Pendennis Headland on Falmouth harbour has spent four centuries as a critical military outpost. A castle was originally built here by Henry VIII to guard against potential invasion by Spain, and it continued that role throughout the 16th century. In the Civil War, the castle — by then significantly expanded — witnessed a sad and gruesome chapter as a bitter, five-month siege saw the Royalists holed up within the walls reduced to grim and desperate measures to avoid starvation, before eventually surrendering to Cromwell's forces. Even as late as the Second World War it was a crucial gun emplacement.

Today, the headland and castle are the site of Falmouth’s coastguard station, a popular tourist attraction, and 70 acres of woods and green spaces that provide a safe haven for all manner of wildlife. It's also the setting for one of the most remarkable homes to be built in Cornwall in recent years: Pendennis House.

Situated on Castle Drive within Pendennis Headland, this 7980sq ft property is a striking mix of modern design and engineering. It's for sale through joint agents Jonathan Cunliffe and Savills, who quote a guide price of £6.95 million.

The house is set just inside the harbour entrance, and enjoys fabulous views of St Anthony lighthouse, St Mawes Castle, the Carrick Roads and Falmouth Bay.

Even getting to the front door is something of an event. The house is entered via a steel bridge walkway, which leads to a double-height reception/dining area.

That in turn opens out onto a large terrace that extends the length of the building.

Behind the hall, a huge, open-plan kitchen/breakfast room is glazed on both sides to make the most of the ever-changing harbour and sea views.

Two good double bedrooms on the ground floor share a large shower room and a study/office or separate sitting room.

An impressive steel staircase leads to the first floor and four further bedrooms, including, at the south end of the house, the principal bedroom suite, which has a dual-aspect bedroom and balcony overlooking Black Rock and the entrance to Falmouth harbour.

There's also private access to a secluded beach below.

Jonathan Cunliffe calls it 'one of the finest properties on the south coast, a spectacular modern masterpiece commanding grandstand views', while Savills note its 'rare combination of immense sense of privacy and unrivalled marine views'.

For sale at £6.95 million — see more details via Savills or Jonathan Cunliffe.

The Country Life Quiz is published every weekday at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up on previous editions, here.

Set in stone

British stonemasonry company A. F. Jones specialises in architectural stonework, interiors and heritage conservation. This newly built indoor pool is part of the renovation and extension of a listed property in Surrey, thought to be the first residential house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, which demanded a carefully considered approach to each intervention.

Heritage windows 


Forming part of an extensive renovation of a Grade I-listed Elizabethan manor, these Heritage System bronze windows were chosen for their fine sightlines and ability to incorporate single-glazed traditional leaded lights secured with saddle bars and copper ties, by Architectural Bronze.

Wonder walls

One of the world’s leading authorities on conserving and re-creating historic wallpapers, Allyson McDermott offers a bespoke wallpaper design and making service, as well as a small range of wallpapers inspired by historic originals. Sudeley Castle Chinese wallpaper can be tailored to fit an entire room or ordered as two sets of four panels, from £2,688 per set.

Stone craft

Known for its British stone expertise, Artorius Faber’s range includes Chedworth English cobbles, made from limestone extracted from its own Dorset quarry. Their natural shape makes them useful for matching original cobbles found in courtyards and rural agricultural areas. They cost from £200 per square metre.

Sculpted decoration

Geoffrey Preston heads a small Devon-based sculpture and design studio known for its fine new decorative plasterwork, including ceilings, wall panels and more. Here, modellers Kate Montagne and Louisa Shorney are seen putting the finishing touches to a clay model before moulding and casting.

Antique inspiration

Marshall Brass operates its own small foundry in Norfolk, hand casting brass fittings using moulds taken from antique patterns. This Lifting handle costs £45.

Foundry find

From its foundry on the South Coast, Beardmore produces fine ironmongery, carrying out engineering, electroplating, traditional casting and hand finishing under one roof. CU1141 cupboard knobs are shown here in the process of being finished in Aged Brass and cost £155 each.

Flagstone flooring

Leading tile and stone specialist Lapicida is renowned for its antique reclaimed flooring. These flagstones cost from £354 per square metre.

Wood works

Traditional joinery specialist Jack Badger is known for crafting wall panelling, interior and exterior doors, flooring, gates, kitchens, staircases and all kinds of period architectural joinery. Here, a craftsman employs a hand-tooling technique called matting to enhance the depth and visual contrast of a carving.

Look up

Stevensons of Norwich offers a full plasterwork design, manufacture, restoration and installation service. Its range of finely detailed plaster mouldings includes the Claydon House, The Saloon small ceiling rose, inspired by the notable 18th-century house in Buckinghamshire. It costs £138.

Traditional paints

Dorset-based Rose of Jericho supplies traditional paints and lime mortars, supporting the conservation of historic buildings with authentic materials and in-depth expertise. It holds an extensive library of samples, collected over 40 years, to assist the identification of suitable products for repair work.

Fine fit

Specialising in bespoke kitchens, cabinetry and furniture, Saint John Architectural Interiors’s portfolio of projects includes this custom-made kitchen in a Grade II*-listed Georgian mansion.

Crafted skill

Johanna Welsh of Traditional Pargetting is admired for her skills in ornamental raised plasterwork, undertaking projects on buildings both old and new from her Suffolk base.

Oak originals

For more than 40 years, Stuart Interiors has specialised in bespoke oak joinery, undertaking detailed interior schemes such as libraries and panelled rooms to staircases and doors, including the Gothic-style tracery door design being carved here.

This feature originally appeared in the September 30, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.'

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Here's a look at some of what you'll find inside this week's issue.

Daniel Robbins’s favourite painting
The museum’s curator chooses a beautifully detailed collage

Country-house treasure
John Goodall’s way is barred at Traquair House, Peeblesshire, where the gates were locked when Bonnie Prince Charlie left in 1745

A royal foundation
Aoife Caitríona Lau traces the architectural tale of Oriel College, Oxford, as it marks the 700th anniversary of its foundation

The legacy
Carla Passino delves into the controversy surrounding Elias Ashmole’s great collection, now in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum

Stranger things
An emperor’s toothbrush, a lobster telephone and a stuffed cayman — there really were no limits for the eccentric British collectors of yesteryear, finds Claire Jackson

Tender is the light
Blue skies and warm sunshine made the French Riviera a Mecca for artists, reveals Nick Trend

A bear’s necessity
As Winnie-the-Pooh turns 100, Emma Hughes profiles the duo behind the much-loved character

The modern Herbal
Ann Treneman shares remarkable garden remedies from her new book on Nature’s Pharmacy

Luxury
Amie Elizabeth White hails the return of bricks-and-mortar shopping, and her regal picks prove that purple reigns

Interiors
Amelia Thorpe highlights new paints and wallpapers to add a fresh look to any home

London Life
Will Hosie ponders the capital’s standing in the artistic world, seeks out seven of the best properties currently for sale and relives London’s most memorable parties (below), plus our writers have all you need to know this month

Rare charms
The autumn cyclamen is a tiny flower of monumental beauty, suggests Charles Quest-Ritson

Countryside mystery
From knopper to oak-apple and cotton-wool to currant, the gall is a fascinating phenomenon for the consideration of John Wright

Travel
Pamela Goodman marvels at the Feast of the Flying Donkey in the French village of Gonfaron

Arts & antiques
The tentacles of Nicola Turner’s tactile and sustainable sculpture work are reaching across the land, as she tells Carla Passino

Sultans of swing
What did the Ottomans ever do for us? Lucien de Guise explores the many Turkish influences that reached the shores of Britain

And much more

I arranged to join a walk last November with my local University of the Third Age group, an idea that seemed straightforward enough until faced with the real enemy of any day out: the weather. Or rather, its peculiar ability to behave in a way that suggests it resents being forecast.

The Met Office had declared rain at 60% four days earlier, then 70% the day before, then 40% by the morning, only for the sky to appear as blue and smug as a Mediterranean travel brochure. I concluded long ago that the Met Office deserves our sympathy: after Michael Fish reassured the nation in 1987 that no hurricane would arrive, only to have one appear with theatrical force hours later, its confidence has never recovered.

Our walk began at St Katharine Docks, E1, which has nothing to do with St Catherine of Alexandria, St Catherine of Siena. The docks borrowed their name instead from the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, a medieval hospital that originally stood on site, founded by Queen Matilda in 1147. In the early 19th century, the precinct was swept aside to make way for a new commercial site. Thomas Telford designed the basins, Philip Hardwick the warehouses and the result opened in 1828 to mild fanfare and modest success. The narrow entrance prevented the largest ships from entering, a design flaw that feels like the architectural equivalent of buying a wardrobe only to find it won’t fit through the door.

Commercial decline would beset St Katharine as other docks prospered. Bombing in the Second World War accelerated the decay; by 1968, commercial operations ceased. By the 1970s, the area began its second life as a leisure marina, pleasure craft now sitting politely in water once churned by labour. Stepping into the marina today feels like entering a club where membership is implied by proximity to boats with polished teak. Restaurants, offices and apartment buildings line the water with an air of curated ease.

Yet, beneath the refinement lies a scrambled history of demolition, slum clearance and utilitarian warehouses that spoke a more honest architectural language. If authenticity is measured by the scars of survival, St Katharine offers only faint lines. The effect is pleasant enough, although the sense of having entered a well-behaved waterside showroom is hard to ignore. It is an odd moment when one leaves the marina and enters the narrower streets beyond. The shift is immediate. The light changes. The air thickens slightly with the scent of the river rather than the fragrance of artisan coffee. Footsteps echo differently.

For all the talk about respecting heritage, London has a habit of tidying its past until it resembles a postcard. Telford’s warehouses once hummed with labour. Goods were hauled directly from barges through loading doors that now belong to flats with entry systems tucked away from view. One begins to wonder which parts are original and which are the architectural equivalent of cosmetic dentistry; although whether this should be held against modern developers is a matter better left to those who enjoy writing letters to newspapers.

Walking eastward towards Wapping, the landscape contracts. To the naked eye, the river seems to narrow — although not in truth — and the streets begin to show their age. Wapping is a survivor rather than a stage set; a sliver between the Thames and the Highway and a neighbourhood the history of which has not yet been polished into polite silence. Warehouses still stand, converted into flats, but recognisably themselves. The cobbles, uneven in places, tell their stories without fuss.

This was once a world of shipwrights, chandlers and lightermen who did not have the luxury of thinking about heritage. It was also the site of Execution Dock, where pirates were hanged at low tide so the incoming water could wash away their sins. Capt Kidd met his end here in 1701, a detail that the local pub, named after him, displays with cheerful confidence. The sign shows him in a white wig, flanked by illustrations of maritime violence. The river police, the world’s oldest organised force of its kind, began here in 1798 to deal with the endless theft that accompanied the port trade. Smuggling was common, wages were low and temptation immediate. The Thames does not encourage purity of behaviour.

As the dock economy collapsed in the 1960s, Wapping suffered deeply. Jobs vanished, buildings emptied and the district hollowed out. The 1980s brought warehouse conversions and an influx of residents seeking the charm of dockland living. Then came the Murdoch print dispute of 1986, which brought the area to national attention as industrial conflict once more took hold of it. The grit of its heyday remains, lingering among the quiet and contemplative streets.

As in St Katharine Docks, the line between original buildings and their more polished, reconstructed cousins is not always obvious. Yet such is the fate of many cities that outlive their industries: history congeals into atmosphere rather than presence. A walk through these districts reveals a truth about the city. St Katharine Docks presents its best behaviour to visitors. Wapping shows history without apology. One is curated, the other lived. Both are honest in different ways.

At one point during our walk, I thought of J. M. W. Turner — perhaps prompted by the greyness of the Thames or a slant of the autumn light that seemed to struggle with itself. The artist’s ability to paint luminosity from murk is rightly celebrated; poorly acknowledged, however, is his fascination with the body as much as the horizon. He understood that the line between beauty and decay is thin and that both are shaped by tide and time. Wapping, with its mixture of surviving brick, converted warehouses and illicit memory, would likely have amused him.

One suspects he would have found the marina at St Katharine Docks less compelling: too tidy, cautious and determined to behave. Turner enjoyed scenes where the river’s honesty exposed the absurdities of civilisation. He likely would have recognised the beauty in buildings that do not care whether we admire them. Many of Wapping’s structures are blessed with such indifference: they were not designed to please, but to work. Where Italy, my country of origin, builds outward and presents its beauty to the world, London builds inward, hiding it in function.

As we returned to the starting point, I found myself thinking about the river’s effect on time. The tide hides the past twice a day and reveals it again without ceremony. The docks rise, fall, dry and irrigate themselves without care for interpretation. What survives are not the buildings, but the rhythm. Londoners adapt, plan, redevelop and argue. The Thames is a silent witness. Between the marina and the river lies a conversation about memory. One side edits it; the other lets it linger. Somewhere in the middle walks the observer, trying to decide whether the past is best preserved by polish or stubborn endurance.

This article first appeared in the September 2 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.

Would you buy a house just because you fell in love with its Aga?

It sounds far-fetched, but then again Aga devotees are numerous, and include the likes of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver and, of course, Dame Mary Berry, who told Country Life a few years ago that her Aga is 'the heart of the kitchen. I love the warmth and the wonderful welcome. If I had to live without one, I’d loathe it.'

Another superfan is former event rider Lou Swallow, owner of The Moat House, who first set eyes on her dream Aga — a biscuit-cream model — back in 1998.

It was a model that had seen better days and needed some tender loving care, but that was only the start of issues. The Aga sat in a kitchen that periodically flooded when it rained, and was surrounded by a house that was in a semi-derelict state.

Fast forward almost three decades and both the kitchen and the Aga are now immaculate, and for sale at £3 million — but it's taken a lot of work to get to that point. ‘Slowly and gradually Lou renovated the house, but immediately lavished love on the four-oven, coal-fed Aga that is believed to have been in the house since 1940,’ says Lisa Proffitt of the agents Michael Graham.

The Aga has since been converted to gas, thankfully, and despite almost 30 years of living with it, Swallow admits that she has no idea of the temperature and has ‘learned to roll with it... the Aga is very much in charge’.

Just as well, then, that the rest of the house is just as beautiful as its characterful cooker.

Grade II-listed and built on an L-shaped plan, this 18th-century home in Sharnbrook, eight miles from Bedford, has six reception rooms, seven double bedrooms.

There are also glorious gardens, tennis court, three stables and a paddock, as well as various other outbuildings and spaces amid the four acres of land.

The Moat House is for sale through Michael Graham — see more details.

Earlier this year, a single Pokémon card, specifically a Pikachu Illustrator, set a new Guinness World Record when it sold in the US for $16.5 million, about £12 million. The buyer was a young venture capitalist, A. J. Scaramucci, who declared that this marked the start of ‘a planetary treasure hunt’, with a Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil and a Declaration of Independence manuscript next on his list. He has since bought, for $2 million (about £1.5 million), the Marvel comic in which Iron Man first appeared.

With his Treasure Trove, a venture specialising in ‘alternative assets’, Scaramucci may be more voracious than most, but his approach to collecting is emblematic of our times. According to reports from Sotheby’s and Christie’s, 21st-century collectors look beyond art (although Impressionist and Modern painters are increasingly on their radar) to Hermès bags, fine wine, jewellery and watches (for the latter, one-third of the bidders at Sotheby’s are under the age of 45).

Some purists may sneer at this magpie penchant, yet is it so different from the past? In the 17th century, John Tradescant the Elder and his son, the Younger, embarked on ‘a planetary treasure hunt’ when they scoured the world looking for the plants, seashells, coins, weapons and stuffed dodo they gathered into their Ark, eventually the basis of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum.

Victorian translator and businesswoman Lady Charlotte Schreiber was as devoted to collecting fans, board games and playing cards — surely the Pokémon of her time — as to ceramics. Later Victorians were no less eclectic, gathering butterflies and zebras (Walter, 2nd Baron Rothschild) or Egyptian antiquities and medical memorabilia (Henry Wellcome).

With a sense of curiosity and wonder, trends and nostalgia remain powerful collecting drivers, even if we’ve traded 1980s vinyls for the relics of a vanished Scotland with which Sir Walter Scott filled Abbotsford. The 17th century had Tulipmania, the Victorians the fern craze; we have trainers and Labubu toys.

Yet collectors now have an additional spur. In an increasingly digital and uniform world, we hunger for the tangible and unique — none more so than the youngest generations. According to a survey this year by insurers NFU Mutual, an extraordinary 71% of Gen Z call themselves collectors. Whether they seek Monets or trading cards, first-edition books or comics, their passion can only be a good thing and, with the curiosities of one age often becoming the treasures of another, it would be a rash curator who wagered against Pikachu joining Lady Charlotte’s cards in the British Museum.

This feature originally appeared in the October 7, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Cool Britannia ruled the airwaves (and the column inches) in the 1990s.

As the last decade of the 20th century dawned, the country, poised between a gritty past and the promise and fears of the new millennium, emerged triumphant to lead the world in art, design, fashion, music and pop culture, as a forthcoming Tate Britain exhibition, ‘The 90s; Art and Fashion’ reveals.

The creative energy that coursed through Britain in those years had many facets and faces. Here are some of my favourite moments that I believe best demonstrate this, from the show and beyond:

1. The supermodels When British Vogue asked Peter Lindbergh to photograph the woman of the 1990s, he couldn’t settle on one and chose five: models Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz and Christy Turlington. That January 1990 cover sanctioned their global fame, crystallising the era of the supermodel. Then, three years later, a waifish British girl appeared on a Calvin Klein advertisement and defined a new beauty ideal, in contrast to the polished glamour of the previous decade. With her undone, ‘heroin chic’ look, Kate Moss became, perhaps more than any other, the face of the 1990s
2. Sir Steve McQueen In his 1993 silent film, Bear, a faceoff between two men that has both erotic and aggressive undertones, the video artist and film director put the spotlight on the left behind, those that were seemingly not part of the Cool Britannia wave, but who in that decade eventually found some visibility through the work of Sir Steve and others such as Chris Ofili and Keith Piper

3. Lee Alexander McQueen: Nothing sent a clearer signal about Britain’s creative eminence than the country’s most rebellious, provocative, avant-garde designer taking the helm at a historic French couture house, Givenchy, in 1996

4. The YBAs When the Royal Academy staged an exhibition of more than 100 pieces from Charles Saatchi’s contemporary-art collection in 1997, it caused a stir. There was blood, graphic nudity, even a portrait of murderer Myra Hindley — and picket lines of vocal protesters outside Burlington House. Yet, the Young British Artists featured in that show, whether Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin or Jenny Saville, would go on to dominate the international art scene

5. Geri Halliwell In the decade of club culture and Britpop, the Spice Girl singer encapsulated the spirit of the times when she turned up at the 1997 Brit Award in a Union Flag mini dress. A year later, the frock — a homemade affair, as Halliwell and her sister had stitched a Union Flag teatowel on a black Gucci garment — would become the most expensive pop-star outfit sold at auction, although the record has since been topped

‘The 90s; Art and Fashion’ is at Tate Britain, London, from October 8–February 14, 2027.

The Country Life Quiz is published every weekday at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up on previous editions, here.

When Clive Aslet, former Editor of Country Life, wrote a book called The Last Country Houses in 1982, the future of the English country house looked bleak. It had been eight years since the landmark exhibition at the V&A Museum, ‘The Destruction of the Country House’, which had told the stories of many houses lost to fire, neglect and the wrecking ball. It was a time when a resurgence of the English country-house tradition would have been unthinkable.

It was a couple of years later, in 1984, that John Martin Robinson brought out a book called The Latest Country Houses, covering the period since the end of the Second World War. By then, there were enough green shoots to suggest that the English country house was not dead and buried after all, with the latest examples suggesting the start of a new revival. More recent books on the subject, such as Alan Powers’s The Twentieth Century House in Britain (2004) and David Watkin’s The Classical Country House (2010), both illustrated with photographs from the Country Life archive, have concluded with chapters on new country houses, showing that their spirit is now alive and well in the 21st century.

Yet, despite the impressive number built in the past 40 years, there remains a certain nervousness around the building of new country houses. It is something to do with old-fashioned English taste that has always been suspicious of anything that looks too new. I even feel it myself, loving the worn, lived-in look that is so indelibly associated with the English style of decoration. Surely, one of the things that makes country houses so lovely is their patina of age.

Another question that often comes up is why build a new house when there are so many lovely old buildings in need of restoration? Without passionate owners to love and care for these houses, what future do they have? Again, I find myself agreeing with this and, indeed, much of my work as an architect has involved breathing new life into homes through gentle re-ordering and sensitive repair.

All of this may make it surprising that the main focus of my architectural career to date has been in designing new country houses. To some extent, this has been inherited; my grandfather was the architect Raymond Erith (1904–73), who worked on many country houses, both old and new, in the post-war years. His career was unusual in that he had rejected the Modern Movement and practiced traditional architecture at a time when this was very unfashionable. In 1962, he had taken on a pupil, Quinlan Terry, and, in time, they formed the partnership Erith and Terry Architects. After my grandfather’s death, Terry continued the practice and by the mid 1980s had become the foremost country-house architect working in Britain.

