Innholdsfortegnelse for 13-Oct-2021 i Country Life

No bitter end for BVI yacht club THE yachting community in the BVI is looking forward to raising a glass (or two) this autumn to toast the re-opening of the Bitter End Yacht Club in time for the sailing season to get under way. This much-loved international hub, named for its iconic location as the last stop before the Caribbean meets the waters of the open Atlantic, was devastated by Hurricane Irma in 2017. Now, after a careful reconstruction, the marina is set to re-open with vastly improved amenities, including a panoramic members’ lounge and a state-of-the-art clubhouse. There are a busy few months ahead: according to the Charter Yacht Society BVI, the majority of the 48 fully crewed yachts in the territory are already fully booked for the upcoming…

FROM the striking mustard-yellow walls of the Palácio da Pena in Portugal to the sacred stepped walls of the Potala Palace in Tibet, royal palaces around the world are masterpieces of a country’s built heritage. But there’s something altogether especially captivating about those residences that have withstood the test of time to remain homes or governing spaces for working members of royal families and their households even today. Those presented here are among the most splendid and bustling of all. Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand More than a palace, this is a complex in the heart of Bangkok that has been the official residence of the kings of Siam since 1782. Work on it began when the capital city was moved across the Chao Phraya river from Thonburi to Bangkok…

IMAGINE the panic that gripped young subaltern Bruce Guimaraens, newly posted to a regiment in India, at the end of his first dinner in the officers’ mess. The Port had just arrived and the commanding officer turned to the young soldier. ‘So, Guimaraens, you come from a Port family. What’s all this about passing the Port in a particular direction? Is it true, and, if so, which way? Clockwise or anti-clockwise?’ A terrified Guimaraens blurted out: ‘Er, anti-clockwise, sir.’ Murmurs started round the table. ‘Thought it was the other way.’ ‘Are you sure he’s right?’ ‘Must be, family makes the stuff.’ To this day, that regiment has the proud tradition of passing the Port anti-clockwise round the table. Everywhere else, it goes clockwise. Port is full of these stories and…

LAST week, COUNTRY LIFE hosted a discussion at Chelsea Barracks that explored the current revival of interest in craft. Held on the first day of London Craft Week, the speakers were Ben Pentreath and Ben Johnson, who have both been involved in the design of different aspects of the former barracks. London’s newest residential district, it comprises houses, apartments and gardens opposite the Royal Hospital. Mr Pentreath ascribed the revival to a growing recognition that we are able to form a real and distinctive connection with objects made by hand. In many senses, this new twist in the story of British architecture and interior design is evolution, more than revolution. Even with the industrialisation of furniture-making, craft was never completely subsumed. Instead, it manifested itself in other ways, particularly in…

THIS year’s Big Butterfly Count recorded the lowest numbers since the initiative began in 2010, despite the fact that more people than ever before took part—some 150,000; to combat this, Butterfly Conservation (BC) has released a new strategy. ‘On average, people counted nine butterflies or moths per count, which is down from 11 in 2020, and down again from 16 in 2019,’ explains Dr Zoë Randle, senior surveys officer at BC. ‘More counts are undertaken and submitted year on year, but it seems that there are fewer butterflies and moths around to be counted.’ Our iconic peacock butterfly was at its lowest ebb since 2012, for example, and the small tortoiseshell had its third worst summer in the history of the count. Conversely, the marbled white and ringlet are up…

For whom the bell tolls FURTHER to Agromenes’s ‘Take us as you find us’ (September 1 and Letters, September 22), on the other side of the coin, bell ringers at the beautiful church of St Andrew’s (right) in the village of Kildwick, North Yorkshire, recently had lovely comments from locals as they resumed their chiming: ‘Keep it up, it seems to have cheered up many people’; ‘It is always a treat to hear the bells and the clock striking’; ‘It’s lovely to hear them, we are sitting with the door open listening’; and ‘The church bells sound wonderful tonight.’ There were more than 70 positive posts on the local Facebook page and it appears the Kildwick ringers only get complaints when they don’t ring the bells. Helen Holmes, North Yorkshire…

