Indholdsfortegnelse for August 20, 2025 i Country Life

Future Publishing Ltd, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6JR 0330 390 6591; www.countrylife.co.uk AN alarming thing happened in the magazine office this week. We entered into ChatGPT ‘Please write a Leader in the style of COUNTRY LIFE’. The result (this is not it) was both astonishing and unnerving; Big Brother has clearly been watching us, as it has numerous other publications, writers and composers, whose work is now being freely reworked by hidden hands on the internet. Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming cleverer by the day and in many instances—in science and technology, medicine and agriculture—is not to be scorned. Its incursion is less welcome in the Arts: recently, the violinist Nicola Benedetti said she feared for the future of classical music because…

Mercy for the cyclist, please A COLLEAGUE recently spotted an advertisement in a railway underpass in Battersea, south London. It was one of the classic ‘Kill your speed, not a child’ posters, except it wasn’t targeting drivers, but another specimen of our roads: the cyclist. Cyclists have earned a bad reputation in recent years. Last month, a study by Thinks Insight & Strategy revealed that those in the City of London had been caught 10 times more often than motorists for running red lights this year. The same study also claimed that up to 52% of cyclists admitted to flouting the Highway Code. In the capital, the number of pedestrians dying in road collisions has increased by almost 25% year on year. Although there are no statistics to suggest that…

IT is unsurprising that the Edinburgh-born scientist and inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) was motivated to improve communication: his mother was deaf, his grandfather and father taught elocution to the deaf and he was a teacher at schools for the deaf in North America, where the family had emigrated, subsequently marrying a former pupil, Mabel Hubbard. Bell combined his teaching career with research into the then fastest form of communication, the telegraph. What he really wanted to do, however, was to find a way to transmit the voice, work that was made possible by his investor father-in-law Gardiner Hubbard. Bell was in competition with another scientist, Elisha Gray, and he managed to file his scheme for a telephone first, by mere hours, on February 14, 1876 (Gray challenged this version…

OF all the charismatic birds breeding widely in these islands, one of the least known to the British public is the ring ouzel. That anonymity says much about the bird’s appeal to devotees—I have been a fanatic for 50 years—but it also speaks eloquently of the creature. Ring ouzels don’t live on remote islands as shearwaters do, nor do they confine themselves to the darkness with owls or hide away in dense cover like crakes and rails. They live in plain sight across swathes of our uplands, even visiting many Welsh or English coastlines on migration. The problem is that they do it in disguise. Meet a ring ouzel on some high fell on a May morning and you’ll understand my point. The bird is a male perched atop the…

HALF a century ago, many people’s first experience of dramatically pared-back modernism was a visit to a contemporary art gallery—lofty, uplifting spaces, such as the Guggenheim in New York, US, and the Pompidou in Paris, France, that were as startling as the exhibits themselves. In 2000, there was a dramatic new arrival in London in the form of Tate Modern with its Turbine Hall, which took minimalism to dispiriting new extremes. The arrival of these galleries gave birth to a new convention in both public and commercial galleries that contemporary art looks best when displayed against a white, minimalist backdrop. The danger is that it can also make it look irrelevant. Over the past decade or so, there have been plenty of examples of exhibitions in English country houses housed…

Inverewe, Wester Ross IT is a privilege indeed for COUNTRY LIFE to be shown the large composting area at the National Trust for Scotland’s (NTS) 54-acre garden at Inverewe on Loch Ewe in Wester Ross. ‘I don’t bring many people up here,’ says Kevin Ball, who has been head gardener since 2006. Composting has always been important in a garden conjured from bare rock and Mr Ball and his team pride themselves on producing large volumes of high-quality material within six months. It is here that woody and herbaceous waste, seaweed gathered from the shoreline and all the bamboo cutlery and paper cups and plates from the café end up. The materials are layered like a lasagne in long windrows and monitored by a digital probe to alert the gardeners…

BEAUTY is Leo Webster’s stock in trade. A picture specialist at Bonhams in Edinburgh, he has sold vibrant Scottish Colourist paintings, glorious 18th-century landscapes and adorable dog portraits (including some that had belonged to the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts). At times, he has even sat on the opposite side of the rostrum and bought some prized works for himself, not least a fine etching by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, which was his first successful bid at auction. Yet, he confesses, ‘there are other things I have that I feel much more passionately about and they’re almost always related to my family’. Descending as he does from architects and artists on both parents’ sides, he has inherited architectural studies and beautiful water-colours (from his maternal grandfather, who loved to paint…

Landscape saviours fight for role THERE is nothing so disappointing as the discovery that a favourite view has suddenly been despoiled: a line of radio masts has been added, a field of solar panels, a large modern house that’s been plopped onto the landscape. Thankfully, however, this does not happen too often and much of that is attributable to The Gardens Trust, a key bulwark against unsuitable development. However, this role is now under threat following the Government’s proposal, announced earlier this year, to remove the charity’s position as a statutory consultee in planning permissions for up to 1,700 historic landscapes and gardens in order to speed up building. The trust has been fundraising to fight this proposal. The Gardens Trust’s mission is largely carried out with minimal fanfare, yet,…

A dream of steam WHAT a joy to read your article about traction engines (‘Full steam ahead’, July 23) and find a mention of Arthur Napper. My father was hugely inspired by him as a young boy and we are very fortunate to be the custodians of a Fowler 14253 double drum 10 hp steam ploughing engine, bought by our relative Selwyn Caudwell in 1916. Watching it working in the fields on our farm, it’s an emotive reminder of our agricultural past. There is also a real sense that the people with the skills and passion to keep these great machines going must continue to pass their knowledge onto the next, willing generation. Catherine Baddeley, Devon True colours HOW refreshing to read Jason Goodwin calling modern paint what it is:…