After studying architecture in Edinburgh, I joined the Erith and Terry office in the mid 1990s, by which time the practice was working on projects all over Britain and also abroad. Country houses were at the core of everything, employing a language of traditional detail and construction that had been refined over many years since my grandfather’s days. Having spent seven years training in this office, in 2003 I left to join Adam Architecture, becoming a director the following year and gradually starting to build up a portfolio of my own. Since then, over the past 20 years, it has included many country houses.

What, then, has been the motivation of my clients who have chosen to commission new country houses? What has tipped the balance for them away from a restoration project and towards the seemingly daunting prospect of starting from scratch? The reasons are not universal, but, over the years, I have seen that there are definitely a few common trends.

Firstly, the owners might have a connection or fondness for a particular site. We are currently building a house in a valley where one of my clients used to play as a child and realised it was their favourite place on earth and, in another case, we built a new house next door to where the owner’s mother lived so that they could be close at hand. Sites with strong personal connections such as these are irreplaceable and signify a family finding its place in the world and committing to the long-term management of the surrounding land.

Next, I often find that clients have lived at different times in old houses and, as much as they may have loved them, they realise how inflexible they can be. The nicest houses will be listed, at the very least at Grade II, but possibly at Grade II* or Grade I. This means that any alterations need to be approved by a conservation officer and, at the higher designation, also by an inspector from Historic England. Anyone with experience of going through this process will know that it can be incredibly frustrating and inconsistent. Something as apparently straightforward as moving a kitchen from a draughty wing into one of the larger rooms with a higher ceiling and a better view can be a major battle.

Similarly, it can be a tussle to put bathrooms into a house where there are not nearly enough to go around or even remove indifferent Victorian or Edwardian extensions that spoil the outside. ‘These are an important part of the social history of the house,’ says the conservation officer, apparently blind to their ugliness. There are no such problems with a new house, where the layout can be planned around modern living with the kitchen at its heart and as many bathrooms as bedrooms.

Then there is the question of running costs. An old house with single-glazed windows and solid walls is likely to come with an astronomical heating bill. Upgrading insulation, even if desirable, may be resisted by a conservation officer and will involve a significant cost. The same goes for the fuel source: out goes the old oil tank and in comes the new geothermal heating system, all a big step forward, but with a massive price tag attached. Halfway through a restoration project, the realisation begins to sink in: old houses are unpredictable money pits. On the subject of cost, too, everything that forms part of the restoration will be subject to VAT. The costs of building a new house, by contrast, are VAT exempt.

When you put all these factors together, the appetite for restoring an old house can start to dissipate and the benefits of a new one take on a sharper focus. The last piece of the jigsaw puzzle is to find someone to design it: the one thing you definitely don’t want is for a new house to look not quite right when it is finished. This was more difficult in, say, the 1960s, when architects had turned their backs on the past and there was a wilful desire to reject traditional forms, no matter how attractive they might be, but there are now quite a few architects with the training and experience to design country houses to a high standard.

Once the decision to build a new home has been made, a world of possibilities opens up about its design. Some of my clients have brought with them a lifelong interest in architecture and have very definite views about styles, perhaps even down to having a favourite decade of the 18th century. Others are keen to explore a range of options and to be guided along the way, when a key part of the design process is for us to go and look at other houses that might serve as inspiration. Little by little, the design starts to take on a character all of its own, shaped by the site and by the owners’ requirements and taste. When approached with care in every detail, there is no reason why a new house, given a bit of time, should not look every bit as good as the old houses that we all admire.

This is the key thing: the importance of time. I would be the first to admit that a brand-new country house, when first completed, is likely to look much too new. Clients over the years have asked my advice: should we smear manure or yoghurt over the brickwork to accelerate the weathering process or choose a more faded colour palette for the paintwork? My advice is always the same: have patience.

The great thing about new traditional buildings is that, although they might look uncomfortably new at first, it will not be long before the effects of weather start to show. Within a year or two, a stone or brick house will have begun to soften and, as the plants flesh out in the flowerbeds around the house and trees begin to grow, the appearance of newness will start to fade. Within five years, the more exposed parts of the house — the roof, chimneys and hard landscaping — will no longer look new at all and within 10 years the house will be entirely established within its landscape. It continues to improve and, in only 20 years, you would not even know that it was a recently built structure.

About 10 years ago, I made this point in a talk to a group of students and concluded that traditional architects really ought to wait a few years before photographing and publishing their work. A new house will look so much better, I said, if you leave a bit of time for it to bed in. Then, a couple of years ago, I was approached by a commissioning editor, Philip Reeser, about writing a book on country houses and realised that this was the opportunity for which I had been waiting. Happily, the owners all agreed to me doing it and, with the architectural photographer Peter Dixon, I spent a few weeks last year taking new photographs of 12 different houses. Without exception, the owners were extremely welcoming; indeed, it has been wonderful how many of my former clients are now counted as friends. Meanwhile, I wrote down my thoughts on the design of each house, all of which have now made it into the book as a guide to anyone contemplating a similar journey.

Ultimately, the building of new country houses is a statement of confidence: of putting down roots for this and future generations, investing in building well, not needing to follow the latest trends and being safe in the knowledge that time will take care of the rest. It is, of course, also a creative endeavour: since time immemorial, building has been a way to leave one’s mark on the world. For most clients, it is immensely enjoyable to work not only with an architect, but also a landscape designer and an interior decorator, collaborating with the common goal of making something as beautiful as possible. For me, it has been hugely rewarding not only to be so involved in the design and construction of new country houses, but to see over many years how they take their place in a tradition that stretches back deep in time and will, I hope, also have a long future.

‘The Romance of Classicism’ by George Saumarez Smith is published by Rizzoli (£47.95).

This feature originally appeared in the September 9, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The Love Language of Flowers jewellery collection by Cece Jewellery transforms the forgotten tradition of floriography into wearable art.

For the uninitiated (and the unromantic among you), floriography is the language of flowers — the act of assigning particular meanings, emotions or messages to different flowers. The word itself comes from 'flori', meaning 'flower', and '-ography', meaning 'writing'.

It became especially fashionable in Victorian Britain, when flowers were used to communicate sentiments that might have been considered too intimate or improper to say out loud. A bouquet could therefore function like a coded letter.

However, the Victorians did not invent the tradition; instead they inherited and enthusiastically expanded it from the French. The pivotal publication was Le langage des fleurs, published in Paris in 1819, under the pseudonym Charlotte de La Tour. The RHS describes it as the first popular book on the subject.

Spanning charms, pendants, necklaces and rings, Cece Jewellery has brought delicate blooms to life with hand-painted champlevé enamel, intricate hand-engraving and diamonds set in 18-carat gold.

Flowers include roses for love, irises representing courage, wild daisies for freedom and wisteria conveying wisdom, each once a declaration of sentiment or celebration of character — although nobody will blame you for gifting or sporting them all.

Jewellery from £2,400. Visit the Cece Jewellery website for more information.

Nicholas Leke, the fourth and last Earl of Scarsdale (c. 1682-1736), led a reasonably blessed life. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Derby, and as an envoy to Vienna. And, in 1707, he inherited some land after his elder brother died without issue.

By 1724, he'd tired of the house sitting on it and, wanting to leave a lasting impression on his ancestral plot, decided to build something better. It was said that he asked for something grander and ever more impressive than Chatsworth.

The 4th Earl commissioned Francis Smith of Warwick — who designed nearby Derby Cathedral — to build this new mansion. Sutton Scarsdale Hall.

The resulting structure was definitely imposing. Standing three stories high and nine bays wide, it loomed large over the land from a lofty ridge. Constructed from biscuit-coloured ashlar from Rang Quarry, a mile away, it featured work by some of the era's most refined craftspeople.

These included master carver Edward Poynton of Nottingham, who dressed the stonework with exquisitely hand-carved pillars and pilasters, topped with fine Corinthian capitals. And artists Albert Artari and Francesco Vassalli from Italy, who laboured over the fine stucco work in many of the rooms, including the grand entrance hall. 

Needless to say, this all came at a cost and the extravagance was said to have inspired William Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress. When the Earl died in 1736, aged just 53, he left behind no heir and a mountain of unpaid debts. 

The house was sold off and changed hands numerous times in the following centuries, eventually landing in the hands of Richard Arkwright, the son of Sir Richard Arkwright, inventor of the Spinning Jenny, in 1820. It still belonged to the Arkwright family when Country Life was invited to visit in 1918.

The ensuing article, published a year later, did not mention any problems, but it is clear from the photographs — reproduced here — that something was amiss. Hardly any photographs of the interiors were taken and, in those that were, there are just a few pieces of oddly-placed furniture. In photographs of the outside, the lawn and beds look unkempt. The photographer, out of choice or under instruction, also went to great lengths to conceal the fact that the gardens no longer overlooked peaceful green fields. Sutton Scarsdale Hall was now surrounded by coal fields.

In June of that same year, the preliminary notice of the sale of the whole estate was announced in the press. By October, the 70-house village, the Arkwright Arms pub and more than 340 acres of land (not including mineral rights) had been auctioned off. The hall was sold afterwards to a consortium of local businessmen.

This group wasted no time in calling in the asset strippers. If something could be sold, it was — even the roof, which left Artari and Vassalli’s presumably unsalvageable, exquisite work exposed to the elements.

In 1946, Sir Osbert Sitwell, a local landowner, purchased the decaying remains to stop them from being entirely demolished. They were duly awarded Grade-I listing in 1951. Sir Osbert, realising the enormity of the cost of preservation, then gifted the hall to the Ministry of Public, Building and Works (now English Heritage). 

In 1970, a second article by Country Life helped to publicise the hall's plight and secure some much-needed funding.

It is still possible to visit the bones of Sutton Scarsdale. The once crumbling walls are now safe, but the roof and windows have never been replaced. It's also possible to visit parts of the hall in a less exposed setting. Sections of three of the principle rooms are on permanent display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and a fourth, pine-panelled one lives in its entirety in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Originally acquired by notorious newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, it then sold to a Hollywood production company — who used it as a backdrop in Kitty — before making its way into the Huntington’s collection.

The Country Life Image Archive contains more than 150,000 images documenting British culture and heritage, from 1897 to the present day. To search and purchase images directly from the Image Archive, please register here.

‘We need to get rid of the sheep,’ says Derek Gow as he shepherds his flock into a truck, never to be heard of again. Thus goes our first encounter with the farmer and rewilding enthusiast in James Dawson’s documentary Derek vs Derek, which lands in cinemas on Friday.

The film pits the farmer against his neighbour, Derek Banbury, a follower of the old church who worships livestock and neatly trimmed hedges. Gow, for his part, prefers the chaos of the natural world — and sheep are the enemy. ‘They eat everything right down to the root,’ he says. Must they go so nature can flourish?

It is a fair question. Dawson’s film reveals that Gow’s rewilded land continues to flourish even in the summer. The neighbouring land does not. As the heatwave rages on, it turns arid and grey. Is it fair, however, to point the blame at sheep? Although their narrow mouths and split upper lips can certainly make meat of grasslands, the right rotational management can ensure, conversely, that wildflowers flourish. Like Banbury’s farm, it is a grey area.

So, too, is rewilding. Not all initiatives have led to bountiful growth; some, in fact, have been blamed for August’s wildfires due to increased fuel loads. Yet the sheep remains a scapegoat. Wool, too, is facing renewed scrutiny from activists, who crashed several shows at London Fashion Week brandishing placards attacking the sector. In our ecologically critical era, it beggars belief that anyone would chastise the cultivators of a natural material over those who produce synthetic fibres such as nylon and polyester. Yet here we are.

Elsewhere, some sense prevails. Connolly, a leather-goods brand in Mayfair, has doubled down on its support of local wool manufacturers via its Knitwise initiative launched in 2019 with The King’s Foundation. Makers have been commissioned to create knitted artworks for the 2026 collection, which will be launched on October 7 and is inspired by the rare breeds of Dumfries House in Ayrshire, where Shetland, Boreray and Castlemilk Moorit sheep roam the open pastures. Winemakers, polishing off this year’s harvest, have found in Babydoll Southdowns — a miniature English breed — and their French cousins, Ouessants, organic landscapers of the highest order; which, unable to reach the fruit of the vine, munch instead on the weeds that might corrode it.

Clearly, getting rid of sheep for nature’s sake is not so cut and dried.

Derek Vs Derek (Dartmouth Films) is out in cinemas now.

This feature originally appeared in the September 30, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

'There are 191 turns in eight miles,’ says the woman, who smiles as she warns of the Oatman Highway just up the road. She is a clerk in Cool Springs Station, the last roadside stop before this treacherous part of Route 66 in north-west Arizona. ‘Just stick to the speed limit and there’s nothing to worry about.’ She knows the face of a concerned traveller when she sees one.

I’m right to be worried. Dangerous Roads, a website dedicated to highlighting the world’s most difficult routes, describes it as having ‘very few guardrails giving you no leeway for error’. It is, indeed, technical, with steep drops that will put the fear in your passenger if they peer out of the window.

And it’s high — the summit of Sitgreaves Pass topping out at 3,595 feet above sea level. Those brave enough to drive it will be rewarded with a visit to the Gold Rush town of Oatman itself located after the summit. They can also brag that they’ve driven one of the oldest stretches of Route 66.

The Oatman Highway is very different from much of Route 66, which once followed a broadly diagonal line of tarmac from Chicago all the way to Los Angeles, California. It was intended to make cross-country travel easier, as well as boosting the income of the small towns it severed. The route was decommissioned nearly 40 years ago in 1985 and celebrates its centenary in November 11, 2026, so what does ‘the Main Street of America’ look like today?

Cyrus Stevens Avery (1871–1963) is widely considered the ‘Father of Route 66’. Settling in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he was an early advocate of the highway and lobbied to bring well-maintained roads to his home state. Following the First World War, the USA quickly modernised and the idea of a national highway system first percolated in the 1920s.

Avery, who was behind the movement, was particularly passionate about a transcontinental route from Chicago to the Pacific Coast. He even coined the catchy ‘66’ moniker and it stuck, despite Highway official’s attempts to push ‘60’ or ‘62’. On November 11, 1926, Route 66 was officially commissioned.

America has of course changed drastically since. Many of the small towns along the route have flourished, others have suffered ever since the Route’s decommissioning in the 1980s.

I joined the road in Flagstaff, Arizona, first flying into Phoenix and then staying at The Fairmont Scottsdale — a 2½ hour drive south of Flagstaff. It’s necessary to stop before you’ve even started — to adjust to both the new time zone and to the intense, dry heat.

It’s impossible to drive north and meet Route 66 without a stop in Sedona. The city is home to two state parks and surrounded by Mars-like red rock formations and vibrant green foliage. If you want to stop (again), try Enchantment Resort, in the heart of Boynton Canyon. The ideal base for exploring what are some of the America's most beautiful landscapes.

After all this overwhelming beauty, you might feel somewhat underwhelmed by Flagstaff itself, but there is plenty to see from the Romanesque Revival architecture in its historic downtown district to the many weathered motel signs that hint at the town’s past. One of the best is the Western Hills Motel sign from 1950, which still lights up defiantly at night.

In 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, Route 66 was described as ‘continuously paved’. It was good timing not only for the war effort, but for the thousands who were forced to flee west from the severe dust storms and periods of drought that became known as the Dust Bowl (1934–40) — one of the worst human-made ecological disasters in history.

The motor hotels, or motels, built along the road’s edge before the war were joined by hundreds of new ones in the late 1940s and 1950s, owners keen to draw in motorists with increasingly elaborate designs and bigger and brighter neon signs.

Streamline Moderne architecture was a popular choice and saw motels and cafés built to look like boats, cars — and even toasters. Mexican restaurants marketed themselves with giant sombrero hats, leaving little doubt of the cuisine served inside, and Native American-appropriated wigwams popped up outside convenience stores and diners. Fiberglass ‘muffler men’ loomed 25-foot-tall, advertising garages.

In 1950, more than 6,500,000 new cars were sold in the USA. Five years later, the number rose to 8,000,000. This boom, together with the excessive wartime use, signalled the end of Route 66. Much of the tarmac laid 20 or so years before was cracked and now undrivable and the road’s narrow widths weren’t designed for modern, larger cars.

It was the introduction of modern, multi-lane highways that put the final nail in the coffin. After returning from Germany, President Eisenhower, impressed by Adolf Hitler’s autobahn, quickly devised a complete overhaul of the country’s highway system and, over the next two decades, the majority of 66 was paved over or completely bypassed.

This makes driving the Route today challenging. It’s not until you get to Seligman — a small town that has one of the best collections of original 66 architecture, dating from the early 1900s — that the clocks feel as if they’ve truly turned back. Seligman is also the place that, in 1987, convinced the state of Arizona to designate the stretch from Seligman to Kingman ‘Historic Route 66’. This inspired the seven other states along the Route to do the same and, seven years later, the National Historic Route 66 Federation was founded — a group that’s busy preserving and restoring what is left.

The 100, unbroken miles Kingman takes in the run-down Historic Trading Post of Peach Springs, Hackberry General Store, the eccentric Antares Point Visitor Centre and Mike’s Outpost Saloon — all the while traversing dusty desert vistas often devoid of all other traffic. In Kingman, enjoy a home-cooked meal of pork chops ‘Florentine’ in a roadside diner before going one of two ways: California or, via Oatman and its tricky roads, Las Vegas.

Sin City was never on Route 66, but those travelling west today rarely miss it. The city is an acquired taste, but its bright lights and kitsch needs to be experienced at least once. It’s all laid out in front of me from the comfort of my air-conditioned room on the 36th floor of Fontainebleau, the Strip’s newest hotel. Better still is the hotel’s spa — every driver needs a massage to relax the shoulders — and its restaurants. Don’s Prime is a must for steak; La Fontaine’s breakfast will set you up for the day’s adventures.

It dawns on me that, although fractured, Route 66 still serves part of its original purpose. It will get you, broadly, from one side of the country to the other, but its beauty stems from the fact that you should, and often have to, leave it, to take in a landmark or a town and then rejoin it. Today’s Route 66 isn’t a strict path, it’s a guide that passes by some of the US’s greatest sights.

The final descent into the clutches of the Pacific takes me through Roy’s Motel & Café, Amboy — which is slowly being restored to former glory — to Barstow and to the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino. From there it’s a straight line to Santa Monica, where the route officially finishes. I celebrate in the Pendry West Hollywood with palm tree-skimming, hazy views of Downtown LA.

The vast, urban sprawl is a world away from the twisty trials of Oatman and it must have been as overwhelming back then as it is right now.

Elegant Resorts can organised a 12-night itinerary from £3,949 per person with nights at the hotels above, plus The View Hotel in Monument Valley, Arizona, and Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica.

The price also includes return flights with American Airlines, UK lounge access and car hire.

Although Domenico Scarlatti’s cat Pulcinella evidently played its part in the creation of the Italian composer’s Sonata in G Minor, and Michael Jackson’s cloying 1972 hit Ben is about a boy’s friendship with a rat, nothing quite inspires songwriters and composers like a loving hound.

‘There’s something about dogs’ energy, their soul and their sheer joy in life that is inspiring to us all,’ enthuses Charlotte Hawkins, presenter of Classic FM’s Pet Classics and Dogs Trust ambassador. ‘I have a vision of artists and composers sitting at their keyboards waiting for inspiration to strike, looking fondly at their hounds and the magic happening. There are so many pieces of music that might not exist if it weren’t for our four-legged friends.’

One of Hawkins’s favourite dog-inspired compositions is Frédéric Chopin’s Minute Waltz, she continues: ‘It reminds me of my dog Moose, my seven-month-old Dogs Trust rescue. He’s still in his playful phase and spends a lot of his time zooming around.’ The canine that inspired the Polish composer’s famous melody was Marquis, who belonged to his girlfriend, French novelist George Sand. Soft, white and fluffy, Marquis was, the pianist noted, ‘as intelligent as can be’.

In 1845, Sand — mindful of the way her boyfriend doted on Marquis — commented: ‘If I had your talent, I’d write a piece to music about that dog.’ Rising to the challenge, the composer did just that. His Waltz No. 6 in D Flat Major (Op. 64 No. 1), is a three-quarter-time canter that mimics the frenzy of Marquis chasing his tail. Sadly, by the time the composition (sometimes called Valse du Petit Chien) was published, the couple had gone through an acrimonious parting. Chopin never saw Marquis again.

Heartbreak also attaches itself to Sir Edward Elgar’s beloved Cairn terrier, the subject of his 1933 piece Mina. Dogs became the focus of the composer’s life after the death of his wife, Alice, and Mina mixes the playful use of glockenspiel and clarinets with a melody that hints at loss and melancholy. Much jollier is Elgar’s Variation XI from the ‘Enigma Variations’. The composition was inspired by a comical misadventure of a bulldog named Dan, owned by George Robertson Sinclair, the organist at Hereford Cathedral.

The two friends were walking along the bank of the River Wye one afternoon when Dan tumbled in and paddled frantically upstream before hauling himself triumphantly up a grassy bank to safety. A sandstone statue of the unintentionally inspirational Dan (above) was unveiled at the scene of the incident in 2025.

Another musical dog with a taste for misadventure was American composer George Gershwin’s wire-haired terrier, Tony. Bought in 1929, the mischievous little chap quickly became a feature of the New York newspapers thanks to his frequent disappearances from the family home on West 103rd Street. Whether escaped, misplaced or — occasionally — dognapped, Tony somehow always made it back eventually.