OTHER WINDSOR-CLIVE (1923-2018), the 3rd Earl of Plymouth, returned from distinguished service with the Coldstream Guards during the Second World War to find himself thrown into the job of having to rationalise the family estates. Reluctantly, he decided to give up his Welsh seat, a large Elizabethan house in the village of St Fagans, set beyond the expanding western suburbs of Cardiff. It was a timely word from Sir Cyril Fox, director of the National Museum of Wales (1926-48), that determined the next step. On February 4, 1946, the Earl and his mother, the Dowager Countess, called upon Fox at Cathays Park in Cardiff. They had decided to offer the museum St Fagans Castle—as the house is known—together with its 20 acres of gardens and grounds, specifically for the creation…

ONE summer’s day in 1824, the 19-year-old Samuel Palmer put his sketchbook in his pocket and walked to a place that haunted his dreams so much he came to call it his ‘Gate into the World of Vision’. What landscape could live up to his description—the Cumbrian fells, perhaps? Or the rugged scenery of the Peak? No, what entranced Palmer were the fields around the village of Dulwich, which he could reach on foot from London, and when he sat down to draw it was in front of unspectacular farmland. That particular day, the heaps of reaped corn lying in lines up and down the field caught his eye; he drew them twice on the same page, entranced by the patterns they made. Within two years, he had moved to…

Travelling afar Norfolk-based designer Birdie Fortescue may have been prevented by the pandemic from travelling far this year, but her imagination has flown from Russia to Romania to in her latest collection of textiles, lighting and decorative accessories, The Wanderings. Shown here, Rhombus rug in Dusky Rose, from £175; Thuluth beehive ridged glass lamp, £165, with Ilex shade, from £55; Wensum coffee table in Petrol Blue, £1,750; and cushions, from £54 each (01328 851651; www.birdiefortescue.co.uk) Top seat Tablescaping has become almost an art form in its own right-and Mrs Alice, founded by model and designer Alice Naylor-Leyland, is here to make sure we are never short of a magical setting or two. This Seville Brown Tulip starter plate, hand-painted in Spain, costs £28 (www.mrsalice.com) Rustic beauty Faithfully reproduced from a…

Creation: Art Since the Beginning John-Paul Stonard (Bloomsbury, £30) IN 1950, Ernst Gombrich published The Story of Art. The book was an instant bestseller and was the first to show that there was, indeed, such a thing as a story of art, that artists and movements existed not in isolated moments of time, but as part of a continuous flow of inspiration and development. Gombrich’s tale resembled a river that started with cave paintings and had reached—in his lifetime—Dalí, before meandering into a future of as yet unknown artists. Along its banks were stylistic movements passed in turn: Gothic, the Renaissance, Mannerism and so on. Art history was still a young subject then; things have changed since the publication. Gombrich told the story, exclusively, of western art; there is nothing…

A MAN should hear a little music, read a little poetry and see a fine picture every day of his life,’ recommended Goethe. Classical song encompasses two out of three, often taking in the German writer’s own words, which were widely used by Schubert and contemporaries. Lieder—literally ‘songs’—grew in popularity in the Romantic era and spread from Germany across Europe, usually performed in cosy settings, as chamber music was. As Goethe and the Romantic poets inspired Hugo Wolf, Schumann and Brahms, French composers created mélodie using the words of Charles Baudelaire, Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine. In England, John Ireland and Gerald Finzi based music on poems by Thomas Hardy and Roger Quilter set Shakespeare to song. Lieder became a catch-all term, describing everything from Britten’s The Holy Sonnets of…

WHEN Jack Sparrow stepped off his sinking boat on a balmy morning in 1720, setting off the chain of events that would lead to love, the removal of an ancient curse and cinematic piracy’s greatest success, the golden age of Caribbean raiders was almost coming to an end. As Commodore Norrington tries to do in the film, the Royal Navy was patrolling the West Indies to stamp out the pirates that threatened Britain’s lucrative maritime trade. It hadn’t always been like that, however. Less than 60 years earlier, British governors had been harnessing buccaneers to attack Spanish ships and settlements. Men with a taste for adventure (or nothing to lose) had been flocking to the West Indies since the 1500s. By the early 17th century, part of the island of…

Mahé, Seychelles, $14.9 million Perched upon a dramatic granite cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean on Mahé's beautiful south-west coast, Villa Kokomo makes an outstanding autumn escape-weatherwise, October is the best time of year to visit. Inside, the villa combines teak, granite and marble with exceptional finishes for a traditional feel. Seven bedroom suites are all connected by wooden walkways and the living areas include a Great Room, a dining room, television snug and a chef's kitchen. The sun deck frames a 131ft-long infinity pool. Owners have access to the Four Seasons resort facilities, including the rental pool. Sphere Estates (020–3617 1360) Verbier, Switzerland, CHF10.5 million On the market for the first time since it was built 17 years ago, this chalet is an exceptional family property in the…

