Innholdsfortegnelse for 14-Dec-2022 i Country Life

WHY Mistress Fripp,’ said the Vicar. ‘I didn’t know you had such a fine pig. You’ll have some rare flitches at Christmas!’ Mr Gilfil the churchman can’t resist imagining this magnificent porker carved up and gracing plates over the festive season. Novelist George Eliot’s fictional clergyman appears in her Scenes of Clerical Life (1857) and, in mid-19th-century England, few cottagers’ pigs could expect an active existence beyond December. Mr Gilfil, however, is in for a surprise. Having chanced upon Mistress Fripp sitting in a dry ditch with her pig’s head in her lap, she retorts: ‘Eh, God forbid! My son get him me two ’ear ago, an’ he’s been company to me over sin’. I couldn’t find i’ in my heart to part wi’m, if I never knowed the taste…

LIKE the Scarlet Pimpernel of legend, the ptarmigan is a master of disguise, being the only British bird that changes its plumage three times a year. We may seek them here and seek them there, but the only place it’s possible to see these high-altitude grouse in the UK is above 2,500ft in the Highlands of Scotland. The truth is, however, that most of us will never catch a glimpse of one of these remarkable birds, as they frequent some of the most inhospitable places known to man. Indeed, they appear throughout the world where Arctic conditions occur, as it is not altitude, but temperature, that dictates their colour and, ultimately, their survival. Slightly smaller than the red grouse, the ptarmigan relies on camouflage to disappear into the bleak environments…

THERE’S always a silver lining, reflects Nick, genial bachelor landlord of the Thirsty Shepherd high on the moor above Bleakside-in-the-Wolds. The locals are piling in this winter to huddle around his two open fires; they’ve been glued to rugby, ITV Racing, the World Cup and Strictly Come Dancing on the television; the bridge club, history club, quiz league and ‘stitch-and-bitch’ ladies’ knitting group have all decamped here. It doesn’t take too many bodies to create a warm fug and the skittlers reckon it’s cheaper to bring their other halves than leave them at home with the heating on full blast. Admittedly, some of these folks can spin out half a lager-shandy for hours and they are not perhaps the most cutting edge of clientele, but there’s a constant demand for…

A PUB in Cornwall has already bitten the bullet. This autumn, the proprietor of the Mason’s Arms in Camelford, faced with the soaring cost of electricity bills, decided to turn the lights off. Each Monday, from 6pm onwards, the public area is illuminated only with candles. Not only do the flickering flames cast an atmospheric glow over the space, but games such as darts are considered too risky and there’s no background music (a mercy, for many). One regular said it was like going back to the 18th century, when the pub first opened its doors. Candlelight casts us in a wrinkle-concealing haze that makes food look more delicious Electric light can lend a clinical mood to a space, but candlelight creates atmosphere. Candlelight casts us in a wrinkle-concealing haze…

WHEN the land was born again, the Ice Age done and all was windswept tundra, there came the trees. In the vanguard were the towering pines, with needly branches that supported a cornucopia of curiously shaped, fruit-like entities. The skin-clad, prehistoric people, on penetrating the sun-slanted pinewood gloom, must have been bewitched by this ‘cone’; it opened and closed mysteriously and was prized by the forest animals. Picked from the bough when green and young, the cone was a pleasure in the hand and intoxicating to the nose; but the mature cone, dry and woody, fell to the silent forest floor to rot, its corpse almost birdlike. The world turns, yet everything remains the same. We are still enthralled by pine cones. Etsy craft suppliers can charge more than £23.44…

CHRISTMAS is midwinter, a time when all of Nature is wisely dormant. One of the ways humans persuade themselves that life continues just below the surface is by bringing flowering plants to the dining table and the windowsill when all around is dark and silent. But if we are to persuade living plants to bloom in the shortest days of the year, we will need to resort to some polite deception and even then the plants won’t put up with it for long. Bulbs are a classic way of doing this. That deception is most commonly practised on hyacinths, which are ‘prepared’ for winter flowering by being potted and covered with compost in a cold frame for several weeks before they appear in shops and garden centres, so that, when…