In 1936, the terrier travelled overland in a car driven by the composer’s butler to join his master in Hollywood, California. Predictably, drama ensued. Tony became so ill he had to spend a week recuperating en route. Shortly after his pooch’s arrival in Beverley Hills, Gershwin composed Walking the Dog as a number for the 1937 film Shall We Dance?. The music accompanies a scene in which Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers walk their dogs on the deck of a luxury liner. Had Tony been involved, it seems certain lifeboats would have needed to be launched.

On October 3, 1945, a 10-year-old boy in a cowboy outfit clambered onto stage at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair. Barely tall enough to reach the microphone, he crooned Old Shep, a tear-jerking ballad about the demise of a beloved pet dog. Dabbing at their eyes, the judges of the talent show awarded the lad fifth prize and wondered, perhaps, if they’d ever hear of him again. They did, of course, because the youngster in the Stetson singing of canine devotion was none other than a young Elvis Presley.

Old Shep was his mother’s favourite tune and was the first song that the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll sang in public. Written in 1933 by country-music star Red Foley, the song tells the tale of the friendship between a boy and his dog that ends, as these things all too sadly do, with the faithful companion growing old and sick before going to the place ‘where all the good doggies go’. The story of the dog that inspired the ditty, Foley’s childhood pet, Hoover, was even sadder — a vengeful neighbour poisoned him.

Tears tend to fall as regularly as Lakeland rain when dogs turn up in country-and- western songs. A mongrel stray, which befriended a young Dolly Parton and helped her negotiate a bleak childhood, is the subject of her song Cracker Jack. Parton described Cracker Jack as ‘the best friend I ever had… he was a playmate, a companion/He was love and understanding’. Steadfast to the end, this brave fellow reportedly died after a fight with a rattlesnake.

Although many pop songs include the word ‘dog’, or variations, in the title, most are not actually about dogs at all (Hound Dog, for example, is about a feckless lover, whereas Rufus Thomas’s Walking the Dog —covered in 1964 by the Rolling Stones — is a dance). However, real-life canines do make an occasional appearance.

The love life of Sir Paul McCartney’s labrador retriever inspired the Wings hit Jet and, in 1965, he paid 10 guineas for an Old English sheepdog puppy he described as ‘a huge tangled ball of wool’. She’d eventually become the inspiration for the song Martha My Dear on The Beatles’ White Album. The title of the track could have been rather different — he originally intended to name his dog ‘Knickers’. Although Martha, like poor Hoover, played her part in inspiring pop music, she didn’t actually perform any.

This was not true of the dog that has strong claim to being history’s most rock ‘n’ roll canine, Seamus, a Border collie belonging to Steve Marriott, frontman of The Small Faces. Seamus provided what we might call ‘backing barks’ on the band’s 1969 hit The Universal. He was not destined to stay in the background for long, however. When Seamus’s owner went off to tour the US, his care was entrusted to David Gilmour, lead guitarist of Pink Floyd. To his delight, Gilmour discovered that when he played blues harmonica Seamus would howl along. The result was recorded on the song Seamus — with Seamus himself on lead vocals — which featured on Pink Floyd’s 1971 album Meddle.

Later that year, the group made a concert film and album Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii. Unfortunately, Seamus was unable to tour due to quarantine regulations and his place was taken by Nobs, an elegant Borzoi who was owned by the daughter of an Italian circus director. Critics still argue over which of them nailed the performance more cleanly.

This feature originally appeared in the September 9, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Buckinghamshire — £2,500,000

A house that's 'tucked away in its own private corner of the Chiltern Hills', as the agents put it. Four bedrooms, stables, lawns and paddock are all part of the fun.

For sale via Blue Book — see more details and pictures.

West Sussex — £3,000,000

This beautiful 16th-century farmhouse sits in 29 acres of land in a village not far from Horsham, with easy access to London and the south coast. The main house has five bedrooms, while the cottage — a two-bed conversion created 25 years ago — has two further bedrooms.

For sale via Strutt & Parker — see more details and pictures.

Cheshire — £1,600,000

The Jacobean character of this Grade II*-listed hall shines through, yet this is also a refurbished, cosy family home in two and a half acres of gardens. Six bedrooms, over 7,000sq ft, and wonderful views of open countryside.

For sale via Savills — see more details and pictures.

Hampshire — £4,900,000

A proper castle in miniature, with castellations, leaded windows, huge open fireplaces and wood-panelled walls. This eight-bedroom home has a huge amount of floorspace, a pair of self-contained flats, ten acres of land and easy access to London by road or rail.

For sale via Knight Frank — see more details and pictures.

Bedford — £1,895,000

An unusual prospect in the form of a modern home right across the road from Victorian Park, in the centre of Bedford itself.

The design here is quite extraordinary — it feels more like a high-end boutique hotel than a family home in a market town — but that adds to its charm. Superb links by road, rail and air complete the picture.

For sale via Michael Graham — see more details and pictures.

Warwickshire — £4,500,000

A house with Warwick Castle in the back garden — quite literally — is up for sale. And as if that weren't enough, it's even designed by the great Ben Pentreath himself.

For sale via Fine & Country — see more details and pictures.

Maybe the old veteran shouldn’t have told the 11-year-old Tom Butler: ‘Oy! You shouldn’t be going out there!’ It only provoked him. It led him, ultimately, down the rocky path to the Cribbar.

When a wave the size of a dinosaur rears up out of the water and starts furiously charging towards you, most sensible people evacuate and head for higher ground. Then again, there are some — an elite few wave warriors — who can’t resist the opportunity to shove their heads into the jaws of the beast. Serious surfers like Butler, a Newquay native, wax down their boards and paddle out to meet the challenge. ‘If you’re born here and grow up here,’ he says, ‘the Cribbar is the big one.’

There is one thing that you might care to thank climate change for: the Cribbar is becoming a more frequent visitor to our shores. The ‘Cribbar’, from the Cornish ‘kribow’ meaning ‘reef’, is not so much a part of the landscape, more the occasional, colossal end product of a perfect storm of topography, far-off hurricanes and the jet stream. On calmer, settled days, with children playing on the beach, big waves can seem like a memory, a ghost, possibly a hoax. But then, in the right season, they come roaring back to life, regularly reincarnated. And now, with glaciers in retreat and temperatures rising, the big-wave season is getting longer and more spectacular than ever.

As someone whose biggest wave was, at most 10 feet (and a fair chunk of that surfed upside down), I can’t help but take my hat off to Tom Butler — and feel a degree of justified awe. When I started out, some time in the last millennium, the Cribbar was more myth than monster. The massive wave that breaks off Towan Head (beyond the Headland Hotel) on a submerged pinnacle of rock was once thought to be unsurfable: too huge, too wild, too out of control. According to legend, it was first tamed way back in the 1960s by a crew of migratory Australian lifeguards. But it wasn’t until the early noughties that it landed in the history books. The Cribbar is our Waimea Bay, the closest UK approximation to Hawaii’s classic big-wave arena. Admittedly, a lot colder and greyer with fewer palm trees, but comparable in scale and intensity: a solid 20-feet wave, on its day, with reportedly 30-40-feet faces. It is strictly for battle-hardened surfers used to putting themselves in the way of harm.

Butler is definitely that. He started surfing smaller waves around the age of three. He was tall for his age and as he got bigger, the waves did too. He became British surfing champion. Then, at the age of 16, the day came when he was finally ready to step up and take on the Cribbar. The paddle out on big days is from Little Fistral, hugging the headland that runs out to the Cribbar and using the rip next to the rocks to drag you out. Or if it’s too big for that, you go off the back of the old lifeboat slip behind the building in the car park.

It’s hard to line up the wave because the peak jumps around a lot. Then there is the classic conundrum of how to catch the wave and not get caught by it: too far out and you won’t have a shot; too close and you run the risk of a bunch of extremely heavy slabs of water landing right on your head, sweeping you onto the nearby rocks. But if grace descends and you are fortunate enough to find yourself in just the right position and you paddle like a maniac and leap to your feet and find yourself astride a huge spitting monster of spray and turbulence, riding on a dopamine high, then it feels as if you just won the lottery. Which is what keeps you coming back for more.

After overcoming the Cribbar (and finishing his GCSEs), Butler caught the attention of Quiksilver who became his sponsor and dispatched him on a mission, partly inspired by the film Endless Summer (1966), to Australia, Indonesia, and Hawaii. He went on to carve out a career as a professional big-wave rider. An adept of tow-in (in which you rely on a jetski to slingshot you onto the peak), he has taken on the most ginormous waves on the planet — freaks of nature such as Mullaghmore Head on the west coast of Ireland and Nazaré in Portugal, which has claims to attaining the magical, mysterious height of 100 feet.

But some years ago Butler turned down an invite to the Nazaré Challenge, ‘sick of the politics and the demand to monetise.’ He married, had a son called Ziggy, and now devotes much of his time to Coastal Crusaders, a community interest company which is enabling disabled people, young and old, to go to the beach and get in the water. ‘It gives the wheelchair world access to something extreme,’ he says. ‘Just not at the Cribbar.’

Now 37 and ‘cruising up to middle age’, Butler fondly recalls Cribbar swells of yesteryear. ‘Storm Hercules (2014), that was a big one. But the Covid year — 2020 — it was a spring tide: I’ve never surfed it as big as that.’ However, Butler is far from calling it a day. Big waves are a realm in which age and experience and wisdom count for as much as youthful ambition. ‘The worst thing,’ he says, ‘is to go out there all guns blazing. It’s a head game. I’m not reckless. But, still, you have to be willing to go for it. It’s not a sport where you can just dip your toe in.’

In his lifetime, Butler has seen the wave supercharged by climate change. It used to peter out in February: ‘This year we were still surfing it at 15 feet in April.’ He expects it to make a return appearance some time in September, whipped up by hurricanes in the Caribbean. Like dedicated birdwatchers, you have to be patient for a sighting. To be ready. Butler is lining up his big wave boards in preparation. ‘More people are going out there now,’ he says, ‘but I wouldn’t encourage beginners.’ It’s more frequent, but it’s also more volatile. Having fallen in love with the Cribbar as a child, he describes his attraction to the wave as being like ‘a bad relationship: you commit so much, invest all this time — and then… it smacks you in the face.’

Up close a big wave can look like a mean, ugly, foam-maned leviathan that really wants to take you down with it: from the safety of the shore, it’s like seeing a precarious but majestic mountain, arching up to the sky only to collapse and die and pump out its life-force on the beach — and then be reborn.

Always head to an RNLI Lifeguarded Beach and stay between the black and white chequered flags. Never go out alone; always surf with a friend or let someone on shore know where you are and when you plan to return.

Over the course of last year, a striking new prospect tower appeared in the formal gardens of Doddington Place in Kent. As well as being a delightful new creation, this is a commemorative monument to two brothers, Henry and Christopher Oldfield, who grew up here and both died tragically young. It has been commissioned by their father, Richard Oldfield, who chose the position of the tower at the end of the main garden terrace. From there, it enjoys views both over the formal gardens and the wider landscape as it falls away towards the park. Enclosed by trees on one side, it is slightly masked from the house.

The architect of the tower, Thomas Croft of Thomas Croft Architects, has a family connection with the house, which was rebuilt in its present form after 1862 for his ancestor Sir John Frederick Croft. Sir John also commissioned Markham Nesfield to design new gardens, although it is not clear how fully his surviving plans, dated 1874, were realised. The Croft family sold the estate to Gen and Mrs Douglas Jeffreys, who, in 1909, commissioned the architect J. D. Coleridge to extend both the house and the gardens. Mrs Jeffreys was Mr Oldfield’s great-aunt.

Doddington Place’s gardens are listed Grade II and open to the public. The Oldfields’ brief was that the tower should be in stylistic contrast to the other garden buildings, but visually understated so as not to intrude too aggressively. They also wanted an easy climb for visitors to enjoy the views from the upper floor, as well as a room within the structure, so it could be used as a summerhouse.

These choices suggested a steel-frame structure on a single supporting column. An initial, rejected design was for an ‘inhabited tree’ in steel and glass.

Another element of the brief was that there should be two stairs, which agreed with the demand imposed by building regulations that there should be two means of access to the tower’s viewing platform. The result was a double-helix stair around a central volume, a design that also felicitously expresses in architecture the character of the tower as a memorial for two people. It further echoes their connection as brothers that, as completed, the two stairs rise from two circles of paving, with the central column set in the area where they overlap (Fig 1).

The central column gives the design a clear visual focus and suggests a degree of structural daring as well. It also means the tower is designed to move very slightly — and safely — in strong wind or when people walk up it.

Each of the three tiers of the structure has a different architectural character. At ground level, the impression is of a gazebo embraced by the rising stairs. On the first floor, the central volume of the tower opens out to form the summerhouse. This room is polygonal in plan and enclosed by walls of glass (Fig 2). Doors lead to it from the landings on either side. It has a matching floor and ceiling pattern of panelled oak with a central roundel, the latter forming a shallow, central pendant.

The viewing platform on the top level is open to the elements, but enclosed by a skeletal structure with a pitched crown (Fig 4). This shape was inspired by the eight-sided Tower of the Winds in Athens, Greece, built in the 1st century AD. It was first made familiar to British audiences through the engravings published by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett in The Antiquities of Athens (1762) and has been widely copied in the design of garden buildings. Rising through it is a central flagpole that continues the line of the central supporting column below.

The double-helix design means the tower reads in different ways, depending on the viewpoint. After some discussion, the decision was taken to orient it so that it appears symmetrical when viewed from along the terrace (Fig 3). This arrangement also serves to reduce its visual impact. It was with the same purpose in mind that the frame of the stair rails is infilled with a fine steel mesh rather than multiple spindles. Another point of debate was the colour of the main structural members and a two-tone scheme was considered. In the end, however, the tower was painted brick red, a colour that sits comfortably with the surrounding foliage and also references the materials of the main house.

The local authority, Swale Council, enthusiastically embraced the idea of the tower. The structural engineer was Michael Coombs, who has recently retired as a managing partner at Alan Baxter Associates, and it was manufactured by Littlehampton Welding. The whole was prefabricated and shipped to the site for erection. Now it is completed, Mr Croft sees echoes of other buildings, including the astonishing Monument to the Third International of 1919–20 designed for Petrograd (St Petersburg) by Russian architect Vladimir Tatlin. This vast and unrealised building was intended to incorporate glazed rooms that rotated at different speeds.

The new tower is a magnificent addition to what is already a delightful and varied garden. It’s also a very unusual structure in that it somehow reveals its interest more from within — when enjoyed as a point of prospect — than from without. In that regard, it inverts the usual character of a memorial.

Rather than draw the visitor in and command their attention, it offers them a platform that dignifies the views outwards into the world. At Doddington Place, that is a world well worth an easy climb.

Doddington Place is open to visitors from Easter to the end of September — see their website for more details.

This feature originally appeared in the September 9, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

'I swear nobody on earth had more homes than Agatha Christie,' read the message from one of my colleagues. The prompt? An email from the agents at Sandfords, who are selling the £1.95 million flat in Swan Court, Chelsea, that was for many years home to the Queen of Crime herself.

I should say 'one of the homes of the Queen of Crime', for — as my colleague alluded to — Christie had many. Most famous and most picturesque of the lot is Greenway, the magnificent country pile sitting on a clifftop in Devon overlooking the River Dart a couple of miles upstream from Dartmouth and the English Channel.

Christie fell in love with the spot (as do many visitors to this part of Devon), calling it 'the loveliest place in the world'. She had grown up nearby, so when it came up for sale in 1937 — through Country Life, naturally — she and her then-husband Max Mallowan bought the place. This historic, 16th-century landmark, once home to Sir Walter Raleigh, became their much-loved base in Devon.

Today, Greenway is in the hands of the National Trust and is a hugely popular place to come and find out more about the best-selling novelist of all time. (Only William Shakespeare and the authors of the Bible have sold more books.)

Yet while Greenway did make its way into Christie's fiction, it was very much the couple's holiday home rather than the place she created her stories. Much of the hard graft was done elsewhere, for Christie worked wherever she happened to be. One of the places where that work happened was Winterbrook House, on the Oxfordshire/Berkshire border in the town of Wallingford, which Christie bought a few years before picking up Greenway.

Winterbrook, like Greenway, was also advertised in Country Life ahead of its sale to Christie and Mallowan; back then it was still in Berkshire rather than Oxfordshire. Wallingford was actually in Berkshire for 1,000 years before the Oxfordshire boundary was redrawn by the Local Government Act 1972.

Christie and Mallowan spent a large chunk of their time at Winterbook, a home which they kept for the rest of their lives, as noted by its blue plaque. Yet it still wasn't really the place that informed and nurtured her stories: as Christie makes fairly clear in her autobiography, she very much considered it Max's house. Mallowan was an archaeologist and historian who'd studied at the University of Oxford, and went on to become a fellow of All Souls College. This made Wallingford, half an hour or so from Oxford, an ideal spot. Unlike Greenway, it's not a tourist destination, but a private home which came on to the market as recently as 2021. Once again, it made an appearance in Country Life at the time.

While several of Christie's books and plays were worked on while she was at Wallingford, it was more a place of pleasant refuge, as historian Judy Dewey writes on agathachristie.com. While at Winterbook she went about her business as Mrs Mallowan, rather than the great crime writer Agatha Christie. She described it as 'a nice place' that had 'a poor railway service and was therefore not at all the sort of place people came to, either from Oxford or from London... we have been very happy here.'

Much of her inspiration came elsewhere, from New York to Istanbul to Iraq to the great country houses of Britain — and of course London, where Christie owned a string of homes, in all sorts of buildings. One was in the Modernism icon that is the Isokon Building in Hampstead, where a flat was sold last year. Even more famous is her house at 58, Sheffield Terrace, Holland Park, where she had a dedicated writing room. It's here that she worked while writing some of her best-known works, including Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile.

Christie seems to have written bits here, there and everywhere. Some claim she wrote Murder on the Orient Express in a house on Campden Street, for example, a place that she apparently owned from 1930 to 1934. Clearing all this up is tricky, and even her autobiography isn't much help — not least because she mixed up several of the addresses and numbers.

Earlier in her life, Christie lived and worked in a house on Northwick Terrace in St John's Wood, and another at Cresswell Place, South Kensington. But many of the houses she bought were purely for fun, for investments, for development and renovation. The author admitted having 'a passion' for property, and referred several times to her 'plutocratic period', during which she bought and sold houses as casually as Premier League footballers buy Italian supercars. It was as close to real-life Monopoly as anything we've ever come across.

The current Agatha Christie flat for sale, 48, Swan Court, is not mentioned in her autobiography — but unlike many of the houses she owned, there's no doubt that she lived and worked there. Funnily enough, the evidence comes from another of her houses: Greenway, where the National Trust have preserved forwarding instructions from Christie to the Royal Mail, giving instructions about sending her post on from Devon to both Winterbrook and Swan Court.

Christie bought the flat in 1948 and is thought to have written Witness for the Prosecution while here, as well as a portion of The Mousetrap. The play first hit the West End in 1951, and is still going today: it holds the record for the longest-running stage production anywhere in the world, and went past 30,000 performances just last year.

What of Swan Court itself? For an author in need of a pied-à-terre it's pretty perfect. Sitting on Chelsea Manor Street, just a few steps from the King's Road, this lovely old Art Deco building is a classic 1930s purpose-built apartment block.

The two-bedroom flat has a simple floorplan: two good-size bedrooms bedrooms, one of which has plenty of storage and an en-suite bathroom, plus a further bathroom, modest kitchen, and a long reception room measuring over 32 foot.

If that sounds big, it's for good reason: this home was originally two flats that were knocked together. The agents haven't been able to ascertain if it was Christie herself who had that work done. It certainly isn't unique: Margaret Thatcher lived in Swan Court in the 1950s (imagine them meeting in the corridors), and that apartment also appears to have had the same treatment.

Both the building and the flat have been very well kept and refurbished over the years: there's a lift, CCTV, 24-hour porter and all the other things you'd expect of a £2 million home in this sought-after postcode, where service charges range from about £5,000 to £10,000 depending on the apartment.

It's a lot of money, of course. Might we suggest writing a few best-selling crime novels to cover the mortgage?

48 Swan Court is for sale through Sandfords — see more details.

Blood, sweat and tears — quite literally —have been poured into my vegetable garden this year, but to no avail. The dry weather has been a disaster and a few furry friends holing up in my raised beds have caused havoc below surface level.

When the hosepipe ban was announced, the prospect of lugging endless watering cans around led to instant surrender. I’ve shrugged off the beetroots, the dwarf beans, the parsnips and countless other failures, but the things that have really upset me are the carrots.

I am normally an expert carrot grower and was hoping during August, when mine tend to be at their best, to emulate a particularly fine carrot dish I had enjoyed a few weeks earlier.

It was one of those hot, balmy July days that is, in the face of our climate crisis, somewhat unfashionable to applaud (although, shamelessly, I have relished every single one) and I found myself, dog in tow, in the tiny, picture-perfect village of Teffont Evias in Wiltshire’s Nadder Valley.

The task in hand was to visit the Teffont House hotel, newly emerged from a major refurbishment and a change of name. Some may remember it as Howard’s House in days gone by.

