A company’ muses Gilbert Huph, the vertically challenged insurance manager in Pixar’s The Incredibles, ‘is like an enormous clock. It only works if all the little cogs mesh together.’ His is a statement intended to satirise a culture of corporate naivety. He wants employees to turn a blind eye and bury their heads in the sand so long as they make a profit. Think too hard and they might not.

The same statement, however, can be made of the world’s greatest sports ground without a trace of irony. To see Wimbledon in action is to realise that a company — or, in this case, the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC) — is a thing of beauty precisely because it is run like clockwork. What in The Incredibles’ fictional location of Metroville, California, sounds like an indictment of late-stage capitalism rings, in this patch of south-west London, as an ode to collective success. When one thinks of Wimbledon’s shining stars — the people who keep the cogs ticking besides the players themselves — one thinks of the umpires; the ball girls and ball boys; the camera operators; perhaps the wait staff. The ticketing officer may sometimes get a nod, as might the stewards shepherding punters from Southfields station to the grounds.

Behind such public faces, however, is an ecosystem without which the perfection attained by the tournament’s front-of-house staff for close to 150 years could never be reached.

Wimbledon is often lauded for embodying the best of Britain. It is a bucolic marvel, with 50,000 plants spread across 42 acres. It rewards sportsmanship and casts such a spell over the crowd that punters behave almost as gracefully as the players themselves. It is a paean to our past (the UK, after all, invented lawn tennis — and still today all participants must wear white) as well as our future, consecrating our nation as a breeding ground for talent. It is at Wimbledon, where grass courts mean the neon balls travel faster than on any other surface, that people come to watch the greatest games in the world. Matches here are more often discussed in dramaturgical terms than in the traditional language of sport.

Centre Court, the jewel in AELTC’s crown, was said by John McPhee to resemble ‘an Elizabethan theatre’ in a 1968 New Yorker article on ‘The Lawns of Wimbledon’. The tournament’s most renowned finals — between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in 2008, and Federer and Novak Djokovic in 2019 — were more adrenaline-inducing than top action films of the 1990s. This is the stage that gave rise to Björn Borg and Pete Sampras, as well as today’s equally captivating rivalry between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz.

Yet, as all good directors know, a film or play is only ever as good as the sum of its parts. The minutiae, in other words, are as important as the big picture. Without the crew, no one can bring the cast to life; and this crew (its youngest member new to Wimbledon, its eldest a veteran of the grounds) embodies the very qualities — devotion, dignity and perfectionism — that punters come here to celebrate.

The timekeeper — Dan Bloxham

When a player emerges from the locker room and walks onto Centre Court, he is accompanied by a man wearing beige trousers and a white shirt with a tie and AELTC’s signature navy blazer. On his feet are white tennis shoes: the same as those once worn by line judges. Known familiarly as the player escort — and officially as the master of ceremonies — Dan Bloxham has been here for more than 25 years.

His role, on the face of it, looks easy. Yet anyone who’s ever been a personal assistant to the great and good will know that getting them where they need to be on time is no mean feat.

‘Thirty years ago, players weren’t too worried about getting ready,’ Dan says. Today, it’s a different game. ‘Everyone’s in the gym, throwing balls, running, doing exercises right up until it’s time to get onto the court. I have to kick the players out of the warm-up areas, one from one side and one from the other, and there’s always the risk that, when you’re accompanying one player, by the time you return, the other’s not there.’

This comedy of (unforced) errors speaks volumes of the ever-growing quality of tennis at Wimbledon. ‘Nowadays, the quality at the end of a five-hour match is just as good as it is at the beginning,’ Dan notes. This is because players will only compete if they are at their fittest. To many a fan’s chagrin, Alcaraz has pulled out of this year’s tournament due to tenosynovitis. ‘You can’t have so much as a chink in your armour anymore,’ the master of ceremonies states.

Dan assumed his current position about a decade into his Wimbledon years, in 2008. He remembers his first day, accompanying an already seasoned Federer onto the court. It was a stressful first assignment, he says, although he now seems to do this with eyes closed. His predecessor, Steve Adams, had given him only one tip: to ‘take control’. ‘My job is to try to make the players feel special,’ Dan explains, ‘and realise that they’re playing on the greatest court in the world.

‘They are part of a club here,’ he continues, ‘not only a facility. I might introduce them to members and key staff on the morning of their match as they walk down to see the court. It’s an entirely different way of getting there than it is at any other event.’ He is also the club’s head coach (‘when I’m not in my uniform, I’ll make sure I wear my sports kit, so the players know I have a clue’) and jokes about being able to tell a competitor’s nationality by their choice of warm-up (‘Italians tend to run at each other’). Federer, he says, would make his rivals nervous by doing the opposite. ‘He didn’t run around — not at first, although he eventually started doing yoga, throwing the balls around, even some football drills.’

Learning to navigate these differences and approach players when in the throes of preparing for a life-changing match is, Dan says, the most difficult part of his job. Yet it’s one to which he’s risen with aplomb. As well as being a timekeeper, he is also Wimbledon’s chief diplomat. ‘There have been moments where a player’s kit looked great, but they put a tracksuit top on right before walking out onto the court — and it’s not white,’ he laughs. ‘You’ve got their agent saying it’s white… but you know it’s not.’

One aspect of the job he no longer has to worry about is bringing the trophy onto the court. ‘I had to do that for the 2008 final,’ he tells me. ‘First of all, it’s an incredibly heavy trophy — you’re constantly thinking: don’t drop it — and you always end up holding it for a lot longer than you think because the players take five minutes to go into the crowd and come back around.’ As in the parts of his job for which he’s still in charge, patience is key.

The guardian — Christopher Boucher

It’s not only players who need minding — or their time managed. SW19’s more than half a million attendees also need directions, so they know where to be and when. The order of play is sacred and cannot be interrupted: fans are only allowed out of their seats, for instance, during a change of ends or set break.

Enter the stewards, whose military uniforms — often handsomely gilded — dot the grounds with flashes of black, red and gold. It is they who ensure the athletes are fully immersed in a game by keeping crowd disturbance to a minimum. They also look after the crowd itself: the tournament being held in July means it can sometimes get very hot and people can be taken ill. It reached 35.7˚C last summer, Christopher Boucher, the head steward, informs me. ‘It’s our job to attend to them and call first aid if anyone passes out.’

The stewards serve as human compasses for the punters, steering them in the right direction, whether they need food, water, medical assistance, a loo break, directions to their seats or help with spillage. With their uniforms, however, are they not the ones most at risk of overheating? ‘We wear only a short-sleeved white shirt and black trousers inside Centre Court,’ Lt Cdr Boucher reveals, ‘which keeps things a little cooler.’

The stewards — about 25% of whom are now women — number 500 in total. This year, there were 1,400 applicants. They hail from military backgrounds — Lt Cdr Boucher, a serving member of the Royal Navy, shows me the medals with which he has been presented for service in the Gulf and Bosnian wars, together with his Jubilee, Coronation and Long Service and Good Conduct Medals — meaning that some are forced to drop out of Wimbledon at the last minute because they’ve been deployed somewhere on duty. A reserve list makes up the shortfall.

Their job begins on the Sunday before the Championships, with a safety briefing and assignment to a specific team. After that, they get quizzed every day so that they remain up to scratch (‘by day four or five, they’re all over it’) and all take two weeks of annual leave in order to volunteer. A team of 50 mans the Royal Box, greeting each visitor and circulating throughout the day with water.

The year 2021 was particularly challenging because covid was lurking and any steward testing positive meant their gangway of four volunteers had to be replaced with those in the wings. The extra logistical planning, Lt Cdr Boucher notes, was immense. ‘We had about 100 people on standby at once — and can you imagine having to wear a mask in this heat?’

The chronicler — Emma Traherne

No.1 Court was never meant to be made of grass. The 1922 architectural plans conceived it as a hard court before the idea was scrapped. When the new No.1 opened in 1997, it did so as a sunken court for which soil had to be removed and harvested, eventually giving rise to what we now know as Henman Hill.

We know this because Emma Traherne and her team of 12 keep the architectural plans intact — together with the rest of the archive. Emma has been the curator of the Wimbledon Museum for seven years, having previously looked after the historic furniture and decorative arts in the Houses of Parliament. ‘We have more than one million historic assets in SW19,’ she reveals, ‘many of them photographs, as well as 60,000 physical objects, such as clothing, rackets and paintings.’

Among the artefacts in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum archive, there are some that date back to the sport’s earlier iterations (even before the invention of lawn tennis). On display is a first edition of the first book to mention ‘tennis’, written by Antonio Sciano in 1555, in which the game being discussed is an ancestor of real tennis.

The museum has about 1,000 materials on show at any one time, as well as a dedicated exhibition space that changes every 12 months. Currently on display is ‘A Slice of History: Food & Drink at Wimbledon’, which explores the role of food at the tournament for both players and fans. Alongside strawberries and cream, an entire segment is dedicated to the evolution of player nutrition. Pickle juice, Emma explains, is the modern player’s drink of choice during matches, as it allows salts to return to the body at speed — a far cry from Suzanne Lenglen’s penchant for sipping brandy between games in the 1920s.

Roughly 120,000 people a year visit the museum, which documents the tournament’s evolution, as well as its relentless pursuit of excellence. Some 30% visit in the first two weeks of July; yet Emma observes her job is a marathon, not a sprint. ‘We do a huge amount of work in the four weeks before the Championship and install about 35 displays across the site,’ she explains, ‘which we take down once they wrap mid July. It’s not before early August that we are able to take a break.’

Perhaps the most important part of Emma’s role is the annual trophy engraving. No fewer than 84 trophies and salvers are worked on by five engravers over finals weekend. Emma says the spell-check process is ‘extremely thorough’. Have there ever been mistakes? ‘Not in my time.’

In the event of something going wrong, the situation is salvageable. The magic of Wimbledon, Emma says, is its efficiency. ‘It’s a very short turnaround,’ she explains. ‘As the victors are handed the full-size trophy by The Princess of Wales on Centre Court, the engravers are hard at work behind the scenes, engraving names onto the three-quarter-size replica of the trophy which the winners get to take home.’ Even one mistake, she says, could add half an hour to what should be a 20-minute job. The full-size trophy — the one viewers can see — is returned to the Club post-presentation and is on permanent display at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum.

If AELTC has anything resembling the Firm’s Operation London Bridge — a contingency plan in case, despite rigorous spellchecks, an error is made during the engraving — all decline to say what this is; although one imagines that Wimbledon’s quest for perfectionism would naturally involve some Plan Bs.

The wingmen — Donna Davis and Rufus

More than any other tournament, Wimbledon strives for perfection. Part of its appeal is how spotless the place is: there is no litter or gum on the floor and, perhaps more importantly, there are no rats or pigeons. This is all thanks to Rufus, the 18-year-old hawk who has been guarding the grounds at SW19 since 2008 — far outclassing his predecessor Hamish’s nine-year tenure.

His handler, Donna Davis, tells me he learnt to fly here at 16 weeks old. ‘We were very lucky,’ Donna says. ‘Hawks can exhibit very different personality traits from one bird to another and Rufus was always great around people.’ His day will begin with a quick turn around the court on Donna’s arm, to do a recce and check what birds are around. Some species, she tells me, should not be disrupted. The grounds are home to little pied wagtails, ‘who are naturally curious and chatter away, yelling at Rufus on the roof’. He has been taught largely to ignore them. When they get truly pesky, he flares his wings at them and they instantly dissipate.

Rufus, who travels from Northamptonshire for the Championships, is only freed from Donna’s jesses when too many birds congregate in one spot (typically, a roof or a balcony). When it’s time for him to come back, she tempts him home using lightly cooked strips of his favourite food: quail. ‘If he doesn’t get it from me,’ Donna reveals, ‘he’s off to the Debenture lounge.’ As Rufus is a Harris hawk, his form and plumage are adaptable to the sometimes harsh conditions of his native America. A bit of rain, therefore, is not a problem, although he is a ‘sun worshipper,’ Donna admits. As for the wind, he can use it to his advantage. Heavy downpours, however, are a problem. ‘He doesn’t like that.’

Rufus hasn’t yet fraternised that much with players. ‘We need to start making some moves in that direction,’ Donna says. ‘I know that Serena Williams doesn’t like him…’ How does one build up trust with a hawk? ‘It comes with time and spending every day together,’ Donna explains. ‘Historically, you had priests train hawks for kings and bishops and get them used to human voices by reading them scriptures. Rufus is used to the sound of my voice, which I don’t think is quite so soothing, but really, it’s about food motivation. He knows he doesn’t need to exert himself too much to have his favourite meal if he’s near me.’

The botanist — Robin Murphy

There are more plants and flowers across AELTC — currently expanding to include a fourth site at Wimbledon Park — than there are in Regent’s Park’s Queen Mary’s Gardens. ‘Our main ethos,’ explains lead gardener Robin Murphy, ‘is to create tennis in an English garden.’ It is a huge part of what makes the Championships so special and lends Wimbledon the heritage quality sought after by punters.

‘Everything we plant is a nod to the English-garden style,’ Robin says. ‘Of course, we have to evolve and change things every year — we follow the principle of “always the same, like never before” — so we replicate a feeling, rather than an actual design.’

There are more than 2,200 trees across the grounds and an additional 1,000 trees and shrubs in stock to be reused in July. To these are added 32,000 perennial summer flowers — ‘to create the tournament overlay,’ Robin explains — and 15,000 petunias that hang on the buildings’ façades. Recent years have favoured pollinator-friendly planting. ‘Nurturing biodiversity is a big part of what we do,’ the lead gardener says. ‘We aren’t afraid to trial new plant species and to roll their number up if they prove successful.’ Still, they try to keep things native wherever possible. Foxgloves, for example, are conspicuously popular.

There are 13 full-time gardeners on the main site, Robin tells me, although they are supplemented in the weeks leading up to (and during) the Championships by seasonal gardeners, as well as more on the parkland across the road and at the satellite location in nearby Raynes Park, SW20. Many of them return each year and have become ‘as integral as the full-time staff,’ he notes.

Robin has been involved in the Championships since 2004, but became employed directly by AELTC in 2014. In 2016, he interviewed for his current position. ‘I stumbled into horticulture, really,’ he says. ‘I trained as a carpenter when I left school, but needed some summer work. My dad, who was a gardener, had a company that had a small contract on site and I came to help out that year. There used to be a lot more contractors dealing with different parts of the site, but it’s been streamlined since then.’ One can ‘absolutely tell the difference,’ he says, since the work was taken in house. There is a sense of cohesion unmatched anywhere else.

‘The weather always presents its challenges,’ Robin notes. ‘Too much heat requires more water, whereas too little sun might slow down flowering. I think the biggest difficulty is the fact that there are so many groups working on top of one another’ — competing cogs, as it were — ‘which makes scheduling work quite an ordeal when you experience delays caused in other areas.’ Much as the stewards attend to guests on court, the gardeners must often help those on Henman Hill.

‘Our most common call-out is when people have dropped their phone or sunglasses in the water feature we’ve installed at the top of the hill,’ he laughs, ‘so they can be fished out.’ Not all heroes wear Nike.

The bouncers — Ben Edwards and Boris, Faye Benson and Moo

It wouldn’t be Wimbledon without dogs. Keeping their noses out and alert to the slightest fracas, SW19’s anointed sniffers travel from far and wide to ensure that everything runs smoothly. That way, spectators and players alike can keep their heads down and enjoy the tennis. Boris, a Russian terrier, has been serving as a general-purpose patrol dog for five years.

‘We walk around the grounds and keep an eye out for anyone trying to gain access or exhibiting anti-social behaviour,’ his handler, Ben Edwards, explains. ‘It rarely, if ever, happens. Boris is big enough to act as a deterrent. We prevent these things from happening before they do, which makes our life easier.’ Boris and Ben travel to the site from their farm in Kent. ‘He’s got quite a deep voice,’ his handler smiles. ‘It’s amazing: any problem and he tends to nip it in the bud.’

For Moo, a 2½-year-old black labrador, Wimbledon is a brave new world. This is hers and handler Faye Benson’s first time at the Championships (the two previously worked at Royal Ascot). ‘She’s quite lively when she’s working,’ Faye tells me, ‘and quite calm when she’s not working. Perfect.’ Unlike Boris, Moo is more highly specialised and looks out for explosives. ‘We are lucky enough never to have found any in real life — only during training,’ Faye says.

Once a month, Moo goes through a refresher course to make sure she is up to speed. ‘We’re also undergoing some extra training here right before the Championships start,’ her handler mentions.

The juggler — Andrew Chevalier

The ball girls and boys are among the Championships’ most recognisable figures. The balls they run to fetch, however, are not distributed at random. There are three kinds of balls pre-sent in any one game,’ says Andrew Chevalier, ball-distribution manager: threes, fives and sevens. These figures are based on the number of games in which each ball has been used.

Andrew is in charge of a team of eight whose job it is to get each ball where it needs to be — both during practice and the Championships themselves. ‘There isn’t enough space to store all the balls used in a match on the court,’ he explains, ‘so these are constantly being replenished.’ Each match begins with 21 cans on the court. Ball girls and ball boys will always have two cans on the go, which translates to six balls. Every nine games, these are replaced as the umpire asks for new balls. A men’s game typically uses 16 cans (or 48 balls) and a women’s game 10 (or 30).

‘Many people don’t realise what happens when a ball accidentally lands among the crowd,’ he says, citing this as one of his principal challenges. ‘We leave a secret tin under the chair of each umpire — one which, according to tracking, has been used for three, five or seven games.’ This is because the quality of the ball needs to match that which has been shot into the crowd. The umpire then drops the relevant ball into the game.

In the background, Andrew grades the balls he collects after the umpire requests a change. At this stage, he assesses how many games they can still be used in; or whether they should be tossed, by looking at the Slazenger logo on the ball and seeing how battered it looks. ‘Rain delays, during which the umpire will sometimes suspend play, pose a particular challenge,’ Andrew notes. When play eventually resumes and players are asked to warm up again, the rule dictates that they must do so using ‘fives’ (they cannot use new balls, which are saved for when the actual match recommences — and the majority of balls collected during suspension have been used up to nine times already, making the more desirable fives hard to find).

‘We need to sift through thousands of previous days’ balls to find these fives,’ Andrew explains. If all 18 courts at AELTC are affected by a suspension (and six ‘fives’ are needed on each one for the reprisal), that means finding 108 such balls. Sometimes, the same court will face multiple suspensions of play within a single day.

Still, Andrew maintains the kind of stoicism that appears synonymous with Wimbledon. ‘If I’m doing my job correctly, no one should notice I am doing it at all.’ He has worked here since 2018 and as ball-distribution manager from 2021. ‘I step into the Wimbledon world for a month every year,’ he says, ‘and forget that anything else exists.’ In his day-to-day life, he freelances as an actor and writer.