THE cows’ eyes shine like black diamonds in the darkness and the headlights amplify the steam from their breath. The one I call Tina Turner, a black Jersey with a spiky ginger fringe, stretches her nose out in greeting as I reverse the Land Rover into the log bunker, catching the cool, piney aroma above acrid farmyard smells. A boot-full will satisfy the voracious goddess inside the biomass boiler, for now, and keep us warm for a day, when I feed the flames in the darkness like the stoker on an old steam train. It becomes a Stakhanovite task in December, but there’s grim satisfaction in thwarting Putin’s energy squeeze: the logs are all home grown. I am in up to five layers of clothing now and a woolly hat…

The best depictions of animals come from writers who have first-hand experience of the creatures they write about IF you leaf through a collection of some of Britain’s best-loved children’s books, it is remarkable how many of them feature animals, either as main characters or as much-loved sidekicks. From Victorian tales to contemporary classics, there’s an abundance of horses, dogs, cats and other creatures racing across the pages, capturing generations of readers and helping to foster the enduring love of animals that so many of us share. Animals add a sense of fun and unpredictability to children’s books—they can be as idiosyncratic and eccentric as humans and furnished with irrepressible energy and good humour. As main characters, they transport readers into another world and, as accomplices, they are (generally)…

A bottle of Champagne will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Christmas Crossword, COUNTRY LIFE, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR, by Tuesday, January 3. UK entrants only. The answers will appear in the January 4 number’s Town & Country pages and the winner will be announced in the January 11 number ACROSS10 I copied peer when editing work of its time (6,5)11 River time short as afraid of being filmed (6-3)13 Has every right now in assessing first breach (6)14 None cried when repairing internal secretion (9)15 North East way home (4)16 Narrates two books of the Bible (10)20 It is ration formula for fathers (10)21 Less than two errors during riptide (8)22 A tempting ace piece of recording equipment (8,4)25 Losing female…

1898 Published Luddington, Warwickshire, photographed by Charles Latham for the first book published by the COUNTRY LIFE press, The Shakespeare Country. The view is carefully composed around the curve of the road. Washing hangs out to dry, a child sits in his perambulator and elms, now vanished from our landscape, rise in the distance. 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…

On the 950th anniversary of its royal transfer, John Goodall looks at the medieval development of one of Europe’s most brilliantly conceived cathedrals IN 1066, a well-born monk of Fécamp called Remigius supplied a ship and 20 knights to William, Duke of Normandy, as he prepared to assert his claim to the English throne by force of arms. Remigius sailed with the Norman fleet that autumn and was present at William’s victory at the Battle of Hastings. Reward for his support came the following year, when he was granted the first diocese to fall vacant in England. This had its cathedral church at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, and enjoyed authority over a vast swathe of territory that extended north to the Humber. Remigius’s appointment was mired in scandal, but it would prove…

JUST before midnight on Christmas Eve, I will hurry up the path to St Michael’s in Shalbourne. I can walk this route with my eyes closed if needs be, but the path to the porch will be illuminated by candles in the stained-glass east window of the little church: flickering spills of red, blue and gold over the frost in front of me. And I will hear the sound of carols. In this part of Wiltshire, most of our village churches are built from flint ploughed out of the hills and carted down tracks to be mortared into walls, buttresses and stout towers. I love these repositories of prayer, stone boxes in the bends and doubles of the downland, like tufting buttons threading us to this ancient landscape. Perhaps this…

IN 1946, writer Mollie Panter-Downes described a middle-aged couple determined to do things properly. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Stephen and Laura Marshall’s domestic lives have changed beyond recognition. Where once, ‘in the kitchen, caps and aprons shrieked with sudden merriment... the butcher’s young man came whistling to the back door, on his shoulder a clean white enamel tray, on it reposing a leg of lamb’, now ‘silence settled with the dust’ on rooms from which domestic help has vanished. Maids Ethel and Violet have instead learned ‘to assemble the bright and shoddy’ in a nearby factory, the butcher is unable to deliver, the cook long departed and the Marshalls’ gardener—a genius at growing vegetables—killed in action in Holland. In an age before gadgetry, husband and wife,…

PRECISION is the word that keeps coming to mind when considering the waterside gardens at Fullers Mill near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. In particular, the precise way in which every plant, large and small, is placed to best advantage both for its own development and to draw the visitor on with an interesting specimen or intriguing view. This counts for so much in the depths of winter, when flamboyance and floriferousness are in short supply—and it is unexpected in a plantsman’s garden. But Bernard Tickner, who carved this space out of rough ground and woodland over 50 years, was a man of many talents. Before buying Fullers Mill—a cottage on the banks of the River Lark—in 1958, Tickner had never gardened. His business was beer: he was head brewer…