That clever old Beckford Group, comprised of Dan Brod, Charlie Luxton and Matt Greenlees, is behind Teffont House, bucking the trend of doom and gloom in the hospitality industry by opening not only this property in the past couple of months, but also Corsham House, a wine-led townhouse restaurant with rooms in Corsham in Wiltshire. Its tally of establishments, which includes the much-loved Beckford Arms in Fonthill Gifford, Wiltshire, and The Talbot Inn in Mells, Somerset, is up to nine.

The secret of its success comes down to a few key factors, plus one defining one. In the context of Teffont House, we have the group’s signature lack of pretension, the highly desirable location, the deep understanding of what makes a hotel characterful and comfortable, the appreciation of fresh food, the respect for guests’ wallets in not wanting to rip them off and the total disregard for any Booking.com nonsense or fancy marketing partnerships. The defining factor is the full-throttle Englishness of every pub or hotel or restaurant to which it turns its hands.

The dog likes our dog-friendly room, but, on that hot afternoon, she likes the narrow chalkstream that ripples through the village more. She likes the hotel’s large garden, too. We all do, spread out on parched grass in the shade of a liquidambar tree, cool drinks in hand, wondering how starry the night sky will look when the Cranborne Chase Dark Sky Reserve comes into its own.

Luckily, there are three telescopes and a star chart provided for that, just as there are easels, watercolour sets, pens and paper available for those of an artistic bent. Some guests, quite sensibly, have checked in for a few days.

Now, what of the carrots? I had already spotted them on the menu when I joined some friends on the terrace as they were finishing lunch. One of these friends, who knows a thing or two about restaurants, was full of praise for what he had eaten and was already looking forward to dinner.

Accordingly, we walked awhile along blowsy, heat-baked footpaths — this is marvellous countryside for walking — to work up an appetite for herb-crusted rack of lamb later. On the side of this came Paget’s carrots, whole, tender and delicious, a little bit sweet and a little bit nutty, helped on their way by a dash of elderflower and a sprinkling of roasted hazelnuts.

I have yet to discover who Paget is, but he certainly knows how to grow a good carrot — and the chefs at Teffont House certainly know how to cook them.

This feature originally appeared in the September 2, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

Raymond Blanc is finding being on holiday very strange. He has never had ‘more than 10 days holiday at any time.

‘You have to prepare yourself. I think preparation is the most important part of it, because it’s a big thing,’ he says in his heavy French accent.

Unlike most of us, he has hardly taken any time off since he opened his famous Oxfordshire restaurant, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, A Belmond Hotel. It’s been a huge part of the self-trained chefs life every single day, which is why its recent closure for an 18-month refurbishment has been such a huge adjustment.

‘I’ve spent 41 years creating this extraordinary magic at a beautiful manor house, working five or six days a week, and the suddenly, you know — close,’ the 76-year-old says. He will be retiring from his role as chef-patron at Le Manoir, which held two Michelin stars for more than four decades, staying on in his new role of ‘lifetime ambassador and founder’.

‘At Le Manoir, we have trained more than 50 Michelin star chefs,’ he says. ‘I really prepared myself because I knew, emotionally, it would be difficult, but I made it,’ Raymond adds. ‘If you’re happy, and you can create something beautiful in your life then you’re a lucky person to start with. But then, if you’re able to hand it down to someone who’s going to make it even more beautiful through the years… I count myself as a lucky man.’

He has been spending time with his partner, Natalia Traxel, a doctor and nutritionist, at their flat in the South of France. Despite retiring from his chef role at Le Manoir, Raymond is still keeping busy. He has collaborated with the French bakery chain PAUL on two new limited-edition sandwiches. One contains roast beef with horseradish and celeriac remoulade. The other, creamy brie with caramelised onion chutney and sweet celery shavings. Both sound delicious and much better than the sad supermarket meal deal sandwiches that Raymond still can’t wrap his head around, despite living in the UK for many years now.

‘To be part of that French tradition and excellence… we did something very beautiful,’ he says. He has also been cooking at one-off events at Annabel’s, Royal Ascot and various other events. There is a mention of television work, and various other pursuits. ‘I think I have plenty to do,’ Raymond says, with a smile. ‘I am not very good at saying no, that’s the problem.’

Your aesthetic hero

As a chef, I must say that there are a number of chefs who have inspired me. Mauro Colagreco at Mirazur. I must say, I had an extraordinary experience there. But other chefs such as Andrew Wong, Heston Blumenthal, Luke Selby — and many more — have been very inspiring to me.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I have created, in my flat in the South of France, a huge cabinet of curiosities, eight metres wide. It had to be made three times because the Polish wood that was used is very difficult to paint on. Those poor guys worked for about two years on that. It’s still half empty, but I buy local art to put in it. I recently bought a piece by Antoine Pierini and another by Rene Lalique.

An exhibition that has really impressed you

The Rodin exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2021. I still remember the power of his sculptures, and it was so beautifully presented — the lighting was just perfect, and there was a beautiful story. His partner, Camille Claudel, was never really recognised. But she was as good of a sculptor as he was. I have two little sculptures by her.

But still the best for me would be Marc Chagall. I saw an exhibition of his at the National Museum in South of France in Nice, in 2025. I love his work because it’s so childlike and so dreamline. It puts you in another world.

A possession you’d never sell

My sculptures by Juginder Lamba — I love his work — they live in my garden in London.

A book you’ve found inspiring

At the moment I am reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. It’s dreamlike and it will catch you through its fantasy, its imagery, through the hardship of life. It is always moving, showing new things. But I love many other books. I love Mikhail Bulgakov, he is one of my favourite writers. If you read Heart of a Dog, you will laugh. Also, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I would recommend every parent to buy it to read to their child before bedtime. I was also taken completely by Cooking in 10 Minutes by Edouard de Pomiane. His writing is so beautiful, so smart, so fun — he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Your favourite painting

When I was about 12 — and I know this answer is classic, boring in terms of a lack of imagination — I fell in love with Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. I still regard it as the greatest masterpiece. It’s still my very favourite.

The music that you work to

It depends. I listen to African music, more modern music, sometimes music that is very quiet like Spiegel im Spiegel. But I love all the great classical music: Beethoven, Vivaldi, Debussy, Mozart. It’s about mood. Of course, I have a list of French music as well.

The last podcast you listened to

20 Questions With, by Matt Stadlen. He does all the big boys of politics, but some other interviews too. He has loved the work we’ve done at Le Manoir. I was interviewed by him just last week.

Who would play you in a film of your life

Dudley Moore was very similar facially, plus he was fun and didn't take himself too seriously.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

I would definitely take a fishing rod — I’m a good fisherman, so I think I would manage to survive just through my fishing. I would take my oldest kitchen knife, which is now so thin after fifty years of working with it, but that has an emotional significance. I would also take a couple of good books — maybe a whole library — including a book about survival skills.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

I just love life, and obviously though my work pattern is different, I still do. I love to walk, I love the cinema, I love to see art, I love to see friends. It’s easy to wake up. It’s easy. I am excited and I rarely have the blues.

The items you collect

Many different bits and pieces, and wine.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Locally, The Connaught, I think is the most amazing hotel. There is also a great chef there, Hélène Darroze. I also love the Cipriani [in Venice].

The most memorable meal you have ever had

As I mentioned before, Mirazou. That was really the best. Also Andrew Wong was an extraordinary experience. He had made a dessert that was mindblowing: extra virgin olive oil, a sorbet of fresh coconut and dessicated coconut and on the top, caviar. It sounds weird to start with, but my God, that was a genius dish. One of the best dishes of my life.

The best present you’ve ever received

A 1812 Napoleon Cognac, never opened and in the original bottle. My partner Natalia gifted it to me, she had searched for months through French cellars. Every night, after service, I would taste this extraordinary cognac, a tiny amount so it could last forever. The layering of aromatics was amazing. Then I would leave the glass unwashed to discover in the morning further hidden scents that the oxidation would reveal. It was the most appreciated present that I have ever had.

For more information on Raymond’ Blanc’s collaboration with PAUL, click here.

I am in Thrace, a large, historical area shared by Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. More specifically, I am in Kavala, one of the region’s major port cities in northern Greece, positioned at the crossroads of civilisations between Europe and Asia Minor.

‘Constantinople 460km’ reads a road sign, stamped with a Byzantine eagle, beneath the city’s landmark aqueduct. Athens lies 652 kilometres — or 405 miles — in the opposite direction.

My two-hour drive to Kavala from Thessaloniki is haunted by the ghosts of ancient peoples who traversed this route. Xerxes’s army marched through this valley in 480BC. In that bay floated the fleet of Brutus, who would be defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Philippi. There went Philip II of Macedon, to fortify the city that now bears his name; a city where, some 400 years later, St Paul baptised Lydia, the first European Christian, and was subsequently imprisoned.

Kavala, the Neapolis of Antiquity and Christoupolis of Byzantium, dates, today, almost entirely to its period of Ottoman rule, which lasted from 1387–1912. There’s the famous aqueduct, built in the 1520s by Ibrahim Pasha, Grand Vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent; the Neoclassical houses of wealthy merchants; the 19th-century tobacco warehouses; and, most importantly, the magnificent Ottoman-Baroque Imaret, perched above a Byzantine sea wall.

To call Imaret a hotel would be a misnomer. The vast, two-storey complex sits around three internal gardens and consists of eight exquisite guest suites. Founded by Kavala-born Mehmet Ali Pasha in 1813 as both a religious and secular academic institution, with an imaret (soup kitchen) for the poor of all denominations, it comprised a hammam, mosque, underground cistern, store rooms and student rooms — all of which still exist, meticulously restored and transformed by Anna Missirian, another Kavala native, whose family is the region’s last major tobacco trader.

Every morning, Missirian delivers the Imaret Gazette which she writes and personalises to each guest. Bursting with local tips and historical facts, it’s best read over breakfast, outside (my suite opens onto the arcade framing the water garden), with a Greek coffee (served in Haviland’s rose-patterned Impératrice Eugénie porcelain) and freshly-baked koulourakia.

The day I’m due to visit Mount Pangaion, my copy of the Gazette is themed around the symbolism of the rose in mythology, and in both Islamic and Christian cultures.

The mountain range is best known as the home of the cult of Dionysus and the demise of Orpheus, and famous for its monasteries, for its rich ancient gold and silver mines that funded the campaigns of Alexander the Great and for the beauty and fragrance of its wild roses, extolled by Herodotus. Not for the first time, I am astonished by the Imaret’s team’s attention to infinitesimal detail.

The same care has been lavished on the interiors: Persian carpets and Egyptian kilims rest on solid Athos chestnut floors, old black-and-white photographs of Egypt grace polished mortar walls, and huge Egyptian brass lamps hang from the ceilings. There are also plenty of books and Islamic antiques.

Every night, someone lights scores of candles in the original fireplaces and, in the domed suites — each one with a distinct character — the weighty Rubelli curtains and fabrics are replaced, come summer, with airy natural linens. My enfilade, forged from three cells, once housed 24 students.

To fully appreciate Imaret’s place in Kavala, I walk some 650 feet through the Old Town to the house where Pasha lived, before serving as the governor of the Province of Egypt (1805–48), and established a dynasty that would last until 1952. Now a museum — restored by Missirian — it is considered one of the finest extant examples of 18th-century Ottoman domestic architecture in Greece, complete with sachnisi (protruding windows), selamlik and haremlik (male and female quarters).

‘Ali’s family originated in Konya where there was a strong Sufi influence,’ says Missirian, of Pasha’s famously tolerant views, ‘but he never forgot his native town, and gave the Imaret to Kavala as a waqf —an inalienable charitable endowment, under Islamic Law. It functioned as such for 100 years.’

The complex was inhabited by refugees following the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and gradually fell into ruin by the late 1960s. Imaret still belongs to Egypt so Missirian had to spend six years negotiating a lease before she had the right to restore the dilapidated landmark. ‘It was a very complex process,’ she says, ‘and the renovation involved so much research. We had to bring [in] Egyptian workmen… the only people who knew how to replace the lead covering Imaret’s 67 domes.’

Following the €20 million restoration of the two buildings (during which a 16th-century bejewelled and gilded sword was discovered inside Imaret’s walls), Imaret reopened earlier this year. As well as the original hammam, there is now — in the healing hands of Ayurvedic master Sharu — a spa, where the candle-lit cistern was once fed by Kavala’s aqueduct.

The founding principles of Mehmet Ali Pasha extend far beyond the mere fabric of the two buildings. The museum is also home to MOHA, a research centre for promoting understanding between pan-Islamic and Western cultures. Nor has Imaret’s original function been forgotten: ‘Soup appears on all our menus,’ says Missirian, ‘in memory of the original soup kitchen here.’

Dinner is served in a different setting each night. In the gazebo one evening, the soup is chilled almond with grapes, followed by three courses of traditional Ottoman recipes including Imam bayildi (‘the Imam fainted’). As Missirian is telling me about the mysterious disappearance of the famous Imaret library — last documented in the National Library of Egypt — a cat sashays past, tail aloft, with all the grace of a pampered Odalisque. The waitress opens the door to let her through, without breaking step. She is, true to the spirit of Imaret, a rescue cat, but, from her demeanour, she is to the manor born.

Imaret has a five-night minimum stay, from €11,500 per person on a full-board basis. The price includes treatments, curated journeys and private transfers to and from Kavala and Thessaloniki airports. Visit the Imaret website for more information and to book.

This feature originally appeared in the September 16, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

Cornwall: glorious beaches, good surf, divine countryside and tree-shaded lanes. Afternoons eating ice cream and fish and chips overlooking the fishing boats that rock gently in the harbour. This is what visitors experience, but, for the people who live there all the time, it can be quite a tough existence. It was not always so: in the 19th century, the county was booming with tin mines and china clay pits that funded the construction of thriving towns and big churches. However, by 1990, things had changed: the last working mine closed in 1998 and the county was one of the most impoverished parts of western Europe.

Thirty years ago, Tim Smit, who had recently uncovered the extraordinary Lost Gardens of Heligan, was looking for another challenge. At Heligan, Sir Tim, as he later became, had unearthed the infrastructure, the trees and the stories behind the once great garden that had lain hidden beneath undergrowth since the First World War and opened it up to the visiting public, as well as the television cameras. Driving to Heligan, he often passed Bodelva, where there was a huge hole in the ground left by an old clay pit.

Some 196 feet deep, steep-sided and devoid of much in the way of soil, it was not the obvious place for a garden, but Sir Tim has never been afraid of a challenge and his justification for choosing this site for his new garden was suitably feisty. ‘We put it in a hole deliberately because it was exciting. People didn’t see anything until they came right up close and all of a sudden — bang! It’s a very theatrical approach.’

Plans were laid for a series of biomes (massive geodesic domes made from an especially robust layered plastic), in which all manner of tender and exotic plants would thrive. They would provide not only a diversion for visitors, but also a valuable resource for science. This is why the Eden Project is so very different from the average open garden: part tourist attraction — an excellent refuge for holidaying families driven from the beaches by weather — and part educational facility. Its aim was to show people ‘that, without plants, there’s no life on earth’, all in a muddy and inhospitable disused mine.

Somehow, money was raised, architects persuaded and councils cajoled. There were many tight deadlines and seat-of-the-pants moments, but, in the end, the team created not only a great garden and a scientific resource, but an employment opportunity for the local area.

If that was the past 25 years, what will happen in the next quarter century? The first answer is that the message will be spread to different corners of the world — there is already an Eden Project in China, with plans for others in Costa Rica, Australia and Scotland. This spring saw an excellent show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, created by Harry Holding, together with architect Alex Michaelis. This gave us a glimpse of the next Eden Project, set to open in 2028, looking out over the expanse of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire.

Work continues in Cornwall. A year ago, Peter Jones was taken on as the new head of horticulture. Jones made his name at the RHS’s flagship garden in Wisley, Surrey, where he helped transform many of the dustier parts of the garden into vibrant, alluring and almost revolutionary spaces through courageous plant choices and an unerring sense of the spectacular. He is carrying on that work as the Eden Project moves ever onwards and outwards. Less-visited corners in Bodelva are being transformed and paths are being re-routed so the focus is not only on the biomes, but also on the many acres of superlative horticulture that surround them. ‘I love the wonderful bone structure of the original Dominic Cole landscape,’ says Jones, ‘but, 25 years on, gardening is in a different place. There are always things that need changing, tweaking and updating.’

He has plans for bold and novel solutions to some of the tired planting, such as exchanging a teucrium hedge — which was part of the original scheme, but has become woody and infested with brambles — for a sweep of Toona sinensis ‘Flamingo’, the Chinese cedar. For those of you unfamiliar with this tree, it is the arboricultural equivalent of Barbie diving into a pool full of Pepto-Bismol: very pink indeed.

Jones also discovered that there were no Magnolia campbellii anywhere in the garden: ‘So I ordered 50! And 50 cherries for the slope opposite the visitor centre. More is more has always been my mantra — and the garden is so big that you need to make a splash to be noticed. People love colour, it is what draws them to gardens initially. Then, when they are here, we can teach them new things that will affect their world and, more importantly, the world their grandchildren will inherit.’

There has always been an individual vision to impart. ‘One of our core principles is to show people how we connect with the natural world: visitors need to understand that we cannot survive without plants,’ is how Jones puts it. Yet it does this without lecturing, partly perhaps because the Eden Project has always been an exciting place to work: the difficulties of gardening on a 40-degree slope and keeping biomes under control mean gardeners can often be seen swinging around on ropes. It is one of the few gardens that is weeded by abseilers.

To get it built at all was an extraordinary feat of perseverance. To watch the place revving up for another 25 years of innovation and excitement promises to be equally as thrilling.

Visit The Eden Project website for details about visiting.

This feature originally appeared in the September 23, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Where was it?

On the edge of a village in Mid Suffolk. I had spent 40 years in London, so it was a drastic move, prompted by my daughter starting secondary school. I didn’t fancy her, aged 12, on the night bus and going to house parties, so we moved to Suffolk, where she became knowledgeable about tractors, specifically John Deeres

A quick description

A seven-bedroom, Grade II-listed farmhouse built in 1548 and linked to a giant ancient barn via a sizeable modern extension. We did that London thing of going ‘wow, look at how much house we can get for our money’.

I was very happy there, but it was much too big and there was an element of rattling around unless all the children (now grown up) were home. It also had 17 acres — too much garden for someone who also has a job and far too much maintenance on the fence post front. [Ed: India Knight and her family sold the house, Barton Grange in Worlingworth, in the summer of 2025.]

How did you find it?

We saw it online.

What made you buy it?

We had planned to spend the day looking at several other houses — at this point either in Suffolk or Somerset — but knew immediately that it was the one.

Favourite aspect?

It had a wildflower meadow and a little moat on three sides. I especially loved winter nights holed up in the snug by the wood burner.

Best memory of living there?

We had some fun parties in that barn.

Biggest mistake?

I once painted a room teal and orange.

Anything unusual about it?

Really low beamed ceilings in the old part. I’m 5ft 10in and my boys are 6ft 2in and 6ft 4in. You quickly develop an unattractive Quasimodo shuffle.

Biggest indulgence?

My greenhouse. It wasn’t wildly expensive, but it felt like such an extravagance at the time.

What happened to it?

One day I saw the house of my dreams. When I first viewed it, it literally spoke to me. It is about 20 minutes away from the huge farmhouse and we are never moving again.

India Knight is a journalist and author. Her latest book, 'Home: How To Love It, Live In It, And Find Joy' is out in paperback on October 15 (Penguin Books, £11.99).

This feature originally appeared in the September 30, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

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Mankind has been making jewellery for at least 100,000 years. In all that time, very few fields of fine, gem-quality emerald have been discovered. In fact, emeralds are so rare that, in some respects, it seems a miracle that any have ever been found at all, the more so when one considers that emerald seams are only ever a couple of inches wide and may barely touch the Earth’s surface.

Until the 16th century, when Spain expanded its empire into South America and found the deposits located in present-day Colombia, every mined emerald mentioned in literature or listed in historical records — even referred to in the Bible — originated in Egypt’s Eastern Desert.

Take Pliny the Elder reporting that Caligula’s wife, Lollia Paulina, attended a party dressed in ‘alternating emeralds and pearls which glittered all over her head, hair, ears, neck and fingers’ or when Isidore, Bishop of Seville, said: ‘That it surpasses in all greenness all green stones, and even the leaves of plants, and that it imparts to the air around it a green shimmer.’ Not to mention the time the anonymous author of the Aberdeen Bestiary wrote: ‘It makes those who wear it appear attractive… it signifies virginity, which wholly preserves the freshness of the flesh.’

Every one of the emeralds described all came from what are now known as Cleopatra’s lost emerald mines. Given their diminutive proportions and the fact the Eastern Desert occupies an area about the size of mainland Britain, it isn’t entirely surprising that she mislaid them — but they are, it seems, located on the slopes of Gebel Zabara, the legendary Mons Smaragdus (Emerald Mountain) of the classical texts, some six days march from the Red Sea, where summer temperatures can reach 54˚C.

Many years ago, with the help of a local guide, I made a week-long trip there, sleeping on a bedroll under the stars and worrying about scorpions as I went. It was heaven. The landscape was more varied, more colourful and much more beautiful than I had ever imagined. We camped one night in the ruins of an ancient temple, another by a small oasis. When we reached the mining area itself, I spent a whole day exploring its various tunnels and chambers, coming away with a pocket full of small, rough emeralds.

