Indholdsfortegnelse for June 25, 2025 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk GLASTONBURY pilgrims should be thrilled. The revels, which begin today, are set to start in dry and sunny, but not cripplingly baking weather—no desperate pitching of tents in glutinous mud and soaking grass. The outdoor opera season has had a similarly balmy start: perfect picnic conditions and no scuttling under cover in one’s finery. Not everyone is so thrilled by this warm, rainless spring/summer, of course; as ever, one man’s blooming rose garden is another’s crusty, yellowing lawn. It’s brilliant for beer, bucket-and-spade and ice-cream sellers, much less so for guardsmen. Pity the poor blackbirds: a sunny spring was delightful for raising chicks, but now their favourite food, the earthworm, has retreated deeper underground in search…

Reading is sexy (again) ON a recent Friday evening under pink skies and in a warm breeze, 500 bright young things chose not to sit outside with pints and Camel Blues, but instead crammed into an east London warehouse for the summer gala of Soho Reading Series. The monthly event, launched by Yale graduate Tom Willis, invites budding writers to read out their work for five minutes apiece, honing their craft before a live audience. It’s the closest London has come to having a bona fide literary ‘scene’ in years, with evenings as raucous as they are instructive. The capital’s beau monde can also be found frequenting the poetry parties of James Massiah, a multidisciplinary artist whose soirées begin as readings and quickly descend into dancing. People are keeping their…

LESLIE HORE-BELISHA (1893–1957) will forever be remembered for instigating the ubiquitous Belisha beacon to mark a pedestrian road crossing, but his contribution as Minister for Transport in the 1930s was far greater than that. He took office in 1934, a time when members of the public were taking to the wheel in their kamikaze droves, often with more enthusiasm than skill. The 20mph speed limit had been abolished in 1930, chiefly because it had become unenforceable with a huge backlog of court cases. The year Hore-Belisha, the Liberal MP for Devonport, took office, there were 7,343 fatalities and 231,603 injuries on the roads, which he described as ‘mass murder’. In his Road Traffic Act, Hore-Belisha introduced the driving test, re-wrote the Highway Code, enforced the 30mph speed limit in built-up…

INSPIRED by ideals of honour, bravery and the defence of Christianity, tales of noble warriors on a Divine mission have been immortalised in literature and art for centuries. Today, popular culture continues to revisit this rich tapestry from the age of chivalry, from The Da Vinci Code to Game of Thrones. What’s less well known, however, is that the Knights of St John continued to fight for Christendom for centuries after the Crusades, most notably defending Malta from the Ottomans in the 16th century. Nor is this all confined to history: there are Knights still at work today, including in Gaza, upholding the same ideals their forefathers swore to defend more than 900 years ago. ‘Every poor man or woman they treated was Christ and should receive the best care’…

The garden at Caisson House, near Bath, Somerset The home of Amanda and Phil Honey IF ever there was a couple capable of tackling the 40 acres of neglected landscape at Caisson House, Combe Hay, near Bath, it is Amanda and Phil Honey. Both are from Somerset farming stock (Mr Honey and his seven siblings grew up a stone’s throw away) and know how gently to nurture the land, but, for many years, they ran Palmbrokers, a company creating elaborate green scenery for big-budget films and events in high-pressure environments. ‘Going into an empty set and building a forest or garden in three days; not that many people have that experience,’ says Mr Honey. Rolling up their sleeves to create something of wonder and beauty in unusual, tricky spaces is,…

Visit Tottering-By-Gently on our website: www.countrylife.co.uk/tottering We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. All contents © 2025 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future…

Conservation best practice THE article on hen harriers (above) downplays the remarkable recent increase of the bird in England from almost none to more than 50 pairs and claims there is continuing persecution by gamekeepers (Winging it, June 11), but that increase was achieved by a Natural England scheme intended specifically to reduce the incentive for persecution. Unlike other raptors, hen harriers breed in loose colonies that can devastate local grouse populations. Nesting on the ground, they only thrive where foxes are scarce. It is no surprise that some gamekeepers resent seeing a bird benefit from their protection, but then destroy their livelihoods. In such cases of wildlife conflict elsewhere—such as wolves versus cattle in America or elephants versus farms in Africa—conservationist best practice is not to rely only on…