Pheasant Parmesan schnitzels with roasted lemon and garlic Brussels sprouts Method Preheat your oven to 180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4. Prepare Brussels sprouts by removing any dirty outer layers and trimming the bottoms. Add to a roasting tray and pour over the olive oil. Toss to evenly coat. Roast for 30 minutes, so they are cooked and slightly charred. Take three bowls and add the flour to one, the beaten egg to the next and the breadcrumbs to the third. Lightly tenderise the pheasant breasts beneath clingfilm, then dip to coat in each of the bowls in order. Set aside. (You could chill the schnitzels for up to 24 hours from this point.) Add butter and oil to a large frying pan and cook the schnitzels on both sides until golden…

TO peruse a list of King George VI Chase winners is to envisage a cavalcade of equine ghosts from Christmases past parade, each a star jumper. The Grand National has a firmer grip on the public imagination and the Cheltenham Gold Cup is the most prestigious prize in steeplechasing, but the backlist of King George winners surpasses both for undiluted quality. This may be because Kempton Park’s Boxing Day showpiece allows runners to return for repeat helpings. The Cheltenham Gold Cup is a gruelling affair and occasionally throws up unexpected results; winners often struggle to run to the same level of form, but Kempton’s brisk three miles is not such a stern test. Fifteen horses have won it more than once, whereas only eight have followed up in the Gold…

I HAVE a soft spot for toads—with the exception of the gigantic cane variety that plagues northern Australia—indeed, amphibians of all kinds, so do not understand how they could have been so mistreated as to acquire the entirely imaginary stone believed to be encased in their heads. As the toad does have poison glands in its skin, it was supposed that it would carry an antidote and, from the 14th to at least the 18th centuries, people maintained that the touch of such a ‘toadstone’ was sovereign against poisoning and similar disorders. In his 1608 History of Serpents, Edward Topsell tells us: ‘There be many that weare these stones in Ringes, being verily perswaded that they keepe them from all manner of grypings and paines of the belly and…

A DECISION to open a new coal mine in Cumbria has been described as an ‘incomprehensible act of self harm’. The comments, made by Sir David King, head of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, have been echoed by scientists, campaigners and institutions both at home and abroad as fury mounts over the decision taken last week. Green MP Caroline Lucas called the decision a ‘climate crime against humanity’, as Cumbrian Liberal Democrat MP Tim Farron simply described it as ‘daft’. Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji, added: ‘Is this the future we fought for under the Glasgow pact?’ The outrage comes after the Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove signed off on the plans last Wednesday, which will see the first coal mine opened in the UK in 30…

Paul O’Grady is a comedian, actor and the presenter of ITV’s Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs. His children’s book Eddie Albert and the Amazing Animal Gang: The Curse of the Smugglers’ Treasure is out now I like paintings that stir the imagination and this one does. The ladies fuss over a table, as a maid unpacks a hamper, puppy in attendance. A young man watches. I get the impression that he’s annoyed. Perhaps he’s hungry and tired of waiting for his breakfast; perhaps the hatless young woman standing next to him is his wife and they’ve had a row. What is the old lady with a stick cooking in that cauldron? Porridge? Boiled eggs? Water for tea? The young girl leaning against the tree seems lost in thought.…

WHAT does the Grindelwald Fluctuation have to do with Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s much-loved 1565 painting The Hunters in the Snow, the winter scene that, over the years, has graced countless Christmas cards and Advent calendars? Or with the flurry of Dutch 17th-century canvases showing jolly burghers skating—and tumbling—on frozen canals? Or the paintings of the London frost fairs, which saw tented villages pop up on the icy Thames and the river turn into a slippery theme park? Or another seasonal greeting-card staple, Henry Raeburn’s portrait of the 1790s showing the Revd Robert Walker skating gracefully and determinedly across a Scottish loch? The answer is that, without the Grindelwald Fluctuation, they might well have never been painted. There was nothing new about snow and ice, but they became prolonged features…

CHRISTMAS is coming and the goose is getting fat. Or so we hope. Because Britain’s poultry farmers are facing an exceptionally worrying run up to the festive season, in the shadow of the UK’s worst ever avian-flu outbreak. Currently, all birds, including free-range ones, must be kept indoors by law. Three million birds had been destroyed at time of writing. As Verity Copas of Copas Turkeys explains: ‘If our birds contract avian influenza, it would not only mean zero sales at the most important time of the year, but the end of our company, too.’ Worrying times, indeed, and, although the prospect of a Christmas without turkey or goose is a grim one, it pales in comparison to the plight of the farmers. God willing, however, all will be fine…