As McPhee did in The New Yorker in 1968, he draws an analogy between Wimbledon and the theatre. ‘It’s a load of departments coming together to put on a world-class production,’ he explains. His job is to keep plates spinning ‘and keep my team happily engaged in what they are doing. It’s important for everyone to appreciate how special it is to work here.

‘What I’ve learnt over the past eight years of working here is that the managers of all the different departments are some of the most dedicated people in the country,’ Andrew beams. ‘It’s 14 days of work, non-stop. Every single office and every single member of staff is exhausted by the end of it, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

This feature originally appeared in the July 1, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Leaning on the coast wall, I watch vast waves barrel in: the Irish Sea is buffeting Llandudno Pier in North Wales, yet its pagoda-style pavilion stands defiant against the spray. Earlier this year, Devon’s Teignmouth Grand Pier wasn’t so lucky: Storm Ingrid lashed the 1867 structure, stealing a section into the depths. ‘They’re brilliantly bonkers, but who on earth would build a pier today?’ asks Dr Anya Chapman, author of Pier Review: Sustainability Toolkit for British Seaside Piers. ‘They’re a glorious part of our seaside heritage, but they’ve got to be adaptable.’

The mid to late 19th century marked the boom: entrepreneurial Victorians saw an opportunity to transform functional jetties into promenades of entertainment and respite from choking industrial smog. Visitors flocked to marvel at magicians, comedians, brass bands and orchestras, to savour cockles and ‘penny lick’ ice creams and breathe the restorative sea breeze.

By 1900, there were almost 100 seaside piers dotted around the British coastline, but 20th-century air travel tempted holiday-makers overseas to warmer waters and blue skies. Meanwhile, at home, ever more powerful squalls and fires left cash-strapped pier owners with hefty repair bills.

Today, about 60 seaside piers remain and National Piers Society chairman Tim Wardley has an optimistic view on their future, attesting to their benefit to the local community. ‘Far from being anachronistic survivors of a bygone era, our seaside piers have never been more popular or relevant to the prosperity and popularity of the seaside experience and coastal tourism economy.’

Wales’s Bangor Garth Pier in Gwynedd is exemplary, combining architectural legacy with economic pragmatism. Opened in 1896, this Grade II*-listed, 1,500ft pier has a magical quality: its fantastical, copper-roofed polygonal kiosks and onion-shaped domed pavilion are set against the dramatic mountain backdrop of Eryri (Snowdonia), yet its custodians very much inhabit the real world. ‘Why preserve heritage just to preserve heritage?’ asserts Avril Wayte, chair of Friends of Bangor Garth Pier. ‘It’s got to live. We’ve got to find ways to make it more self-sustaining.’

The pier was designed by J. J. Webster to receive passenger steamers puffing from Liverpool, Blackpool and elsewhere, but it fell into disrepair and closed in 1971 before being purchased by Bangor City Council for one penny. It reopened in 1988 and restoration spend has since topped £2 million. The pier’s 80-plus volunteers raised £40,000 in 2025 — which was match-funded by Bangor City Council — for substructure repairs and plan to raise a further £130,000, also to be match-funded, aiming to build resilience for decades.

By manning the pier’s entrance, they have turned £3,000 in honesty-box donations into an £80,000-a-year income stream. The kiosks champion local art, craft and comestibles, whereas the pier master’s house is opening as a holiday let. A visitor centre and glass-walled café are other ideas. Amid these changes, the pier’s tranquillity will be retained, assures trustee Vanessa Hawkins. ‘It’s not a place where you come for amusement arcades and video games. It has a really serene quality, with views of the Menai Strait and the mountains.’

Designed by Sunderland’s own Henry Hay Wake, Tyne and Wear’s Roker Pier, which opened in 1903, eschews Victorian ornamentation for spartan concrete and granite: it forms a muscular 2,000ft sweep, arching to diffuse punishing North Sea breakers. Volunteers run hard-hat tours of the ‘under the pier’ tunnel, originally built to aid construction before being adopted by lighthouse keepers as a safe route during storms. Guides flash torches through the darkness to illuminate technical drawings and photographs: Wake designed a gigantic steam-powered hydraulic crane, dubbed Goliath, to drop colossal 45-ton concrete blocks into place.

The successful restoration of Roker is a key plank in a multi-million-pound coastal regeneration plan, explains tour guide Maureen McCartney of Roker Pier Heritage Group CIC: ‘Sunderland is on the up. The pier raises the profile of Sunderland and makes it a destination. It’s not only the pier that benefits, it’s the surroundings.’ Proving the point is the upgraded prom, which now resembles a resilient lungomare. There are brightly coloured metal seats, a watersports centre, sculpture, landscaped gardens and new cafés; cycleways knit exhilarating coast-to-coast runs and giant oak pods house businesses.

Encouraging trips between city centre and sea is the next challenge, reveals Sharon Appleby, chief executive of Sunderland BID. ‘We need to be drawing people into our city and our seafront is a huge asset. My job is to try to turn it into a year-round destination. It’s not only about visitors coming from further afield, it’s about local people, too.’ When it comes to sheer dogged survival, a Grade II*-listed structure in North Yorkshire takes the prize.

Designed by John Anderson, Saltburn Pier spanned a proud 1,500ft when it opened in 1869, but lost its seaward end to a storm six years later. A slightly truncated pier reopened in 1877, yet one tempestuous night in 1924 SS Ovenbeg smashed clean through it, creating a 210ft gap, which was repaired in 1930. Gales returned with a vengeance in 1953, 1959, 1961 and 1974: it took a public inquiry to avert demolition and National Lottery funds to put the pier on a solid footing. It is no surprise to discover that, these days, the beach huts here are bolstered by steel frames and are firmly anchored to substrate.

A stroll down to the pier takes in the 1884 funicular railway, a gravity-defying water-balanced tram that trundles up and down the 120ft cliff between town level and pier. The beach is an invigorating eight-mile stretch of shingle and sand and low-tide affords a close look at cast-iron trestles: in 2000–01 each one was dismantled and restored before being re-anchored on new driven piles, creating the sturdy 681ft pier in place today. Stepping under the pier conjures up images of Ron Herron’s experimental Walking City: at any moment towering legs feel as if they could flex and move the entire structure to an even more dramatic setting down the beach.

‘Exposed to the elements and made from iron, the pier is susceptible to corrosion,’ confirms Redcar and Cleveland councillor Carrie Richardson, who adds that regular inspections identify any remedial work needed. ‘The pier is so important to our borough that these challenges will be overcome. In 20 years’ time, it will essentially look the same as it does today.’

On the Kent coastline, a helter-skelter, cheery carousel and sandcastle competitions at Herne Bay Pier provide visitors with a traditional seaside day out. Yet powering attractions on this 1873 pier is modern technology: a 55yd canopy of solar panels. The pier uses 80% of the generated power, and trustees hope the £60,000 array will fully pay for itself this year, a mere six years after installation.

‘I think the whole thing is ground-breaking,’ enthuses trustee Sue Halfpenny. ‘I believe we are the only pier in the country with solar.’ Looking ahead, wind and wave energy are being explored. The pier also generates income from laser shows, live music and television and film shoots, starring in Netflix’s Black Mirror and Indian action thriller Jagame Thandhiram. ‘You need visionaries,’ adds Ms Halfpenny. ‘You need a vibrant business plan that’s going to point the way forward.’

For a ringside seat on the coastal environment, the Porthole Room in Somerset’s Clevedon Pier is difficult to beat: cormorants can be spotted diving for wrasse and eels and waves slap the glass during blustery spring tides, testament to the Severn Estuary’s 48½ft tidal range.

The under-the-pier vista of sweeping arches is astounding; engineers Richard Ward and John William Grover created a minimalist and graceful design to limit the impact of the elements, recycling wrought-iron tracks from Brunel’s South Wales Railway in the process. The 1869 structure is rightly deserving of its multi-million-pound restoration, Grade I listing and Sir John Betjeman’s ‘most beautiful pier in England’ endorsement.

Interactive displays abound in the visitor centre: cargo ships are trackable on radar and visitors can witness pier construction in a Victorian-style peep show. A bracing walk on deck clears the head and littoral fossils tell the story of millions of years of continental drift. ‘Increasingly for everyone’s wellbeing, green and blue spaces are important and we have those here in bucketloads,’ says Clevedon Pier learning and outreach volunteer Ali Camp, who plans to connect with broader audiences over the coming years. ‘We will create more experiences that inspire learning, reflection and connection.’

When ticket sales dwindled at Bournemouth Pier’s theatre in Dorset, it was time for drastic action: out went 850 seats and in came an adrenaline-fuelled reinvention, comprising 20-plus colourful climbing walls and the world’s first pier-to-shore zipwire.

The pier continues to evolve, points out group marketing manager James Balcazar: ‘People don’t merely want a view any more; they want a reason to dwell.’ A walk along the 1880 structure reveals plenty of evidence: a photography exhibition celebrates a litter-free shoreline and a ‘selfie’ butterfly mural courtesy of Iain Alexander’s Floating Love is impossible to resist. Tribute acts and Gen Z-friendly dance anthem sessions pack the calendar. Such forward thinking has spread to surrounding golden sands: boards set out surfing etiquette and municipal electric barbecues are strategically placed to discourage the use of disposable trays.

Looking ahead, the pier is exploring virtual reality and shaping a regenerative-tourism strategy to cut waste and contribute more to local communities. Surveys spot upcoming trends, adds Mr Balcazar: ‘We are always going to nod to the Victorian past and British quirkiness, but it’s about making sure that the British pier still feels as relevant in 20 years as it does today.’

For more information visit the National Piers Society's website here

This feature originally appeared in the June 17, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe

The loos at Wilderness festival are probably nicer than the ones in my own home, which is not to say that I live in squalor, but rather that the organisers are acutely aware of the needs of their clientele and what it takes to convince them that standing in several fields in Oxfordshire for hours on end is a fun thing to do.

You can tell a lot about a festival by its loos. At Wilderness, they smell like hope. At Glastonbury, they smell like a Premier Cru of thousands of hours of bad decisions that have been left to brew in the sun for days, because that’s exactly what’s in them. What unites them isn’t necessarily music, but graffiti. Glastonbury is scrawled with diatribes of capitalist downfall, struggle and injustice. At Wilderness, we are asked to support trans rights, while also being informed that ‘Erin Figg is a [sic] wart hog’. No matter the location, lineup or ‘curated fine-dining experience’, creativity will always manifest itself on the walls of a cubicle in marker pen.

I’ve been going to music festivals since I was 16 and, regrettably, I am now 33. In the fields of Reading, Pilton, Oxfordshire, Powys, Essex and Suffolk, I have found every slice of society, split open and presented like a geode and all usually worse for wear. I have seen people in a shade of pink that would make Chappell Roan blush. I have seen people slide through the mud like Uruk-hai. And in between it all, people having fun in the countryside.

The pinnacle of it all, of course, is in Somerset. The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, to give it its full name, has been a cornerstone of the British summer experience since 1970, when Michael Eavis invited 1,500 people to his farm for the princely sum of £1 each. Since then, it has grown into one of the largest and best festivals on the planet, with 200,000 attendees, prime-time coverage on the BBC and the biggest names in music, comedy and theatre. It is, to use a well-flogged cliché, like nowhere else on earth.

That being said, while it is for everyone, it is not for everyone. As discussed, the loos are diabolical. Showers exist, but require an early start and queueing, which is not conducive to a cider-induced hangover. There are very few trees, plenty of dust and, if it’s been raining, plenty of mud. Agoraphobes will find the seething mass of humanity that ping pongs around the 1,500 acres overwhelming and everyone smells bad and is on drugs. Despite the almost bi-annual presence of Coldplay, it is understandably not everyone’s cup of tea.

Wilderness Festival, in Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire, exists in stark contradiction to the ethos of Glastonbury. It is a festival, in that it exists outside, in the summer, and there is music and cider. But that is just about where the similarities end. Rather than a dusty field in Somerset, we are in gorgeous Cotswolds parkland. Instead of burrito bowls and Somersby Cider, we are treated to curated dining experiences, champagne and craft ales. Where Glastonbury is a sea of ravaged Argos tents that stretches for miles in every direction, Wilderness is the very definition of ‘glamping’, with amenities that would make most hotels blush. It is a festival in the way that an armadillo is a basketball: it’s round and you can probably bounce one, but that’s about where the similarities end.

There are plenty out there who might suggest that Wilderness is not a ‘real’ festival. That it does not eschew the values of peace and love that were the guiding ethos of the Sixties and manifested themselves at institutions such as Glastonbury and Woodstock. It is too ‘corporate’, they would say, pointing at headline sponsorships with Audi and charging stations provided by Vodafone (pointing out that Glastonbury is also sponsored by Vodafone would be a churlish thing to do, so I won’t). Perhaps they have a point. Wilderness is very much a polished version of the festival experience, made for those who enjoy the finer things in life and want to let their hair down a little (but not too much, and have access to a shower and drier the very next morning). When I visited last year, the headliners were Air and Orbital; it would be strange to imagine a world where Kneecap would command a crowd in this part of rural England. In the crowd, which was busy but polite, young mothers and fathers without a speck of mud on them bobbed their heads, often clutching young children to their chest with noise-cancelling headphones offering protection.

Outside of the music, vintage clothing shops with eyebrow-raising prices are eagerly browsed by attendees who are feeling underdressed. There is plenty of glitter and facepaint. In one corner is an adults-only area called ‘The Riddle’, where entry is granted only on the condition that the camera of your phone is covered by a sticker. What was to be found beyond the door? A writhing mass of hedonistic flesh and oil? Ritual sacrifice? A little bit of both? Alas, it was just another DJ and a cocktail bar, where be-chinoed people reclined on sofas and beanbags and discussed KPIs. If it’s true that the elites of our society are engaging in some Eyes Wide Shut-style behaviour while playing with the weather, disappointingly, they aren’t doing it here. Instead, my dinner is prepared in the Audi Haven by Masterchef Monica Galletti and it is fabulous. Delightful cuts of beef and freshly cooked vegetables. What Wilderness lacks in free love it makes up for in fibre.

Now this all might make you consider whether Wilderness is a festival, or a rally for some of the most annoying people on earth. The truth is simpler, which is that it is both, and so is every festival in the country. Everywhere you go, whether it be Somerset or Oxfordshire, will be replete with people who take life too seriously. At Glastonbury, it can be hard to move for people who yearn to show you their crystals and who simply must take a bath. At Wilderness, it is Hugos from the world of finance and real estate, performatively reading the Guardian. At their essence, they are gatherings of people who want to drink too much, listen to live music, and write screeds on portaloos. The only difference is that the ones in Oxfordshire flush and haven’t run out of roll.

If there is a spectrum of festivalness, Wilderness and Glastonbury can be found at almost opposite ends. The music is better in Somerset, but the food and scenery is better in Oxfordshire. Choose your poison. All you can guarantee is that you will likely be sharing it with irritating people, but that is the contract we sign when we are a part of a rich and diverse society.

That we have such a rich exposition of culture and that it can cater to everyone is something to celebrate. Imagine if all the Hugos went to Glastonbury? What if Cornbury Park was infiltrated by people with hair on their feet? How pleasing it is to have a seemingly endless à la carte menu of music and venues and elite catering that we can choose from at will. The countryside is a rich and varied place, and the wealth of festival experiences on offer is just another example.

It could be worse, it could be Coachella, where Instagram rules supreme and the idea of dust and dirt is avoided like a live hand-grenade. Whatever we might think about each other, at least we aren’t Them.

Polo of the popular imagination is all Champagne, beautiful women, fast cars and impossibly handsome Argentinians — a ritzy, wild world of Jilly Cooper-esque, high-octane fantasy. However, away from the prestigious tournaments that draw thousands of spectators, where super-wealthy patrons battle for bragging rights, there is a whole sub-culture of matches minus the crowds where love of the game is paramount.

There are some 70 polo clubs in England and the lower leagues still attract players who are competing professionally (most players on a team are usually paid by the playing patron). Even at the higher levels, there is no real prize money in polo and players must generally run their own string of ponies (or rather horses, which retain the ‘pony’ name from the 19th century, when they were much smaller); a lower handicap player might have 12 or so ponies in his or her string, with more needed further up. Professionals will have little left over once they have paid their grooms, lorry expenses and vet fees and it is hard for an English player to ascend the rankings sufficiently to earn enough through match fees alone. Many of them have sidelines producing horses, teaching and umpiring, so something as simple as an injured finger can threaten their earning potential, as the large overheads remain. Nevertheless, there is plenty of fun to be had, quietly going on all around the country.

All this is possible thanks to polo patrons and their love of the game. For a patron to play in a match of reasonable standard and to be competitive at the lower end, he or she (polo is a mixed sport) will need to hire professional players to make up the team. The professionals will be paid per match, but will nearly always be contracted for a whole tournament, if not the whole season. As well as providing a living for players, a patron’s munificence will support an entire ecosystem of grooms, farriers, feed merchants, lorry mechanics, horse masseurs (yes, really), vets, equipment suppliers, stick makers, groundsmen and caterers. Even at the lower levels, as many as 50 ponies may be involved in one match.

Individual players are handicapped from -2 (the lowest) to 10 (the best). Low goal tournaments include 2-, 4-, 6- and 8-goal tournaments: the total handicaps of the four players cannot add up to more than the tournament handicap. For instance, an 8-goal tournament could have one 4-goal player, two 2-goal players and a 0 (patrons are often 0, or sometimes 1 goal). The King, incidentally, played off 4 goals and The Prince of Wales 2.

There are about 2,500 players across 70 clubs that vary greatly in size and membership. The majority of members are 0 goal or below and Pony Club polo is also thriving. As Anna Hall, CEO of the governing body, the Hurlingham Polo Association (HPA) explains: ‘Low-goal polo is competitive, fun, and above all, it embodies the camaraderie and community that sit at the heart of polo in this country.’

The director of polo

'Last year, 750 matches were played at Guards Polo Club in Windsor Great Park and 500 of these games were low-goal games,’ reveals Antony Fanshawe, director of polo at Guards Polo Club. ‘Most people start in the low goal. It’s an insanely fun sport to play — sometimes, there are 30 teams in a tournament and there can only be one winner.’ Fanshawe advises that budding players need ‘easy’ ponies, rather than a sizeable string. ‘Ideally, six horses that are easy to hit the ball off, easy to stop and turn and that are sound — if you have that, then you are a very lucky person.’

Running a string of ponies is expensive, but, for some, it is impossible to live without. Playing in the low-goal league is similar to playing club tennis; the club assesses the player’s skill level and puts the player in at a suitable level, ‘unless [he or she] makes millions and wants to step up the levels, but the main point is that it’s about enjoyment and self-improvement’. The value of good jockeys (as in all equestrian disciplines) is unparalleled and anyone who is good on a horse ‘should stick at it,’ as this is becoming an increasingly rare skill, and will only get ‘more valuable,’ believes Fanshawe. ‘People see a good player and think “wow I can do that, I want to do that,” yet have little understanding of how difficult it is to be even averagely good. The time and discipline required to get beyond 3 or 4 goals is huge.’ Finding where you fit in life is not easy for many people, but there is nothing like a soaking wet day and a needle match in the Archie David 8 Goal tournament, going into overtime, to test your mettle.

