Innholdsfortegnelse for October 16, 2024 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk THE red deer is the emblem of the Exmoor National Park, its magnificent antlers adorning houses, shops, pubs and garages, as well as car stickers that say ‘Exmoor works—keep it that way’. Local opinion may vary as to how the deer should be managed, but all are united by the pleasure of observing Britain’s largest wild, terrestrial mammal, grazing freely. Exmoor is home to rare species, has a respectable bird count and is one of few national parks to boast a ‘Nature recovery plan’ to increase woodland (despite the deer) and restore biodiversity and soil health, in part through grazing (‘England at its best’, page 90). A recent report in The Guardian slated England’s 10 national…

A little run around THIS Ford Anglia 105e DeLuxe Saloon (pictured) was bought new by my late mother in 1966, who drove it until 1986. I took the car on when she surrendered her driving licence and have driven it ever since. It has done the grand mileage of 41,000 in 58 years—I use it regularly as my shopping car. Roger W. Powell, Worcestershire Timothy Tortoise I READ with interest your correspondent’s reference to Timothy the tortoise, the 160-year-old resident of Powderham Castle, Devon (Letters, October 2). Here in Ringmer, the village symbol is of a tortoise named Timothy who, somewhat perplexingly, was female. She had belonged for more than 40 years to Revd Gilbert White’s aunt, Rebecca Snooke, a long-term resident. White carried Timothy back with him to Selborne,…

The Mill, Alderholt by John Craxton ‘Thirteen paintings by Craxton were owned by Benjamin Britten and his partner in life and music, Peter Pears. They can still be seen in their home, The Red House, with more than 1,200 other works of art. The glow of this picture with bold, geometrically shaped buildings immediately attracted my eye. The 80-year-old painting has a photo-like quality. It feels contemporary and demands investigation–why does it shine? Despite dwindling art supplies during the war, Craxton managed to acquire out-of-date sample tins of Ripolin household enamel paint which, over masses of undercoat and mixed with tube paints, went further and means the work retains its vibrancy today’ Charlotte Mullins comments on The Mill, Alderholt JOHN CRAXTON was a teenage art student when he first visited…

‘The Weald is good, the Downs are best—I’ll give you the run of ’em, East to West. Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill, They were once and they are still. Firle, Mount Caburn and Mount Harry Go back as far as sums’ll carry…’ Rudyard Kipling, from ‘The Run of the Downs’ CLIMBING up on Caburn hill, I could see the town lights of Lewes, but, on the summit, time had stopped still long before the age of electricity. In the tall grass around the dim earthen walls of the Iron Age fort, the warm night wind whispered the echoes of past voices. I tried to catch their sense, but it was seemingly babble. Babel. Looking out over the South Downs under the moon, the dark mound of Firle Beacon assumed the…

ZIBA seems to be the perfect colleague: hard-working, efficient and fun to be around. However, Ziba isn’t a person; she’s a conservation detection dog, especially trained to sniff out the presence of rare bats and birds. The six-year-old German shorthaired pointer is one of an increasing number of dogs helping to conserve wildlife. Similar to sniffer dogs employed to detect drugs or explosives, these detection dogs are using their extraordinary sense of smell to identify anything from great crested newts to pine martens. Or, in Ziba’s case, curlews. In the Antrim Hills of Northern Ireland, Ziba and her handler, Caroline Finlay, are spearheading a new trial with the RSPB to protect these totemic wading birds. The breeding population has fallen by 82% in the region since 1987, with an estimated…

THE lowering sun and shorter days are the first signs that autumn is gently creeping in. Trees and shrubs are straining to hold onto their foliage and the last of the unpicked apples are falling and rotting in the wet grass. The melancholy of the season is enlivened, however, by the final shout from boisterous dahlias, blazing orange rudbeckias and shimmering crocosmias. Joining the exuberance of this closing spectacle are pastel-coloured drifts of Michaelmas daisies, with a vigour and abundance that harks back to the benign days of early summer. The 19th-century poet Letitia Landon wrote of the way these daisies ‘call past bloom to mind, to promise future spring’. ‘Long flowering and floriferous, they are a late banquet to bees’ The family is large and encompasses species from North…

FISHING scenes are as old as art itself. In ancient Egypt, harpoon-speared tilapias and nets brimming with wrasse, carp and Nile perch decorated many tombs, helping the dead to fish as well in the afterlife as they had done on earth. Men armed with lines patiently awaited a bite in Assyrian wall paintings and stern-faced Cupids hauled in their catch on Roman mosaics. Christianity gave fishing a spiritual significance, the fish standing for people’s souls. Twice did the apostles struggle to find any and twice did Jesus help them secure a miraculous draught that made its way into centuries of religious art, from Raphael to James Tissot via Rubens. However, notes Christine E. Jackson in Fish in Art, it was a book that changed the nature of fishing, at least…

