Town Mouse at the Ritz
Clive finds himself party to a discussion at the Ritz to detemine which is England's finest parsonage


Walking through The Ritz en route to the judging for Country Life’s best parsonage competition, I turned left before the restaurant. It was an exciting moment. Not only because of what I knew would be the lively discussion about parsonages that awaited over lunch, but because I had never before taken this route to William Kent’s Arlington House, built for First Minister Henry Pelham in the 1740s, and now elegantly incorporated into what is, architecturally if nothing else, London’s premier hotel.
Louis XVI to Palladianism: tail-coated waiters with Champagne were strategically positioned to revive guests overcome by the transition. At first sight, The Ritz, whose defining adjectives must be opulent and Lucullan, might seem a strange place to consider parsonages. Urbane pampering is not the keynote of the modern Church of England; but then, sadly, only one of the parsonages on our shortlist was still in its original use.
It was a fiercely fought contest. I was only an observer, but, even so, felt the need for a calming cigar. What? You can’t smoke one in The Ritz? Fortunately, a deckchair in St James’s Park did very nearly as well. Country Life publishes the competition winner on September 17.
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Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
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