The young player

Rufus Uloth, 21, first played polo when he was asked to join the most junior team of his local Pony Club branch, aged nine, on his very small pony, Harry Potter. He grew up near Cowdray Park, West Sussex, one of the biggest clubs in the country, which enabled him to be ‘spotted’ in his early teenage years and he was asked to play in adult club teams.

With support from his school, which allowed him to play polo instead of cricket during the summer, and from the HPA, which gave him extra training and sent him on training camps in South Africa, Rufus was able to build up a string of ponies and has made himself available as a gun for hire. He has also played in Argentina, India and New Zealand, now off a handicap of 2. Some of his ponies were given to him by generous benefactors who saw his potential. Another came from Newmarket as a two-year-old colt after the trainer had advised the owner that ‘this horse needs another career’. He was turned away for a year, then it took three years to retrain him ready for matches. In his first season, Pudding won Best Playing Pony in the Park House Cup tournament.

Others were ponies that had been a problem for previous owners, which — ably assisted by his groom Leo — he was able to train up and improve. Rufus has represented his country and now plays regularly at Guards Polo Club and Cowdray Polo Club — the two biggest in the country — for different patrons in different tournaments. Last season, he played 63 matches in 4-, 6-, and 8-goal tournaments. ‘I know it is very difficult to make a living long term,’ he notes, ‘but while I am young and single and I have the time, and people want me to play for them, I can’t imagine a better way to fill my days.’

The pony

Bella is a very special mare,’ declares Nick Clague, who has played polo professionally for 20 years. Bred for racing, Bella enjoyed a brief career on the track before being retrained for polo by the talented young horse-maker Telmo Maidana. Clague bought her as a six year old and she is now 16. ‘She has been my standout horse for a decade,’ he says. ‘She combines extraordinary speed and power with a very good mouth, making her easy to ride and hit the ball on. I save her for the final chukka, when the game is won and lost. She has won many Best Playing Pony awards — recognition she so richly deserves. When she finally retires, I hope to breed from her as I think she will make an incredible broodmare.’

The groom

Martha Emeney, 32, has been a polo groom for eight years since graduating from the University of Plymouth, where she studied illustration. She has groomed for professional players in New Zealand and Australia, as well as England.

Life for a polo groom usually starts at 5.30am. Typically, a groom is responsible for five to 10 horses, but this can vary from job to job. ‘My love for horses is what initially attracted me to the job, but I also love the social life and team aspect of working in polo.’

At the games, grooms are responsible for preparing the ponies to play by bandaging their legs, tacking up, screwing studs into their shoes for grip and plaiting their tails. The ponies are then warmed up one by one before it’s their turn to take to the field. When a pony has finished playing, it is quickly stripped, washed down and walked to allow their bodies to recover. ‘It can be extremely hard work, but very rewarding when the ponies and games go well.

‘Patrons who play in the lower levels enjoy it a lot,’ says Emeney, ‘as they are able to contribute more during the game than they typically would in the high goal, although this varies on the level and skill of the patron. Those who play in the higher levels are motivated by the recognition and prestige of winning the big trophies, but the lower levels can be equally as fun and competitive, often with a much more enjoyable atmosphere.’

It’s true that ‘polo grooming is not for the faint hearted,’ she reveals, ‘but once you get the bug, it’s pretty hard to shake! It has taken me all over the world and I’ve had some incredible experiences and met special people. I’d recommend it to any young person who wants to combine their love of horses with travel and parties’.

The patron

Peter O’Rorke, 70, started playing polo in 1987, initially on bicycles. It was low key and low cost. He gradually assembled a string of ponies ‘of a sort’ and started to play low goal at clubs across the country: Ham, London, then Kirtlington, Oxfordshire, followed in succession by Inglesham in Wiltshire, Cirencester in Gloucestershire and now Cowdray in West Sussex.

‘Churchill said: “No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle,” notes O’Rorke. ‘To sit on a polo pony, on any of the beautiful grounds in the country, and to play the most demanding, complex and exhilarating game with honourable (mostly!) fellow players and team members is a unique privilege.’

As for playing low-goal polo, O’Rorke is very clear: ‘Working out what level one can play at is relatively easy because of the increase in cost as you go higher in low, medium or high goal. At each level, there are different demands on pony quantity and quality, professional fees, entry fees and so on. Most players in the UK play very low-goal polo and have the time of their life every weekend. I know because I did that for 20 years at least. Now, I play 8-,10- and 12-goal polo at Cowdray because that provides much of the competitive nature of medium or high goal, but remains a little more fun, grounded and achievable — and just a little less serious.

‘Winning trophies is fantastic, but what I really treasure is a competitive game, my ponies coming off sound, post-match banter and nonsense with team-mates, friends, wives, family and our wonderful grooms,’ he continues. ‘Generally, I drive home incandescent with happiness after polo. Lows are rare, but losing a pony, that just breaks everyone’s heart.’

O’Rorke confirms that polo is a ‘massive commitment,’ but remains incredibly rewarding nonetheless. This is also true of the cost implications: ‘I certainly wouldn’t be working still if I didn’t have polo to pay for. It is also true in terms of dedication to fitness — I would not go to the gym or drink less if I wasn’t scared of falling off or letting down my team.’

The photographer

'Many years ago, I watched The King play at Windsor, but it was only after the Covid lockdowns that I returned to polo, this time at Cowdray — and was instantly hooked. I quickly realised that low-goal polo, in particular, is a compelling sport to photograph,’ says Hampshire-based lensman Paul Grove, 56. ‘As a photographer working towards professional distinctions, I was struck not only by the speed and athleticism, but by the warmth of the welcome. Players, patrons, grooms and the Cowdray team create a community that is both dedicated and deeply supportive.’

Grove reflects on the levels of the sport and believes that low-goal polo has an immediacy and camaraderie that is wonderfully authentic — families get involved, young players develop, and friendships are forged through shared effort.

‘What draws me back is that human element: the concentration before the throw-in, the exchanges between chukkas, the pride of emerging players finding their stride,’ he reveals. ‘To capture those moments feels a privilege — and I hope the photographs will become lasting records of both sporting ambition and community spirit.

This feature originally appeared in the May 27, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Monaco’s proclivity for partying belies its bijou size. Long synonymous with glamorous gatherings, the Principality has transformed its social scene over the decades, from aristocratic balls to yacht blowouts, via the Casino di Monte-Carlo and velvet rope nightclubs. It’s a reflection of Monaco’s unique blend of heritage and no-holds-barred.

To celebrate the publication of Country Life’s special Monaco issue (on newsstands June 3), we’ve selected some of the most unforgettable moments in the country’s history.

What? The Royal Wedding

When? April 19, 1956

Perhaps the greatest string of moments in the country’s history surrounds the marriage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III. These included an engagement party, a gala supper for 120 people to celebrate Kelly’s arrival in Monaco (red and white carnations were dropped from a plane), the civil ceremony and subsequent garden party on April 18, and, finally, the wedding itself on April 19, 1956. 700 guests were invited to the ceremony and wedding breakfast; a further 30 million watched proceedings on their televisions.

What? Frank Sinatra’s first appearance in Monaco

When? June 1958

A friend and frequent collaborator of Grace Kelly’s, Frank Sinatra was known to frequent the Principality in the decades that followed Kelly’s coronation. His first visit in 1958, pictured here, shows the legendary crooner playing an impromptu tune on an acoustic guitar during one of the many gala dinners Kelly would go on to host during her reign.

What? The inauguration of The Hall of The Americas

When? March 1969

Hot on the heels of the 16th Cannes Film Festival, the Principality’s Société des Bains de Mer held a celebration to inaugurate The Hall of the Americas, a newly renovated portion of the central casino. To mark the occasion, they opted for a Bal des Têtes theme, requesting guests don elaborate hats and headwear. Grace Kelly and Sofia Loren opted for these soaring, intricate fascinators.

What? Grace Kelly’s 40th birthday Scorpion Ball

When? November 15, 1969

To mark her 40th birthday, Grace Kelly invited just 60 guests — Elizabeth and Rock Hudson among them — for a dinner celebration at the Hotel Hermitage. The catch? The guests had to be a scorpio, like Kelly, or married to one. Everyone in attendance was instructed to wear ‘scorpio colors’ (red and black), and served by a troupe of waiters in powdered wigs and red velvet suits.

What? The opening of Jimmy’z

When? July 9, 1971

Still the de facto dance club in Monaco, Jimmy’z first opened its doors in 1971 to much fanfare. Founded by French crooner Régine Zylberberg, or ‘Queen of the Night; as she was christened by her partygoers, Jimmy’z was the Cote d’Azur’s answer to Studio 54.

What? Estée Lauder’s garden party

When? August 1981

Estée Lauder’s subdued garden party was one of Monte-Carlo’s less ornate celebrations. Nevertheless, it earns its place here for the fact that it was photographed by the legendary Slim Aarons. During this 1981 visit to Monaco, Aarons also organised photoshoots on Italian Count Hannibal Scotti's yacht, Scotland Cay, and in Princess Caroline’s winter garden, at her home on the palace grounds.

What? Ivana Trump’s yacht christening party

When? July 30, 1995

A few years after her divorce from Donald, Ivana Trump was back in high spirits alongside her third husband, Riccardo Mazzucchelli, christening their 32-meter yacht in Monaco’s harbor at the peak of the high summer season. The boat’s name? Ivana, of course.

What? The 3rd Push World Championships

When? September 15, 1996

Fun fact: His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco was an Olympic medal contender. An avid athlete with a long resume of sporting hobbies including cross country, javelin throwing, handball, judo, swimming, tennis, rowing, sailing, skiing, squash and fencing, his shot at gold came as a member of the country’s bobsleigh team in the 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998, and 2002 Winter Olympic Games. He retired in 2002, but often hosts events related to his competitive past.

What? The opening of the Amber Lounge

When? 2003

Founded in 2003 by Sonia Irvine, the sister of former Ferrari Formula One (F1) driver Eddie Irvine, the Amber Lounge was the first foray into the nightlife circuit that now goes hand-in-hand with Monaco’s Grand Prix weekend, and F1 racing around the world.

The first night of business, in 2003, saw guests including Bono, The Edge (of U2), Helena Christensen and Heidi Klum walk through the doors. Years later, Amber Lounge debuted their own fashion show, one of their ‘most celebrated and media-friendly events’ (their words). A who’s who of the F1 grid has walked the Amber Lounge runway — showcasing designs by Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger and Armani — including a 19-year-old Charles Leclerc (above).

What? The Star Wars Red Bull Grand Prix party

When? May 21, 2005

This early-2000s fever dream of a party was the culmination of a collaboration between Red Bull Racing and Star Wars to promote Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. The team featured themed car liveries, while the pit crew wore Stormtrooper helmets during stops. Perhaps best of all though, while Star Wars creator George Lucas and star Hayden Christensen mingled with the crowd at the party, Chewbacca took the dance floor by storm.

What? World Music Awards

When? November 4, 2007

Held at Salle des Étoiles, the city’s grand ballroom complete with a retractable roof, the 2007 World Music Awards was perhaps the largest gathering of celebrity names in recent history. Celine Dion, Patti Labelle, Justin Timberlake, U2 and Ciara all took home awards, as well as Rihanna, who was crowned with the Entertainer of the Year accolade after performing her 2007 hit tune Umbrella.

What? The Surrealist supper

When? December 12, 2017

The 2017 Surrealist dinner, charged with an over-the-top showmanship of a bygone era, is the closest thing Monaco has seen to the soirées thrown by Grace Kelly. Full sections of the casino were decked out in red and white harlequin-patterned fabric as part of an installation by artist Charles Kaisain and waiters sported Hitchcock-inspired bird cage headpieces. Catherine Deneuve and Caroline, Princess of Hanover were in attendance.

What? The Monte-Carlo Sporting Summer Festival

When? August 6, 2018

The Sporting Summer Festival has been around since 1974 (past performers including Elton John and Tina Turner), but 2018 was a particularly special year with Ringo Starr and Grace Jones, pictured here, taking to the stage.

What? The Red Cross Gala

When? The last one was held on July 12, 2025

One of the most revered fundraisers in Monaco, the Red Gross Gala, or Gala de la Croix-Rouge, has been held since 1948. Each year, black tie-clad donors are treated to dinner and a show, but perhaps most exciting is the tombola raffle. Prizes usually come in the form of diamond baubles, noisy cars and trips to faraway lands. Last year’s performer, Billy Idol, had guests dancing until 2am.

It’s a humid Tuesday afternoon and I’m strolling with my wife through Hanoi’s thick air. I am enveloped by smells and sights, some of which I’ve never seen before and some I’d happily not see again (captive turtles trying to wriggle free of their nets, for example). Through the haze, I hear a distant ‘Jamie! Jamie!’ You might notice, from the byline of this article, that is not my name. It is, however, a name I know; the name of a character I’ve played for a decade in ITV’s much-loved detective show, Midsomer Murders.

As the woman approached, I was hit by the glee in her face as she declared herself a massive fan of both the show and my character. I asked her where she was from and how she knew the show, before digesting a ten-bird-roast of an answer. She was Thai, but lived in Belgium with her Dutch husband, and she had found the show whilst living in Belgium, but her husband, who works a lot in Sweden, discovered it there. The fact she then bumped into me, a Brit in Vietnam, is one of the most international coincidences I’ve ever experienced and certainly speaks to the very unique nature of this TV behemoth.

I like to think of Midsomer Murders as an iceberg. The tip you see poking above the water is the origins of the show; its British creators and its home on ITV for 29 years and 26 seasons. It’s a well-loved show that happily draws in 3-4 million viewers whenever it airs on primetime even without much pre-warning — a show more associated with cups of tea with granny than champagne and the BAFTAs. However, its below-the-surface existence, unseen to most of its homeland, is its gargantuan international audience, something that no doubt keeps ITV and All3Media (the show’s creators) very well fed and watered. The show is the most internationally exported British TV show in the world in terms of territories – watched in more than 200, from deep Down Under in Australia and New Zealand up to Canada, across to Japan and taking in almost every European country in the middle. It is quietly one of British culture's most valuable assets.

But, as a (pretend) Detective Sergeant, it’s in my nature to ask why? Why is it so popular abroad? And how has it endured for nearly 30 years?

I believe, if I may, that its international appeal is due to three major factors. First, the perennial appeal of the ‘whodunnit’ and, secondly, those everlasting themes that go beyond lexicon: love, death, marriage, jealousy, plotting, family — the Greeks knew this, as did the Romans and even Shakespeare. They all knew that people could relate to these central tenets of humanity and the thing about Midsomer (yes, I just compared it to Shakespeare) is that it has all those themes laced through every single episode, framed by a simple whodunnit. These are the strongest and most universal ideas in storytelling.

Thirdly, and not to sound too Churchillian, the historic and nostalgic global idea of Britain, specifically rural Britain – the home of afternoon tea, red phone boxes, village greens, pretty churches — the Green and Pleasant land of Brunel, Elgar, Capability Brown and Just William. This whimsical ideal gives an audience permission to leave out deeper political or cultural differences and instead embrace a purer, simpler idea of somewhere. What’s also so appealing about that concept is that it’s both historic and current — this version of Britain still exists, allowing the show to avoid seeming like a pastiche, nor does it lean into Zeitgeist. We don’t reference current affairs or public figures, and we don’t do an annual Christmas special. I feel like over the years the writers and producers have somehow managed to make the show feel like it’s always new whilst remaining exactly the same – that’s not easy to do.

The great Neil Dudgeon, aka DCI Barnaby, and I were recently in Cannes celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the show and as ever were repeatedly asked the same question. It’s the never-ending query of the world’s press and fans alike: How has the show endured for more than 30 years?

I believe it’s about continuity – audiences crave new shows and new ideas of course, but there will always be a need for stability, a show you can sit down with and know what you’re going to get — the world is topsy-turvy enough as it is and sometimes people want a safe pair of hands to soothe them. Midsomer is that pair of hands. It’s no coincidence that during the Pandemic, shows such as Friends had a huge spike in viewership as people sought out comfort, and Midsomer was the same; international channels went through their content at such a rate that we prolonged our shoot rather than cut it short.

How do I know about all these international fans? The answer is simple: we meet them. And not on press tours in their home countries, but in the very villages and streets we film in. What is little known to the UK public is the quantity of foreign companies that now organise coach trips and holidays based around the filming locations of the show. I’ve met people from New Orleans, Nashville, New Zealand, Finland and Germany on the quaint streets of Dorchester-on-Thames, Hurley, Turville Heath and Beaconsfield. For the domestic tourist, there are also ‘Midsomer Tours’ in Marlow, Thame and Henley-on-Thames solely built around filming locations. These can be done on foot or even by bike and pubs have now been known to place a plaque on the door if they are a well-known location. Sadly, neither I, nor any of the team, have any financial affiliation to these tours.

What’s most wonderful for us and for the fans is when they actually come upon us filming an episode, because of course we don’t film in one place for a whole series, we are in a location for a matter of days before moving on, so the chances of actually seeing us filming are pretty miniscule. My first experience of this was in the idyllic Little Missenden (a village in which I’m pretty sure I’ve been in every house on the main street), and a Kiwi family stumbled upon us. When they said where they were from, I instantly asked what they were doing out here — assuming they were sightseeing or visiting family before tacking on a little jaunt to see some Midsomer locations. But no, it was the opposite. They had tacked on trips to London, Oxford and seeing family around a purpose-built road trip taking in the quaint rural idylls of Midsomer. And I thought, actually if you want to tour a bucolic version of the British countryside, how do you do that? Google pretty villages and try and visit some? Seemingly by accident, the location managers of Midsomer Murders have created a ‘greatest hits of the English countryside’ within an hour or two of London. Plot them on a map and join the dots and you have yourself a ready-made road trip.

It’s the unique quirk of being an actor that you never know how a job is going to be or where it will take you. I have peers who have shot films they thought would win awards that never get released, as well as those who thought they’d take a punt on a new play and ended up at the Olivier Awards. When I got this job back in 2016 it was a 3-year contract in a show that was well loved and well respected and would be a great step on a nicely accelerating career. I assumed I’d be elsewhere before long. But as I begin my 8th season over 10 years, I look back at a job that has given me consistency and security — things that are the antithesis of a creative existence. That widespread international audience is inextricably linked to that consistency as I‘m aware a big part of our recommissioning is thanks to that wider following.

On a more personal level, I have also been fortunate enough to set up a side career as a travel and automotive journalist, owed, at least at its inception, to the appeal of the show that I’m in. So, as I sit here at the wonderful IKOS Olivia hotel in Greece, sipping on a delicious Negroni, I do so as a journalist reviewing the hotel, not just an actor on holiday. There are so many layers to my life that I never would’ve imagined gaining from an acting job.