I first caught emerald fever when I was 22. Walking through a Bangkok shopping mall, I saw a pair of tiny, square-cut gemstones in a jeweller’s window and fell in love with them. What began as an impulse purchase subsequently turned into something of a grand passion: I’ve visited all the world’s main emerald mines and cutting centres, made trips to see the great emeralds held in public and private collections and attended countless salerooms where notable emeralds were being auctioned. I still experience a thrill every time I hold an emerald up to the light and gaze into its mysterious interior. To me, each one is miniature work of art, a highly portable treasure trove.

Fine emeralds are 100 times rarer than diamonds of the same size and quality. They are greener than any other green gemstone —peridot, tourmaline, tsavorite — and make the rest look pale, brassy and washed out by comparison. The best emeralds are more valuable than any other coloured jewel. Intriguingly, they were one of the earliest commodities to be traded over vast distances, from England in the West to China in the East.

To date, they have only been located in four areas: Egypt (fully exploited long ago), Colombia, Brazil and Zambia. Colombian emeralds set the standard by which all others are judged; the best specimens are an intense, vivid, pure green and glow, as well as sparkle. They are bright yet deep, rich yet clear. Moreover, the green is dominant, with a very faint blueish hue and no yellow.

Almost without exception the most spectacular examples of emerald jewellery in the world — Catherine the Great’s emerald brooch, Queen Victoria’s emerald and diamond tiara, the Duchess of Windsor’s Siddhartha brooch (the first Cartier piece to feature an anatomically represented panther) and all of Elizabeth Taylor’s emerald jewellery (there was a lot of it) — incorporate Colombian emeralds.

Emerald values do not conform to the same pattern as other precious gemstones. If you compare 1,000 one-carat emeralds, each will be unique and priced accordingly. You could pay £200 or you could pay £20,000. They are partly judged, like other gems, on cut, clarity, colour and carat weight, but, unlike other gemstones, inclusions can actually add to the value. These are referred to as the ‘jardin’, or inner landscape, and have special names such as ‘wispy veils’ and ‘feathers’.

One of the rarest inclusions ever found in emeralds is referred to by its Spanish name: gota de aceite, which translates as ‘drop of oil’. The same feature is also sometimes called the ‘butterfly-wing effect’. Gota de aceite increases the levels of internal reflection and gives the jewel a smooth, velvety feel.

Ever since they were first discovered, at least 5,500 years ago, emeralds have been credited with magical powers. As Sir John Mandeville wrote in the 14th century: ‘Emeralds give riches and dignities, and make men honest and wise with speech; they also cure fevers, vision problems, skin diseases and spots.’

In 1348–49, during the Black Death, a prescription reputed to prevent infection contained ‘pearls, jargoons, emeralds and coral, one sixth drachm of each of these materials entered into the composition’. The Arabian physician Abu Meruan suggested ‘six grains of tincture of emerald’ to counter the effects of dysentery. Ibn al-Baytar, another Arab writer, proposed that, ‘emeralds should be worn by royal children from birth, since, set in pendants or rings, they prevent epileptic seizures’. Aristotle, meanwhile, advised that ‘emerald powder taken internally prevents hair loss and excoriation of the skin’.

It is easy to laugh at the pseudo-science of gem healing, but even today the government of India has several emerald prescriptions on its traditional medicine website.

Moreover, from the earliest times, emeralds have been credited with having supernatural powers. The idea that human destiny could be influenced by the action of a mineral can be traced to the sacred Hindu texts, the Vedas. The Kurma Purana, probably written between the years AD550 and AD850, stresses the connection between the working of providence, the planets and precious gemstones. In Jyotish astrology, emerald is allied with the planet Mercury and can be worn to enhance intellect, discrimination and the ability to communicate.

In Western astrology, the choice of which birthstone to wear is further complicated by the fact that few authorities can agree on which stone should be attributed to which month or sign of the zodiac. Some favour June, others May. Depending on which zodiacal system is employed, emerald is variously recommended for those born under the star signs of Gemini, Cancer, Sagittarius and Libra. If you simply want an excuse to wear one, then look no further than Marbodus, whose 12th century Liber Lapidum Pretiosum (Book of Precious Stones) includes the following encouragement:

'Wear it with reverence due, ’twill wealth bestow

And words persuasive from thy lips shall flow,

As though the gift of eloquence inspired

The stone itself or living spirit fired.

Hung round the neck it cures the ague’s chill,

Or failing sickness, dire mysterious ill;

Its hues so soft refresh the wearied eye,

And furious tempests banish from the sky:

So with chaste power it tames the furious mood

And cools the wanton thoughts that fire the blood.

If steeped in verdant oil or bathed in wine

Its deepened hues with perfect lustre shine'

This feature originally appeared in the December 10, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

It's a bright, crisp morning in central London and the Underground station is filling up with people rushing in from the Strand clutching takeaway coffees. It is a familiar scene, but look more closely and you’d spot some clues that none of us is on our way to the office. There’s a distinct absence of anything digital and among the posters pasted to the walls is one exhorting travellers to ‘Look Out In The Blackout’. Where — and, indeed, when — are we?

Aldwych station opened in 1907 (as Strand) on the site of an old theatre, part of what was then the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton railway — now the Piccadilly line. It was envisaged as the track’s southern terminus, but construction work above ground meant that it ended up on its own branch and was never well used: the first and second shuttle services that departed for Holborn were empty and the third carried a single passenger.

The service was scaled back and soon it was quicker to walk to Holborn. Aldwych, officially the least-used stop in central London by the 1980s, limped on until 1994, when it was closed and became one of the London Underground’s ‘ghost’ stations. The only way you can see it today is by booking one of the tours organised by the London Transport Museum, which also runs trips on decommissioned Tube trains.

Over the course of a day touring three different ghost stations, I realise that the capital’s apparently orderly transport network is actually like a kitchen drawer piled high with old phone chargers and mystery cables: the past and the present are permanently tangled together. To travel in Aldwych’s wooden lifts, built long before the catastrophic Kings Cross fire of 1987, is to descend through layers of London’s history. When we step out into the carefully preserved subterranean hall, with its ornate ticket windows and botanical dado-rail friezes, 2026 feels a long way away — we have travelled back in time to the early 1900s and ‘Tubemania’, when the rapid expansion of London’s underground railways was driven by private companies.

Several of these employed Leslie Green to design their stations. There are plenty of his projects still in service (including Regent’s Park and Russell Square), but seeing one divorced from the modern grind makes it so much easier to imagine how they once must have looked, the oxblood-tiled fronts gleaming in a city otherwise covered in soot and the half-moon windows illuminated by electric lights.

Each station was given its own colour scheme and unique platform-tiling pattern by Green, who was influenced by both Art Nouveau and the Arts-and-Crafts Movement, believing that utility and beauty could — and should — coexist. There is something particularly poignant about seeing his work frozen in time like this, given that he died of tuberculosis in 1908, aged only 33.

As we troop down the old stairs to the eastern platform, which closed first in 1917, the dust is deadening, but the scene that greets us feels eerily alive — and familiar. As well as being a popular vintage filming location (Charing Cross’s closed-off Jubilee line platform gets the modern bookings), it’s recognisable from Ministry of Information photographs of Londoners camping out during the Blitz, when Aldwych became an air-raid shelter. This, ironically, drew crowds far bigger than anything seen in peacetime: 1,500 people slept here every night.

As well as having its own library, the station hosted performances from ENSA, the Entertainments National Service Association (people joked the acronym stood for ‘Every Night Something Awful’). A newsreel of George Formby entertaining shelterers is projected onto the wall and the music makes the back of my neck prickle; I half expect a figure to materialise from the gloom and ask if I’ve got a light. (That’s another thing you notice down here: the smoke stains.)

Some ghost stations, such as Aldwych, stand separately, but others are hidden within still-living stations, as at Green Park. There, an unassuming door near the stairs leading up to Piccadilly opens onto another station entirely — one that no longer officially exists.

Green Park was once two separate stations, Dover Street and Down Street, which were amalgamated and renamed in 1933 to meet passenger demand. The Green-designed surface building was taken out of service (it’s a corner shop today), as were sections of the station itself — which came in handy in 1940.

Our guide leads us across a hidden walkway over the eastbound Piccadilly platform — dotted with grilles through which you can see trains arriving and departing below — to a space with incongruous cornicing and skirting. This is all that remains of the wartime headquarters of the London Transport Executive Board, which quite literally went to ground after its offices took a hit in the Blitz.

Lord Ashfield, its chairman, had the disused sections of Green Park turned into offices accessed by a covert lift, complete with a typing pool and kitted out with furniture from railway hotels (he had a wallpapered bedroom, too). There was also a canteen not subject to rationing, so lunchtime meetings were always well attended. Other organisations had the same idea: Brompton Road, another Piccadilly line ghost station, was home to the Anti-Aircraft Brigade office.

Butting up against all of this is a more recent slice of history, which we reach by cutting across the station’s lunchtime crowds, unlocking a gate and descending a long, echoing flight of concrete steps. It’s suddenly very cold and the reason why looms up ahead of us.

As any Underground regular knows, each line has its own microclimate, with newer, deep-tunnel examples running faster trains requiring more temperature and air-pressure regulation. The Victoria and Jubilee lines are cooled at Green Park by a jaw-dropping ventilation shaft, easily 100ft high and cine-matically armour-plated. It’s extraordinary to think that the people above us in Blue Bull Yard almost certainly have no idea that they’re standing on top of this science-fiction scene.

My last stop of the day is a station I’ve passed through hundreds, if not thousands of times: Piccadilly Circus, which opened in 1906 on the then Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo line). In 1922, with some 18 million people passing through its turnstiles annually, it was reconfigured by architect Charles Holden around an ambitious underground ticket hall. The design called for a state-of-the-art flat steel roof able to withstand the weight of the traffic (dubbed ‘The Prop of London’), which was mocked up to scale for testing inside the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre.

The real thing was painstakingly built in sections; Piccadilly’s statue of Eros had to be removed to Victoria Embankment Gardens. Eleven escalators, still fairly new to London — Harrods had the first in 1908 — were installed to do away with the notorious lift queues. Travertine and red scagliola marble and bronze fittings, chosen by the Underground’s managing director Frank Pick, gave the station the look of a modern Roman temple when it reopened in 1928. Future Official War Artist Stephen Bone was commissioned to paint a giant ‘Hub of Empire’ mural above the escalators, featuring a world map with London at the centre. This was removed at some point before the Second World War to make way for advertising; nobody knows where it ended up.

Beneath our feet, in a secret part of the station accessed by a locked gate, the clock stopped in 1928: alongside Piccadilly’s working tunnels are disused ones that never reopened after the renovation. The grime is thick down here, but beneath it Green’s original teal and green tiling is still visible, together with the direction signs Edwardian passengers would have followed. We retrace their footsteps to the shafts that once housed the lifts made redundant by the escalators. The voids feel like the backdrop to a deadly battle in a Bond film; it’s hard to believe we’re directly under the Hard Rock Cafe.

As at Aldwych, Piccadilly’s passageways were crammed with people during the early days of the Blitz. The resulting scenes were so squalid that Clementine Churchill pressured the government to kit them out with bunks and proper sanitary facilities. ‘Refreshment Specials’, trains dispensing off-ration treats, were also laid on, manned by staff from Lyons Corner Houses. Standing in the now dark and deserted corridor, I can almost hear the excited children queueing up for rock cakes and their weary parents trying to keep them in check. Lives began and ended down here and, although not everyone believes in ghosts, I imagine most people who have taken one of these tours will have felt haunted by Londoners past.

Back upstairs in the ticket hall, our guide points out something I’ve never spotted before: set into the station’s inner wall is a map, which tells the time around the world thanks to an ingenious scrolling band moving at exactly the same speed as the Earth’s rotation. Like so much we’ve seen today, it’s a relic from another time — but, if you stand close enough, you can still hear it ticking.

The artworks saved by the Tube

London Underground stations didn’t only shelter people during the Second World War. China from Buckingham Palace, ceramics from the British Museum and the Elgin Marbles (lowered down with ordinary ropes and pulleys) were hidden in Aldwych and Tate stowed its treasures beneath what is now Green Park, before they were moved to Piccadilly Circus as part of a 150-crate consignment also containing priceless pieces from London Museum.

Everything was transported in secret in March 1941, under the noses of those taking cover from the Blitz, thanks to special screens and a train with covered windows dreamt up by art historian Margot Eates.

Real ghosts on the London Underground

Do ‘ghost’ stations have ghosts of their own? The British Museum station, which closed in 1933, is rumoured once to have been linked to the institution by a secret tunnel that allowed the spirit of Amun Ra — an Egyptian mummy whose coffin was brought from Egypt to England, provoking mysterious deaths — to wander around screaming.

Sometimes trains themselves are the focus of spine-chilling stories: the passenger-free ‘Kennington Loop’, on which there was reportedly a death many years ago, has long been whispered about thanks to tales of doors slamming on empty trains and drivers experiencing uncanny sensations.

Could there be a logical explanation? Some scientists believe a phenomenon known as ‘infrasound’, whereby sounds beneath the threshold of human hearing provoke a physiological response, is to blame. In 2005, a researcher from Coventry University used a special low-frequency microphone to monitor the Kennington Loop and found strikingly high infrasound levels.

To find out more and book tours, visit the London Transport Museum website.

This feature originally appeared in the September 23, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

‘A woman’s nature is like a great house full of rooms,’ declared the author, Edith Wharton. Family and visitors pass through most, but some rooms remain hidden and unknown despite being ‘full of treasures and wonders’.

Perhaps the same may be said of the country house itself, where a rich vocabulary of rooms lies half-forgotten now that modern life has reconfigured its architecture. Gone are the army of servants that once buzzed in and out of carefully compartmentalised spaces: sauceries, spiceries, brush rooms and butteries — former hives of activity that have long since been repurposed or subsumed into open-plan designs.

Yet the humble scullery, we hear, is staging a comeback. This small back kitchen, where fish were gutted and pots were scoured, was once one of the country house’s grubbiest rooms, and the scullion — and later scullery maid — who toiled there, the lowliest of servants.

Staff or no staff, I’m all for reintroducing it. The clutter and clatter of washing up, and the muddy vegetables that, when scrubbed, splatter the tiles like a Pollock painting, require a new home now that the kitchen has become a popular place to dine and gather.

But if a scullery feels too passé, might I suggest a ‘scrollery’? It’s a dedicated sound-proofed den of my own invention: a place to direct residents playing videos on their mobile phones, which restores peace to the rest of the house. And why not extend the concept to trains in place of the old smoking carriages?

As for bringing back a designated ‘smoking room’, conceived by the Victorians to avoid polluting the rest of the household with bad smells and ‘man talk’, this reformed smoker is unconvinced. I suspect it’s the sort of space that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had in mind in The Lost World when he described the Piccadilly salon of Lord John Roxon as offering ‘extraordinary comfort and elegance combined with an atmosphere of masculine virility’ — and part of that sentence puts me off.

The 3^rd Marquess of Bute, however, was a big fan. He commissioned two smoking rooms for Cardiff Castle, ‘summer’ and ‘winter’, which could be enjoyed according to the seasons. The lavish, kaleidoscopic decoration of the former, designed by William Burges and located in the clock tower’s apex, was almost certainly influenced by his architect’s penchant for opium. It all feels far too decadent for today. Perhaps, in this age of anxiety, a ‘stroking’ rather than ‘smoking’ room, where pampered pets get undivided attention, is a fitting substitution.

Besides, there are other decommissioned rooms higher up my wish list. I fancy the idea of a ‘still room’ and visualise myself in a floral apron pickling and distilling the bounty of my unintentionally rewilded garden. I would start the day in my east-facing ‘morning room’, shifting to the ‘withdrawing room’ as the sun moved around the house. And if life got too much, I could drape myself across the chaise longue of my Victorian ‘fainting room’ and take smelling salts until I felt fit to seek company.

There are some spaces that are clearly obsolete. Take the ‘muniment room’, for example. Unless you’re Magdalen College, Oxford, whose Muniment Tower houses thousands of medieval deeds relating to its vast estate, your data is mostly digital. A ‘server room’, contained within a faraday cage to fend off hostile intelligences of an artificial nature, is a more future-proof solution.

For other rooms, it’s less cut and dry. The ‘lumber room’, a place for timber and disused furniture, gets mixed reviews in literature. In Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), it’s a room ‘to perish in obscurity’, while in Saki’s short story The Lumber Room (1914) it’s a mysterious place where young Nicholas discovers ‘wonderful things for the eye to feast on’: ‘a roll of Indian hangings, glowing in wonderful colours’ and ‘twisted candlesticks in the shape of snakes’ — all hidden away by his vindictive aunt who was ‘one of those people who think that things spoil by use and consign them to dust and damp by way of preserving them.’

Dickens had plenty of thoughts about rooms. While Scrooge’s lumber room is an unprepossessing space containing an ‘old fire-guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, [a] washing-stand on three legs, and a poker’, the warm-hearted Mr Jarndyce in Bleak House owes much of his good nature to his ‘growlery’. Part library, part boot room, it’s a small space for recomposing oneself and casting off a bad mood. ‘When I am out of humour, I come and growl here,’ he explains. Aristocratic women in 18th-century France already had such a sanctuary in the form of the boudoir, taken from the verb bouder, meaning to sulk or pout.

A room of one’s own, à mon avis, is a marvellous thing, especially if it has a pile of crossword puzzles and a small fridge containing chocolate. Whatever we call it, in the interest of domestic harmony, let’s reinstate it without delay.

Ever since the covid-era sourdough boom, good bread has become hot property: according to a dataset from early 2025, there has been a year-on-year increase in sourdough sales of 56% and the UK saw a 237% rise in new bakeries opening between 2019 and 2022. A superlative loaf, however, depends on quality flour — and that requires great grains from which to mill it.

Unfortunately, over the past 70 years, Britain’s flour supply has become uniform and disconnected from the land on which it is grown. Many commodity flours are processed from monocultures developed around the 1960s Green Revolution, when industrial grain production took off with gusto. Although high yield, they tend to be uniformly short in stature and susceptible to climatic changes and diseases, requiring noxious chemicals to flourish. They’re also heavily processed, roller-milled into little more than starch — hence the pappy stodge that passes for much mainstream bread.

Now, a steady revolution has taken hold across Britain. A newer generation of artisans is bucking the system, looking back to our provenance-driven grain histories and embracing small-scale modern varieties in thrall to their forebears. There are a few different kinds. Ancient grains are erstwhile and hardy crops that have existed, unchanged, for sometimes thousands of years: think einkorn, emmer, spelt and khorasan.

Heritage grains, meanwhile, are historic British crops that were naturally cross-pollinated and re-sown over many years, eventually becoming genetically defined varieties, such as Red Lammas, April Bearded and Rouge d’Ecosse. Many were preserved for posterity in seed banks in the 20th century, later salvaged and regrown.

Both are usually tall (to outgrow weeds), resilient to bad weather, pests and diseases and grown without chemicals, often with biodiversity-boosting regenerative principles in mind, such as employing low-or no-tilling planting to preserve soil health and fungal networks or leaving borders around crop fields to encourage wildlife.

Population crops, meanwhile, are a sort of modern version of heritage crops, developed in the late 20th century by places such as Cambridgeshire’s Plant Breeding Institute and Suffolk’s Wakelyns, which aimed to record, preserve and promote our agricultural heritage through native crops and ecologically sympathetic farming. They have cross-bred myriad heritage varieties together to create evolving, diverse styles: Miller’s Choice, Oak Farm, Wakelyns YQ, Maris Wigeon and so on.

In addition to the nutritional and ecological benefits, these grains taste fantastic compared with their dowdy commercial cousins, especially when gently stoneground to retain their precious wholegrains — as these British bakers and millers are well aware.

Barony Mill, Birsay, Orkney

Windswept Orkney has many historic USPs — not least its ancient stone circles and burial chambers — and two more diminutive, but no less significant ones. Enter Barony Mill, the only place on the globe that grinds bere barley, a botanical cousin of wheat. Located on the western mainland, the mill dates back to 1873. It was going to seed (so to speak), but, in the 1990s, the local Birsay Heritage Trust set to its renovation, returning bere-milling to the cultural landscape.

Bere is a long-standing crop in this part of the world. ‘A close relation was found in one of the Neolithic digs,’ explains trust treasurer Tony Morley. It’s also a staple of the Orcadian diet: ‘Beremeal bannocks are something that everybody here knows.’

Bere is a hardy crop and grows quickly. ‘It’s called 90-day barley, because the period from sowing to harvest is three months, from May to August. You have to get it out as early as you can because the weather will take it — or the geese will.’

As well as fine- and medium-grain bere flour, Barony sells whole bere ‘berries’ and the three-storey stone mill operates exactly as it did in the 1800s, powered by the waters of Boardhouse Loch. ‘The water wheel drives everything from the millstones to the hoists, to the sieves to the fanners,’ Morley explains. ‘Even shovelling the grain off the kiln drying floor is done with water power.’ It’s a heritage exemplar for the ages.

Pinch, Kelsale, Suffolk

Just off the north Suffolk coast near Aldeburgh, Pinch is the tiny fiefdom of Alice Norman, a Ballymaloe-trained chef long in thrall to sensitively sourced ingredients. During the pandemic, she returned to her native Suffolk and started a meal-kit enterprise, setting up in a former jam room at Maple Farm. Here, piqued by the farm’s wooden Austrian mill, used to grind various specialist grains, she began ‘feeling more passionate about flour and where it comes from’.

