seats. It’s not hard to work out why: the UK market for big SUVs is dominated by seven-seaters, such as the Audi Q7 and Volvo XC90. Lexus currently owns only a small portion of that market and the lack of a third row really wasn’t helping. Enter stage left the RX 450h L and no prizes for guessing what the L stands for. Amazingly, the Lexus…

You’ve been framed INFRARED cameras at the Lower Mill estate, a lakeside development in Somerford Keynes, Gloucestershire, have captured the busy nightlife of local residents—of the wildlife variety. Shot over the course of a few hours, the footage shows an otter catch and eat part of a fish, the remains of which then go on to feed a fox, a rat, a moorhen and a water rail. ‘Right in the middle of the development, we have these five different species, each with varying habitat requirements, all making use of every last scrap of a single fish,’ says Dr Phoebe Carter, Lower Mill’s chief ecologist. ‘Regular wildlife surveys show us the huge variety of species we have at the estate, including many of conservation concern. Seeing a handful of these…

ACONITES and snowdrops are out in force and the early signs of daffodils increasingly obvious—there will be no trouble finding buttonholes for St David’s Day—but there have been many years when we would be still waiting for weeks into the month for the first bud, despite the meterological calendar measuring spring as starting on March 1. No wonder we usually measured its arrival in the old way, via the astrological calendar; this year, we’d be waiting until the equinox on March 20. Both measures feel wrong when the sun shines hot and the song thrush warbles happily in January and, indeed, they are wrong according to the Woodland Trust’s Nature Calendar: for this, spring arrived in November, 11 editions of COUNTRY LIFE ago. ‘It would be foolish not to enjoy…

‘I love this painting because of its beauty–the harmony of the aesthetic interior and the elegant woman at the piano, her profile half-glimpsed. How artists have loved painting the beauty of a woman’s back, particularly when enhanced by her clothes. Here, we see a fashionable dress of blue damask, tight to the waist, the back folds cascading onto the polished, dark-wooden floor. It seems to me that the very perfection of this toilette helps to deepen the painting’s sense of mystery, introspection and a slight, pleasurable melancholy. Does Finale mean the last notes of the music or the end of an affair? LAVERY’S beginnings were turbulent. He was four when his father, a Belfast publican, and his mother died, so he was brought up by relations. His first job was…

WHEN disturbed by a passer-by on stream or pond, they clatter noisily to reed cover, half airborne on lobed claw feet, leaving Leander eddies. However, when threatened on open water by traditional raptor enemies, they take collective action —a strategy first recorded in the mid 17th century by scientist and naturalist Sir Thomas Browne, who had ‘seen them unite from all parts of the shoare in strange numbers when, if a kite stoopes near them, they will fling up and spread such a flash of water with their wings that they will endanger the kite’. ‘The coot is not always the plump and dowdy individual that bobs placidly about’ Two hundred years later, natural historian Lord Lilford witnessed the same tactic against a white-tailed eagle ‘so thoroughly drenched that it…

Church versus register office IF you live in a country village, you’re unlikely to have a post office nearby, let alone a register office, but, thanks to our sheep-rearing, God-fearing ancestors, nearly every settlement has a church, many of great antiquity. This is handy if you happen to be religious, but, even in this more secular age, the act of betrothing yourself to another in a place in which generations before you have made the same commitment contributes a certain gravitas. The marriage service in church has the reassuring ring of familiarity, even if it’s only thanks to watching Four Weddings and a Funeral multiple times, and is walking up the aisle really the same unless it’s between pews towards a vicar at the altar? An important element of the…

Off with a bang: Foyle Fireworks will add a special sparkle to your event, with a display synchronised to music. Former Country Life Frontispiece Serena Foyle encourages each bride and groom to keep their display a secret from their unsuspecting guests to achieve maximum impact. She also suggests choosing a soundtrack that starts before the fireworks themselves, giving guests time to move from inside to outside, building suspense and making the most of new firework technology—including rockets that can change colour multiple times. Foyle Fireworks start from £1,500 per minute (020–7235 3766; www.foylefireworks.com ) Best face forward • In times of need, try the bio-effect resurfacing facial (£130 for 75 minutes) at the private members’ club The Sloane Club, London SW1 (020–7730 9131; www.sloaneclub.co.uk).A saline solution is…