Without wishing to sound like a 20-year-old Los Angeles barista, I’m full of gratitude for one Caroline Graham – the British woman who wrote the books on which the series is based. Unbeknownst to her, more than 30 years ago she created something that the whole world now enjoys - whether it’s known as Inspecteur Barnaby (FR), L’Ispettore Barnaby (ITA), Убийства в Мидсомере (RUS), Ubojstva u Midsomeru (CRO), Midsomerin murhat (FIN), or ミッドサマー殺人事件 (JAP).

In the early 1960s, adverts for pétanque sets began to appear in British newspapers. Invariably, the accompanying illustration featured a scene in which men in berets and striped Breton shirts played beneath plain trees with the outline of the Eiffel Tower somewhere in the distance.

This was hardly surprising. After all, to the average British citizen, the steely clank of the pétanque boules was as evocative of la France profonde as the scent of black tobacco or the sound of intellectuals arguing about philosophy on prime-time television. It appears, however, that the prevailing view of pétanque as a Gallic interloper into our national sporting life, the crusty Camembert baguette to the cucumber sandwiches of lawn bowls, may be misguided.

‘I’d certainly take the view that the game Sir Francis Drake was playing in Plymouth Hoe had more in common with boules than bowls,’ wagers Bob Rumble, president of the Great Western Region Pétanque England and one of the organisers of the Sherston Boules Festival in Wiltshire, which will begin — to the ringing of church bells — for the 40th time this summer.

The fact that some form of boules — invented, according to Herodotus, by the Lydians (modern-day Turkey) as a means of distracting themselves during times of famine — has been played in the British Isles for thousands of years cannot be disputed. The Romans contested a game in which stone balls were hurled towards a smaller ball. The legionaries took this game with them, spreading it throughout Europe in much the same way English sailors would football.

For centuries, the term boules and bowls were interchangeable and, like the Romans, British players used spheres of stone or later, iron. Contemporary illustrations of Sir Francis Drake’s famous game bear out Rumble’s view. They suggest that the match was played with cannon balls on a gravel surface, a few even show the great seafarer lobbing the ball rather than rolling it. It is a notion confirmed by The Book of Games compiled by Francis Willughby in about 1660, which describes a game called ‘boules’ played ‘upon very smooth allies of gravel’. This form of the game, rather than the one played on grass, was, in Willughby’s opinion, ‘more generally used than any other [form of bowls] in England’.

That this should have been the case is not surprising. What we know today as lawn bowls was simply beyond the pocket of most people. It required a green that was flat and upon which the grass was cut short — an expensive business when it had to be done by skilled men with scythes. The woods with their in-built bias (invented in 1522 by Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk) were costly. Furthermore, in 1541, the King — blaming the deplorable state of English archery on the ‘customable usage’ of bowls — banned tradesmen, craftsmen, journeymen and the like from playing the game. The aristocracy could continue, however, which was lucky, because His Majesty was himself a keen player, albeit with a cannonball. Amazingly, this Tudor prohibition remained in place until it was repealed in 1845. For more than 300 years, any member of the working class playing bowls or boules was effectively an outlaw.

Henry VIII was not the first English monarch to take a dim view of boules (Edward III, fearful that the manly pursuit of archery was being undermined, ordered the prohibition of all ‘stone, wood and iron throwing under penalty of imprisonment’), nor would he be the last. In 1618, James I issued his Declaration of Sports listing all permissible pastimes — such as archery, dancing, leaping and vaulting — alongside those which were evidently to the detriment of the common good. The latter included bull-baiting, bear-baiting and, of course, boules.

Pétanque itself is a relatively recent evolution of the game. ‘It developed from a much more strenuous game, jeu provençal, in which the players run up and hurl a ball weighing about a kilo at a jack some 30 metres away,’ Rumble explains. ‘One of the greatest players was a man from La Ciotat near Marseille known as Jules Lenoir. Unfortunately, by about 1906, he had developed such severe rheumatism that he was confined to a wheel-chair. However, his friend, Ernest Pitiot, invented a shorter form of the game with lighter boules so that he could continue to play, which Lenoir participated in when sitting in his chair. To make the competition fair, the other players competed with their feet tied together. In French that’s pieds tanqué — hence the name pétanque.’

The new game, suitable for all ages and both sexes, spread throughout France and, by the 1920s, British newspapers were reporting on tournaments ‘that draw 4,000 competitors and offer prizes totalling £1,000’. The first gravel terrains de pétanque in England were laid in private gardens in the 1930s by players who had adopted the game when holidaying on the French Riviera. By the late 1950s, sports shops across Britain were selling pétanque sets. One set, available at Harrods, featured ‘gold coloured’ balls and, according to The Tatler, could ‘even [be used] in a cobbled London mews’.

In post-war Britain, the fact that pétanque required no specially prepared ground was a distinct virtue. As one keen player in Liverpool told the local Press: ‘The Luftwaffe created plenty of space in the city that is ideal for a game.’ In Sheffield’s weekly sports newspaper The Green ’Un in 1963, a writer suggested pétanque as an ideal solution to the problems of maintaining greens that had been afflicting local bowls clubs. ‘Any rough surface will do, so you can dispense with lawn sprinklers, mats and all that,’ the writer commented, adding that he himself was a dab hand at pétanque having completed a bomb-aiming course during his RAF National Service.

From then on, things moved almost as rapidly in Britain as they had across the Channel. The first pétanque terrain established in an English pub was in Braintree, Essex, at the start of the Swinging Sixties. In June 1964, the inaugural All-England Pétanque Championships was held in Cobham, Surrey. The ease of squeezing a pétanque strip into a corner of the car park saw the game boom in British pubs in the 1970s and, by 1978, the national championships were attracting more than 150 club entries.

The competition was so well organised that, in 1979, the 15th edition of the world championships was held in Southampton, Hampshire. It attracted entrants from 17 nations and was sponsored — inevitably, perhaps — by Pernod. England’s top team at the time was based in Norfolk Square near Paddington, although, as The Field pointed out, the fact that its three players were Patrick Tavignot, Jean-Marc Constantin and Peter Schmid, indicated that ‘the game still belongs to the continent’.

Despite the British ladies pétanque team doing well on the European circuit in recent years, that may remain the case. Although that is hardly the point. About 40,000 people in Britain play boules regularly, most of them in pub teams. The Sherston Boules Festival, on July 4 this year, sees the high street of the Wiltshire village closed off to traffic, the tarmac covered with sharp sand and more than 600 players competing. ‘It’s a lovely social occasion, played in good spirits and it brings a great deal of happiness,’ says Rumble.

And that surely is the point of any game — whether British or French.

Arguably the two most prestigious clubs in Britain are not clubs in the actual sense, but the VIP segments of two events that have come to typify the British experience. Not for them are the accoutrements of the Mayfair townhouse: the porticoed entrance and curtain rods emblazoned with coats of arms. Accession to these clubs is not granted via classic nomination and secondment, but by private invitation from the governing body or friends in places higher than one’s own.

These are clubs, indeed, only in the empirical sense: money-can’t-buy, who-do-you-know environments that reach their annual apogee during the Season. The first is Car Park 1 at Royal Ascot, whose members would sooner forego the event entirely than attend it from Car Park 2. The second is the Royal Box on Centre Court at The Championships, Wimbledon, known to true devotees simply as ‘Wimbles’.

The Season extends to other clubs, too. The Hurlingham Club will host Chestertons’ annual Polo in the Park from June 5–7, as well as the Armani Cup from June 23–27. The clubs on Pall Mall are decked out for peak wedding season. At Royal Ascot, the Calvary and Guards Club welcome guests to their own marquee within the Royal Enclosure. The House of Koko, a members’ club that backs onto the cult north London music venue, normally would have set up camp in the fields near Glastonbury for members dropping upwards of £10,000 on five days’ worth of revelry, were it not for the festival taking a fallow year in 2026 and are instead taking over a fiñca hotel in Ibiza for the opening of that particular season, from June 3–7.

Which of these clubs is the right one for you? It depends whether your idea of a members’ establishment is more scions smoking cigars in the garden or bright young things dancing on the tables. Our guide to the very best covers both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. Already a member and curious to see the alternatives, or keen to join one for the first time? Reader, look no further — the answer is right below.

The Athenaeum

Are you exceptionally clever? Are libraries your happy place? Do you enjoy long, sweeping lawns backing onto other members’ clubs, to whence you can retire in the summer between meetings in St James’s and before a night at the theatre? I know, I know: it all sounds rather lovely. The London Library is also just around the corner.

The Athenaeum has nurtured centuries of British thought among its lofty, neo-Classical environs — and the lure of being able to glean some of that intellectual heritage is undeniably appealing, if only by osmosis. Careful, however: the architectural pretentiousness of the building’s façade, complete with a gold statue of Athena, does not extend to its members. These are some very serious people indeed. ‘I’m sure you’re aware that we have had quite a few Nobel Prize winners among us,’ the club’s erstwhile chairman told a member of Country Life staff when he joined in the early Aughts. ‘It’s rather more than France.’

The Hurlingham Club

Anyone wondering whether The Hurlingham is right for them falls into one of two categories. Either you believe the club might one day lift the cap on its wait list (so, a wishful thinker) or you are the offspring of generational members and have been using the facilities since before you were born. You wonder, now that you’re all grown up and working in public relations, whether you might be better off joining Third Space instead. It’s so near the office, after all, and the showers there actually have doors. However, it’s also £245 a month and mum and dad still pay for The Hurlingham — so then again, maybe not.

White's

Were the happiest days of your life those you spent at an all-boys’ boarding school? Is your favourite pudding spotted dick? Do you enjoy the idea of your name appearing alongside Beau Brummell’s in the club’s bettings book? Do you feel, frankly, that the Garrick was wrong to accept women in 2024 when it caved under pressure from The Guardian, of all places? There can be no sacred cows — not even the monarch’s wife.

If all this strikes a chord — and you are of the male persuasion — then White’s may be just the ticket. It is, after all, the oldest club in London, the oldest in Britain and, consequently, the oldest in the entire world. That’s got to carry something—not cachet, because you wouldn’t be caught dead using such a word, but perhaps heft? Clout? The heritage of a once-great culture? Anyway, no time to waste: you have a million pounds to make before lunch.

Maison Estelle

Do you find most Mayfair clubs to be a little dour these days? Maison Estelle, whose sumptuous yet homely interiors feel like something out of the Country Life Top 100, is something of a Mecca for London’s young financial minds who find their parents’ clubs a little dated. They also enjoy the idea of being somewhere that hosted one of the BAFTA afterparties in 2025, which would have been rather complicated to do at White’s, as they would have had to turn away Demi Moore.

Maison Estelle appeals, moreover, to those curious about country life. With its oh-so-elegant outpost in the Cotswolds, Estelle Manor, the club offers city mice a chance to sample rural living ahead of their eventual move westwards, when they decide to raise a family and live somewhere that’s within easy reach of the Dragon School. The London site also enjoys immediate proximity to Bond Street, should one’s Rolex need servicing at any point or a meeting in Canary Wharf be put in the diary at the last minute. The Elizabeth Line is a five-minute walk away — or 10 minutes in a black cab.

See also: 5 Hertford Street

The Royal Automobile Club

Is Top Gear your favourite television show? Do you own an Aston Martin? Do you sit on the board of Rolls Royce PLC? And have you ever won the Grand Prix? If so, great. If not, don’t worry. The RAC is one of the more welcoming and open-minded clubs on the Pall Mall circuit, which is to say that many members sign up primarily to enjoy the frankly unparalleled reciprocals.

As in the clubs of old, gossip and one-too-many-glasses of something or other are the tricks of the trade. This is a place where people pull up, get stuck in and know how to have fun; proverbial vroom-vrooms are more important than their motoring counterparts. Nonetheless, do brush up on your knowledge of luxury racing vehicles. If not essential, small ‘e’ enthusiasm for the topic is highly recommended.

Car Park One (Royal Ascot)

Do you enjoy racing? Ah, you do, do you? Car Park One is not available. Best head back to the Royal Enclosure, or Car Park Two.

Car Park One is for those who enjoy the rigmarole of Ascot without the actual pressure of committing to the races. Sure, you might pop into the Royal Enclosure and bet on whatever colt Andrew Balding has told you to bet on, even if you now have to pay a modest £25 per annum to retain the privilege of doing so — but, really, you’re here for the vibes. You got the horses out of your system at Cheltenham earlier this year and know the picnic is the main event: Scotch eggs, smashed potatoes with crème fraiche and copious amounts of smoked salmon. On the quiche-to-equine spectrum, your enthusiasm is more firmly for the former.

Conversation still must flow, even if the winnings do not. Brush up on your knowledge of the global stock market, although such things should already be second nature to you.

The Groucho Club

Kids are awfully dull these days, aren’t they? It’s all me, me, me; health, sobriety and early nights. Whatever happened to fun? The sort our folks used to have? Well, members of the Groucho Club know how to have it in spades, so if the above felt oddly resonant, this could be one for you. Assuming, of course, that you are happy for your annual fee to subsidise those of the young and beautiful whom the Groucho has been trying to court for years, with free membership and literary events and the eternal line that ‘Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst used to come here all the time’. So did Salvador Dalí, who used to scribble a drawing on the back of his bill in lieu of paying (worth a whole lot more than the monies he’d have had to part with).

Yes, the Groucho was once beloved by artists — but if you find such a crowd intimidating, fret not. There aren’t many of them left here anymore.

See also: Soho House

The Royal Box (Wimbledon)

Are you the A list of the A list? Or betrothed to someone who is? Only then can you possibly hope to make it into this most coveted of clubs — together with The Prince and Princess of Wales, Sir David Beckham and Tom Cruise. Rest assured, however, that plenty have managed, although it certainly helps to be good looking and have starred in an episode of The Crown.

Is this the club for you? Well, that depends. Do you enjoy having cameras pointing in your face at all times? Do you still enjoy tennis when it goes to tie break for the third consecutive set and the sun beats down on your forehead in a proto-Sisyphean manner? You know all too well that a Panama hat is not suitable attire for BBC One. Also, do you prefer to watch tennis in stately-ish silence or curse whenever Novak Djokovic wins a point?

If your answer to any of the above was: ‘Irrelevant: I’ve received an invitation from the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club for what is indisputably the event of the year and you can bet your life savings that I’ll be going with bells on,’ then I guess you already know that this is the club for you and hardly need me to tell you otherwise. Fortune favours the invited.

The House of Koko

Are you a member of the Argentine aristocracy? Or a minor royal from the house of Genoa? Perhaps a young banker who wants to join a club, but isn’t sure which? This one seems rather convenient, as it’s rather close enough to Islington (where you live), doesn’t have much of a wait list (so you've heard) and comes with a rooftop restaurant and balcony. What’s not to love?

Everyone here is attractive, too, which is one of the main reasons you wish to join a club in the first place. Nominally, of course, you are here to network — specifically, to talk music, as you run an independent record label somewhere in Farringdon. Andy Cato of Groove Armada is a close family friend and you are yourself a veteran of Koko, the concert venue, to which you started going when you were only 16.

You mourned what you thought was its death in 2020, when a fire swept through the concert hall, but soon found out about its redevelopment and the introduction of a members’ club at the back of the building. In fact, you were earmarked for founding membership, but decided against it at the time (it didn’t ‘align with your plans’). Things have changed, however: you’ve since resigned from several other clubs because you thought this one offered everything and more — although you’ve kept the gym as a personal insurance, as so much revelry cannot take place without you putting in some extra hours on the treadmill.

The Houghton Fishing Club

‘Membership of the Houghton Fishing Club is the dream of every serious fly-fisherman,’ this magazine wrote in 2008. Yet, as we caveated, it is ‘obtainable by only the very fortunate few’. Founded in 1822, Houghton is the oldest private fishing club in Britain and has exclusive fishing rights to 13 miles of the River Test in Hampshire. With 25-odd members, it is harder to get into than even the Marylebone Cricket Club (wait list: 30 years). No doubt, to many readers, this exclusivity will sound rather appealing. To which we ask: do you possess a title? Ideally, one that’s been in your family for far longer than the club has been around? If so, welcome: you’re probably more familiar with Houghton’s proceedings than we are. If not, dear reader, you may wish to kiss that particular dream goodbye.

This feature originally appeared in the April 29, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

The Dowager Countess

Although now advanced in years, Serena considers her annual visit to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot as essential as Christmas. It has taken her nearly two decades to come to terms with the new grandstand, but even she has to admit the escalators do make things easier in her dotage, especially after a Bollinger-boosted picnic. She finds the name badges incredibly useful when she can’t remember what those people they met in Spain are called, although she has never got used to the idea of men, particularly ones she doesn’t really know, looking intently at her, admittedly ample, bosom. The older the man, the worse the eyesight, the more lingering the hard stare.

She hankers after that time she and her late husband were invited by His Majesty’s Representative to lunch in his box, and she was charmed by a man called Rio, who seemed to know more about football than racing, but was giving a prize nevertheless and looked splendid in a top hat.

Her grandson’s racing tips are always enthusiastically communicated, if rarely fiscally sound, although the horses Serena really likes to watch are the ones in the Royal Procession as the carriages make their way down the racecourse. Rupert Uloth

The Hay veterans

Before he went freelance as a literary PR, Tom was a Penguin publicist, so he has been coming to Hay for years. When they first got together, Stuart, who runs a cheese shop in Bloomsbury, thought a weekend at the world’s most famous book festival sounded jolly. Tom quickly disabused him of this notion: going to Hay is not unlike going to war, specifically the First World War, in that there is a lot of mud and everyone wants to kill each other.

They stay in a draughty farmhouse a 15-minute drive away: the owner, Mrs Davies, waves them off each morning with a picnic of homemade quiche and Welsh cakes. As Stuart has been put on Mounjaro by his GP, he reluctantly gives most of his lunch to Tom, although he does sneak in a scoop of blackberry-ripple ice cream from Shepherds. Eschewing the digital programme so as not to be hostage to the wifi, Tom gets them printed programmes, which he attacks with highlighters and places in plastic wallets. They both have tote bags: Tom’s is from Daunt Books, Stuart’s hopefully advertises his shop.

There’s so much to see that no breaks are allowed; thanks to Tom’s connections, they secure front-row seats for Zadie Smith and Margaret Atwood and invitations to all the after-parties. Tom is in his element at these, trading publishing gossip with agents and knocking back the Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc. Stuart, nursing an alcohol-free beer as designated driver, wonders whether there are any Welsh cakes left in Mrs Davies’s larder. Emma Hughes

The schoolboy rower’s squeeze

Poppy thought (and hoped) it was a rock festival when new boyfriend Jack first invited her to join his parents for Henley. If she had known it was a regular parade of simultaneously bulging male biceps she would have been even more enthusiastic. Correctly attired for the Stewards’ Enclosure in a long flowing dress below the knee, it is, however, unfortunate that, by the time Jack’s Eton eight heaves into view, Poppy’s eyes have become decidedly misty after repeatedly accepting glasses of Champagne from men in a visual cacophony of brightly striped blazers, some of whom she knows.