In Search of Beethoven John Suchet (Elliott & Thompson, £25) WHAT more could John Suchet possibly have to write about Ludwig von Beethoven, having already published six books on him? This is a question that he poses and which is answered by his wife, Nula: ‘Make it personal,’ she says. This turns out to be sage advice, as it is the personal that makes Mr Suchet’s approach so engaging. He is a journalist, not a musicologist, but his great advantage is that he plunges in enthusiastically where angels—or academics—might fear to tread. The enthusiasm with which he dives is highly informed, having read and listened widely and with forensic intent. He’s a great one for travelling in the composer’s footsteps and has made numerous trips to Bonn (Beethoven’s birthplace in…

Flowers lost and found NEW collections of oriental poppies (Papaver) and Colocasia (elephant ears), both previously classified as ‘missing’, have been accredited by Plant Heritage, effectively safeguarding their future. From hot pink to deep red, there are 38 cultivars in Lorraine Vaun-Davis’s oriental poppy collection in Somerset, which she was inspired to create after reading about Plant Heritage’s Missing Collections list in 2020. Down in Dorset, Peter Davidson’s elephant ears, with their velvety, heart-shaped leaves, number 45 cultivars. A further 13 new collections this year include a Daphne hoard at RHS Wisley, Surrey, also previously ‘missing’, and more than 12,000 salvias on a two-acre plot in Norfolk. In December, it is hoped that a rosemary collection of 25 years’ standing, with 105 varieties, will be reinstated after a move to…

AUTUMN is celebrated as a season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’, but it is also an inherently melancholy time, particularly so this year, when summer days have been few and winter storms are already on the way. Agromenes, therefore, is stepping in to cheer us up. Not that it is easily done. The generally downbeat view of the UK has outlasted the last fractious government and seems to have infected the present. Certainly, our deeply prejudiced press is determined to make Sir Keir Starmer’s job as difficult as possible. We may bemoan the present quality of the leaders of all political parties, but for that to turn to disillusion in democracy itself would be disastrous. To rekindle understanding of what democratic leadership can be, we need only to go to…

The Palace of Holyroodhouse, EdinburghThe official residence in Scotland of His Majesty the King LATE at night on March 26, 1603, an English courtier, Sir Robert Carey, knocked at the gate of Holyrood-house, the principal palace of the Kings of Scotland on the edge of Edinburgh. He was exhausted by a two-day ride from London and bloodied by a bad fall from his horse. Nevertheless, he was ushered immediately into the royal chamber, where James VI had retired to bed. Sir Robert brought the momentous and long-anticipated news that Elizabeth I was dead. According to Sir Robert’s memoir, he knelt before the King and ‘saluted him by his title of England, Scotland, France and Ireland’. In return, the King ‘gave me his hand to kiss and bade me welcome’. Sir…

ONE dark, dank morning in late March, I hauled myself out of bed at 4.30am and hit the road from Dorset to Bedfordshire, where I had an appointment to go out stalking for a Chinese water deer with Paul Childerley, a world-recognised expert in this unusual, non-native species that has successfully colonised parts of the country. Although I love being out on assignment, I was nervous, as, despite having been shooting since I was 13, I’d never fired a rifle before. Well, except for when my dad—a retired gamekeeper—let me have a go at zeroing in his .22-250, but I don’t think that really counts. Plus, using one with which to hunt a wild animal is entirely different and I was anxious not to let myself or the magazine down.…

BY the time I reached the sea pool, I’d turned over three grilse without touching them. However, at last, as my little Dee Shrimp double was dawdling in the far current, a fish took hold, my Bogdan reel growled its approval and, soon, estate manager Chris Langhorne had lifted his net—we were off the mark. It was my first afternoon on the Grimersta river in more than 40 years and it was good to be back. Set in a moorland estate of more than 20,000 acres on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, the Grimersta system comprises a series of four largely shallow lochs connected by delicious streams that reach the sea in front of the Victorian lodge via the narrow river, which is about a mile and…

SAVILLS has set the pace with the launch onto the market of secluded, Grade II-listed Donnington Castle House, which stands in some 24 acres of gardens, paddocks and woodland next to the picturesque ruins of medieval Donnington Castle in Donnington village, two miles north of Newbury, Berkshire. Crispin Holborow of Savills country department (020–7409 8881) seeks ‘offers in excess of £9 million’ for the gracious, 14,359sq ft main house with its coach house, cottages and buildings set in spectacular Jekyll-style gardens—all beautifully restored by the present owners during their 13-year tenure. ‘The late Queen Mother stayed at the house when attending Newbury races’ According to Nash Ford’s Royal Berkshire History, Donnington Castle was acquired in 1632 by the Parliamentarian John Packer of Shellingford Castle. During the 2nd Battle of Newbury…

WITH its dainty purple flowers, common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) appears unassuming, but its star-shaped basal leaves are deathtraps for unsuspecting insects, secreting a sticky liquid that holds them in place until the plant’s digestive enzymes have finished their meal. ‘It’s quite effective, actually. You can see small flies and things within a day or two turning into a little smudge,’ says Ulrike Bauer, senior research fellow in the University of Exeter’s Biosciences department and an expert in carnivorous plants. Dr Bauer runs off a long list of countries where she has seen insectivorous plants in situ, including the Seychelles, Madagascar, Canada and Brunei. Yet, to witness the gruesome feeding habits of the butterwort, there’s no need to board a plane. Most British people are unaware that you can see carnivorous…