The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault ‘I first came across this painting 30 years ago when working on a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s novel L’Assommoir, a study of poverty and alcoholism in the backstreets of Paris. Down-at-heel wedding guests drop into the Louvre to kill the time between the ceremony and the supper. They are self-conscious and uneasy, themselves the objects of curiosity and ridicule in this palace of culture, until they find themselves completely absorbed by this monumental piece of political art. It is a heroic work with ordinary people and current events as its subject; as it was exhibited within two years of the catastrophe it depicts, it was hard to avoid the wider critique of what happens when people are abandoned to desperate circumstances…

THE Isle of Wight, sometime in the early 1990s. I was coming up for six years old and had recently moved to the island’s rugged south-west coast from suburban Worcestershire. Out on a family walk above the village of Brighstone—forested downland tumbling to a sandstone ridge, dotted with gorse and with dramatic views of the Channel—something loomed out of the mizzle. A gargantuan, grey green rock of perplexing heft, rising 13ft from the soil to meet the evening sky: Mottistone Longstone. The Neolithic-era monument was, to me, an unprecedented sight; as mystically unknowable as it was tactile, sitting on the edge of a contoured strip of earth and all the more atmospheric for the isolated setting and terrible weather. As I recall, a barn owl actually floated out of the…

DESPITE the high ceilings, a combination of dark wood floors and worktops meant there was little light in the kitchen of this Borders home. To better reflect 21st-century lifestyles, the planners agreed that the dividing wall and chimney breast could be removed to create one large, light-filled room. The design brief included retaining several existing features, such as the original oil fired AGA, a large, glazed dresser and a staircase leading down to the cellar. The Guild Anderson team was led by Kate Lawrence-Parr, who designed a bespoke arched mantel over the cooking area with recessed, hand-painted wall cabinets on either side to include a vertical pan cupboard and drawers for baking equipment. A hob and a small sink sit on either side of the AGA. ‘One of the clients…

FROM the Ionian Sea past the furthest reaches of the Mediterranean to the Istrian peninsula, from the Albanian coast to the shores of modern Montenegro, from Crete to Cephalonia stretched the empire of the Venetian Republic in its heyday more than 500 years ago. For centuries, Venetian galleys plied the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Trade demanded ports of call and free movement across seaways: colonisation followed Venice’s merchants. In her wake, she exported concrete evidence of her overlordship: the lion of St Mark carved boldly into granite walls of far-flung fortifications; on island hillsides rambling villas, like the homes of minor gentry in the Veneto, part-hidden by slopes of vines and olives; and in a sheltered bay of Messenia, close to the fashionable resort of Costa Navarino, the…

NO bird speaks more eloquently of recent ecological change than this iconic falcon. The peregrine (Falco peregrinus) is a species found on six continents and, with Mankind, is one of the most successful predators on Earth. Today, it has resumed that apex position and globally it’s judged a ‘green-listed’ species, which means the population is of the lowest environmental concern. Yet this wasn’t so in the 1960s. The news was so desperate and alarm so urgent that this bird—distribution wrapped around our planet—was judged to be threatened everywhere with extinction. For once, the small numbers in Britain played a major role in the unfolding international story. The late Derek Ratcliffe, arguably our greatest naturalist of the 20th century, was fixated with peregrines. By the late 1950s, he, as did others,…

BARELY four years before Impressionism officially launched in Paris, two of its leading lights—Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro—fled the city and the depredations of the Franco-Prussian War, crossing the channel to seek refuge in London. The transition was a bumpy one, with Pissarro declaring that: ‘It is only when you are abroad that you realise how beautiful, grand and hospitable France is.’ Monet recalled that his first seven-month stay in London was ‘miserable’, but his enchantment with the local fog would draw him back in later years to focus extensively on views of the Thames. For a while, the duo settled down to painting the landmarks of London that any tourist would have noted—the city’s parks, views and the Thames—as well as frequenting the Café Royal, Maison Bertaux and the…

To See Ourselves: A Personal History of Scotland since 1950 Alistair Moffat (Birlinn, £18.99) THE gift desired by Robert Burns ‘to see ourselves as others see us’ is delivered comprehensively in this insightful book by historian and journalist Alistair Moffat, particularly for Scottish baby-boomers. Now in the autumn of an eventful life that has taken him from a council estate in Kelso in 1950 to the high table of the Scottish establishment as a pioneering director of the Edinburgh Fringe, television executive and Rector of St Andrews University, his autobiographical musings on the tides of change that have swept him along provide a compelling social history. A countryman with deep roots in the local farming community, and now in literary semi-retirement on his Borders farm, Mr Moffat rekindles the atmosphere…