THE window at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight from which Charles I attempted to escape his fate in May 1648 could one day crumble—and not because of the King’s fumbling with hacksaw and nitric acid. The combined impact of hotter, wetter weather, shortage of heritage skills and modern construction materials is putting historic windows at risk, finds English Heritage. ‘Changes in weather patterns, arising from climate-change scenarios, will definitely affect our historic windows,’ clarifies Nicola Duncan-Finn, senior estate manager at English Heritage. ‘In particular, higher temperatures throughout the year, longer periods of extreme heat, combined with more rainfall… intensify environmental pressures.’ These challenges, she continues, are exacerbated by change in the make-up of paints: in most cases, historic lead-based ones, which could offer better protection against microscopic fungi,…

THE story of the 1938–39 excavations at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk, that captivated us in Netflix film The Dig are further illuminated by the release of hundreds of photographs, with annotations, taken by schoolmistresses Mercie Lack and Barbara Wagstaff. The undisturbed Anglo-Saxon burial chamber and ghost ship discovered by Basil Brown and further excavated by Charles Phillips of Cambridge University became the richest grave ever found in Northern Europe. Its hoard included 263 finds of gold, garnet, silver, bronze, enamel, iron, wood, bone, textile, feathers and fur, among which was the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet (found in fragments). But what makes these photographs—donated to the National Trust by Lack’s great-nephew, Andrew Lack—so valuable is that they record the most transient discovery of all, the imprint of the 90ft-long burial ship in…

Now is the time to salute the remarkable Brent goose, which endures the world's most dangerous migration routes to get here. Autumn sees thousands leaving Canada's icy far north to head for the high-altitude Greenland ice cap and a North Atlantic crossing, so acute is their need to find friendly shores with unfrozen winter food. Pale-bellied Brents congregate on the mudflats of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland, a crucial feeding ground supporting 85% of the world's population; the nutritious eelgrass exposed at low tide feeds up the exhausted birds. Another race, the dark-bellied Brent, favours England's southern and eastern coasts and nearby fields, heading in March back to the Arctic tundra of Siberia's northern coasts. What polarities they must witness, between the prosperous, boat-bobbed shores of the Solent and the…

AGROMENES’S ‘Bordering on a crisis’ (September 29) is one of the more honest assessments of the agricultural and wider community’s concerns in Northern Ireland about the current situation, with fallout from Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol. You highlight the fragility of the Good Friday Agreement and the Union and are correct in saying that ‘[we] the young no longer ascribe to the old fears’, but make no mistake—we have a dreadful fear that the malevolent spectre of tribal division and violence along the border is hovering, waiting for a chance to shroud the province in the darkness of The Troubles, something we only now read about in history books. The past is not a faraway country and our connection to the North of Ireland is both ancient and precious.…

1898 Published July 23 The formal Victorian gardens at Lilleshall Hall, Shropshire, seat of the Duke of Sutherland, which covered more than 20 acres and included a 570ft-long apple walk (just visible to the right). A gardener uses a donkey-drawn lawn mower amid ‘a blaze of colour' in contrasting hues created by ‘pelargoniums, calceolarias and tubular begonias'. Every week for the past 125 years, COUNTRY LIFE has documented and photographed many walks of life in Britain. More than 80,000 of the images are available for syndication or purchase in digital format. To view the archives, visit www.countrylifeimages.co.uk and email enquiries to licensing@futurenet.com…

I’M travelling to Scotland in September’s beautiful sunshine to speak at a conference for lifestyle medicine, with the medics who address crucial public-health issues, including diet, exercise and wellbeing. Speaking to a live audience again is a thrill and I love it, but I’m also thrilled by the opportunity to explore Edinburgh and its urban countryside, of which I’m soon to discover there is much to enjoy. I’m staying near Haymarket, so I head for the nearest park (Bruntsfield Links and The Meadows) to pick up the John Muir Way. As he, the Scot who helped found America’s national parks, is a hero of mine, that seems an obvious place to start. The great hump of Arthur’s Seat appears against the skyline and its draw is irresistible. ‘The great hump…