THE ceiling angels of Westminster Hall have seen more than most. Watching over the seat of parliamentary power for more than six centuries, the 26 winged, wood-carved figures have looked down on everything from the trial of Guy Fawkes and the impeachment of Charles I to the lyings-in-state of Winston Churchill and, most recently, Elizabeth II. They are long-term observers of history, passive, but permanent, their hair tousled and their oaken mouths curved into beatific half-smiles. A penny for their current thoughts. Their vantage point, however—40ft up among the trusses of the hall’s hammerbeam roof—means that only a select number of people have ever admired them up close. Woodcarver William Barsley is one of the few. In 2018, he was part of a small team of expert craftspeople brought in…

Standing tall Made in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, for Pentreath & Hall, the Black Basalt Ionic Column candlestick, £75, is a reproduction of a 19th-century creamware design (020–7430 2526; www.pentreath-hall.com)…

Midlothian, £2.35 million Budding (or established) minstrels can take shelter from the cold wind and the long way at the superb Barony House in Lasswade, home of Sir Walter Scott and the very place where he penned those well-known opening lines of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The property, a six-bedroom partly thatched house, has seen its fair share of famous visitors over the years, including the Ettrick Shepherd James Hogg and William Wordsworth. These days, the property (which has been extended since Scott’s day) is a large family home on the Scottish borders, surrounded on all sides by woodland and rolling hills. Despite its storied past, the interiors are refreshingly contemporary (see spot lighting and bespoke furnishings), but there’s plenty of character, with exposed beams and stonework throughout.…

SOMETIMES, a great horticulturist comes along who changes our tastes and creates new markets. The rose breeder David Austin was one such: who would have supposed, 50 years ago, that roses with muddled centres would oust the elegant Hybrid Teas and super-floriferous Floribunda roses that everyone grew and loved? Let me introduce you to Hans Hachmann, another innovator, but little known to English gardeners. He was by far the most significant breeder of rhododendrons of the 20th century. Better than Loder, Aberconway, Millais and de Rothschild? Yes, without a doubt. I realise there are still a few Brits who cannot believe that any country does gardening better than we do—and certainly not Germany. But that is where we must look for the best modern rhododendrons, not to mention disease-resistant roses…

IT’S 50 years since the celebrated children’s novel Watership Down was published, as few of us will have missed (Masterpiece, November 2). Much of the publicity has, however, been about how it came to be written, as Richard Adams’s way of keeping his daughters occupied on long car journeys. That’s a great story, but there has been remarkably little focus on the place where it is set. Yet what drew me to Watership Down in my youth was its evocation of place and descriptions of the English countryside in the 1960s, before the intensification of agriculture and widespread suburbanisation. The novel is, in fact, as much about place —or places—as rabbits. Adams set it in a landscape he knew and loved and it’s still possible to follow the rabbits’ adventures…

SHAKESPEARE’S plays change with time, as proven by the current production of Othello at the Lyttelton Theatre. In 1964, when Laurence Olivier adopted black make-up to perform the title role, the play became about the tragic downfall of a self-dramatising hero. Now, in Clint Dyer’s new production, it is more about the racism and misogyny within society that dooms both Othello and Desdemona. The result is a compelling night at the theatre, even if Mr Dyer sometimes twists the text to prove his point. Let me state my reservations. In the war-council scene, the Duke of Venice pointedly refuses to shake Othello by the hand, despite the text indicating his sympathy with the Moor (‘I think this tale would win my daughter too,’ he says after Othello’s account of…

PRESUMABLY, when the television was invented, it was seen by early adopters as the end of the road for radio, as the arrival of electric light meant curtains for the candle. Yet only rarely does new technology supersede the old. Ten years ago, I interviewed an interior designer who said that he never fitted bookshelves in his clients’ homes because ‘they wouldn’t be reading books for much longer’. Cheeringly, book sales rose by 20% over the beginning of the pandemic. There’s no doubt that, for anyone interested in interior design, there’s a lot of free stuff online. Instagram, Pinterest and websites all feature beautiful imagery of a quality that you could only have found in books and magazines a decade or two ago. It’s lovely, if seemingly infinite. Yet, as…

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