LOOK at this!’ exclaims Michael Tait, sweeping his yellow-wellied foot left and right across the jetty. ‘Who’d have thought there were so many crabs down there!’ His boot is clearing hundreds of legs, pincers and carapaces from crabs caught in the indigo depths of the beautiful Vaila Sound in the south-west of Shetland. The remains are the work of sea otters that snooze, lunch and cavort only a few feet from Mr Tait’s office door at Shetland Mussels. ‘I see them all the time, they’re not bothered by us,’ he continues. ‘And they don’t eat the mussels.’ Eider ducks apparently do, however; shells and all. But then the killer whales eat the eider ducks—so Mr Tait isn’t too worried. These are only some of the daily considerations woven into mussel…

JAMES GUTHRIE’S 1883 trailblazer To Pastures New tells no story. Unlike contemporary works by the Victorian ‘gluepots’, as he dubbed them, his picture, set in a flat, featureless landscape, conveys no moralising anecdote or episode from history. Instead, it’s an unsentimental depiction of a goose-girl wielding a twig to prod her gaggle as they walk along a muddy track. The horizontally divided composition is bold, with the girl brought close up to the picture plane and the geese waddling off the canvas. Her face, partly obscured by her straw hat, is smoothly defined, the fenland and big sky behind more loosely handled. Shadowed earth tones against bright chalky blues infuse the scene with warmth and sunlight so that, although it was finished in the studio, it has the atmospheric qualities…

Three Rivers: The Extraordinary Waterways that Made Europe Robert Winder (Elliot & Thompson, £20) ORSON WELLES in The Third Man archly accused Switzerland of producing nothing of significance except the cuckoo clock. Robert Winder, formerly of Granta and The Independent, proposes instead the charming Alpine state as Europe’s fountainhead of culture, science, industry, agriculture, oenology, nougat and pretty much everything else. It’s its rivers, silly. By an accident of geology—but one hell of an accident, tectonic and granite-forming—the Rhine, the Rhone and Ticino (which flows into the Po) all rise in ‘the same patch of Swiss mist’, the Saint-Gotthard Massif. Citing this as Europe’s wellspring is, as the author acknowledges, not original: Carl Spitteler, winner of the 1919 Nobel Prize for Literature, described the peaky place as Europe’s ‘central’ hub,…

Quiz of the week 1) In which Scottish castle was Mary, Queen of Scots imprisoned in 1567? 2) Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of what? 3) In which year did the Sydney Opera House open? 4) Disease transmitted from animals to humans is referred to as what? 5) Lucian Freud painted a nude portrait of which English supermodel in 2002? 1) Lochleven Castle, Kinross-shire 2) Peanut butter sticking to the palate 3) 1973 4) Zoonotic 5) Kate Moss. Riddle me this: The letter ‘f’ Riddle me this I start a fight and two of me make a difference. What am I? Time to buy On this day … August 20, 1971 During a ceremony held at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, Air Vice Marshal Sir Denis Spotswood presented the then Prince of Wales…

IN the towns, the notice ‘Road Closed’ is infuriating, but final. In the countryside, we usually view it as a challenge. Often, we discover that there is no actual closure or, if there is, there’s plenty of space for cars to get by. Sometimes, there’s no evidence of any works being carried out or a pothole long filled in and workmen departed without collecting the notices. In any case, one never knows how far ahead the closure actually is. It’s often way beyond one’s destination or along a route one never intended to take. The one thing that is sure is that we blame the county council. However, Agromenes has discovered that, in fact, it’s hardly ever the council’s fault. The whole problem arises because of our antiquated legal system,…

Glamis Castle, Angus, part 1 The seat of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne ON May 29, 1660—the very same day as Charles II’s 30th birthday and triumphant re-entry into London at the Restoration—a 17-year-old student set out from St Andrews University, with a dog as his only companion, to take control of his ruinous patrimony and inherited debts. Patrick Lyon, then 3rd Earl of Kinghorne, was likewise born on May 29 and would later see in this triple coincidence with the King’s life an echo of the restoration of his own fortune. Writing in his idiosyncratically compiled diary and notebook that survives at Glamis, known as The Book of Record, he described his arrival the following day—May 30—at the first of his inherited seats, Castle Lyon (now HMP Castle…

FURNITURE-MAKER and artist Tim Moss originally trained at the London School of Furniture, where he learned to make early musical instruments, including lutes, which gave him an interest in period crafts. The owners got in touch with the designer as they were searching for someone who could design a very particular one-off kitchen for this Grade-II*-listed Queen Anne house. ‘This whole project was a collaborative effort between me and my clients, who were interested in the interiors and had clear ideas about what they wanted me to do.’ The aim was a kitchen that was beautifully made, practical to use and a little bit, as Mr Moss says, ‘workery’ in its design. ‘This space had long been used by the household staff—behind the table, out of shot, is the original…

Dumfries & Galloway, £650,000 This characterful three/four-bedroom property surrounded by six acres of woodland near Auchencairn on the East Stewartry Coast was, until 1933, a working lifeboat station, which was converted in the late 1990s. At its heart is the showstopping sitting room, which has floor-to-ceiling windows providing spectacular sea views and access to a terrace. Galbraith (01556 505346) Fife, £7.25 million This three-bedroom contemporary townhouse, one of a group to be completed next month overlooking the 1st and 18th fairways of The Old Course at St Andrews, is promoted as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire surely the best view in golf. Most living spaces are on the top floor, which has a spacious, open-plan design and extensive terraces perfect for viewing the action at The Open in 2027. Knight…

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