True blue Now available in a Victoria Blue finish, the Everhot 100+, £7,695, is designed to be plugged into a 13-amp socket as it runs on a ‘trickle feed’ of electricity, making it probably the most energy-efficient heat-storage cooker on the market. It emits less radiant heat than its rivals, something that is attractive to those with homes with modern insulation and those who don’t want to turn their range off during the summer (01453 890018; www.everhot.co.uk) Get ahead Now compliant with the Eco Design requirements that come into force in 2022, the Salisbury 5 Series wood-burning stove in Black with log store, £1,550, will emit minimal emissions when used with properly seasoned wood. It’s also Defra-exempt and runs well on very little fuel—it’s A-rated for energy efficiency. From Chesneys…

WITH green space forever at a premium in leafy north Oxford, Strutt & Parker (01865 366645) quote a guide price of £1.65m for 93, Southmoor Road, a charming, semi-detached, Victorian house built in 1886 to a design by Wilkinson & Moore, with west-facing gardens running down to the Oxford Canal. It falls within the Walton Manor Conservation Area, whose street layout and buildings were developed on land owned by St John’s College, Oxford in the mid 19th century. The house offers well-laid-out living space on four floors, including three reception rooms, a family kitchen leading to a conservatory, four bedrooms and two bath/shower rooms.…

THIS year, The Wedding Present Co. will celebrate its 25th Anniversary. The experienced team at the two-storey showroom, set in the heart of Chelsea, is renowned for its dedicated and friendly approach to creating wedding lists. The showroom is laid out like the rooms in a house, so you can see, touch and feel presents and imagine how they would look in your own home. Whether your style is modern and quirky or more traditional, there are products to fit all tastes. Working with over 350 suppliers, including top-name brands and bespoke artisans, as well as the option to add anything from anywhere, you really are spoilt for choice. Next month, The Wedding Present Co. is inviting COUNTRY LIFE readers to a special event where you can meet your dedicated…

TWO pavilions, glowing in the bright sunshine of the early morning, stand out against the clear-blue Portuguese sky. Today is one of those days on which winter seems to have succumbed to the onset of the coming spring and the garden at the Palácio dos Marqueses de Fronteira, the Lisbon home of Dom José de Mascarenhas, sparkles with a brilliance that belies the three and a half centuries that have passed since it was first built. Such is the magic of the azulejos, the glazed painted tiles that are so characteristic of Portuguese gardens from the 17th and 18th centuries. Fronteira is perhaps the supreme example. Unchanged by fashion, untouched by the 1755 earthquake that destroyed so much of Lisbon’s built heritage, the tile panels at Fronteira can make a…

Quiz of the week 1) Diamonds are largely composed of which chemical element? 2) In which controversial 1960s novel and later film does the Korova Milk Bar appear? 3) A filbert nut is more commonly known as what? 4) What is 2019 in Roman numerals? 5) In which body part of a horse would you find its pastern bone? Time to buy Unmissable events Exhibition February 14–March 2 ‘Andrew Macara: New Paintings’ ( above ), Jonathan Cooper, Park Walk, London SW10. Joy-filled oil paintings depicting children at play, skiing, sledging, ice skating and paddling in the sea (020–7351 0410; www.jonathancooper.co.uk) Until February 23 New work by Elaine Kazimierczuk, Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford, Oxfordshire. Twenty-five new paintings by the self-taught artist, who specialises in semi-abstract studies of the…

HOW delightful to be reminded by Edward Impey of my taking John Betjeman to Harmondsworth tithe barn in 1973 (‘A timber titan’, February 6). He was on sticks and rather dramatised his lameness, but he was desperate to see the barn, threatened by some latest Heathrow expansion. We reached the farm gate, which was marked private, and I protested we could go no further. ‘Rubbish,’ Betjeman shouted, leaping out of the car, abandoning his sticks and trotting across the farmyard. He began furiously burrowing under one of the rotting barn doors. I felt I was about to have a dead Poet Laureate on my hands, convicted posthumously of criminal trespass. Betjeman burrowed up through stacks of hay, emerged and crossed himself. ‘The cathedral of Middlesex,’ he gasped. ‘The finest barn…