After crafting cones from spelt (for the ice creams she’d sell her kit customers), she began baking crullers — a fried doughnut — and then the crisp-bottomed Roman-style pizza for which Pinch is famed. Maris Wigeon is a farm staple and well suited to pizza dough, but Norman will use whatever’s thriving, all milled into semolina, a wheatgerm-flecked plain flour and bran, ‘which goes into the chicken food’.

Next in the running is a coarser, ‘proper’ wholemeal. The flavour, Norman explains, is slightly nutty, ‘like the smell of a health-food shop. We tried it in our pizza; it was actually a bit too much flavour. We need to introduce it gradually, so people’s palates can get used to it’.

Soon, she hopes to have a single wheat variety aligned to each product she’s crafting. ‘It sounds cheesy, but it’s bringing people back to the roots of where an ingredient comes from and the idea that this year’s bag of flour will be different to the next,’ she says. ‘It’s a reminder to be mindful about what this ingredient is.’

Shipton Mill, Long Newnton, Gloucestershire

Back in the early 1980s, John Lister and some friends were ambling in the Cotswold wilds when he came across a ruined, Domesday-era watermill. Inspired by the principles of William Morris and the Arts-and-Crafts Movement — which sought to reinstate craft skills in the face of rank mechanisation — they set about returning the site to glory. ‘It was an amazing opportunity to get stuck into the making of something wholesome,’ he recalls.

Shipton, which has been granted a Royal Warrant by The King, is now one of the country’s preeminent mills. At first, it ground plenty of Maris Wigeon (and still does; the 100% Maris flour ‘suits our organic production methods, as well as offering opportunities for thatching straw’).

Soon, it was experimenting with emmer, einkorn and spelt; even working with Italian mountain farmers on saragolla, propagated in the country’s south for centuries. Lister is also fascinated by teff, an East African grain familiar to Ethiopian and Somalian communities, but something of a curiosity to Western bakers.

Given Shipton’s size, it’s inevitable the mill has segued into some more refined flours, but the founding principles remain (not least in the heritage flour supplied to bakery behemoth Gail’s). The ecological appeal of specialist wheats over commodities is simple, Lister says. ‘These softer wheats have bigger root systems and they harvest more nutrients. You get resilience because you’re not planting a single variety in a field that has to be sprayed to keep all the weeds off, so the biodiversity is greater. It’s a completely different approach to producing grain.’

Landrace, Bath, Somerset

It was when working at Neal’s Yard Dairy that Andrew Lowkes developed the foodie ethos that would shape Landrace, the Bath bakery and restaurant he founded in 2019: ‘The better the farming, the greater potential to make something delicious at the other end.’ Back then, he’d been spending time with various growers and millers involved in the UK Grain Lab — a decentralised body championing interesting wheats. The quickfire nature of wheat cultivation and breadmaking appealed to his ‘impatient’ personality, he laughs. When the Bath site came up, he took the plunge.

At first, Lowkes was more concerned with locating stoneground flours than esoteric strains, but a burgeoning relationship with Ceredigion’s 16th-century Felin Ganol watermill inspired him to start grinding his own. After sourcing some fresh stones from a company in deepest Vermont, USA, and installing them at Somerset’s Westcombe Dairy, Landrace began milling: at first, self-grown wheats — Red Lammas and Orange Devon Blue Rough Chaff among them — before the bakery’s ascent necessitated purchasing grain again.

This year, the mill has been processing wheat from various growers, but Corston Fields Farm near Bath (for a red spring wheat called Mariagertoba) and Somerset’s agroecological don Fred Price (for rye and other heritage varieties) are go-tos. Despite being combined in the bakery’s mixing bowls, they’re milled and bagged as single varieties.

‘Our motto,’ he says, ‘is “Identity preserves stone milling”.’ As well as cornetti — an Italian-style croissant that ‘gives us hell! It’s really hard to make laminated croissants with British stoneground wheat’ — Landrace’s country sourdough remains a signature. It’s all in the retained wheatgerm, Lowkes notes. ‘It’s the grain’s little passport — it declares to your gut that it’s worth digesting.’

This feature originally appeared in the September 23, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Ardross Castle in Scotland’s beautiful Ross and Cromarty is famous both sides of the Atlantic Ocean for murder, deceit and seduction. Yet far from being about the Scottish Baronial castle’s past, this truly traitorous behaviour has everything to do with its present and, given its popularity, its future.

Here, we invite you to join us at a large, round table in order to delve into the Country Life archives and uncloak the history of the turreted Highland castle made famous by the global TV franchise The Traitors.

We also invite you to marvel at how often the castle has been bought and sold, and for how much — for it's quite staggering that at some points in its history, it's changed hands at prices that would make you weep...

The 60,000 acre plot on which the magnificent Ardross Castle stands was sold, in 1845, to one Sir Alexander Matheson, by the then-Duke of Sutherland, for an eye-watering £90,000 (according to the Bank of England's inflation calculator that is roughly £9.5 million in today’s money). Matheson, a Liberal, had started his career as a merchant in China trading, it would appear, in both the highly-faithful British staple of tea, and the definitely treacherous commodity of opium. He subsequently went on the be, among other things, a director of the Bank of England, a director of the East and West India Dock Company, and chairman of the Highland Railway Company. The clearly-talented, well liked and very well-connected businessman subsequently set about developing his vast lands into well-drained roads, tenanted farms, sporting habitats and tree plantations.

The castle itself was the creation of architect Alexander Ross, who Matheson had first encountered during his tenure as chairman of the Highland Railway Company. Ross designed the stunning Scottish Baronial castle around an existing hunting lodge on the plot, adding more than 30 rooms to property, including the now infamous turrets. Ross also laid out extensive pleasure grounds around his masterpiece.

Matheson ploughed huge quantities of his personal wealth into the estate, but when he died in 1886, his son and heir Sir Kenneth Matheson quickly showed that he did not share his father’s passion for the tamed lands in the north east of Scotland. He first let out the property, for a decade, before selling the castle, the village of Ardross and some 36,000 acres in 1897 to a Mr C. W. Dyson Perrins—the grandson of the co-inventor of the still-secret recipe for Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. Perrins, who was from Malvern and had served as a Captain in the Highland Light Infantry, was a philanthropist and collector who also had interests in the Royal Worcester porcelain company. Perrins purchased the property as a summer retreat and much like the Royal Family, he, his family, guests and staff would travel from Worcestershire to the Highlands on his own train for an annual two-month-long holiday — where he would host shooting and fishing parties on his grouse moors, in his salmon-stocked rivers, trout-filled lochs, and deep in his numerous deer forests. He, too, lavished his vast fortune on the estate, adding electricity, bathrooms and formal gardens to the castle, while also purchasing further hunting grounds to expand his sporting opportunities. He also restored and modernised his farms and farm buildings, and in 1899 invested in the new (for the time) polled Aberdeen Angus cattle for his farms. Like Matheson before him, it would appear he was also a considerate landowner, too. A report in Glasgow’s Daily Record in 1911 described Perrins as doing a '…great deal of good for the people on his estate, who look upon him as the ideal landlord'.

Perrins stayed with his Highland retreat until 1936, when he seemingly-reluctantly put the whole lot up for sale. (Seemingly reluctantly, as he bought back the Factor’s House on the estate for his own use.)

When advertised for sale in the pages of Country Life, the property seemed to have devalued greatly despite the amount of love and attention he had showered upon it. An article dated November 14, 1936, the estate amounted to 53,000 acres and was described as 'very compact around the Castle.' The whole lot sold faster than Alan Carr delicately wiping a grain of poisonous pollen across the cheek of his best friend.

In little under two months, it was sold to a client of one Percy Deas of Duns. He went on the divide the land from the castle, according to an account in Country Life from January 23, 1937. An advert was placed for the castle alone on February 27 of the same year, asking the mind-bogglingly low amount of £6,500 (about £385,000). The main selling points will be instantly recognisable to fans of The Traitors. Listed as the top attractions were a library, a billiards room and a panelled oak room. It then went on to list other exceptional features such as a magnificent galleried ball room, indoor swimming bath, dressing rooms, 28 principal bedrooms, six bathrooms and 26 secondary and servants rooms, plus many other amenities — all for the 2025-comparable price of a London studio flat.

A history professor, and son of a tobacco company director, Austin Mardon snapped up the castle. He was quoted as saying they would live in 'as many rooms as necessary', and that he had bought the vast property so his children could 'grow up in perfect freedom'. Contemporary newspaper reports state how the adventurous Mardon camped out with three of his older sons while waiting to take up ownership of the property. The Bristolian explained that as the father of nine children, he was not welcomed into any hotels in the area, so had left his American wife with the youngest while he and the boys awaited the handover of the (presumably sizeable) keys. This inauspicious start does not seemed to have dampened the family’s ambitions for their use of the property, as it did not change hands again until 1983.

An advert placed by Savills in that year shows the remains of the formal garden in a sorry state in front of the still-magnificent castle. Almost unbelievably, it was advertised at 'offers over £70,000' for the building and 80 acres.

Adjusted for inflation, that's about £240,000 — though as we all know, house prices have outstripped inflation wildly over the past couple of generations. So let's put it this way: in 1983 the average house price in the UK was £27,000; today, it's around £270,000. In other words, you — or more likely your parents, or perhaps your grandparents — could have bought the Traitors castle for the same price as this terraced house in Guildford.

The McTaggart family bought the structure and nursed it and its gardens slowly back to health. Used to this day as a wedding venue, its main starring role is playing host to The Traitors — a television show broadcast in the UK and USA. It’s strange that a building with such a positive history should be the backdrop for such backstabbing, but then perhaps that what makes it the perfect faithful.

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On the fifth day of the eighth lunar month of AD527, Buddhist monk Ichadon faced the execution he had himself engineered. The man he advised, Beopheung, ruler of Silla, one of the three kingdoms of Korea, had been grappling with a thorny problem: he was determined to make Buddhism the state religion, but his council of nobles opposed him.

Ichadon came up with an extraordinary solution: the king would make the proclamation, then deny all knowledge of it. The monk would then admit to having forged the document and pay for this with his life — but his sacrifice, he believed, would persuade the court to embrace Buddhism.

As the executioner lifted his great sword, Ichadon is reputed to have said: ‘If Buddha is worth believing in, let there be a wonder after my death.’ There was: as his head was severed, the sun vanished, thunder and lightning ripped through the sky, monkeys shrieked and milk, not blood, spurted from Ichadon’s neck. The miracle may be only a legend, but the monk’s martyrdom did persuade the court of the power of Buddhism, sowing the seeds of a cultural blossoming that would last for centuries.

Religion is one of the forces that has historically shaped Korean art, as revealed by a forthcoming exhibition at the British Museum, which traces the past 2,000 years of the country’s history, art and material culture through the 23,000-piece collection bequeathed to the nation in 2021 by the late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee.

Another catalyst, says lead curator Sang-ah Kim, is the relationship with the outside world, particularly China and Japan, and how the country’s skilled craftsmen filtered these influences through the prism of their own creativity. ‘Korea was the second culture in the world after China to master high-fire stoneware,’ Dr Kim explains. ‘They learned how to build a kiln and then how to keep the temperature high, but the stoneware they made was totally different [from China’s].

'In the Three Kingdoms period, they made tall, pedestal-looking burial objects. Why are they tall? Because they are for offering; they also put in lots of figurines, animals — companions for the afterlife.’

The same approach to borrowing and reinterpreting ideas continued during Unified Silla (676–935) — a period in which the kingdom once ruled by Beopheung expanded to control the entire peninsula and its capital, Gyeongju, became so dense with tiled roofs that people could walk down the street in the rain without getting wet — and the subsequent Goryeo era (918–1392), from which the name Korea derives.

Buddhism flourished, not least because Gen Wang Geon, Goryeo’s founder, credited divine assistance for his ascension, and so did religious art. The crown, the court and regional clans all built temples and commissioned paintings, sculptures and, most notably, stoneware. In the 10th century, Korea learned from China how to make celadon pottery. However, Goryeo craftsmen developed their own, distinctive ‘kingfisher’ hue and later adapted inlay techniques to ceramics.

‘On the unfired surface, they carved with sharp tools a decoration, then filled that with white and black slip and fired with glaze. There are lots of designs, such as cranes, clouds or chrysanthemums: they are not painted; they are carved.’

Soon afterwards, in 1011, King Hyeonjong, fleeing an approaching army, vowed to have the entire Buddhist canon carved into wood if his enemy was repelled. They were and the first Tripitaka, a woodblock printed edition of the three-part Buddhist scripture, came into being. This was burnt during the Mongol invasion of 1232 — incidentally, Kublai Khan, the first Mongol emperor of China, would later say that Goryeo, albeit small, had artisans and entertainers that surpassed the Han Chinese — but was then replaced between 1236 and 1251. The 80,000 or so woodblocks of the ‘new’ Tripitaka Koreana are still preserved today at the Haeinsa Temple in Hapcheon.

At about the same time, the country also invented a metal moveable type: ‘The Goryeo dynasty’s printing technology was really advanced, partly because they were Buddhists and in Buddhist countries sutra, the sacred text, is really important, it’s how you promote knowledge,’ explains Dr Kim. ‘They already had really high skills in woodblock printing, then, to make it more efficient, they used metal moveable type.’ It beat Gutenberg’s press by about two centuries and, although most of those early prints are lost, the 1377 Jikji, a collection of excerpts from Buddhist scripture, survives to this day.

Then came the moment that set the country on a new course: the Wihwado Retreat, which Dr Kim likens to the Battle of Hastings. In 1388, general Yi Sŏnggye had been dispatched to invade China’s Liaodong Peninsula. However, at Wihwa Island, he decided to turn back and topple the faltering Goryeo monarchy instead. After a few puppet kings, he himself ascended the throne in 1392 and founded a new dynasty, Joseon, which would remain in power for the next 500 years.

It wasn’t only the rulers that changed. The advent of Joseon ushered in a new religion: neo-Confucianism, a revival of the doctrines of Confucius that had taken root in China under the Song dynasty (960–1279). ‘Their aesthetic was quite different,’ notes Dr Kim. ‘They pursued austerity, simplicity and liked natural things, so they used completely different types of ceramics and painting also assumed a different role.’

Western views of Joseon were long shaped by American writer William Elliot Griffis’s description of it as a ‘hermit kingdom’. Instead, counters Dr Kim, this was a transforming country, at once engaged in cultural exchange and intellectual introspection. After the fall of China’s Ming dynasty in 1644 and the rise to power of the ‘barbarian’ Qing, some Joseon scholars saw Korea as the last bastion of civilisation based on neo-Confucian principles.

In the second half of the 17th century, the country’s social hierarchy also began loosening, with the jungin, the equivalent of the middle class, embracing a culture that was previously the preserve of the elite. Interest in practical studies rose and the economy picked up, with travel becoming increasingly popular. From an artistic perspective, all this opened the door, in the 18th century, for ‘true-view’ landscapes. Artists moved away from idealised Chinese scenery in favour of realistic depictions of Korean surroundings — often underpinned by European notions of perspective.

A pioneer of the genre was Jeong Seon, who in 1751, aged 75, painted Clearing After Rain on Mount Inwang. ‘That’s the mountain in Seoul and that’s where that painter lived for his entire life; so the place was quite familiar to him. It looks very realistic, but at the same time, it’s emotional and very atmospheric.’

Today, video may have replaced true landscapes and celadon vessels, but, says Dr Kim, contemporary Korean art is still very much a product of its past, with which it shares many similarities. ‘Today’s artists are open to new ideas, but they do not just copy or mimic them; they incorporate them into their past and their heritage and create something new.’ This has been spearheaded by luminaries such as Nam June Paik (1932–2006), the first contemporary Korean artist to gain international acclaim, and Kimsooja (b. 1957), who in the past few years has had exhibitions at the Barbican in London and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park near Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

That is why, Dr Kim believes, contemporary Korean culture is taking the world by storm: ‘Because in it there is familiarity and unfamiliarity at the same time.’

‘Korea’ is at the British Museum, London, from October 1–January 31, 2027

This feature originally appeared in the September 23, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

There have been times during this last summer when a tropical lifestyle has looked the best way to conduct ourselves, with outdoor garden activity restricted to the morning and the late afternoon. But let us not be deceived: this is not a tropical country, and it is not about to become one. Anyone dreaming of generating an exotic atmosphere at home should first remember the three cooler seasons and take it from there.

Those who live in most of the south of England, and much of the west coast of Scotland, will have the best chance of succeeding with this form of horticultural theatre. Others will have to do their homework more thoroughly, and rely on those prime considerations of shelter, aspect and drainage.

A piece of ground which faces west or south-west will be the ideal, safe from the fear of morning frost. Free drainage is essential, as sitting wet through the winter will soon sort the sheep from the goats. And when it comes to the choice of plants, fret less about the things you saw along the prom in a far distant land and more about those good doers which create a tall, rich and luscious effect. There’s no shortage of candidates.

A piece of ground which faces west or south-west will be the ideal, safe from the fear of morning frost. Free drainage is essential, as sitting wet through the winter will soon sort the sheep from the goats. And when it comes to the choice of plants, fret less about the things you saw along the prom in a far distant land and more about those good doers which create a tall, rich and luscious effect. According to Guy Watts, owner of Architectural Plants, who has given these matters much thought over the years, there’s no shortage of candidates.

Think evergreen, tall and shiny, and you have your first theme. A second one is that the leaves should be big and distinctively shapely. And for a third, plant richly and densely. This needs to be a little world of its own, removed from the run of the mill.

For the bones of this private paradise, choose reliable evergreens with dramatic leaves. A good start would be the Chusan palm, Trachycarpus fortunei. It likes this country, and it grows a foot a year, so it soon looks the part. Fatsia japonica has travelled in my lifetime from the kitchen windowsill to the garden, and it projects just the right combination of visual drama for our purpose: big, shapely, shiny evergreen leaves, exotic flowers and fruits, and a willingness to grow in apparently unpromising situations. And to push the boat out somewhat, you may wish to try the loquat, Eriobotrya japonica, a vigorous evergreen with a certain theatrical quality. In its native climate it produces delicious fruits, but you can forget that. There are limits.

Since you’re feeling adventurous, you won’t be able to resist a banana tree in your exotic garden. An easy choice, and widely available, is Musa basjoo. It is true that those splendid leaves get shredded in stormy weather, but that happens in its native clime too, so such an appearance lends a whiff of authenticity to the scene.

There are other evergreen shrubs which will fill in the spaces of our new regime, and they need not be tropical at all. We are, after all, creating stage effects and not actually living a life of fly-whisk and flip-flops. Our old and valued friend the bay tree, Laurus nobilis, is one of the best doers of all, and will stand unmoved after a severe winter has clobbered those around it.

Once this enclosing screen is complete, there are plenty of suitable choices for smaller plants of suitable character to decorate the space. Some of them are half-hardy, and will enjoy their annual excursion from the glasshouse to the open air from May to October. These include our old friends Canna and Dahlia, and their fellow refugee from the British seafront, Cordyline indivisa, the definitive tropical plant in the mind of the most cautious British gardener.

And don’t leave it there: the Amaryllis (Hippeastrum) of your Christmas windowsill enjoys its summers in my garden, and its cousin the Nerine will flourish and brighten up your autumn in a favourable spot, quite happily left in the ground. The otherworldly fleshy pleasures of the Aeonium can always be found in a summer plot in your private paradise, but do keep it in its pot ready for retrieval. This isn’t the French Riviera.

As you can see, the possibilities are not endless, but with plenty of forethought, judicious planting choices and a willingness to be simultaneously adventurous and realistic (we are British, after all), wonderful possibilities form in the mind and on the ground. This style of gardening isn’t for everyone, but it has become familiar enough for a number of nurseries to specialise on a large scale in the making and planting of exotic gardens, and not least in the supply of specimen plants to speed the desired image of instant maturity.

Among these is the long-established Architectural Plants of Pulborough, West Sussex, whose owner, Guy Watts, sums up the whole process as ‘understanding risk, and creating something extraordinary that works for that specific garden.’ It is just that combination of reason, romance and practicality that leads to the making of great gardens. Time to open your notebook.

Visit the Architectural Plants website for more information and expert advice.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham kicked off his speech to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week not with pensions, Brexit or tax, but with a story about his grandmother, Kitty, in post-war Liverpool.

'She walked three miles out of the bombed-out city after the war to put a deposit down on a house,' he said.

'She put a deposit down on a house. The house where I was born. It changed the fortunes of my family...

'That home on Keble Drive unlocked the aspiration in my mum and dad for a better life for us all and has taken us to places we could never have imagined.

'With a good home, everything is possible. Without one, it feels like nothing is.'

Labour's journey to the next general election will also start with housing: the creation of a national council house building programme, the partial scrapping of right to buy, an end to rough sleeping and the relaunch of the Help to Buy equity loan scheme. Burnham's aim is clear: to help other people experience the same uplift in their lives that his family had in post-war Liverpool.

The sentiment and rhetoric are one thing, but what does Burnham's speech really tell us about his plan for mending Britain's broken housing market?

Helping first time buyers — or throwing them under the bus?