FOR a story filled with such a sense of joy, two very different types of loss provoked and inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) to write what would become her most enduring novel, The Secret Garden (1911). Her journey to that moment began with her childhood in Manchester, delighting in the fields and countryside that lay within view and reach of the family home. Those green spaces and places seeded her fascination with—and deep love for—Nature. ‘The loss of her life in Kent seemingly provided the spark that was needed for her creative work’ Her father died when Frances was only three and, in 1865, the Hodgson family moved to Knoxville in Tennessee, US, to make a new life alongside her maternal uncle, who had thrived in business since moving there…

DR DICK POTTS is best known in conservation circles for his groundbreaking work on the causes of the grey partridge’s population crash, but he was by no means a single-species enthusiast. His PhD, at Durham University, was on the breeding ecology of the shag on the Farne Islands, he drove research into the brown hare, red grouse, woodcock and lapwing and he was decades ahead of the game on the causes of declines in farmland birds (such as the yellowhammer, right), including through poisonous chemicals, and how to reverse them through management. He was ever an optimist and did not believe divisive criticism of farmers achieved anything; his ideas were always practical and diplomatic. He was a firm supporter of traditional gamekeeper lore, but he also built bridges with bird…

THE high country of the winds, which are to the falcons and the hawks,’ wrote the rural author Henry Williamson, ‘clothed by whortleberry bushes and lichens and ferns and mossed trees in the goyals, which are to the foxes, the badgers and the red deer: served by rain-clouds and drained by rock-littered streams, which are to the otters.’ He was describing Exmoor in the decades before its official designation as one of Britain’s 15 national parks, the 70th anniversary of which is this weekend (October 19). At 267 square miles, Exmoor is the fourth smallest national park—after the Broads, New Forest and Pembrokeshire coast—one of the least populated (fewer than 11,000 people and shrinking) and, arguably, one of the least heralded. There are no major roads through it and its…

FOR the first time, the UK is home to more than 1,000 vineyards—and counting. Hampshire, Kent, Sussex and Surrey are positively awash with acres under vine, after an increase in temperatures over the past decade ramped things up for an industry that had historically fallen somewhat flat. From as early as 43BC, wine-loving Romans, Catholics and Normans established vineyards on these shores—indeed, the Domesday Book of 1086 recorded 42 vineyards in England, 12 of which were attached to monasteries. However, these efforts were scuppered by powerful adversaries such as Vikings, the Black Death, imports and the great British weather. English wine as we know it was born again after the World Wars, when ‘founding father’ Ray Barrington Brock trialled more than 600 varieties in Surrey, forming a selection that still…

Spiced parsnip cake with maple cream-cheese frosting Ingredients For the sponge 200g light muscovado sugar175g melted butter3 large eggs250g parsnips, peeled and grated100g sultanas75g walnuts, chopped1 orange, zest of200g self-raising flour1tspn ground cinnamon½tspn ground ginger¼tspn ground nutmeg1tspn baking powder½tspn bicarbonate of soda For the frosting 100g unsalted butter, softened200g full-fat cream cheese, softened300g icing sugar, sifted3tbspn pure maple syrup1tspn vanilla-bean paste Method ▸ Preheat the oven to 160˚C fan/180˚C/350˚F/gas mark 4. Grease and line two 20cm (8in) round cake tins with baking parchment. ▸ In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, melted butter and eggs until smooth and well combined. Stir in the grated parsnips, sultanas, chopped walnuts and orange zest. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Gradually…

FEW paintings can claim to be at once revolutionary and nostalgic, but John Constable’s The Hay Wain is one such. The view of the mill pond at Flatford, with horses pulling a wagon across the water by the house of tenant farmer Willy Lott, the corner of the Constable family’s corn-grinding mill barely visible among the greenery, harks back to the countryside of the painter’s childhood, which was fast vanishing under the advance of modernity. Not for Constable (1776–1837) the fascination with steam and speed that so gripped Turner. Nonetheless, as a forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery reveals, his approach to painting was genuinely revolutionary. Determined to remain true to Nature, he worked en plein air long before it became popular to do so (albeit sketching—The Hay Wain was…

I AM not surprised that Mark Rosenblatt’s debut play, Giant, at London’s Royal Court, has turned out to be a huge success. In 2005, Mr Rosenblatt skilfully directed a revival of Arthur Schnitzler’s Professor Bernhardi at the Arcola Theatre. What, you may wonder, is the connection with Giant? Both works deal with anti-Semitism and use a specific example to raise big, important questions. Giant starts from the recorded fact that, in 1983, the hugely popular children’s author Roald Dahl wrote a book review widely condemned for its anti-Semitism. In the play, we see Dahl’s real-life British publisher, Tom Maschler, together with a fictive American one, descending on his Buckinghamshire home in the hope of getting him to make a public apology. What follows could easily be a one-sided battle between…

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