Jack’s father, a member of the Cambridge eight in 1984, insists they go to the Leander Club to watch the teams ‘boat’, a journey that Poppy only completes after stumbling into an official she later learns won an Olympic gold in 1996. His crucial job on Finals day is to track the Princess Grace Challenge Cup, awarded to the now exuberant women’s quadruple sculls, before it disappears into a mêlée or, worse still, the Thames.

Reunited with Jack at last, Poppy develops a second wind for the after-party on Saturday night when schoolboys, university girls and Olympic heroes from across the world all join up for the traditional celebration in the centre of Henley town, an evening when Jack’s father, Poppy is relieved to note, is ensconced at the bar of the Leander Club fully distracted by his cerise sock-wearing former crew mates. RU

The former tennis prodigy

The first fortnight in July is bittersweet for Boris. When he was born in 1985, his parents named him after the young Becker, who had just won his first title, hoping that their son might emulate the German’s heroics one day. He did make it to the quarter-finals of junior Wimbledon, but this was not enough to secure membership of the highly exclusive All England Tennis & Croquet Club. Like everyone else, he has to enter the online ballot for tickets, although his ageing mother still cannot understand why he doesn’t simply send in a stamped addressed envelope like she always did.

His job as a country solicitor is fairly humdrum, although it was a thrill last year when a new client turned out to have debenture seats; Boris is keeping his fingers crossed that successfully expunging a footpath across the hedge funder’s field by use of an obscure bye-law will secure an invitation this year.

He regularly plays tennis with his wife, Anna, at Rye Lawn Tennis Club and she loves the annual outing, dressing up in her floral ME+EM dress with a denim jacket and little plimsolls, a topped-up tan, blonded hair and expensive sunglasses. He was mortified when the umpire admonished them for their exploding Champagne cork that landed in the tram lines on Centre Court last year and has made a vow to stick to jugs of Pimm’s instead. They could go by car and park in one of the nearby private driveways, although Boris resents the fact that one acquaintance of his makes enough money this way for an annual Mauritius holiday. As if the strawberries aren’t expensive enough.

The Glyndebourne Under 30s member

By the time Francesca’s parents were her age they had a four-bedroom house in Wandsworth, two children and a dog. Francesca has none of these things — but she does have a Glyndebourne Under 30s membership, which is now freighted with all her hopes for upper-middle-class adulthood.

In preparation for Don Giovanni, to which she has invited five friends via an increasingly passive-aggressive Whatsapp group, she has bought a second-hand Edwardian-style hamper on wheels off eBay and stayed up until 3am baking her own pastry cases for the canapés.

Things get off to a bad start when one of the party misses the train from London Victoria to Glynde and the wheeled hamper gets stuck in the aisle. Francesca’s spirits lift when the cork on the first bottle of Champagne is popped, then plummet when everyone turns out to be much more enthusiastic about the bag of Doritos a friend has smuggled in than her canapés. She fumes through the first act and nearly explodes when they all come out for the interval and find another group sitting at the Upper Circle table she specifically reserved.

She proceeds to get very drunk and, from that point onwards, has a much better time, even when one of the hamper’s wheels falls off when they all have to run for the last bus back to Glynde station. EH

The undergraduate crew member

Even before it begins, Rocco knows that the four-hours-on, two-hours-off routine of an Atlantic crossing is nothing to the sleep deprivation of Cowes Week, with its days of fresh sea air crewing on a J70 segueing seamlessly into the parties that rage like Force 10 gales all week. Newcastle freshers’ week has nothing on the Thursday-night pub crawl through Cowes.

It’s always a panic when his uncle invites him to the Royal Yacht Squadron Ball after-party — as he rifles through his sail bag for his crumpled dinner jacket to replace his deck shoes, shorts and Henri-Lloyd sailing jacket — but it would be a pity to miss out, especially on the espresso martinis. He also makes a point of attending the Mount Gay Rum party, the best chance of securing one of its caps with the year emblazoned on the front and as sought after as any sailing trophy. His godfather’s 1989 one, with its red faded to dusky pink by years of salt water, is held in reverence by young and old sea dogs alike.

It will be the 200th anniversary of Cowes Week this year and Rocco is looking forward to the puff of smoke and the loud report from the ancient cannon that start the races from the castle of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the sight of yachts of all sizes and shapes slicing through the Solent. At night, he will probably sleep the few hours available on the boat to remain in the thick of the action, but he is hoping for romantic pyrotechnics with the spirited blonde working at the marina, who has the added bonus of access to a decent shower. RU

The Wilderness glampers

It all sounded so promising: four nights at the country’s coolest festival, sleeping in a luxury shepherd’s hut. Now the twins are old enough to stay with their grandparents, Heather and Hamish decided to splash out on ‘glamping’ tickets for Wilderness; Heather, who has never been to a festival before, got a blow-dry to last her for the weekend.

The rose-tinted spectacles come off quickly: in the drizzle, the shepherd’s hut looks like something from The Great Escape. Still, the first evening is fun, with Basement Jaxx on the main stage, and they drink enough spicy margaritas to pass out. Heather comes to with her teeth chattering — she hadn’t realised the huts would be unheated — and finds the rain has become torrential. She and Hamish, who keeps making annoying jokes about them being on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition, spend the day shivering in the talks tent and trekking miles to use the ‘posh portaloos’.

There’s a nice long-table banquet cooked by a celebrity chef, but then it turns out the hut next door to theirs has been booked by some rowdy doctors intent on reliving their 1997 lads’ trip to Ibiza. Heather wakes in the small hours to find Hamish has gone with them to a rave in the valley.

Standing in the rain-lashed coffee queue the next morning as he sleeps it off, she gets wind of a bedroom going at a smart gastropub in the village. An hour later, she is sobbing with relief under its hot shower, having performed a Great Escape of her own. EH

First up, a little tip on pronunciation. It’s not As-cot, it’s more As-coot, as in soot. That’s how to sound as if you’ve been going for years. Also, you need to understand the car park hierarchy. The smartest place to park and set up one’s picnic is Car Park Number 1, where those who’ve been going to Ascot for years park their Range Rovers. Other 4x4s are available.

Arrivals here start early as everyone finds their allotted place and unfurls the furniture and food from the boot. We’re not talking a mere picnic blanket. There will be tables, folding chairs and tablecloths. There may be gazebos, pitched hopefully to protect racegoers from the sun, but more usually to keep off the drizzle. Set them up, but be mindful not to spill into the space of whoever’s parking beside you. Terrible faux-pas to allow your garden chairs to encroach on their patch of grass. Wars have been launched for less.

Nor are we talking M&S sandwiches when it comes to the grub. There will be cold beef fillet, cooked in the Aga that morning and swaddled in tinfoil like a newborn baby. There may be a side of poached salmon. Coronation chicken (the secret ingredient is peach yoghurt, says a long-time Ascot attendee who always takes coronation chicken) is another popular choice. Some sort of picnic centrepiece, in other words.

Don’t forget the condiments, said in an ironic tone, to denote the word is faintly infra dig. Horseradish, hollandaise, mustard. There will be lots of things in jars and salt crystals in a very tiny Tupperware. A quiche, perhaps, and warm baby potatoes served from a thermos. There will also be Champagne (and plenty of it) from a cool box. A few years ago, when I last went with a friend who worked for Berry Bros, there was an ice-cold Jeroboam. Deeply civilised.

And then, just as you’ve relaxed back into your folding chair and you’re thinking another glass and sliver of beef might be in order, it’s up and across the road for the first race. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll actually see a horse. Plenty of people simply mill around the enclosure and don’t bother much with the racing. But technically you are there for the racing, so it’s good form to show a smidgen of interest before you all come back to the car park after the last race and tuck into tea.

The traffic will be murder if you leave now, so you might as well hang about for a while. A fruit cake and coffee from a flask; a homemade flapjack; a glass of wine. Some attempt a cheeseboard, but this can turn manky in the boot of a warm car. If you’re in the mood for music by this point, don’t blast it too loud from the car. Again, be mindful of your neighbours. You don’t want to be cast out of Car Park One next year, do you?

This week saw the release by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) of its annual listing of visitor figures for 2025. Every year, Athena examines these statistics with mixed feelings. It’s fantastic that the Natural History Museum set a new record and became the most visited UK museum or gallery ever with 7,116,929 attendees. What an astonishing achievement.

Added to which, she is fascinated to try and discern in the figures the state of the sector ALVA represents. There were, for example, 165 million visits in 2025 to the attractions listed here, a 7% decline on the 170 million visits in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. In other words, it’s still a struggle.

No less intriguing are the implied fortunes of the 409 individual venues surveyed. It’s heartening, for example, to see the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery return to life last year with 672,391 visitors (a 305% increase on the previous year). Athena’s most recent visit to this outstanding collection in 2022 — when most of the building was closed and the accessible rooms colonised with temporary exhibitions — ranks among the most depressing she has ever made to a great museum. Clearly, she needs to go back.

Tate Modern, meanwhile, has had a fractional decline in visitors from 2024, which, in turn, marked a 25% decline on the figure for 2019. Last year, Athena speculated on whether the popularity of this institution might be waning. Possibly, but, with 4,514,266 visitors and ranked the fourth most visited attraction in the UK, it can’t be described as failing.

Then there is the recovery in the numbers going to the National Gallery. The 2025 figure of 4,147,544 visitors is still nearly one-third down on that for 2019, but the whole gallery only reopened for its 250th anniversary in May 2025, five months into the year. In the circumstances, that seems healthy. Why, then, Athena’s ambivalence about the figures?

Well, partly because the list implicitly equates success with numbers of visitors. Yet Tate Britain is not a quarter of Tate Modern because it attracts a comparatively modest 1,149,325 visitors. Added to which, the list focuses attention on the big players, which are predominantly in London (with all the advantages that brings). Finally, Athena’s experience of going to major attractions makes her wonder what we are celebrating at the head of the list.

In her mind, every attraction has a visitor threshold and pushing beyond it is destructive. Last weekend, for example, she dropped into the British Museum — number two with 6,440,120 attendees in 2025 — and the crowds were more than oppressive. Frankly, for all the riches on display, she wished herself miles away. Actually, she wanted to be at number 409 on the list, the Bachelors’ Club, Tarbolton, South Ayrshire, founded by the poet Robert Burns, run by the National Trust of Scotland and with a humane visitor count of 461 in 2025 (up from 350 in 2024).

This feature originally appeared in the March 25, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

We are officially in one of two in-between seasons—characterised by temperamental weather that calls for what the fashion industry terms ‘transitional outerwear.’

Also known as a trench coat.

The British, and more specifically Thomas Burberry and John Emary (of Aquascutum), invented the military coat, but they were out in full force last weekend in Paris, France.

I was there for the 16th iteration of Saut Hermès, an internationally-renowned show-jumping competition that takes place inside the Beaux-Arts-style Grand Palais. It is a meeting of beautiful minds: the luxury maison started life as a high-end harness and bridle workshop catering to European noblemen; the cage-like building staged equestrian events underneath its gloriously-domed roof from 1901 until the mid 1950s. The subterranean visitor facilities were once stables.

Other sports have taken centre stage at the Grand Palais too, including the 2024 Olympic fencing and taekwondo competitions. And in December 1903, it was where President Émile Loubet congratulated the first-ever winner of the Tour de France, Maurice Garin.

Hermès still crafts elegant equipment for customers and their trusty steeds and partner riders — who are integral to product development — were the smartest in the arena. At present, a saddle takes more than 30 hours and is worked on by a single craftsperson revealed the director of the Equestrian Métier, Ugo Borao. It's not unheard of for saddles produced in the 1920s to reappear in the workshop for the lightest of repairs. Recently, a partner rider brought in his grandfather's saddle from the 1950s that's still used on an almost weekly basis.

Paris gallops into each season a couple of weeks ahead of London (they will soon be shrugging off those trench coats) and horses had to contend with Olympic-like bolts of sunshine streaming in from all angles.

Outside, spring was fast taking the reins and in the Tuileries Gardens, the flowerbeds were full of sculptural fritillaries, frothy English daisies and dramatic Black Beauty tulips.

It was a tantalising taste of what's to come, but until then here are some of my favourite photographs and videos from the weekend.

If you loitered in betting shops in the dying decades of the 20^th century, you encountered all sorts. From pin-stripe suits to donkey jackets, men — and it was invariably men — who would never have said a word to one another on the street exchanged opinions as if long-time friends. Meanwhile, the young wide-eyed innocent was viewed as the natural receptacle for — generally useless — punting advice, whether required or not. ‘Never bet on a runner ridden by such and such a jockey because he stops his horses,’ was one bitterly expressed piece of nonsense you could swiftly discard. ‘If the favourite loses, double your stake on the favourite in the next race,’ was another. But the hoariest old stand-by was: ‘Give the swerve to the grey nags.’

Almost all grey racehorses trace their line back to Alcock's Arabian, who was, possibly, imported to this country from Istanbul in the early 18^th century, eventually standing as a stud in Lincolnshire (a smaller number of greys are traceable back to a son of Brownlow Turk). Alcock's Arabian’s progeny included the unpromisingly named Crab, who won a King’s Plate at Newmarket and was subsequently champion sire for three successive years from 1748-1750. The popularity of Alcock’s Arabian’s brood mares ensured a flourishing grey line through the remainder of the century.

Grey, however, is not a true Thoroughbred colour, but a gene that modifies ‘natural’ bay and brown colours by de-pigmenting coat hairs as the animal ages. This is why many of the more durable racehorse greys become so strikingly white as the seasons go by. The influential 20^th century Italian Thoroughbred breeder Federico Tesio (1869-1954) described grey as ‘a pathological discolouration’ and ‘a strange disease of pigmentation’. Yet, long before his time, a perception had arisen that a grey had a heightened susceptibility to visual impairments and other illnesses, notably a higher likelihood of developing melanomas on the skin. There were also doubts about the temperament of greys, with a suspicion that they were nervous and tricky to handle.

As no horse is born grey without one of its parents being grey, it followed that stud owners tried to breed the colour out. A dwindling number of greys inevitably reduced the pool of good horses, and thus the number of winning greys on the track. The prejudice against betting on greys thus became self-fulfilling (the racing historian Michael Church has written that the percentage of grey racehorses ‘has generally hovered at around 3%’). It has meant that, every year around Aintree time, racing pundits trot out the old cliche that ‘greys never win Grand Nationals’. They know they are on safe ground when so few compete. Only three greys have won the race — The Lamb (1868 and 1871), Nicolaus Silver (1961) and Neptune Collonges (2012).

However, just as the idea that chestnuts are flighty has been exploded by the likes of Hyperion, Flyingbolt, Secretariat, Tingle Creek, Double Trigger and Stradivarius, there have been many greys who have been top class under either Flat or National Hunt rules. Although only four grey colts have won the Derby — the most recent was Airborne in 1946 — and a similar number of fillies have triumphed in the Oaks — the last was Sleeping Partner in 1969 — the grey mare Alpinista was a popular winner of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2022. Under National Hunt rules, Rooster Booster won the Champion Hurdle in 2003.

Yet it is grey chasers that especially capture the public imagination. So many appear to float over fences like silver shadows. The beautiful Monet’s Garden was poetry in motion around Aintree. While the more rugged Bristol De Mai was reckoned to be unbeatable in the notorious Haydock Park mud, Teeton Mill and One Man won jump racing’s midwinter showpiece, the King George VI Chase, in the 1990s. At the Cheltenham Festival, Politologue took the Champion Chase in 1990.

However, the greatest of all the jumping greys was Desert Orchid, winner of the King George VI Chase four times. He also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in an epic fight up the hill in 1989. This year’s renewal features another gorgeous grey, Grey Dawning. He is not one of the favourites, but it would not be the most unexpected result if he became the first grey to triumph since the beloved ‘Dessie’.

It’s come to my attention that standards are slipping. At a performance in the West End recently, halfway through the third act, I noticed a commotion a few rows in front of me. A woman was vaping, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air, and the people behind her were flapping their hands to dispense her exhalations so they could see the stage.

An usher hissed from the sidelines, but she continued. The performance was subsequently stopped when it became apparent that this woman was very drunk, head lolling around like a water balloon on a stick, and another usher and a security guard appeared at the end of the row to hustle her out.

Only a week before, I was watching another production when I felt the surprising and unpleasant sensation of popcorn cascading down my back. Certain theatres now flog big buckets of the stuff, just like in the cinema, and the man behind me had tipped his over. Accidentally, of course, but still. You don’t get that sort of behaviour at the Royal Opera House, do you? Meanwhile, a friend reports that she was recently distracted from a play by a nearby woman who’d darted to a branch of McDonald’s during the interval and sat through the second half chomping it.

It’s a tricky one because, these days, theatre often gets it in the neck for being elitist and stuffy. For being too white and too middle class. For not being inviting or encouraging enough to those who might be intimidated by it. And yet, I’m not sure that it needs to be so egalitarian that people feel relaxed enough to eat a box of chicken nuggets during a performance of Othello.

Dress codes don’t bother me hugely. My grandmother, a keen theatre goer, would have been horrified by the idea of someone going to the National in, say, trainers. But times change, some performances are very long, so go in what you’re comfortable in. It doesn’t need to be black tie, although bear in mind that in certain, extremely cramped West End theatres you may be quite close to a stranger. And do you want to brush bare arms with a stranger? Exactly.

But eating. Hmmm. I’m going to be sterner here and say ideally not during the performance. An ice-cream at the interval, fine. Splendid, in fact. I’ll have a salted caramel. Drinking is allowed, so long as you don’t have cubes of ice noisily clinking around your glass like it’s a cocktail party. But bags of sweets and chocolate that rustle can be very trying for others, as can showers of popcorn. And really, really, nothing that’s going to stink out those around you either. If you’re craving a Big Mac, have one before or afterwards.

A final word on phones. Do you need to send that email halfway through a scene? My other half whispered crossly at a woman who was tapping away at her phone throughout The Lehman Trilogy, only for the woman to reply: ‘Go f**k yourself.’ Why bother spending £60 or more on a ticket to see something, only to sit and scroll? You can do that in your bedroom. During a bad performance of something, I’m often desperate to know the time so I can work out how long is left and when I can get home to bed. But I still wouldn’t get my phone out. If you want to know the time that badly, consider a watch.

'A curling stone slides across the ice with a lovely rumble,’ observes Jen Dodds. ‘The noise when it strikes another stone is wonderful — a satisfying, deep thunk’.

Jen won Winter Olympics gold in Beijing in 2022 with the GB women’s curling team and was beginning the defence of that crown in Cortina, Italy, at the time of going to press. At both Games, the 34-year-old from Edinburgh has used curling stones made by Kays Scotland, a small firm of dedicated craftspeople in Mauchline, Ayrshire, and the last remaining maker of curling stones in the British Isles.