Clouds of tiny water droplets suspended at or near the Earth’s surface, mist has long entranced and bewitched us. In this evocative photograph of a church rising like a statue from a sea of white vapour, the phenomenon is known as ‘radiation fog’, created when heat from the ground rises as the night air cools above. Mist, most frequent after cold, clear nights, has always evoked a more romantic response than its denser cousin fog. W. H. Auden wrote about being ‘mantled in mist’, Dodie Smith wondered ‘why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?’ in I Capture the Castle and, for Wordsworth, scaling Snowdon through ‘a dripping fog, low hung and thick’ to watch the sunrise, ascending above the ‘silent sea’ and emerging into the light was…

Hamish Shephard, founder of award-winning wedding app Bridebook (www.bridebook.co.uk) and owner of Hedsor House, Buckinghamshire (01628 819050; www.hedsor.com), explains how to ensure your wedding reception goes with a bang Guests expect a lot from weddings these days, so how do you keep them satisfied without going over the top? Don’t reveal everything at once. Think of a wedding as a film or a play with lots of different scenes. Surprising guests with something different at the moments of transition adds a huge impact. People usually remember a ‘high’ or a ‘low’ moment—ensure food and drink flows right from the start, so guests feel relaxed and excited from arrival. Set an end time, to stop guests trickling out. How long should a drinks reception be? Don’t let the drinks reception dominate…

Gloucestershire, £1.75 million Grade II-listed Day House Farm, a charming former dairy farm with a lovely garden and orchard, plus excellent views across the Berkeley Vale and along the Cotswold Hills escarpment, is on the market as a whole or in three lots. Lot 1 incorporates the four-bedroom house, paddocks, fields and barns—one of which is suitable for conversion to a two-bedroom cottage—all in 24 acres. Lot 2 is made up of a former farmyard, with a Dutch barn and permission for two holiday-let cottages in 9.6 acres, and Lot 3 a field and pond in 2.3 acres. As it’s situated in the village of Hillesley, Wotton under Edge and Badminton are not far. Knight Frank (01285 659771) Hertfordshire, £895,000 Dolittle Mill House, set just outside the sought-after village…

DELIGHTED by the unexpectedly warm, late-April sun streaming through the dining-room window, Robert, Jane and I sat down to lunch five years ago at Paul Bocuse’s fabled restaurant a few miles north of Lyons. Knowing, exactly, the dish we were going to eat long before la carte would be presented, we perhaps settled down a touch smugly. Within minutes, three double vellum sheets the size of a school classroom atlas appeared, almost obscuring the immaculately turned out willowy waiter standing behind them. With a beatific smile, he handed one to each of us, bowed no more than two inches, turned about and left. ‘Is this not worth it once, perhaps twice a year, for a dish sent from the angels?’ Welcome to the longest-serving three-Michelin-star restaurant: since 1965! Chef…

IT is confusing that there were at least three 19th-century American Peabody families who were famous for their charitable activities—and they don’t seem to have been related to one another. To Britons, the best known of these philanthropists was George (1795–1869), who set up the Peabody Trust that still provides affordable housing in London and the South-East. He spent much of his career in England and was briefly interred in Westminster Abbey before being shipped for permanent burial in his native Salem in Massachusetts. The other families were in North Carolina and around Boston. One of the latter was Amy (Amelia) Peabody (1890–1984), who was brought up to be a ‘lady of society’, but became a sculptor and pioneering advocate of solar power. From the 1920s, she bought farms around…

SOME critics never learn. When Louis Vauxcelles, outraged at finding paintings by Matisse and his circle hung around a Donatello at the 1905 Autumn Salon in Paris, thundered that the Italian was ‘surrounded by wild beasts’, his young French targets clapped their hands. They would now be known, unforgettably, as les fauves (the wild beasts), their school as Fauvism. Taking nothing from this bellyflop, Vauxcelles tried again. Writing of the cylindrical forms in a set of canvases at the 1911 Salon des Indépendants, the critic harrumphed that this was not Cubism at all, but mere ‘Tubism’. And thus, at a stroke, another star was born. The man whose career Vauxcelles inadvertently launched was called Fernand Léger. The son of a Norman cattle farmer, Legér, aged 19, had renounced a career…