Help to Buy has been rebranded as 'Your First Home'. First time buyers who have already saved a 2.5 per cent deposit will be able to borrow a loan worth 20 per cent of the property's value to amass a total deposit of 22 per cent to buy a new build home. Other tweaks to the new version expected in the Budget will include an income cap.

'This is certainly a move in the right direction,' says Marcus Dixon, head of residential research for JLL. 'But as usual, the devil is in the detail.'

One concern Dixon has is that the Treasury will not regionalise the scheme. Will they cap incomes in London at the same level as in Manchester, for example? Will the price of the property that is eligible vary by region? 'If they get this wrong it will become a scheme that only works [at best] in travel zone six and beyond. It will become a drawbridge for talent exiting the capital where housing need is greatest,' says Dixon.

Help to Buy works in a rising market and apartment prices have been falling since May 2025, Zoopla reports. This is not just a London problem where the price of a flat fell 2.6% in the year to August. Prices slid 1.3% across the UK and 2.9% in the East Midlands. Flats in Liverpool city centre are slow to sell too, one estate agent admits to Country Life.

Economist James Gerrard describes Help to Buy as 'throwing young Londoners under the bus.' It is, after all, a tool to get developers building homes for both private sale and as council houses, to help Labour get anywhere close to its wild target of getting 1.5 million new homes built.

There are strong headwinds, though. The leasehold scandal, the premium on a new build, and fear of cladding following Grenfell have deterred young buyers from purchasing a flat. Many skip this rung of the ladder now and jump straight to buying a family-sized home. Help to Buy does not necessarily address these issues and trends. In fact, it could encourage developers to throw up yet more apartments in a flooded and falling market.

At the end of five years these Help to Buy flat owners might not have accrued any equity to propel them up the ladder and will owe the Government a fifth of the value of their home. 'This could gum up the market further,' says Dixon.

As ever with the health of the wider housing market, pulling just one lever in isolation can be more hindrance than help.

'We're taxing geography, not wealth' as the Mansion Tax looms

There was red flag in Burnham's speech for those who want less property taxation, with Burnham describing Britain as a 'country run for vested interests and not the public interest'. It seems unlikely we will see any property tax relief for wealthy homeowners, second homeowners or landlords in the Budget.

The danger comes if the Government leaves Stamp Duty in place and adds the Mansion Tax on top. The family homes market is one of the few tranches of the market that is showing signs of life. The Zoopla numbers show this: in the north west, for example. flat prices have fallen 0.6% in the same period that the price of a house has risen 3.6%.

The Mansion Tax could quash sales family homes and mobility up the ladder. In the last autumn budget, the then Chancellor Rachel Reeves proposed that the tax would come in to force for properties valued at £2 million and above, but Rob Fanshawe of Property Vision fears that this value threshold could be lowered to £1.5 million.

Becky Fatemi, of UK Sotheby's International Realty agrees. 'We have to stop pretending the same property value means the same thing everywhere,' she says. 'I would look seriously at regional weighting, otherwise we are taxing geography and not wealth.'

Dominic Agace of Winkworth made the same point when the Mansion Tax was announced last year: 'In London, this is a terrace tax, not a mansion tax,' he told Country Life.

Ignore the countryside at your peril

Burnham promised 'good growth in every postcode' but there has been little mention of the countryside in his first 10 weeks in power, where there is both considerable wealth and considerable poverty. Fanshawe describes it as 'a speech that ignores the countryside and has no regard but for anyone but the urban mob.'

A new report by Savills — due to be published next week — shows that the rural and village property market is sluggish, with country house values falling by 1.4% over the past three months, following on from a fall of 2.8% in the second quarter of the year. A Mansion Tax in high value parts of the countryside such as the Cotswolds, Cornwall or Surrey will surely slow sales further to the detriment of the wider economy and housebuilding efforts — a problem, since households relocating from urban to rural areas is important for the dissemination of wealth across regions, as well as for mobility and lifestyle.

Nick Leeming of Jackson Stops sums it all up: 'Helping people move into homeownership is an ambition we should all support and increasing the supply of new homes gives first-time buyers more routes onto the ladder.

'But getting people onto that first rung is only part of the equation. Those buyers will eventually become second-steppers themselves, and they need a healthy fluid market to move into as their circumstances change.

'Any further taxation of higher value homes therefore needs to be considered in the context of the overall tax burden on property and, importantly, on housing mobility.'

Ever watched the celebrities and professional dancers twirl around the Strictly Come Dancing ballroom floor and thought: ‘I really need one of those in my home’? Now you can. This property on Charlbury Road in Oxford, on the market for £6.25 million with Knight Frank, comes with its very own first floor ballroom.

Measuring around 50 by 27 feet with lovely views over the garden, you could spend your days waltzing to your heart’s content, pretending you’re training to compete with one of the show's heavily spray-tanned pros in a ridiculous themed costume on Saturday night.

You could even invite a few to stay with you — the nine-bedroom house isn’t really lacking in space, and has one of the largest private gardens in central north Oxford to boot, according to the agent.

The property also comes with a walled garden with herbaceous borders, several mature trees and a large paved terrace for alfresco dining (or dancing, should you wish).

With approximately 8500 square feet over three floors and a 0.5 acre plot, you’d need a quickstep to get around this property quickly.

Stained glass windows, cornicing and wooden flooring add to the ballroom's charm to make for an elegant home indeed.

The property is also in a prime location. It is near a great range of schools, with the Dragon, Whychwood and Oxford High School within walking distance and University Parks nearby for riverside walks.

Better still, four dance studios — Swing Dance Summertown, Onsalsa, Oxford Academy of Dance and Oxford Dance Studio — are only a short drive away. Surely even Craig Revel Horwood would have to award this family home a ‘10’.

This property is for sale through Knight Frank — see more details.

We might be mere mortals, but mischief is eternal. And so it is that when I ask Ralph Steadman, aged 90, how he’s keeping busy these days, he laments, without missing a beat, that he ‘can only run five acres a day’ and his face spreads into a devilish smile.

Ralph has made a life out of mischief. A career in cartoons began with training in technical drawing with the Royal Air Force, and a correspondence course at the Percy Bradshaw Press Art School. His first cartoon was published in the Manchester Evening Chronicle in 1956, followed by commissions for Private Eye and Punch.

The inflection point, however, occurred in Louisville in 1970. It was Ralph’s first visit to the USA, and he was to make drawings for a journalist by the name of Hunter S. Thompson. ‘Back at the motel we talked for a while about America, the South, England, just relaxing a bit before dinner,’ Thompson wrote of their first encounter. ‘There was no way either of us could have known, at the time, that it would be the last normal conversation we would have. From that point on, the weekend became a vicious, drunken nightmare. We both went completely to pieces.'

That vicious, drunken nightmare became history in the form of an article, titled The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, which was the birth of ‘Gonzo’ journalism, for which Ralph is so fondly remembered. Well maybe not fondly by those he drew. ‘I warned him several times about letting the subjects see his foul renderings, but for some perverse reason he kept doing it,’ Thompson wrote. ‘Consequently, he was regarded with fear and loathing by nearly everyone who’d seen or even heard about his work.’

‘Foul renderings’ they may be, but Ralph is among the most celebrated illustrators that this island has ever produced. They are also the subject of a new selling exhibition curated by Tin Man Art and Ralph’s daughter Sadie Williams at 31, St George Street, London, which opens tomorrow. It will feature 27 drawings spanning a 70-year career and is the first exhibition of this type in 30 years.

When I ask Ralph what he’d like people to take away from his drawings, his answer is simple: ‘That I noticed something, and recorded it in a certain way.’ He emphasises that the job of a cartoonist is to hold people to account for their actions. ‘It’s a pictorial way of showing up naughty people, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘It’s nice to be a critic. Although I could be a bit self-righteous. Once I was being a bit sour about people you know.’

‘Well only if they deserved it,’ Sadie adds. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever criticised or lambasted anybody who wasn’t behaving in a disreputable way. I don’t think you ever drew Mother Teresa. She was a bit too good for you.’

Choosing 27 images from a collection of thousands to explain an entire career was no easy feat. ‘We went through various drawers and pulled out ones that we thought had a sort of power,’ Sadie says. ‘We also wanted to span the collection a bit. It has some very early works, the pre-Gonzo stuff. And then post 1970, and that’s when you can see his work becomes bigger and a bit less constrained, and the splats come in, the lack of fear of making a mess.’

Making a mess became a signature style of Ralph’s work; ugly splats and ghoulish caricatures of ugly places and ghoulish people. His work would appear in The Times (until then editor William Rees-Mogg had him sacked), the New Statesman, Rolling Stone, Radio Times, The New York Times, The Guardian and The Observer. As well as his withering portraits of politicians, police and whatever else, he illustrated everything from album artwork to Animal Farm, and everything in between. On Sundays in the summer, when I play for a cricket team called Not The MCC, his work takes pride of place as the club badge.

But perhaps his best known drawings draw on that aforementioned ‘fear and loathing’ that his pen could produce. In 1971, Thompson’s iconic novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was brought to life by Ralph, and the pair collaborated further with Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 and The Curse of Lono. ‘I went with [Ralph] and mum to Hawaii when dad and Hunter were asked to cover the marathon for Running magazine,’ Sadie remembers. ‘I was about seven or eight, and we had six weeks out there with Hunter, and, we witnessed his, should we just say, eccentricities. He nearly trod on my head at one point, trying to sneak the TV out of the lounge.’

‘I recently went to Gonzo Fest and I did a talk, and I used some excerpts from my mother’s diaries, and usually the excerpts end in Hunter pulling some sort of dynamite out of a bag and throwing it willy-nilly in some direction.’ ‘I’m actually quite impressed he didn’t kill you, to be honest,’ Ralph interjects.

When I ask if adventures with Thompson ever went too far, the answer is an unequivocal no. ‘When we were doing whatever we were doing, I think it was important that we did it to the best of our abilities, being as dangerous as possible. The best way to be.’

For a man who has seen and experienced so much, it felt foolish to ask if there’s anything left for him to be getting on with. ‘Climb Everest,’ was the instant response. ‘I’m off to Everest next week.’ I hope he’s joking. Not because a 90-year-old man shouldn’t be on top of the world. But because if Ralph is on top of the world, then he can see all of us, and God knows what he would draw.

'Ralph Steadman: Out of Line (Original Works 1961–2016)' runs from October 2–11 at Tin Man Art, 31, St George Street, London.

Patek Philippe’s seventh ‘Watch Art’ Grand Exhibition begins in the Italian city on Friday and will showcase hundreds of watches and clocks, but the biggest draws will be the Swiss watchmaker’s Calibre 89, Star Calibre 2000 and Grandmaster Chime, a trio of so-called ‘supercomplications’.

The Calibre 89 pocket watch became the world’s most complicated mechanical watch when it was unveiled in 1989 to mark Patek Philippe’s 150th anniversary. With 33 complications — or functions — including a star chart, a thermometer, an indication showing when Easter falls and various chiming functions, it remains the Genevan company’s most complex watch.

Five years went into its development and a further four bringing its 1,728 components together. Only four examples were ever made, one each in white, yellow and rose gold and a fourth in platinum. Weighing almost a kilogram, the watch was huge, but it was designed for deep pockets. The last Calibre 89 sale was in 2009, when the yellow-gold version hammered at just over $5 million (around $7.5 million today).

As its name suggests, the Star Calibre 2000 was introduced for the Millennium. This was a pocket watch, too, with a comparatively modest 21 complications. Even so, collectors often view it with greater reverence: the Star Calibre 2000 solved a number of complex horological problems and was awarded six patents, one of which was for an indicator that tracks sunrise and sunset times. It was also the first chiming watch to accurately replicate the melody of London’s Big Ben.

Five sets of four were made, four in gold and platinum, and a fifth in only platinum. The first time a set came up for auction was in December last year, when Sotheby’s sold one of the mixed metal sets for a cool $11.9 million.

The Grandmaster Chime Ref. 5175 was created for Patek’s 175th anniversary in 2014 and has 20 complications, making it Patek’s most complex watch for the wrist. Two of the heavily engraved reversible gold wristwatch’s functions were patented; an alarm that strikes the time in full when it goes off, and another chiming function that sounds the date on demand.

It’s said a Grandmaster Chime took more than 100,000 hours to produce, which explains why only seven were made, one of which has crossed the Alps to Milan from Patek’s Geneva museum. None of the original seven has ever come up for auction, although two years ago Sylvester Stallone sold his Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300, a follow-up variant released in 2016, at Sotheby’s in New York for $5.4 million.

Patek’s exhibition runs until October 18 at Milan’s late-Art Nouveau Palazzo delle Scintille, now known as CityOval. Entry is free with registration and covers access to 15 rooms full of Patek watches, including the current collection and a special range of Italian-themed clocks and watches produced exclusively for the event.

For more information, visit the Patek website.

The Country Life Quiz is published every weekday at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up on previous editions, here.

A fairly sizeable chunk of Scotland to the north and west of Glasgow has been Clan Colquhoun country for the past 850 years. Their patch. Their turf. Their hills. Their glens. Their forests, rivers, lochs, islands, farms, fields, forts, castles, churches, chapels, cottages, coaching inns.

Perhaps the best known of these assets, to the general public, is the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel, a beloved institution set back slightly from the shores of a likewise beloved loch, occupying a prominent spot in the famously pretty village of Luss.

The hotel has lately been given the treatment by Russell Sage Studios (The Fife Arms, The Goring, Lilibet’s) with all the wit and flair for which that man and his practice are renowned. The joyous tangle of newly added antlers on the outside walls — there are dozens and dozens of them; the effect is strange and beautiful, like ossified wisteria — barely hints at the delights and curiosities within.

With the full — if, perhaps, occasionally bemused — cooperation of the Colquhouns, Sage has plundered all those centuries’ worth of family history for design inspiration. Each of the guest rooms has been named in honour of a Colquhoun and designed to reflect aspects of his or her life.

I stayed in The Wallabies and the Jaguar, which celebrates Fiona Colquhoun, Countess of Arran (1918-2013), speed demon, committed animal lover and a noted beauty (Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen). All three qualities were presumably on display simultaneously when she transported, by means of her E-Type Jaguar, a passenger-seat’s worth of wallabies to Luss and thence to the Isle of Inchconnachan in Loch Lomond.

Lady Arran went on to become the first woman to break the 100-mile-per-hour barrier in a speedboat, at the age of 62. In quieter moments she perambulated — quite quickly — around Luss in the company of a pet badger called Rosie. Her husband, Arthur ‘Boofy’ Gore, 8th Earl of Arran (who also has a room in the Loch Lomond Arms named after him), was remarkable in different ways, notably as an incendiary newspaper columnist and as the peer who sponsored the (successful) 1967 bill to decriminalise homosexuality as well as an (unsuccessful) bill for the protection of badgers. When asked why the one passed and the other didn’t, he replied: ‘There are not many badgers in the House of Lords.’

The Sage-ification of the hotel’s rooms and its ground-floor Map Room, bar and restaurant is only one part of a larger programme to bring the estate as a whole into the 21st century and help secure its long-term future. This programme is being spearheaded by Patrick Colquhoun, son of the 33rd laird, Sir Malcolm Colquhoun. The idea is that the reinvigorated hotel will tempt travellers to slow down and spend days, rather than just hours, discovering Luss and its surroundings.

At about 45,000 acres, the estate is quite the backyard, and now there are all manner of appealing new ways to explore it from a base at the Loch Lomond Arms. Among them are guided walks and Land-Rover safaris through the glens and uplands, farm visits, island-hopping yacht charters and good old-fashioned whisky-assisted Scottish fireside storytelling.

If ringing the bell in Luss Parish Church (a site of worship for the past 1,500 years) with your own hands isn’t exciting enough for you, put on your waterproof racing gear and make like Lady Arran — a speedboat out to Wallaby Island is easily arranged.

Rooms from £450 on a bed-and-breakfast basis. Visit the Loch Lomond Arms Hotel website for more information and to book.

Katherine Parr will always be known in history as the bride who survived. In July 1543, this clever, confident woman put aside her personal feelings — and her love for Sir Thomas Seymour — to become Henry VIII's sixth and final wife. In contrast to her teenage predecessor Catherine Howard, Parr was older and more experienced, had been twice widowed already, and was approaching her 30th birthday She would stay with Henry for three and a half years, until his death in January 1547.

Her influence didn't stop there. She had been very close to all of Henry's children — particularly the future queens Mary and Elizabeth — and remained so for the rest of her life. Sadly, that didn't turn out to be very long.

Almost 400 years later Elizabeth Ashcombe stands beside the tomb of Parr in Sudeley Castle’s 15th-century chapel. The monument was designed by the great Gothic Revival architect George Gilbert Scott, who worked on the restoration of the castle and chapel. It was completed in 1862. The marble effigy was carved by John Birnie Philip, a London sculptor who regularly worked with Scott.

Parr was Henry VIII's final wife, but he was not her final husband. She secretly married Seymour just a few months after being widowed by the King, and was became pregnant at the end of 1547. She spent her confinement at Sudeley and was delivered of a daughter there, but developed puerperal fever. She died on September 5, 1548, and was buried the same day.

The chapel was damaged during the Civil War and the tomb destroyed. Her lead coffin, however, was opened in 1782 to reveal her body in almost perfect preservation. A letter to Horace Walpole in 1784 noted the skin was ‘light brown… the flesh soft and moist… the teeth were perfect’. She was also found to be of ‘low stature’.

Exposure to the air caused the body to deteriorate and, in 1817, it was briefly removed from the building to avoid further disturbance.

The new tomb is based on fragments of the original. ‘Katherine Parr seems to linger here,’ observes Lady Ashcombe.

‘It is deeply moving to know she lived here, died here and rests here still. She is not merely a name in the history of Sudeley — she is part of its atmosphere, its memory, and its soul.’

Visit the Sudeley Castle website to find out more about visiting.

This feature originally appeared in the September 16, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

‘The fluidity of his drawing comes across in everything. You see it particularly in sketches because the nature of a sketch is that they are more fluid and expressive. I love his piece of a teapot full of shells. I just think: “What a gorgeous idea”.’

This is what Lucinda Oakes has to say about her father’s work. George Oakes (1927-2017) was a decorative artist renowned for his time at the British interiors firm Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler, where he was a director. Now, The Collection of George Oakes, and his wife Judith, will go on sale on October 1 as part of Dreweatts’ At Home auction.

‘He was always inspired by nature,’ Lucinda says, a statement evidenced in the collection which features a myriad bird paintings and sculpture — including an ostrich — a shell grotto and an array of colourful botanicals. The items for sale are from George and Judith Oakes’s home, Surrenden House, where they lived for more than 40 years. Painted furniture, textiles, decorative objects, lighting, studio materials and works on paper are all going under the hammer.

According to Joe Robinson of Dreweatts, Oakes, who was key to the development of the English Country House style we know and love today, occupies ‘a very special place in the story of English decorative art’. He adds: ‘His influence can still be felt in the way country house interiors are understood and enjoyed today.'

Oakes studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art before joining Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler in 1956 in a freelance capacity. He went on to work very closely with John Fowler and lead the hallowed firm’s fabric, wallpaper and carpet design departments and paint studio, until his retirement in 1993. He was best known for his mural and trompe l’oeil painting.

His unique artistic embellishments, often inspired by late-18th and 19th-century patterns, decorate the interiors of many great buildings. These include Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler owner Nancy Lancaster’s Haseley Court, Grimsthorpe Castle, Sezincote House and Daylesford House. He also brought his artistic touch to the likes of Chiswick House, West Green House, Christ Church in Oxford and Buckingham Palace. Many of his designs are still very popular today, such as Bowood, a chintz fabric discovered at Bowood House and redrawn as a carpet by Oakes.

‘George Oakes eschewed “sweetness” in his work, choosing unusual colours and unconventional subjects — cabbages, turnips, radishes,' says Wendy Nicholls, the chairman of Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler. ‘He painted lovely birds, flowers, pots and plates, often contained within classical cartouches. He had a great sense of humour; a stimulating and wonderful person to work with, he caused you to think and to try your hardest to be fresh and original.’

‘It’s bittersweet,’ Lucinda says of the auction, made necessary because she does not have space in which to keep all of her parent’s belongings. ‘But, at the same time, what I’m really loving is showing people how brilliantly my parents put together their collections… to be able to show it off and say: “Look at what they did.” It’s a legacy in that sense, isn’t it?’

One of Lucinda highlights is her mother’s collection of teapots — which Oakes had brackets made for, so they could hang on the wall. Another favourite is Judith’s collection of purple slag ware glass. ‘There's a lovely photograph of that on top of a chest of drawers in my parents' bedroom, with these black papier-mâché wall hangings. It just looks so smart and beautiful, and I love that other people are getting to see it.’

Visit the Dreweatts website for more information.

The Country Life Quiz is published every weekday at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up on previous editions, here.

We're crowding around the glass cabinet as if it contained the Mona Lisa. Its display is portraiture of sorts: a distinguished gentleman leans forward, having just cast his line. This is Heissner, one of the first German-made garden gnomes, which Sir Charles Isham brought back for his rockery at Lamport Hall, Northamptonshire, in the mid 19th century, precipitating a very British passion for gnomery.