‘Each stone is handcrafted,’ reveals Jim English, managing director of Kays. ‘Two types of granite are used. The outer stone, which includes the striking bands [the part of the stone that makes the clunk], is fashioned from common green granite. Common green has an elasticity that means it can absorb heavy blows.’ Blue hone granite is the insert that forms the running edge, the surface that comes in contact with the ice (and the bit that provides the rumble). ‘Blue hone is incredibly fine, which makes it water resistant,’ he continues. ‘It doesn’t draw in moisture, so it’s superb for sliding across the ice.’

Kays granite comes from a special source, Ailsa Craig, that mysterious 60-million-year-old ‘fairy rock’ that pokes up from the Firth of Clyde. Kays was granted the rights to harvest the island’s unique rock by the Marquess of Ailsa, whose family has owned the uninhabited island since 1560. It’s also a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and home to great colonies of seals and seabirds. As a result, blasting is prohibited and granite can only be harvested sporadically.

‘Because of the breeding habits of the wildlife, we’re only allowed to go over in October and November,’ Jim points out. ‘Which, in terms of the weather, is not ideal, as you can imagine. It’s 10 miles out to sea and the rock faces we quarry from are a long way from the landing area. The common green comes from the south face of the island and the blue hone from the north. It’s a laborious process.’

However, the damp, cold and perilous work is worth it. Kays collects about 3,000 tons on each voyage, enough to keep the firm, which makes 150 stones a month, going for 10 years. ‘The granite from Ailsa Craig is like no other on Earth,’ Jim says. ‘Its unique properties make it almost impervious to freezing temperatures and to hard knocks, too.’ It’s almost as if it was designed to be made into curling stones.

The stones are fashioned in what was once a snuffbox factory, a building to which Kays relocated from the company’s original watermill-powered workshops on the banks of the Ayr in 1911. Making them involves more than 20 processes and ‘a lot of physics’, but the most important input is the expertise of the workforce. ‘We’ve been honing our techniques here for 150 years,’ he continues. The technical aspect of making the stones is not the only consideration. ‘We’re very conscious of the aesthetics — the different colours and markings of the stone,’ Jim says. The result of this careful appraisal is a product that is not only a piece of sporting equipment, but an object of rare and refined beauty.

Kays of Scotland first started making curling stones in 1851. By then, curling as a sporting pastime was already more than three centuries old. Stirling Smith Museum in Dumbarton has curling stones that date from 1511 and the first recorded match took place at Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, in the winter of 1541. This most Scottish of sports reached its zenith in Britain during the 1870s, its popularity fuelled by the migration of Scottish tradesmen and a string of unusually harsh winters.

Today, dedicated curling facilities in England are few and far between. However, Historical Curling Places, a website devoted to recording the curling ponds of Britain, has confirmed records of more than 2,000 ponds where matches took place, including examples as far south as Brighton and Chichester in Sussex.

By the last decades of the 19th century, curling was so popular Kays had half a dozen competitors. Stones were made from a poetic panoply of rock: Burnocks, Tinkernhills, Carsphairn Red, Crawfordjohns, Blantyre Blacks. However, following the closure of Bonspiel in Deganwy, North Wales in 1990 — which used red and blue trefor quarried in the Llyn Peninsula — only Kays, with its common green and blue hone, remains.

Originally an outdoor sport, curling moved gradually undercover after the opening of the first indoor rink in Glasgow in 1907 and the fashion for country-house curling ponds faded. Today, the majority have long been abandoned, although the curling houses or pavilions where once the stones, brushes and other kit were stored often survive. Most resemble small tennis or cricket pavilions, although some were built in more elaborate styles and now pass for follies. The most celebrated example of the latter is the playfully elegant Thomson Tower in Duddingston, east of Edinburgh, designed by the city’s fêted neo-Classical architect William Henry Playfair in 1826.

Despite the sport falling out of favour south of the border, curling remains highly popular in Scotland, with more than 550 clubs boasting some 10,000 members. Kays supplies many clubs with stones, yet still exports close to 95% of production — not only to the global curling powerhouses of Canada, the US, Norway, Sweden and Japan, but also to less likely spots, such as Nigeria, Angola and Mongolia.

The stones are hand polished, as they have been for centuries. They weigh just under 40lb and sell for £800 each. It’s a sound long-term investment. ‘Our stones should last between 20–25 years, depending on the amount of use, and we offer restoration and servicing,’ explains Jim. ‘The running surface gets worn by friction, so needs to be re-grooved, and the striking band takes a lot of heavy knocks and needs to be re-ground every 10 years or so.’

In curling competitions, pairs or teams of four each slide two stones (sometimes called rocks) towards the target — four concentric rings on the ice — which is known as ‘the house’. The curve or curl of the stone comes from the slow spin that is imparted on it as it leaves the hand. The feverish brushing temporarily melts the surface of the ice, altering the speed and curve of the stone — the quality of the rock is paramount. To the untrained eye, Kays curling stones may look uniform, but that appearance is deceptive.

‘The granite is made from about 15 different minerals,’ Jen reveals. ‘Each stone has its own unique character. A big part of the skill in curling is figuring out the personality of the stone — some curve more than others, some don’t travel so far or so fast. No two stones are the same. They slide differently, bounce off each other in distinct ways.’

Each stone made by Kays is individually numbered, which can help. ‘The numbers aid you with the history of the stone,’ she continues. ‘At the European Championships, for example, the same set of stones has been used several times, so you get to know each number, but characteristics are often changed by use — the stones are rubbed with sandpaper during competition and that affects how they behave. You’re always trying to work them out.’

Jen has been attempting to defend her Olympic title with Team GB in Italy. ‘Let’s say I’m keeping my fingers crossed,’ she admits. Meanwhile, the presence of Kays of Scotland’s curling stones at the Winter Olympiad is guaranteed. The company’s curling stones were used at the first Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924 and, since 2006, Kays has been the sole supplier of curling stones to the event. The 128 stones it made for the 2026 Games are now in use in Italy.

During Covid, the stones for Beijing were flown over in a private jet. This time, however, they went by lorry.

In April, V&A East will open in the former Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. This is the third major development to be unveiled by one national collection alone in less than two years, following Young V&A in Bethnal Green and V&A East Storehouse, also in Stratford.

Regular readers of our Athena column are unlikely to be upbeat about the financial state of the cultural sector, but the V&A’s achievement is not an isolated success: 2026 is shaping up to be a spectacular year for the visual arts in Britain. It has been hard to keep track of the cascade of good news about Arts funding.

On top of the Government’s £1.5 billion for capital projects, the Courtauld Institute has received £10 million from the Blavatnik Family Foundation for two new contemporary art galleries (to open in 2029) and the National Trust has been given £10 million by the philanthropist Humphrey Battcock — the largest single cash donation in its history.

Even this astonishing generosity is dwarfed by the coup announced late last year by the National Gallery: £150 million each from the Crankstart Foundation and the Julia Rausing Trust towards the cost of its highly ambitious new wing.

Such remarkable philanthropy has a major impact on global perceptions of attitudes to the Arts in Britain: this is a country where many artists and galleries want to do business. Frieze remains the leading brand for blue-chip art fairs and confidence in London is demonstrated by the fact that Hauser & Wirth is opening a new flagship gallery in the former Thomas Goode building on South Audley Street. Also, by the way Bloomsbury is being colonised by young, cutting-edge galleries — Herald St, Union Pacific and A. Squire have all opened there since 2016.

Perhaps more by chance than design, 2026 will be a national celebration of British art, with, among others, major exhibitions on Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery; Gwen John at the National Museum Cardiff and, later, National Galleries of Scotland; 20th-century British landscape painting at Pallant House, Chichester, West Sussex; and J. M. Whistler (American, but an honorary British artist) at Tate Britain.

The choice of Lubaina Himid promises one of the strongest British pavilions for years at the Venice Biennale and the excitement generated by the forthcoming retrospectives of Dame Tracey Emin at Tate Modern and Sir Anish Kapoor at the Hayward Gallery demonstrates the perennial appeal of the country’s most eminent contemporary artists.

The exhibition of the year? That must surely be the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum — the return of a great British work of art to this country after being on loan for more than 900 years will be an unforgettable climax to a memorable year.

This article is from the February 11 Fine Art issue of Country Life, which is on sale now. For more information on how to subscribe, click here

Last autumn, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government welcomed the publication of an independent report that recommended the locations of 12 new towns across the country. The relevant statement went on to promise that development would begin on ‘at least three new towns in this Parliament’, as well as ‘a far larger range of locations if it proves possible’. In the meantime, a determined initiative to clear a way for as much development as possible through our creaking planning system is under way.

Despite such efforts, whether this target of three new towns is any more plausible than the Government’s overarching pledge to build 1.5 million new houses in the same period remains to be seen. New towns have an irresistible appeal for policymakers and proposals for them have been a regular feature of national planning initiatives in recent years. At a fundamental level, they promise to create large numbers of houses rapidly. In addition, for politicians, there is the grandeur of the gesture that attracts (although, in reality, several of the proposed sites in the recent report are ‘densifications’ of existing settlements). For developers, meanwhile, there is the promise of working at scale on unencumbered sites.

Athena is no fixed enemy of new towns, but she is cautious about them. Planning regulations may be tiresome and make it hard to build properties at speed, but simply setting them aside comes with serious long-term risks. These include creating the wrong kind of settlements with the wrong facilities in the wrong places, not to mention the challenge of ensuring that commercial developers with a short-term interest in the property they build work to a high standard. Added to which, there remains remarkably little consensus as to what form new towns should take; love or hate Poundbury in Dorset, it certainly challenges received orthodoxies.

There is also the reality of the unwelcome impact that new towns can have on existing landscape and heritage. Such is the case, for example, with the redevelopment of the former airbase at RAF Upper Heyford, Oxfordshire, one of the 12 proposed locations, next to Rousham. Yet what most frustrates Athena about the Government’s focus on new towns is that, for the sake of speed and bold headlines, it risks overlooking the ones that we have already. Far too many towns across Britain have been ruthlessly hollowed out and stand in urgent need of renewal. Such revival is complex to manage, but our existing urban centres have vast potential — through the redevelopment of derelict retail units and the conversion of empty property, notably floors over shops and disused office space — to provide new housing at scale. These places already possess infrastructure, transport and character. A new town, by contrast, leaves our inherited problems intact.

Yes, build new towns properly if we need them, but aren’t the ones we have already worth saving first?

I’ve met a few Scottish terriers in my time, but sadly I’ve never had the chance to truly get to know one. After spending some time immersed in Scottie lore, history and owner testimony, I can confirm two things. First, I would now like at least two; second, they are sweet, short-legged little characters with a strong sense of self — just like me.

There’s a story that the earliest image of the breed appears carved into a Scottish Highlands farm wall. Dating from around 200AD, it depicts a short-legged, prick-eared dog barking at a wheelbarrow. It’s tiny, indistinct, open to interpretation and highly disputed — much like, I would come to find, most of Scottish terrier history.

What we do know is that for centuries Scotland needed small, fearless dogs capable of dealing with foxes, rats and other vermin in unforgiving weather and terrain. The result was a lovely muddle of terriers. As late as the 19th century, people were still arguing over what exactly constituted a ‘Scottish’ terrier, and whether such a thing even existed.

Out of the chaos emerged the low-to-the-ground, solidly built dog we know today. The Scottish terrier is purpose-built — sturdy rather than dainty, strong rather than speedy, with a head designed for scenting and a coat tough enough to withstand weather and wildlife. Judges place as much importance on the famous double coat as they do on the body itself, and for good reason. The outer coat is wiry, with a dense, soft underlayer — so dense, in fact, that dog show judges say you should be able to part it and still not see skin.

Today, black Scotties are by far the most familiar, but this wasn’t always the case. Once, wheaten Scotties (with a sandy coloured coat) were more common, until darker dogs gradually became the preference — simply because they were easier to tell apart from a fox when hunting. Practical, yes. Slightly bleak? Also yes.

Someone firmly under their spell is artist Josephine Trotter. ‘I was always a collie sheepdog person,’ she tells me, until her children suggested something entirely different. Enter Peebles, Josephine’s first Scottie, who has ‘selective hearing’ and a punchy, protective nature, while Presley — who joined the fray after Peebles survived a near-fatal rat-poison incident — is ‘scatty and a bit mad’. They are, she says, very strong-minded, creatures of habit and entirely guided by food and routine — and so the similarities between us continue.

Josephine tells me they are independent and thoughtful, that ‘they don’t fling themselves at you — they choose you’. Pioneer breeder William McCandlish, who ran one of the leading Scottie kennels before the First World War, once described them as ‘almost human’ in character — and, Josephine agrees, you need to earn their love. ‘They are not lap dogs,’ she says, ‘but they are deeply loyal and rather enchanting.’

Unlike her former collies, who were devoted and glued to her side, Josephine's Scotties are independent souls. They love walking, have formidable noses, enjoy car journeys and attending church. Presley is particularly fond of music — specifically, and most charmingly of all, the singing of the church choir.

Scotties have long appealed to royals, politicians and the famous. Queen Victoria kept them. James VI was said to be devoted to them, though this is also disputed. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottie, Fala, became so famous he was the subject of political speeches. Writers, artists and actors have fallen for them for generations. Rudyard Kipling’s Scottish terrier, Boots, even wrote poetry — or at least, Kipling did on his behalf — imagining elaborate ways to regain his owner’s approval after a day of mischief.

Scottish terriers won’t worship you blindly. But if you want to earn their devotion — and a dog who will walk beside you rather than behind you — the Scottie might just be your breed.

Last week we turned the spotlight on the Siberian husky — read all about these remarkable dogs built to survive some of the coldest temperatures on earth.

The word ‘Glastonbury’ tends to inspire more than a flinch from readers. The heady stench of soil, alcohol and sweat is enough to turn most people off. For some, the issue is political: last summer, Spectator columnist Rod Liddle wrote that dropping a bomb on Worthy Farm would solve most of Britain’s problems. He was joking, supposedly.

Yet this particular story, as so many about live music do, begins here in Somerset, three days into the 2025 festival, on a warm and fuzzy Saturday night. The crowds surrounding The Other Stage are euphoric, amid the sort of atmosphere that contradicts the idea that young people today are boring, depressed or incapable of having fun. Everyone is here: teenagers, old punks, lone wanderers and hip parents. And they’re all here for jazz.

Performing at Glastonbury’s second largest venue is Ezra Collective, a name that may be familiar to readers who follow the paces of contemporary music, although many older jazzheads in the field seem never to have heard of the band until today. Even they know, however, that it is not one to miss: they’ve looked it up on Google after seeing it on the line-up, seen the word ‘jazz’, together with a slew of critical praise, and decided to witness what all the fuss is about.

Ezra Collective is made up of five players: Femi Koleoso on drums, his brother TJ on bass, Joe Armon-Jones on keys, Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet and tenor saxophonist James Mollison. They formed in 2012 at Tomorrow’s Warriors, a jazz youth programme founded in 1991 by Janine Irons and Gary Crosby, who, in 2018, became the first ever jazz musician to be awarded a Queen’s Medal for Music.

Ezra Collective is no stranger to breaking new ground, either: in 2023, the group became the first jazz act to win the Mercury Prize, for the album Where I’m Meant To Be, as well as the first to ever win the Brit award for Group of the Year in 2025.

Jazz music has always made a case for revolution, its origins harking back to a time when African-American slaves had recently become emancipated. Blending their own musical traditions, such as ragtime and blues, with European harmonies and rhythms from the West Indies, the very roots of jazz sought to stretch across divides. If music is often said to be about bringing people together, perhaps no other genre fosters connection more convincingly than this one.

Jazz is also the gentleman’s genre of choice, seducing not only by its sound, but by its swagger — a cultivated cool that threads from Harlem’s smoke-laced clubs to the polished drawing rooms of Mayfair. Because it offers a rare combination of emotional improvisation and structural sophistication, it provides something of a mirror to the kind of man who reads James Baldwin by day and sips Bourbon to Coltrane by night.

As American music critic Ted Gioia once wrote, jazz is ‘the sound of surprise’: one that demands both attention and understanding. These are qualities the discerning male listener has historically prized. Jazz isn’t merely music, it’s a posture — one that signals depth, taste and sophistication.

The conduct of the crowd at Glastonbury doesn’t immediately scream ‘gentlemanly’ in the same way, although this is perhaps the magic of today’s jazz artists: they dabble less in the performative glamour of yesteryear’s practitioners and focus instead on the genre’s primal creative instincts. Ezra Collective’s concerts take a groove-first, lecture-later approach, unleashing the crowd and demanding that everyone take part. A true gentleman, although stoic, knows when to let loose. And, crucially, he can’t resist a dance.

Today’s jazz is a genre of multiple declensions. Some of it blends into funk; some leans more into soul. Jazz can also serve as a secondary flavour, there to infuse something more dominant, such as gospel. This is the case for Gabriels, a blues group that formed in Los Angeles, California, US, and is often cited by connoisseurs as one of the most exciting bands of the past five years. Alexis Petridis, The Guardian’s admired music critic, named its debut record Angels & Queens Part I as one of 2022’s albums of the year.

A pseudo-intellectual might argue that a jazz hybrid is not really jazz, but that’s a tough call to make, considering the genre’s origins. Fortunately, there seems to be little left of this old-school snobbery — and, fittingly, jazz is no longer confined to the hallowed halls of Ronnie Scott’s, W1, or the fictional jazz club from 1994’s The Fast Show, run by the hilariously pretentious Louis Balfour (played by John Thomson). Although intimate venues are still popular — and the preferred choice for many — what is significant about this particular jazz renaissance is the fact that it can pack out stadiums. An artist such as Raye, recognised as having single-handedly revived soul for the airwaves and whose style draws heavily on jazz, sold out the O2 Arena in 2024.

It seems almost inevitable that jazz would experience a renaissance after the pandemic. As people ventured back out into the world — into pubs, clubs or what was left of either — they found joy and freedom in music that was less structured and more esoteric. People were craving whatever they couldn’t get from Spotify or TikTok: namely, volume.

‘Jazz is the kind of music that doesn’t really hide anywhere,’ explains aficionado Charlie Hills, a writer and photographer. When going out still felt like a dare, a sound that bordered on the excessive scratched an itch. ‘Jazz is also a genre that leaves no room for insincerity,’ he adds. It’s honest, unrestrained and relies on instinct as much as cultivable skill.

There’s also a nostalgic element: returning to jazz is a bit like returning to an analogue instrument, such as a film camera, or reading a hard copy of a book. For many, it’s a welcome escape from the algorithm and our more widely digitally addled lives.

For others, however, jazz is part and parcel with the algorithm. An essential voice of contemporary jazz is the Icelandic-Chinese singer Laufey, the Billie Holiday of Instagram, spinning smoky ballads for millions of streaming fans — who, judging by their age, would have been 11 during lockdown and are now experts in bossa nova chord progressions. Her 2023 album, Bewitched, has become one of Spotify’s most-streamed jazz records of the decade. In May 2024, she sold out the Royal Albert Hall.