The earliest landscapes in British art appear in medieval manuscripts. The familiar wide vistas came later; these artists focused on the ground underfoot to be grazed or sown. Shepherds sit on hummocks to enjoy the May sunshine in an 11th-century calendar, watching their flock nibble the grass on tussocky ground. In July, men gather to mow a meadow, tunics tucked up into their belts, and scythes at the ready. For the most vivid insight into medieval country life, look at the pages of the psalter created in the 14th century for Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, now in the British Library. In the margins are little windows into the past: a woman feeds her chickens with scraps from a dish; a man in gauntlets guides a plough as another urges on the…

THE concept of ‘building back better’ is nothing new; for centuries, country landowners have been remodelling their homes, estate buildings and even the landscape—as the launch onto the market of three exceptional properties demonstrates. For sale for the first time since 1993 and only the second time since 1582, the pale-grey stone buildings of historic Rossley Manor appear to grow out of the hillside of the wooded Dowdeswell Valley, four miles from Cheltenham and 14 miles from Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Clive Hopkins of Knight Frank (020–7861 1064) quotes a guide price of £10 million for the picturesque Cotswold estate, comprising a Grade II-listed manor house, a cottage, garage block, stabling, outbuildings and sporting facilities set in 140 acres of pasture and woodland, with magnificent views across the valley to the dramatic…

THE best plant nurseries have the unmistakable signature of the owner in their selection. The Place for Plants, at East Bergholt in Suffolk, has Rupert Eley’s character stamped firmly into every corner. The nursery is attached to his family’s land, with an arboretum laid out by his great-grandfather. Mr Eley was born in the house next door and, as he grew older, used to wander over to grow giant pumpkins with his grandparents. ‘Trees and shrubs are still Rupert Eley’s obsession and the highlight of a visit’ After a stint in the City and a year spent plant-hunting around China, he returned to study for an NCH diploma at Hadlow College, Kent. In 1995, with his wife, Sara, he took on the plot and set about creating a plant centre,…

Plenty of pirate festivals and tours add to the region's charm, making it the perfect place to escape the winter blues Barbados Set next to the Royal Westmoreland golf course, five-bedroom Seaduced has an open-plan living and dining area that flows onto a covered terrace with a spectacular pool beyond. $5.2 million (£3.8m), Realtors Limited (00 12 46 537 6946) Bahamas Perfect for entertaining, this magnificent house has four bedrooms, a swimming pool and 1,000sq ft of covered terracing overlooking an Old Fort Bay canal. $3.8 million (£2.78m), Knight Frank (020–7861 1553) Jamaica Built in the 18th-century and later home to Lord Brownlow, one of the Duke of Windsor's friends, five-bedroom Sussex was the first house in Jamaica to have a telephone line installed. $2.95 million (£2.087m), Coldwell Banker Jamaica…

I AM a citizen of many places. I was born in Belgium to German parents, but didn’t live in Germany until I was almost four and only for a short time, because, after Belgium, we moved to Russia. Then I repeated it all—back to Russia, then Germany, then Belgium—before going to Italy for my gap year. After having spent time in so many different countries, at university I became interested in one place where I hadn’t lived as a child—the UK. British history is so different from German or French, because change has occurred much more gradually. France is in its fifth republic and the country we know now as Germany has only existed since 1990, whereas the ruptures and discontinuities in British history are harder to discern, although no…

RESPECTING the otter, I should like to add a word or two regarding the extraordinary power of its jaws. I allude to a large specimen captured alive a few years ago in the Cambridgeshire fens, which was placed in an iron cage previous to its journey by train. The end of a plank of wood 1in thick was passed through the bars to shift the otter’s position for inspection, when it instantly seized the plank with its teeth and splintered it up into fragments. Fish by no means forms the only food of the otter, as I have seen them greedily devour beetles, frogs, rats and mice. I particularly allude to a couple of otters that belonged to the late Captain F. H. Salvin—of hawking renown—and were trained for fishing;…

THEY say that the smell of frying bacon is the most difficult test of will for a newly converted vegetarian. There is no doubt that pig-meat of all kinds has a huge hold on the British and plays a central part in our national diet. Bacon and eggs, bangers and mash, ham hock, gammon rashers, pork crackling —from the simplest pub food to the smartest of gourmet restaurants, the pig has a central role. Its recognition as a serious food for the aficionado, produced here in Britain, has grown significantly in recent years. Middle White cuts from Herefordshire and slow-cooked pork belly from Suffolk are to be found in Michelin-starred restaurants all around the country. ‘You can’t turn the great tanker that is the British food industry in a matter…