A selection of these elderly red-hatted fishermen — including an alarmingly big-eared, toothy-grinned Tony Blair specimen — sits next to models of Bill and Ben, a 1987 Titchpot created in the likeness of Alan Titchmarsh and a signed Ground Force photograph of Charlie Dimmock from 2000.

London’s Garden Museum is the Louvre for lovers of horticulture. Its quirky collection of objects — from the first Flymo to vintage slug pellets — traces the history of British gardening. As are so many of our museums, its existence is down to the generosity of a few people; in this case, Rosemary and John Nicholson, who took on the site on Lambeth Palace Road, SE1, in 1976 to save it from demolition. Many people have bequeathed items in the intervening years (the Titchpot was given by its muse).

Collectors often make great curators, which is why many of the museums featured below began life as private projects. Collections need space to thrive — I write this as a recovering collector, whether rocks, stamps, cigarette cards, feathers or whimsies — so not all survive: consider Keith and Sue Blayze’s 8,500 teapots, once shown at the couple’s Kent café Teapot Island, now under new management, or Barry Kirk’s recently defunct baked-bean museum, housed in his Port Talbot council flat for many years.

Thankfully, many eccentric assemblages, from sewing machines to dog collars, remain open to public view. Here are some of Britain’s strangest — don’t forget, as you exit through the gift shop, to buy a fridge magnet for your collection.

Pass the scalpel: The Old Operating Theatre Museum, London

Tomophobics may want to skip a visit to St Thomas’s Hospital’s original Southwark site, where the church attic has been preserved as an historic surgery space. The raked seating reflects contemporary practice for carrying out procedures — before anaesthesia — in view of medical students. The garret was rediscovered in 1952 after being boarded up when the hospital relocated to Lambeth, unveiling an extraordinary time capsule.

Further grisly gaiety can be found over at the Royal College of Surgeons of England’s Hunterian Museum, which features more than 70,000 objects covering the art and science of surgery from the 17th century to the present day.

Round and round in circles: Amersham Fair Organ Museum, Buckinghamshire

The traditional tinkling merry-go-round sound — best associated with Mary Poppins’s pastel ponies that leap off their carousel to career through bucolic countryside and onto the racecourse — was historically created by mechanical organs in the centre of the ride (in the Disney film, the guard appears from a hatch surrounded by metal pipes).

The late Albert Ree’s collection of these fairground organs, which includes a rare 60-key Gavioli instrument thought to date from 1887 and a Black Forest Waldkirch that was used in a galloping horse roundabout by Lovatt’s of Scotland during the 1920s, is open for six dates from November to April.

Water, water everywhere: London Canal Museum, King’s Cross

Housed in a former 19th-century icehouse built by ice-cream entrepreneur Carlo Gatti, the London Canal Museum takes the visitor along the capital’s historic waterways during industrialisation. Hands-on exhibits include the stern of trailer boat Coronis, constructed in 1935 for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company.

Less hands-on are the two ice wells secreted underneath the building — the only examples of their kind open to the public in the UK. The museum is situated just off Regent’s Canal, allowing visitors to have an immersive experience and arrive via water: it offers mooring space for two breasted-up narrowboats or one wide-beamed boat.

Follow the lead: The Dog Collar Museum, Leeds Castle, Kent

Gertrude and John Hunt’s unusual interest in rare dog collars morphed into a collection comprising more than 60 pieces, from 16th-century spiked German ironwork and Italian brass identity tags through to 19th-century filigree silver.

In 1977, Mrs Hunt donated the couple’s canine accessories to Leeds Castle in Kent, where they have been bolstered by 20th-century additions, and the 130-strong group is said to be the largest of its kind. The earliest collar in this diminutive display is a 15th-century heavy-duty Spanish mastiff’s collar, worn for protection against wolves and bears — a far cry from the buttery leather and Harris Tweed specimens favoured by modern-day pooches.

Happy hour: Museum of Timekeeping, Upton Hall, Nottinghamshire

Plenty of timepiece collections focus on a specific type — such as the 400 Black Forest cuckoo clocks curated by brothers Roman and Maz Piekarski at the former Cuckooland Museum in Knutsford, now housed at the Irish Museum of Time — but the Museum of Time-keeping considers the concept of measurement.

Exhibitions feature sundials and sand glasses through to naval technology and watches, including the one that belonged to Capt Robert Scott, the British explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions. The British Horological Institute shares the space at Upton Hall.

Meal deal: The Food Museum, Stowmarket, Suffolk

Although many of us might prefer to forget them, the former Museum of East Anglian Life sprinkles hundreds and thousands on school dinners with a new exhibition dedicated to spotted dick, semolina and other traditional puddings, displayed next to a broader history of food production across its 84-acre site.

Intrepid visitors are invited to sample a two-course school dinner in the on-site café. No one leaves the table until the plates are cleared — will the milk monitor please report for duty.

Rein supreme: The Museum of the Horse, Tuxford, Nottinghamshire

Artist Sally Mitchell and her son rescued a former Georgian coaching inn and posting house from vandals in 2014 and converted the Grade II-listed building into Britain’s only public display of utilitarian equestrian items. Historic spurs, stirrups and saddles are curated across the first floor; the entrance is home to a gallery with a focus on animals and the countryside.

Whereas the National Horseracing Museum in Newmarket, Suffolk, showcases jockeys and jumps, this collection — built over many years by Mitchell — has a domestic focus, including antique stable rarities and some rather gruesome veterinary equipment.

Ursa Major: The Teddy Bear Museum, Dorchester, Dorset

Like a British Library for plushy toys, Britain’s oldest teddy-bear museum gathers every bear that ever there was, spanning makers from Steiff to Merrythought. In addition to antique collectables, the cuddly cabinet displays include celebearties Winnie-the-Pooh, Rupert, Paddington and Sooty — with original Harry Corbett musical automata.

In a strangely meta twist, the museum is set in the home of one Edward Bear, a human-sized teddy, who collects his miniature familiars.

It’s a stitch up: The Sewing Machine Museum, London

From a working replica of Elias Howe’s first mechanical lockstitch to the 1865 Pollack & Schmidt model that was given to Queen Victoria’s daughter to mark her wedding, the Sewing Machine Museum is a stitch in time.

About 600 pieces — amassed by founder Ray Rushton, the former owner of the Wimbledon Sewing Machine Company in Tooting Bec — are open for public viewing on the first Saturday of the month, in a space featuring frontage styled to re-create the family’s original 1946 shop. Among the vintage curiosities on display are the green 1962 Alfa Stitchline loaned to the musician Boy George (autographed on return) and a well-used Singer that was owned by Charlie Chaplin’s mother.

The sun will come out tomorrow: Foundling Museum, London

Playing cards, jewellery and coins fill a large display in the introductory room of the Foundling Museum. They are some of the 18,000 tokens that accompanied babies on arrival at the hospital during the 18th century, identifiers should a relative later claim a child.

Such poignancy runs through exhibits dedicated to those who have experienced life in care, at once a strange and powerful topic for a museum. The Foundling Hospital’s connections with William Hogarth — whose painting of founder Thomas Coram is in the permanent collection — and George Frideric Handel, whose annual performances of his Messiah raised essential funds for the charity, are world-class ancillary pieces.

At the pointy end: Derwent Pencil Museum, Keswick, Cumbria

A stone’s skim from Derwent Water is the graphite mine that served the pencil industry for centuries, a heritage celebrated by a small, but perfectly sketched collection nestled in the crook of Skiddaw. The Pencil Museum is run by Derwent Pencils, which has been making writing instruments in Cumbria since 1832.

Currently situated on the banks of the River Greta, the collection, which reopened in 2017 after widespread storm damage, includes one of the world’s largest colour pencils, measuring 26ft, and one of two special pencils made for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee — the other resides in Buckingham Palace. A new era beckons for the museum — it will close at its present home on November 1 before reopening in larger premises at nearby Rawnsley Hall in March 2027.

This article first appeared in the September 16 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.

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Here's a look at some of what you'll find inside this week's issue.

When the Englishman’s house was no longer his castle

Deborah Nicholls-Lee explores how the requisition of country houses played a crucial role in winning the Second World War

Look, listen, learn

Nature writer Mark Cocker delves into his new book to explain how we can open our eyes to the world around us

The last milkman standing?

Are doorstep dairy deliveries a thing of the past, asks Patrick Galbraith, as he joins one of the capital’s few remaining rounds

The restoration of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’

Timothy Mowl admires the revival of one of the finest and earliest Pulhamite gardens at Highnam Court in Gloucestershire

The Versailles of the north

The Duchess of Northumberland tells Charles Quest-Ritson of her plans for the Alnwick Garden as it celebrates its 25th anniversary

Tony Iommi’s favourite painting

The Black Sabbath founder chooses a work depicting beauty, strength and grace

Country-house treasure

John Goodall raises a glass to the late-Victorian ‘Braxted Bar’ that dominates the entrance hall at Braxted Park in Essex

The genius of place

Classical and Gothic detailing are employed to dramatic effect at Home Farm in North Yorkshire, finds John Martin Robinson

On the brink of extinction

In a last call for the telephone exchange, Ptolemy Dean ponders the future of the obsolete edifices

The legacy

Octavia Pollock hails the vision of John Bateman, whose dams and reservoirs still serve us today

There goes summer

John Lewis-Stempel prepares to get hands-on with his flock as thoughts turn to tupping time with the transition to autumn

The return of the native

The large tortoiseshell butterfly is back. Harry Pearson hails British species risen from the dead

Luxury

Amie Elizabeth White showcases floral jewels and country classics, plus Rita Konig’s favourite things

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe picks companies that add a touch of craftsmanship to country-house renovations

Arts & antiques

Ahead of a new Pierre-Auguste Renoir exhibition at the National Gallery, Michael Prodger looks at how the French Impressionist is still dividing critical opinion

Countryside mystery

Straying livestock could prove costly in the days of the village pound, as John Wright reveals

Travel

Rosie Paterson visits the Algarve in Portugal and finds a natural haven that is truly worth its salt

Ripe for the picking

From apples to pears and pomegranates, painters down the ages have used all manner of fruit as artistic symbols, as Michael Prodger discovers

And much more

Duredon Farmhouse, in the heart of Exmoor, was in such a state of disrepair when the lawyer-turned-interior designer Charles O’Connor and his partner, Edward Greenall, took it on that they decided to rebuild it from scratch.

The house stands in the middle of an estate and, due to strict planning restrictions, the new structure had to follow the footprint of the original building. The project, which broke ground in 2019 and ran during much of the pandemic, involved reusing most of the materials from the old house, including building stones, floorboards and roof slates.

The library forms part of a succession of three rooms, with the kitchen and dining room, separated by wide arches. ‘The arrangement has proved very popular when the house is let out to families, as it’s where people gather to watch television when others are in the kitchen,’ explains O’Connor, partner at the Dorset-based interior design studio Olpol & Co.

The starting point was the Derbyshire fossil-stone fireplace, supplied by architectural salvage specialist Lassco. ‘It dates back to the 1820s and sets the tone of the room,’ he explains. Several pieces were bought at a contents sale of Wormington Grange in Gloucestershire. Others came from the couple’s previous home. The walls are painted in Farrow & Ball’s Dead Salmon.

The ottoman, covered in a Robert Kime striped fabric, was bought from antique dealer Rebecca Christie Miller. On the floor is a rug from Salisbury-based auctioneers Woolley & Wallis. Meanwhile, a pop of contemporary colour is introduced with the tangerine-orange ceramic lamp with a gathered shade from Samarkand Design.

This feature originally appeared in the August 23, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.'

Across the River Tamar in south Cornwall, renovation is also the name of the game. Here Strutt & Parker Cornwall quotes a guide price of £1.9 million for secluded Grade II-listed Nansough Manor, an exquisite small Georgian manor house set in eight acres of gardens, paddocks and woodland, a mile from the ancient village of Ladock and six miles from the cathedral city of Truro.

Local records show that an earlier manor and chapel existed on the site, dating to at least 1414, and most likely a couple of centuries before that.

Nothing remains of the medieval house, however. Historic England suggest that the Nansough Manor that stands today is 'probably' 17th in origin, though it effectively became a Georgian house when rebuilt in 1792.

That work was carried out by the Roberts family, who were long established in Cornwall. Local tradition suggests that its construction was funded through the historic trade of horses and brandy between Penzance and France.

The 3,372 square foot main house offers elegant, well-proportioned accommodation on two floors, including an entrance hall with a high ceiling and decorative cornicing, a light-filled drawing room with original fireplaces and large sash windows, a good-sized dining room, and a recently-refurbished kitchen.

One thing that's lovely to see is the interior decoration. The place has been renovated, but there's been no effort to give the house an original Georgian flavour, nor have the owners made it look overtly slick and modern.

Instead, there's a lovely palate of colours from across the spectrum — greens and blues and oranges and pinks — which feel as if they've been chosen by someone wearing a big smile on their face. It's fresh and welcoming, full of life.

Something about it reminded us of a Hockney painting — and the choice of art that hangs on the walls only adds to the feeling that the owners have real visual flair.

A sweeping 18th-century staircase leads to four first-floor bedrooms, including the principal bedroom, which boasts a large en-suite bathroom and wonderful south-facing views.

The adjoining two-bedroom cob cottage provides additional accommodation and requires additional work, but has the potential to create a proper annexe or a useful holiday let subject to consents. The potential is huge, and it's full of character with inglenook fire place, bread oven, wash boiler and pig trundle.

Nansough Manor has formal lawns and paddocks enclosed by a copse of mature oak trees.

The land is well suited to equestrian use, with facilities including a recently installed range of Monarch stables, stock fencing, powered water troughs and miles of nearby bridleways for riding out.

Nansough Manor is for sale through Strutt & Parker — see more details.

Pottery fascinates Will Gompertz, the director of the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. ‘What is so extraordinarily moving about it is that we’re taking the lowliest material on the earth — mud — and, through human ingenuity and creativity and sensitivity, creating something beautiful, valuable and unique. It is the most incredible piece of alchemy, really.’

He paraphrases German philosopher and culture critic Walter Benjamin, who, in his essay on the mechanical reproduction of artworks, suggested that paintings have an intrinsic aura, a uniqueness linked to their cultural context. ‘I never quite believed that about paintings, but I do believe it about pottery, because of the shaping human touch.’

Much like another prominent collector of the art form, Zandra Rhodes, Gompertz finds that it brightens his life. ‘It’s such a joy to have it in the house. You know paintings have wall power, but great pottery — it’s got table power.’ It is all the more amazing because ceramic is not, as he puts it, ‘wildly expensive: as an art form, it’s available and affordable’.

However, his interest is deeper and more personal than ‘just’ artistic appreciation. ‘My “fame to claim” is that I am a distant relative of Lucie Rie, who was born Lucie Gomperz — with no ‘t’, but it is the same family.’ She emigrated from Austria in the 1930s at a time when British ceramics was the domain of Bernard Leach, ‘with whom I don’t think she got on terribly well,’ says Gompertz. ‘Her pottery is just wonderful.’

He recalls watching a documentary about Rie in which she was interviewed by Sir David Attenborough: ‘She wasn’t very big and her kiln was huge: there’s one moment when she’s leaning to get out a piece and is actually just about to disappear into it. I might have made this up, but in my mind’s eye, David Attenborough grabs her by the ankles and stops her from falling in.’ (His memory is not playing a trick: Sir David really did rescue the diminutive ceramicist).

Gompertz believes that it’s thanks to people such as Rie, Leach, Hans Coper and, more recently, Edmund de Waal and Sir Grayson Perry that pottery’s standing has changed in the past few decades. ‘There’s no doubt that it has become a more appreciated art form from the doldrums of the early 20th century. I think it’s alive and well and thriving.’

Among the most interesting ‘hands’ of the younger generation, he singles out those of Chloé Rosetta Bell. ‘Her attention to detail, her use of material and her understanding of form all come together and she’s so sincere in her work. She spends a lot of time in Nature, looking specifically at a very small pocket of land and working with that mud to make extraordinary annual collections.’

Gompertz first came across Ms Bell in 2019, when she was still a student at the Royal College of Art (RCA): ‘I was at the end-of-the-year show,’ he recalls. ‘I had actually gone to see some painters, but drifted into her studio area and was bowled over by the materiality and this honesty that she put into her work.’ As she left the RCA and set up on her own, Mr Gompertz began supporting her. He now tries to buy a piece every season, but there is an early one in particular that has a very special place in his heart: an oyster-shell vase, part of a series she made in 2019 in Porthilly, Cornwall.

‘Chloé’s brought two important things of my life together through her own creativity,’ he explains: the vase is not only a memento of his long-standing connection with pottery and Rie, but also reminds him of Porthilly, where his parents had taken him on holiday when he was young and where he has since taken his own children.

‘It’s a beautiful part of north Cornwall, on the other side of the Camel estuary from Padstow — it’s so ancient and so beautiful. The light is magnificent and Chloé captures that in this group of works so well. They are grey and green, and they glisten with the oyster shells.’ He stops to marvel once again at the magic of pottery: ‘In the hands of a real artist, such as Chloé, such as Rie, you end up with pieces that have immense inner — as well as exterior — beauty.’

This feature originally appeared in the September 16, 2026, print edition of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The Country Life Quiz is published every weekday at 4pm.

Missed a day? Want more quizzes? Catch up on previous editions, here.

A couple of times a year, pretty much without fail, a story goes viral about the funniest place names in Britain. Those six month gaps are long enough to forget some of the funniest examples, and so, once again pretty much without fail, we end up clicking on those stories for a chuckle about the likes of Wetwang (Yorkshire), Shitterton (Dorset) and Twatt (Orkney).

The problem with such, er, overt vulgarity is that it misses the richer, gentler world of quietly quirky place names. Just today, for example, I discovered that Bignor and Littleton are villages just up the road from each other in Sussex; that Dull, in Scotland, is twinned with Boring, Oregon; and that there's a place called Pudding Pie Hill in Yorkshire. And that brings us to the quirkily-named house on this page: Pud Hill, in Inchbrook, Gloucestershire, which is for sale through Hamptons at £1.95 million.

It may not sound glamorous, but this is a very fine house indeed, a wisteria-clad beauty with a history going back to the 17th century, according to its Grade II listing at Historic England.

Pud Hill as it stands today is defined just as much — if not more — by the work which took place here in the 1840s addition, when its interiors took on grand Victorian proportions with exceptional historic detailing.

The Gothic-style windows, for example, not only allow unimpeded access to spectacular Nailsworth Valley views, but they let natural light flood in throughout the house, including through the showstopper in the stairwell, which illuminates the stone cantilevered staircase.

The property has four reception rooms, plus seven bedrooms over two floors, as well as an extra bedroom in a separate annexe.

The cellar alone is bigger than some houses: at 886 square feet, this could make an uncommonly good wine store for a true aficionado. Outside, the grounds run to just under two acres, with a 2¼-acre paddock and stable block available to buy by separate negotiation.

The setting, Inchbrook, is a small village, but the thriving market town of Nailsworth is only a 10-minute walk away along a quiet cycle path.

Stroud and Tetbury are also easily reached, though if you're looking for more funny place names than useful towns for shopping, you'll be delighted to hear that Balls Green and Box are close by, while Waterley Bottoms is about a 20 minute drive.

Pud Hill is for sale through Hamptons at £1.95 million — see more details.

Earlier this month, the Government confirmed that: ‘Mayors and local leaders will be handed the power to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy — a fee on overnight stays — to help maximise the benefits of tens of millions of people visiting England every year.’

According to the official announcement, it will be left to the local authorities concerned to decide the level at which they will set the levy and, indeed, whether they will charge one at all. Rather than being applied at a flat rate, it will be calculated as a percentage of the cost of an overnight stay. This, it is claimed, will have the effect of ‘shielding families from disproportionate costs for cheaper holidays’.

Food will not be included in the assessed cost and Labour local leaders collectively, including the Mayor of London, have announced a cap of 5% on what they will charge. It will be the responsibility of those providing accommodation both to calculate the cost of the levy and to apply it. Local leaders will be free to spend the money raised as they see fit, with their plans set out by March 2028. The Government expects to legislate for these changes during the current Parliamentary session.

Opponents of the proposals have immediately branded the scheme a ‘tourist tax’ and have argued that it will have a chilling effect on tourism, discouraging overnight stays and putting further financial pressure on the hospitality sector. At some level, it’s hard to disagree with this analysis. In absolute terms, the levy adds to the cost of a holiday and will increase the administrative burden faced by all accommodation providers. No doubt, it will be introduced with sufficient exemptions, local variety and complications to make it confusing.

Rather like the recent increases in National Insurance and minimum wage that have already squeezed the margins of so many businesses, therefore, it feels as if it is a gift by the Government of somebody else’s money and time. All that said, given the universality of tourist taxes, it’s hard to argue that the levy is likely to put many people off travelling.

Not only are such taxes applied successfully around the world, but a levy was introduced in Edinburgh this July and is planned at Cardiff from April 2027. In Athena’s view, therefore, although the tax is unwelcome and burdensome, it is unlikely to change much in terms of the numbers of tourists visiting major attractions. What most concerns her is what we can expect in return.

If none of the money is ring-fenced for investment in heritage or culture, how does it really serve those paying it? Will the local leaders really use the money to support the things and places used by tourists or will the levy merely turn into an additional source of income that will fill an awkward financial gap in budgets? That would be a tourist tax, pure and simple.