Quiz of the week 1) Which London landmark inspired the name for HP Sauce? 2) The Philippines is named after which monarch? 3) What breed of dog is Nick Park’s stop-motion character Gromit? 4) Name the first woman to translate Homer’s Odyssey into English 5) Stinkhorns, jelly ears and shaggy parasols are all types of what? 1) The Houses of Parliament 2) Philip II of Spain 3) Beagle 4) Emily Wilson 5) Fungi. Riddle me this: A feather Riddle me this I am easy to lift, but hard to throw. What am I? Time to buy On this day… June 25, 1967 The BBC aired Our World, the first live multinational, multi-satellite television programme, to a worldwide audience. Transmitted in 24 countries, the two-hour event had the largest television audience…

THAT lettuce just cut from the garden will certainly need a wash and there may be an insect or two to chase out, but we do know where it’s come from. By contrast, the pristine cleanliness of the ‘mixed leaves’ in the bag from the supermarket demands packaging and preparation, the details of which escape most of us. We leave all that to the food industry and, although the ingredients and the additives, colourings and emulsifiers are listed, most of that information goes unread. Of course, campaigners warn of high fat and salt levels, as well as concerns about ultra processed foods, but it’s clear only a minority take notice. Convenience trumps all. That is why, when the chief executive of Britain’s largest supermarket demands the Government intervene to mandate…

Ironmongers’ Hall, London EC2 The home of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers ON the bright Saturday morning of July 7, 1917, a formation of 22 German Gotha heavy bombers crossed the Channel and mounted the largest aerial attack London had ever experienced. It was the second air raid on the capital to employ planes rather than zeppelins and was undertaken on a clear day in broad daylight. There was as yet no system to warn the population of danger and most initially assumed the incoming planes were friendly. Even when the firing started, many were more curious than frightened and had to be ushered off the streets to shelter. There were more than 170 casualties from the raid and among the properties damaged from across a wide area was Ironmongers’…

DURING Lent terms in the late 1820s, early-morning strollers on Midsummer Common in Cambridge may have spotted something alarming through the icy winter mist that hovered above the River Cam. Speeding towards them came a boat that was, or so it seemed at first glance, on fire. Fortunately, it soon became clear that this was not some undergraduate version of a Viking funeral ship, but an ordinary rowing shell with a crew decked out in flame-coloured coats. The eight from Lady Margaret Boat Club had taken to wearing short flannel jackets to keep them warm during chilly training sessions: the 19th-century answer to the sweatshirt or tracksuit top. The bright hue had been chosen to honour Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and founder of the rowers’ college, St…

AT the end of Casablanca, Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, bids a sad, but stoic farewell to Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa before she and her husband, the Czech resistance leader Victor Laszlo, board a plane bound for Lisbon. During the Second World War, Portugal—especially the Atlantic-facing coastline just above its capital—provided an officially neutral and logistically expedient safe haven (its promontory, Cabo da Roca, being the westernmost point in Continental Europe) for refugees fleeing the Nazis. For the fictional Laszlos, as well as real-life émigrés, including artists Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst and Marc Chagall, plus self-confessed ‘art addict’ Peggy Guggenheim and members of the Rothschild family, it was a place to await transit papers for onward passage to the even greater security of the US. ‘This coastline was nicknamed Costa dos…

I REMEMBER a lunch, a few years back, in one of those legends of proper Madrid eating. It may have been Botín (300 years old this year) or La Bola (a mere 155 years young), but it certainly involved meat. Lots and lots of meat—wobbling pig trotters coated in breadcrumbs and softly seductive Madrid-style tripe; slow-simmered stews, tiny lamb chops and whole suckling pigs, artfully hewn. There was a table of youngish Americans next door who, having perused the menu with some consternation, politely asked a table of old-school Madrileños zanjadors what the Spanish was for ‘vegetarian’. ‘Loco!’ roared one old trencherman, a mischievous glint in his eye. They made their excuses and left. ‘As Prufrock measures out his life in coffee spoons, so I chart mine in epic Iberian…

SOME mornings I sit and marvel at the genius of William Morris. Our down stairs lavatory is screened from prying eyes by a panel of leaded lights made from hand-cast and painted Morris & Co glass in about 1887. Sunlight treacles through the bubbles and the painted willow wands. Willows are to us what olive trees are to southern Europeans, I would suggest, from time immemorial our most prolific and most useful crop. The osier beds must have been Morris’s muse, living at Kelmscott in the west Oxfordshire flatlands on the upper reaches of the Thames: withy beds characterised the Thames valley for the manufacture of all things packaging. Before he designed Willow Bough, his most celebrated wallpaper, Morris mused in poetry of ‘the happy willow tree, with the river…