Despite this democratisation of the genre, jazz can still inspire a club-like mentality, giving a significant boost to smaller venues and private members’ clubs — dozens of which have opened in London since the pandemic. The House of KOKO in Camden, NW1, was founded in 2022 off the back of its namesake concert hall: a famed live-music venue that had previously welcomed shows by Prince and Madonna. ‘We host a range of artists in Ellen’s, our jazz speakeasy in The House of KOKO,’ explains Nick Lewis, the club’s head of music. ‘It’s always fully booked, two shows a week’, the demographic a broad spectrum of people in their twenties all the way to those aged 50 or more.

‘Jazz is an ever evolving art form,’ Nick continues, ‘and at its best is a reflection of the now. We’re delighted to continue to champion and host most, if not all, of the leading jazz players who are part of the genre’s resurgence in Britain.’ These include Ezra Collective and Gabriels, together with other talents, such as Nubya Garcia, Theon Cross and Sheila Maurice-Grey (of the band Kokoroko).

Since the pandemic, many have tended to favour smaller venues, somewhere with more intimacy or the contemporary equivalent of a speakeasy. Jazz is a major part of this shift, just as it was 100 years ago when the 1920s roared to life amid prohibition and the fizz and wreckage of the First World War. ‘People really want to dance at the moment,’ Charlie says. As in the 1920s, the cultural mood is maximalist — the French name for the Roaring Twenties was les années folles: the crazy years — and if music is the principle verse of this new Jazz Age, it’s not the only one. In literature, the past few years have seen an appetite emerge for a new Great Gatsby-esque epic. In that camp are authors such as Andrew O’Hagan, whose 2024 novel Caledonian Road offers a panoramic exposé of London’s criminal underbelly and its wily intersections into society’s upper echelons; or Sally Rooney, whose explorations of love, class and modern courtship have been adapted for television.

This is alongside a vogue for biographies of men with more than Gatsby-esque levels of wealth: Walter Isaacson’s Elon Musk (2023), say, or Michael Wolff’s indefatigable exposés of the inner workings of the Murdoch media empire — the most recent instalment of which was The Fall, in the same year. In film, too, there’s been a noticeable return to the epic in recent years: think Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer (2023) and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (2024).

Perhaps the most convincing epic of our time, however, is another piece of music — and its surrounding concert tour. A few hours after Ezra Collective left The Other Stage, it was Charli XCX’s turn to bring down the house, burning the neon-green flag she’d deployed as a backdrop in every one of her concerts since last September. Her culture-lassoing 2024 album Brat (a crafty ode to clubbing interspersed with revelatory takes on female friendship and imposter syndrome) and its Brat tour have inspired a global, era-defining movement among the youth, running somewhat parallel to the jazz renaissance, despite offering a starkly different sound: ultra-modern, electronic, almost alien.

What people admire in both jazz and the genre known as hyperpop, Charlie explains, is their mutual exhibition of ‘excess and technicality’. This is not music that is easy to produce; nor does it tend to be easy on the ears. It is deliberately noisy, thrilling and chaotic — and inspires the same feelings of joy, abandon and fellowship. The culture has spoken.

At a gallop

Uffington White Horse, Oxfordshire

Every August bank holiday, a troop of eager volunteers descends on the Uffington White Horse, 10 miles east of Swindon, for a spot of weeding and whitening. Rechalking the 360ft-long artwork, carefully cut into the side of a chalk hill, has been happening every few years since it was made 3,000 years ago. During wars, plagues and drought, the White Horse has continued to gallop across the landscape, its slender body, beak-like mouth and streaming tail slowly changing shape over the centuries. Why was the Uffington White Horse made? No one knows. It is located close to an Iron Age hill fort, but may pre-date it. Did it define territory or was it an ancient fertility symbol? Or did it venerate the horses that were once thought to pull the sun across the sky?

A stitch in time

Bayeux Tapestry Victorian copy, Reading Museum, Berkshire

There are three things you should know about the Bayeux Tapestry. First, it is not a tapestry, but an embroidery, carefully stitched on linen panels in Kent in the years following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, in time for the consecration of Bishop Odo’s Bayeux Cathedral in 1077. Second, it is an incredible 230ft long and features 600 figures, 200 horses and 55 dogs. The third thing is that, although the original is in Bayeux, France (until September 2026, when it will be on display at the British Museum in London), there’s a full-size copy in Reading Museum created by the industrious Elizabeth Wardle and her team of volunteers in the 1880s. The tapestry has several scenes set in France before the final showdown between Harold and William the Conqueror in England, suggesting a French commission. However, several show Harold in a favourable light, implying that an English artist was in charge of the overall design.

Forever and beyond

Alice de la Pole’s cadaver tomb, Ewelme Church, Ewelme, Oxfordshire

Alice de la Pole’s tomb fits snugly between the altar and a side chapel in the church in Ewelme, a small village in Oxfordshire. It was completed in about 1475 and at first glance seems like a regular alabaster tomb that you might find in any provincial church. Peer through the architectural dais on which her effigy rests, however, and you will perceive a second skeletal figure. Known as a cadaver tomb, this is the only one of its kind featuring a woman in Britain. De La Pole was Geoffrey Chaucer’s granddaughter and a significant and well-connected patron of the Arts. Whereas her pious effigy is carried up to Heaven by angels, the figure beneath is shown in a state of desiccation. Her hair runs free and her limbs are wizened. Gone is her wimple and coronet — now she appears half-dressed in a shroud, her feet bare and bony. Mortality is real, it seems to say, but your spirit can live forever in Heaven.

Into the wood

The Carved Room, Grinling Gibbons, Petworth House, West Sussex

The highlight of any tour of Petworth House is the Carved Room by Grinling Gibbons. Not only does it house a studio copy of Holbein’s Henry VIII, but it is decorated in gravity-defying swags and musical still lifes carved from limewood. Horace Walpole described it as ‘the most superb monument of his skill’. It was installed in the 1690s by the 6th Duke and Duchess of Somerset and was originally half the size. A century later, the space was expanded by the 3rd Earl of Egremont to create a grand dining room. He painted the panelling white behind the limewood carvings and commissioned four Turner landscapes of his parkland and investment projects (Brighton’s Chain Pier and the Chichester canal) to hang under the portraits.

Sailing the seven seas

The James Cook collection, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

You must work hard to find the 18th-century James Cook collection in the Pitt Rivers Museum. First, you need to locate the museum itself through an archway at the back of the central hall in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Then, you must navigate a maze of glass cases to access the first-floor balcony. There, in a single case, the cultural artefacts gathered by Capt James Cook on his three world voyages are clustered together. There are sculptures taken from the prows of canoes, imposing ceremonial robes, bundles of bark cloth and green nephrite pendants with circular shell eyes. Although there may have been little sense of the historical and contextual importance of such artefacts from Polynesia, New Zealand and Australia when they were first exhibited, they nevertheless inspired 20th-century Modernist sculptors in Britain, including Henry Moore and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.

Pretty as a picture

Dimbola Museum and Galleries, Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight

Julia Margaret Cameron was one of the first photographers to use the camera to make art. She experimented with composition and focal depth, staging literary and classical scenes with her friends and family as models. She also took nuanced portraits of the Freshwater Circle, the members of which frequented her house, Dimbola, in Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight, including Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ellen Terry, G. F. Watts and William Holman Hunt. Cameron and her husband, Charles Hay, owned tea and coffee plantations in Dimbula, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and named their house after the estate. Most of Cameron’s photographs were taken at Dimbola; today, her home is open to the public and visitors can see Cameron’s studio, housed in a former chicken shed.

Brick by brick

The Watts Chapel, Mary Watts, Compton, Surrey

You may first decide to visit the Watts Artists’ Village near Guildford, Surrey, to see the purpose-built gallery of G. F. Watts, a hugely successful Victorian painter. Or you may choose to walk around the family home, Limnerslease, where pulleys in Watts’s studio allowed vast canvases to be winched up and down. However, the highlight of your tour may well be the Watts Chapel, built by his wife, Mary, between 1895 and 1904. She had trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London and was 32 years his junior — his success could have been intimidating, but she found her own furrow as an artist. She built the circular mortuary chapel collaboratively, teaching 70 local volunteers how to make terracotta bricks using intricate moulds. The exterior features complex Celtic ribbonwork (a nod to her Scottish ancestry), but the interior explodes in a riot of line and colour. Red, purple and green angels throng the walls, as pronounced vines (made from gilded gesso) snake towards the sky.

Bohemian Haunt

Charleston, West Firle, East Sussex

The Bloomsbury Group’s Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant first rented Charleston, a farmhouse near Lewes, in 1916 to wait out the First World War, with Grant and his partner David Garnett working as farm hands to avoid enlisting. Friends and sometimes lovers, Bell and Grant also worked together, painting canvases as well as furniture, as part of Roger Fry’s Omega Workshops. After 1918, they largely lived in London, returning to Charleston for summers of free and experimental loving, living and thinking, but moved there full time when the Second World War broke out. Their take on French Modernism is fused with an ongoing exploration of pattern and flatness, seen in the paintings that adorn the house’s doors, pelmets, tabletops, tiles, plates and lampshades, as well as walls.

Memories of war

Stanley Spencer murals, Sandham Memorial Chapel, Burghclere, Hampshire

Stanley Spencer is most often associated with Cookham, the Berkshire village where he spent his childhood and much of his career. In 1927, however, he embarked on a series of paintings for the Sandham Memorial Chapel on the outskirts of Burghclere, a project that would occupy him for five years. This private chapel was commissioned by John and Mary Behrend and dedicated to Mary’s brother Harry, who had died of an illness contracted during the First World War. Both Harry and Spencer had served in Thessaloniki, Greece. The latter had worked as a medical orderly before enlisting in the infantry and he drew on his experiences of service for this task. His paintings fill the entire chapel, culminating in a vast depiction of dead soldiers rising from graves to hand white crosses to Christ on the East Wall. Others feature scenes of war from behind the front line — wounded soldiers arriving at hospitals, patients being cleaned, laundry washed and tea urns filled.

Home is where the art is

Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden, St Ives, Cornwall

Barbara Hepworth had been part of the Hampstead Modernists during the 1930s, but, when war broke out, she moved with her husband, Ben Nicholson, to Carbis Bay in Cornwall. She bought Trewyn studio in nearby St Ives in 1949 and, following her separation from Nicholson, lived and worked there until her death in 1975. Her house, studio and garden were opened to the public as a museum in 1976. Today, you can follow her life as a sculptor in the displays in her former bedroom and kitchen, then enter her walled garden, where her plaster and stone studios remain untouched, her overalls still hanging on the door. She curated her garden to showcase her organic works, which carry within them the rhythms of the sea and the landscape she worked in. Her museum is now part of Tate and there are plans to turn her studio in the old dance hall next door into further exhibition space for St Ives’s most famous artist.

Follow the links for our other instalments of this series which look at London, the East of England, Scotland, the North of England, Wales, the Midlands and Ireland.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Breaking the Ice (Age)

Creswell Crags, Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border

In a set of caves on the Nottinghamshire to Derbyshire border are some of the oldest British carvings in existence. The caves carry Victorian names, such as Mother Grundy’s Parlour and Robin Hood Cave, but the reindeer, birds and horned bovids incised on the walls date to the end of the last Ice Age. During the peak of the Devensian period, ice sheets a mile thick crunched their way across the northern half of Britain, but, about 16,000 years ago, this ice retreated and hunter-gatherers returned. They lived in caves and occasionally left behind markings on the walls that remain visible. The carvings date from 13,000–14,000 years ago and there are 90 in total, as well as several bone fragments engraved with horses and bison (now in the British Museum in London).

Heart of stone

The Church of St Mary and St David, Kilpeck, Herefordshire

St Mary’s Church in Kilpeck was built in about 1140 and has a semicircular apse and Norman nave. However, it is not its interior that makes it notable today. Holding up the roof and exterior wall beams are dozens of small stone trusses known as corbels, all carved with a wide range of people and animals. There are horses and pigs, a ram’s head and floating fish, moustachioed men and figures caught in the jaws of performing bears. And, tucked in a corner, is a Sheela-na-Gig. Found all over Europe, Sheela-na-Gigs are naked women whose spread legs reveal enlarged vaginas. They may be related to Celtic fertility goddesses or associated with the ancient pagan spring festival that celebrated rebirth (and became Easter).

A game of risk

Portrait of Abd al-Wahid bin Mas’ud, University of Birmingham, Birmingham

London was a teeming multicultural centre for global trade by the end of the 16th century. It was also at the heart of Elizabeth I’s growing empire. Ireland had been colonised and the Queen had set her sights across the Atlantic, but the troublesome Spanish kept jeopardising her plans with their attacks and interventions. In this portrait by an unknown artist, we are shown Abd al-Wahid bin Mas’ud, an ambassador from Barbary (northern Africa), who had travelled to London to ask for the Queen’s help in dealing with the Spanish. His king wished to attack Spain and called on Elizabeth for support, but she refused. Bin Mas’ud stayed in London long enough to have his portrait painted. Visitors such as him may have been the inspiration behind Shakespeare’s play Othello, first staged in 1604.

A trick up his sleeve

Antonio Verrio, The Heaven Room, Burghley House, Lincolnshire

Antonio Verrio was born in Puglia, Italy, and found initial success in Toulouse, France, but it was in England that he made his mark on history. Summoned by Charles II in 1676 to decorate his new apartments at Windsor Castle, he went on to complete 15 ceilings and four staircases before Charles died in 1685. The Italian remained loyal to the Stuart cause and initially refused to work for William III. Instead, he was employed by John Cecil, 5th Earl of Exeter, at Burghley House, Lincolnshire. Verrio’s Heaven Room is an incredible feat of Baroque trompe l’oeil, with classical gods and goddesses weaving between ornate Corinthian colonnades and a winged Mercury and leaping horse appearing to hover impossibly overhead. It’s hard to see where the painting ends and the room begins — door lintels supporting floral displays turn out to be two-dimensional and the heavily corniced ceiling is also pure paint.

Let there be (candle)light

Works by Joseph Wright of Derby, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, Derbyshire

A young Joseph Wright moved to London to study, showing his portraits at the Society of Artists, but he soon returned to Derby, where he spent much of his career. It was here that he painted the scientific ‘candlelight’ paintings that became his most famous works. The Derby Museum and Art Gallery now holds the largest number of his paintings in the world, including A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in Which a Lamp Is Put in the Place of the Sun (exhibited in 1766). In a darkened room, Wright lights up the orrery, a machine tracking the orbits of the planets around the sun — and illuminates the enraptured faces of all who gaze upon it. (The painting is currently on display at the National Gallery, London WC2, in ‘Wright of Derby: From the Shadows’, to May 10, 2026, when the show will transfer to Derby.)

Risen from the ashes

Coventry Cathedral, West Midlands

On November 14, 1940, German bombs devastated Coventry — all that was left of the cathedral was a smoking, roofless shell. By 1954, work had begun to rebuild it, following an architectural competition won by Basil Spence. He chose to situate the new building next to the ruins, rather than over them, and employed leading artists to enhance his resolutely modern design. Graham Sutherland’s 75ft tapestry behind the altar shows Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph; Elisabeth Frink designed the eagle lectern; John Piper’s Baptistery window illuminates the interior; and John Hutton’s etched glass screen allows angels to float over the ruins of the old cathedral. The new church took six years to build and was consecrated in May 1962.

Unappreciated in his time

The Wall, Anwar Shemza, Birmingham Museums Trust, Birmingham

Anwar Shemza was a successful artist in Pakistan before he decided to further his studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1956. His former standing was not recognised in the British capital and he lost his confidence, taking solace in the galleries of the British Museum. It was here that he connected with Islamic art and, fusing this with his admiration for the watercolours of Paul Klee, created a distinctive new style that, in 1958, led to his early key painting The Wall. Despite his later success with his ‘Magic Carpet’ and ‘Chessmen’ series, he moved to Stafford in 1961 with his wife, the British artist Mary Taylor, and took a job as an art teacher. The rehabilitation of his reputation began in earnest four years after his death, when The Wall was chosen to feature on the cover of the catalogue for the important exhibition ‘The Other Story’, held at the Hayward Gallery in London in 1989.

You can see our previous instalments on the North of England, the East of England, London, Wales, Scotland and Ireland by following the links.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Side effect

Jesse sculpture, St Mary’s Priory Church, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire

Imagine how impressive this Tree of Life reredos, or altar screen, would have seemed when first made for St Mary’s Priory Church in Abergavenny in the 15th century. A twice life-size figure of Jesse — King David’s father and ancestor of Christ — reclined along the base. He has a long beard and is heavy set, strong enough to support a 30ft family tree that once grew from his side. As the carved oak branches reached higher, they revealed the lineage of Christ, from Jesse to the Virgin Mary. Sadly, in 1646, Parliamentary troops destroyed the screen during the Civil War and only the figure of Jesse remains. The whole altar screen would have originally been painted, but, today, we can see the grain of the oak trunk from which Jesse was carved. A new tree now rises above him in the form of a modern stained-glass window by Helen Whittaker, unveiled in 2016.

Follow your art

The Davies Sisters collection, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Gwendoline and Margaret Davies were once the wealthiest women in Britain. Inheriting an industrial family fortune at the age of 25, the unmarried Welsh sisters travelled across Europe, studying art and making select purchases of works by Turner, Jean-François Millet, Auguste Rodin and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. From 1912, they focused on Impressionism and post-Impressionism (a decade before Samuel Courtauld did the same), acquiring such paintings as Renoir’s La Parisienne (1874), Cézanne’s Midday, L’Estaque (about 1879), van Gogh’s Rain: Auvers (1890) and Monet’s Waterlilies (1905). Their collection is now on display at the National Museum of Wales, but as early as 1913 they were lending it (anonymously), so it could be shared with a wider audience.

The sting of rejection

British Empire panels, Frank Brangwyn, Brangwyn Hall, Swansea

In Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall, 16 vast painted panels reflect the diversity of flora, fauna and people in the British Empire in the 1920s. They were originally destined for the House of Lords in London, but the beleaguered panels were rejected before eventually finding a permanent home in Wales. Brangwyn was a Welsh figurative artist who was well versed in communicating sweeping narratives in paint. He had initially been commissioned to create two war paintings commemorating the fallen relatives of those who sat in the Palace of Westminster, but his A Tank in Action (1926–28) was deemed too violent and realistic and, consequently, was turned down. The British Empire commission was supposed to be a salve, but this, too, was rejected, this time for being too colourful and vibrant.

Read our previous instalments on what to see in London, the East of England, Ireland, Scotland and the North of England.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Speaking in tongues

Aberlemno Pictish stones, Angus

Be warned: Pictish stones are strangely addictive. The more you see, the more you want to decode the mysteries of their unique visual language. There are 200 examples in Scotland, including the Dupplin Cross in St Serf’s Church in Dunning and those in the Meigle Sculptured Stones museum, both in Perth and Kinross. Three examples still standing in their original location along Aberlemno’s main road (above) provide us with an understanding of the evolution of Pictish carving. A double sinuous line, evoking a snake (or river) appears at the top of the Serpent Stone, above ornate dividers and a circular mirror. These are carved into the rock, but a later stone on the same road shows similar symbols — now highly decorated — standing proud. Below them, a hunting scene unfolds and, on the other side, a 10ft ring-head cross marks the arrival of Christianity in Pictland. (The stones are covered from October to March to protect them from excessive weathering.)