‘I love the way Degas perfectly captures the fleeting moment so beautifully, with the grace and elegance of each movement. It is that same movement in dance that has inspired me; you can see a nod to ballet in many of my designs. The close-cropped composition leaves me intrigued. It suggests more is happening outside the frame, in the busy room. The dancers are unaware of the viewer and you can feel their nervous energy. Equally, you can hear the muffled chatter and fine pitter-patter of points. It fascinates me how Degas captures the fabric of the tulle tutus in such a life-like way using oils. The blurred-edge sfumato effect emphasises the sense of realism. Oh, and the contrast of the sashes and the black neckline ties. I could look…

‘Sissinghurst, Vita observed, “caught instantly at my heart and my imagination”’ IT is impossible to calculate the number of roses which are climbing up old apple trees as a result of visits to Sissinghurst,’ wrote the late Anne Scott-James, author of the best-selling Sissinghurst—The Making of a Garden. Despite its country-house setting conferring a scale beyond that of the most amply proportioned cottage garden, Sissinghurst’s inspirational hold on amateur gardeners spans the generations, because its creator Vita Sackville-West was, or at least started out as, a novice gardener herself. She was born in 1892 a few miles northwest at Knole, another of Kent’s ancient High Weald estates, and had been dabbling in planting long before she and her husband, the diplomat Harold Nicolson (1886–1968), purchased Sissinghurst in 1930. Early interest…

IT is not very often that a discovery of a new type of gemstone makes the industry jump to attention. Most ‘new’ gems are first found in such small quantities or in colours not obviously attractive that they become specimen stones for the most devout gemologists only. Yet, when the Brazilian Paraíba tourmaline was first discovered in the 1980s, the market was thrown into a complete frenzy. This is one of my favourite stones, because it comes in so many colours: rich reds, pastel pinks, peach colours, intense emerald greens, deep blues and vivid yellows, even a bi-coloured combination of pink and green in a single crystal, known as a watermelon tourmaline. The stone is only slightly rivalled by sapphire for its variety of colours. Tourmaline covers a group of…

London, £8.95 million Hugh Grant used to own this magnificent South Kensington penthouse, which is decidedly more glamorous than the house with the bright-blue door that belonged to his celebrated character William Thacker in Notting Hill. Spanning a little more than 3,000sq ft, it has three bedrooms-the master suite is especially attractive with its views towards the river and Battersea Power Station. There's also a vast, semi open-plan kitchen, dining and living area that opens onto a panoramic west-facing terrace. In total, the apartment has more than 1,500sq ft of outdoor space, complete with covered sun deck and hot tub. Alexander Millett (020–3968 1080) Tyne & Wear, £1.2 million An elegant three-bedroom apartment, No 46 Princess Mary Court is set within the historic Abbot Memorial Building within a…

THE whole of Pontefract once smelled of liquorice,’ Heather Copley says. It’s a sweetly scented situation she and her husband, Robert, are keen to see return. In 2012, the Copleys planted liquorice at their farm a few miles outside the town. Three years later, they had Yorkshire’s first commercial harvest of liquorice roots since the start of the 1970s, reviving a tradition that goes back at least six centuries. How a plant native to Central Asia and the Middle East came to a town in the West Riding of Yorkshire is a source of much debate. It was either brought back from the Middle East by returning Crusaders or imported by Dominican monks from Spain two centuries later. Liquorice flourished in Pontefract, where the deep, soft, loamy soil and magnesian…

A REDISCOVERED painting by Joshua Reynolds will be displayed by Strachan Fine Art at the Cotswold Art and Antique Dealers’ (CADA) fair (until October 17). A 21¼in by 26¼in panel of two young girls with bonnets in a woodland setting—which I cannot illustrate as it was in the hands of restorers on our press day—it was probably painted in the early 1780s. The fair has moved from Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, its base in recent years, to Compton Verney, Warwickshire, which also offers visitors the chance to see ‘Centuries in the Making’, the very splendid Grinling Gibbons celebration that has been augmented since its London showing. Strachan also has a 24in by 34in version of Henry William Bunbury’s painting The Country Club (Fig 1), which was published as a stipple…