Checkmate

The Lewis Chessmen, split between the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh and the British Museum, London

Also featured in our London list, the Lewis chess pieces are tiny in stature — no more than 4in tall — but they command your attention. Carved from walrus ivory and sperm-whale tooth, they are richly detailed. Hefty kings and queens sit on their thrones, swords laid across passive laps. By comparison, the warders (rooks) are ready for battle — several bite their shields in anticipation, like ancient berserkers, who notoriously fought naked to intimidate their opponents. There are also clean-shaven bishops with tall croziers and knights in battle armour on stocky horses. By the time these pieces were made in 12th-century Trondheim, Norway, the expansion of Christianity had ensured that the bishop supplanted the earlier war elephant in the game. The chessmen were buried on Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, when the island was part of the Norwegian empire, and only found in the early 19th century.

For all that is holy

Becket’s reliquary casket, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Thomas Becket was a Norman who rose to become Henry II’s chancellor. The King relied on him heavily and rewarded him with the Archbishopric of Canterbury. However, Henry underestimated Becket’s religious zeal and was angered when he resigned as chancellor, confiding in his knights that he wished he could be rid of him. They took matters into their own hands and murdered Becket inside Canterbury Cathedral, Kent, on December 29, 1170. Within three years, Becket had been canonised by the Pope and a cult grew up around his remains. Every church and monastery in England seemed to own a piece of his hair shirt or drops of his spilled blood. These holy relics needed appropriate housing and the French enamel workshops in Limoges were quick to produce narrative caskets showing the knights slicing off Becket’s skull as he prayed.

We are family

Portrait of Elizabeth Murray and Dido Belle, David Martin, Scone Palace, Perth

This double portrait originally hung in Kenwood House, north London, the weekend retreat of William and Elizabeth Murray, Lord and Lady Mansfield. Scone Palace in Perthshire is today home to the Earls of Mansfield and the painting now hangs there, in The Ambassador’s Room. Murray was chief justice of England from 1756. He and Elizabeth had no children of their own, but agreed to raise their two great-nieces, Elizabeth and Dido Belle. The young Elizabeth’s father was ambassador to Austria and Paris; Dido’s father was Admiral Sir John Lindsay, commander-in-chief of the Royal Navy and her mother, Maria, was an enslaved woman from the Caribbean. In this painting by David Martin, dating from about 1776, Elizabeth sits quietly in a pink gown, a book in her lap, and Dido springs up from the bench, eager to be on the move. They both wear pearl chokers, but Dido is dressed in an exotic turban, as if to emphasise her mixed race.

Hark! The herald angels sing

Phoebe Anna Traquair’s murals, Mansfield Traquair Centre, Edinburgh

The Mansfield Traquair Centre was originally the Catholic Apostolic Church, built in Edinburgh in the 1870s by a congregation who believed in the imminent second coming of Christ. Phoebe Anna Traquair won the commission to fill the church with murals and she toiled on them from 1893 to 1901. A long one unfolds along both sides of the nave, telling the story of Christ and featuring scenes from the Old Testament. The West Wall features a choir of redeemed souls heralding Christ’s return, but it is the 62ft-high Chancel Arch that draws you in as you enter. Four giant cherubim, whose muscular wings shimmer in the rainbow light, float above symbols of the gospel saints. Traquair wove together Celtic symbolism with Pre-Raphaelite forms and religious iconography to create an interior that still dazzles.

Power couple

The Hill House, Charles Rennie and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, Helensburgh, Argyll & Bute

Hill House in Helensburgh is a total work of art. It was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1902–04 for the publisher Walter Blackie. Mackintosh’s austere architecture is complemented by an interior in which no detail has been left to chance, from his ladderback chairs and brass lighting sconces to the gesso paintings by his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh. Together, they designed the mosaic fireplace surrounds, lampshades, bookshelves and bedsheets embroidered with stylised roses. Even the fire tongs have a sinuous twist. The couple met at the Glasgow School of Art and married in 1900. They were fêted in Vienna, Austria, where Gustav Klimt was a fan, and their Scottish take on Art Nouveau became known as the Glasgow Style.

Life in colour

Works by the Scottish Colourists, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, and Kelvin-grove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

The artists known as the Scottish Colourists — F. C. B. Cadell, S. J. Peploe, J. D. Fergusson and Leslie Hunter — drew much of their inspiration from the vibrant hues of the South of France and the artistic movements they studied first hand in Paris before the First World War. In the French capital, they followed the lead of Matisse and the Fauves (Wild Beasts), increasingly turning to bright, unadulterated colour to create portraits, still lifes and landscapes. Yet, it’s in Scotland, where they were all born, that many of their works can be seen today, such as Fergusson’s Portrait of Anne Estelle Rice (1908) and Peploe’s 1913 Still Life (both National Gallery of Scotland), Hunter’s Roses in a White and Blue Vase (1908–10) and Cadell’s assured A Lady in Black from 1925 (both at Kelvingrove).

Follow the links for the other instalments in this series, which are based in London, the East of England, Ireland and the North of England.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

To be clear, I’m not mad. I love London in the sun — the early rays of spring, that first rush to the beer garden, those sultry golden evenings. Unbeatable stuff. But I simply cannot countenance being a fair-weather fan of this fine city. It is, for me, a place to cherish come rain or shine. And given there’s plenty of rain (although, statistically, much less than you’d think) it’s high time we learned to embrace the thing so much of the world knows us for.

On the topic of romantic rain in London, who can forget the classic denouement-in-a-deluge to Four Weddings and a Funeral filmed on Highbury Terrace (outside number 22 if you were wondering) which made the phrase ‘Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed’ a classic. Despite Andie MacDowell’s questionable line read, it showed the great London downpour to be something of charm rather than chagrin.

Long before that, in 1970, USA-born jazz singer Blossom Dearie was enamoured enough to write a whole song about the charm of our drizzly city, aptly titled ‘I Like London In The Rain’ in which she trills:

‘I like London in the rain

Wet umbrellas in the rain

The other couples arm in arm

London drizzle has its charm

Winds are blowingLights are glowingFalling rain

I like London in the rain

Streets like mirrors in the rain

Turn the city upside down

Liquid pictures of the town’

In fact, the festive season really reaffirms Dearie’s point. As I write, I can see street lamps reflected along the pavement’s sheen like a Saul Leiter photograph come to twinkling life. Take an evening taxi ride through town at this time of year — after a couple of martinis, preferably — and the raindrop smeared windows make the whole scene look like you’re drifting through some multi-coloured cosmos. People do cling to each other as they stroll down the street. Children splash in puddles. Dog-walkers huddle under trees. It’s all very alluring. In film-making they deliberately hose down the streets on a set to create more textural, reflective backdrops — a ‘wet down’ they call it. Currently we get one almost daily and I am, as they say, here for it. Let me tell you why…

The best cosy pubs and restaurants

We’ll start with the obvious attraction of a rainy day: the excuse to duck in somewhere warm to ‘wait for it to stop’. This is what pubs are for — and we have an embarrassment of riches in that department.

On a drizzly day, I have a particular affinity for the bay window that overhangs the River Thames at the Captain Kidd in Wapping. It’s piratic and ancient and, as raindrops trickle down the glass and the river roils below, it feels like a timeless shelter. More centrally, the newly spruced Shaston Arms in Soho is compact and comforting (especially if you order the beer-battered onion rings with whipped cod’s roe), and nearby the charming Old Coffee House has a roaring fire to warm up beside. In Fitzrovia, the bijou Newman Arms has a suitably heartening upstairs pie room, and the Lore of the Land has the cosy interiors and filling fare of a country inn.

Restaurants too provide respite. Rules’s winter garden will spirit you away to more tropical climes — in decor at least. After a wet walk in Richmond Park a retreat to Petersham Nurseries can’t be bettered. If a weekend jaunt around Mayfair’s shops is interrupted by showers, navigate to Il Gattopardo for a well-priced (for Mayfair) Italian feast. And if you’ve really been soaked through, embrace the current crop of fiery Thai restaurants heating up the London scene: Khao Bird in Soho, Platapian in Soho, Speedboat Bar on Portobello Road, Farang in Highbury, and Som Saa in Spitalfields will ward off any chills.

The best places to hunker down in

It can be easy to take it for granted that most of our best museums and galleries are absolutely free, but not when you get caught in a shower. You’ll be grateful for the likes of Bermondsey’s White Cube: once a swimming pool, now thankfully much drier and just the right size for a sub-one hour browse. Or the Barbican, which assumes peak Brutalist form in the rain. You can admire some less dishevelled figures at the National Portrait Gallery. Mayfair is awash with galleries to dash into. The Horniman Museum is lovably eclectic and has a skyline-surveying outdoor bandstand to admire the city from. Come for the shelter, stay for the cultural enrichment basically.

There are also rain-enforced retail breaks; a little pit-stop to ‘look for presents’ or so you claim. There are some comforting options here: the charming Victoriana of Burlington Arcade, the well-curated wooden maze of Liberty, Assouline’s bookshop-with-a-bar on Piccadilly, the heady scents of Perfumer H on Chiltern Street, and the tactile delights of Tekla’s new Marylebone High Street flagship (where you can pick up an oh-so-soft towel if you’ve really been caught out) to name but a few.

The best spas and saunas

If an unexpected rainstorm has you wishing to warm up and wind down then a spot of pampering could, quite fairly, be in order.

From a South Bank stroll, the sleek subterranean Agua spa at the Sea Containers is an easy escape route. Designed by Tom Dixon to feel like a space-age cocoon, it offers a range of massages, signature facials and a cryo body treatment designed to soothe weary legs. At the Corinthia, there are four whole floors devoted to spa soothing, including a dedicated thermal floor housing a mosaic-tiled steam room and an impressive amphitheatre sauna, two pools and a marble ice fountain for cooling down. The Newman hotel in Fitzrovia opens its doors this year and also sports a rather impressive Nordic-inspired subterranean spa, as well as a penthouse with a skyline-view sauna. For more sauna-ing with a view, the jetty at the front of Battersea Power Station is home to Drip until the end of January; three classic wooden saunas and three ice baths looking over the Thames and the iconic power station itself.

The best outdoor swim spots

Swimming in the rain is one of life’s great pleasures, actually. (See also: a hot tub in the snow). So embrace the weather and take an outdoor dip. You’ll find some gems out in the suburbs: between Bushy Park and the river is Hampton Pool, blissfully heated at this time of year, and in south-east London, Beckenham Place Park offers a wilder experience in its specially created swimming lake. More centrally you have the Art Deco charms of Parliament Hill Lido, and Herne Hill’s Brockwell Lido now has a few sauna pods to warm up in after a drizzly dip.

On a related note, a boat-ride in the rain can be similarly bracing — take a Thames Clipper down to Greenwich and brave the outdoor deck for a more refreshing commute.

The best cinemas

Perhaps not as visceral as a swim, but a spontaneous weather-enforced cinema trip is a pleasure nonetheless. And the idyll is one with sumptuous sofa seating, a decent snack selection, and a bar if possible. Islington’s Screen on the Green, the Electric in Notting Hill, Picturehouse Central on Shaftesbury Avenue, and the Curzon Mayfair tick all those boxes. Plus there’s the BFI, the National Theatre and the rest of the South Bank Centre offering riverside respite from the rain with all manner of year-round cultural programming.

The best late night bars and jazz spots

If late-night London in the rain needed a soundtrack, jazz would be a good starting point. In Soho, Ronnie’s in the rain is a classic — its neon sign luring you from damp streets into that iconic room that’s hosted everyone from Miles Davis to Nina Simone to Sonny Rollins to Prince to, yes, Blossom Dearie. Down at Vauxhall riverside’s brick-built bastion, Brunswick House, a charming candlelit basement bar has sprung to life with live jazz every Tuesday should it get a bit bleak above ground.

If you can swing entry to Camden’s House of Koko, Ellen’s does a fine line in jazz and blues each week. Or swap soundtracks entirely and dry yourself off at a packed hoedown at the Fat Badger, Notting Hill’s most in-demand late-night hideaway with its curiously effective country-and-western house band.

What to wear

Ah, now this is the fun part. Of course, if you’re really caught unawares, rain can be a day-ruiner. But right now it’s to be expected so kit yourself out accordingly.

A sturdy, wood-handled umbrella by heritage makers Swaine is a most useful accessory all winter long. Or, if you prefer to keep your hands free, opt for a tried and tested waterproof-jacket-and-hat combo. Waxed versions of both from Barbour need little introduction. (Mulberry even has a waxed backpack to keep your essentials reassuringly dry).

For women who prefer something less technical and more elegant, Belgravia-based brand The Fold have more elegant water-repellent macs and trenches perfect for this time of year. Staying with the trenchcoat, Burberry’s classic is classic for a reason and is enjoying another reboot under Daniel Lee’s current stewardship. Chanel even have a fun logo-reveal version, the unmistakable interlocked Cs only appearing once the coat gets wet.

As for footwear, Hunter’s chic ankle wellies and Hermes’s iconic jumping boots will never let you down, or for an edgier take, Doc Martens now make rain boots too.

Keep your four-legged companion dry with a waterproof dog jacket from Le Chameau.

Graveyard shift

The Regina Tombstone, Arbeia Roman Fort, South Shields, Tyne & Wear

The Regina Tombstone reveals the extent of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD. Her husband, Barates, was a soldier stationed at the mouth of the Tyne in northern England. He had travelled 3,000 miles from his home in Palmyra, Syria, without the need to stray beyond the empire’s borders. As a loyal servant of Rome, he communicated in Latin, the language of the inscription on his wife’s tombstone, but a separate inscription in Palmyran reads: ‘Regina, freed-woman of Barates, alas!’ Regina appears as a wealthy woman, her hand resting proprietorially on an armoured box used for storing jewellery and coins. Although we can no longer see her face, she sits in a wicker chair holding equipment for spinning thread, indicating a stable domestic life. Her tombstone was found at the Arbeia Roman Fort in South Shields, where it remains on display.

Follow the North star

The Scapegoat, William Holman Hunt, Lady Lever Art Gallery, the Wirral

In the late summer of 1848, seven young men formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Among them were William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais, all students at the Royal Academy of Arts. They began signing their works ‘PRB’, secretly signalling their unity and their love of paintings and stories that pre-dated the High Renaissance of Raphael. Although the group exhibited their early masterpieces in London, many works ended up in the collections of wealthy northern industrialists. Consequently, the best place to see Pre-Raphaelite works today is in the North of England. Millais’s Isabella (1849) lives at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, with Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat (1854–56) across the Mersey at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. Hunt’s The Hireling Shepherd (1851) is in the Manchester Art Gallery, as is Ford Madox Brown’s Work (1852–65), with other key paintings in Sheffield, Carlisle, Newcastle and Leeds.

Art as a hobby

Paintings by L. S. Lowry, The Lowry, Salford, Manchester

L. S. Lowry was born in Greater Manchester and his ‘matchstick’ figures and industrial scenes are among the most recognisable pictures in Britain. He painted weddings, football matches and people on their way to work under heavy skies. Lowry’s mother didn’t believe art offered him good career prospects, so he enrolled as a clerk aged 15, only painting at weekends and evenings. He was taught by the French Impressionist Adolphe Valette, but his style was all his own, drawn from his experiences of going door to door as a rent collector in working-class areas of Manchester. His first exhibition was held in 1939, when he was in his fifties, and he only painted in his spare time until retirement. Nevertheless, his work now hangs in museums across the British Isles, with the largest public collection fittingly displayed at The Lowry in Manchester.

Becoming seen

Housewives with Steak-knives, Sutapa Biswas, Bradford Museums and Galleries, West Yorkshire

As a student at the University of Leeds, Sutapa Biswas asked her tutor Griselda Pollock if two black female artists — Lubaina Himid and Sonia Boyce — could come and speak to her year group. Biswas was the only British Indian student on the course and felt marginalised by the lack of visibility of black and Asian artists in the feminist art history that Prof Pollock was championing. Feminism had been a pronounced movement in Britain for 15 years, but many ethnic-minority artists initially felt excluded. Biswas later took part in ‘The Thin Black Line’, an exhibition curated by Himid in 1985 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. She exhibited Housewives with Steak-knives (1985), imagining herself as the multi-armed Hindu Kali, goddess of destruction and rebirth.

Follow the links for our other instalments based in Ireland, the East of England and London.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Through the looking glass

Desborough mirror, British Museum

Found in Northamptonshire, the Desborough mirror is a high-quality example of the Celtic ‘mirror style’. One side of the circular bronze sheet would have been highly polished; the other is decorated with a complex array of patterns based on segments of circles created with a pair of compasses. The result is an elaborate design that was clearly executed with great care, each line being cut freehand into the metal a little more than 2,000 years ago. The Celts are believed to have been connected tribes who spanned the length of the Atlantic coast, from Portugal and Spain up into Ireland and mainland Britain. The British Museum houses many significant artefacts intricately decorated with anthropomorphic forms and swirling vegetal designs — confirmation that art was firmly embedded in the Celtic way of life.

On a wing and a prayer

Lindisfarne Gospels, British Library

On the remote island of Lindisfarne, off the Northumberland coast, Eadfrith began the long and arduous task of completing his illuminated manuscript in AD715. He was Bishop of Lindisfarne and had set his mind to creating a lavishly illustrated copy of the four gospels. At his death in 721, the Lindisfarne Gospels, as they are now known, were unfinished, but the completed pages are some of the most ornate and complex ever produced. Eadfrith wrote the text in Latin on 259 leaves of vellum. Prefacing each gospel are ‘carpet’ pages, dazzlingly intricate designs centred on Christian crosses. In borders and boxed-out sections, ribbonwork birds appear, their bodies elongated into convoluted knots, their beaked heads biting their own necks to form elegant arabesques. Originally, the Lindisfarne Gospels would have reposed on the altar of Lindisfarne church, but, following attacks by the Vikings at the end of the 8th century, they were safely evacuated and today can be seen in the British Library in London.

Checkmate

The Lewis Chessmen, split between the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, and the British Museum

The Lewis chess pieces are tiny in stature — no more than 4in tall — but they command your attention. Carved from walrus ivory and sperm-whale tooth, they are richly detailed. Hefty kings and queens sit on their thrones, swords laid across passive laps. By comparison, the warders (rooks) are ready for battle — several bite their shields in anticipation, like ancient berserkers, who notoriously fought naked to intimidate their opponents. There are also clean-shaven bishops with tall croziers and knights in battle armour on stocky horses. By the time these pieces were made in 12th-century Trondheim, Norway, the expansion of Christianity had ensured that the bishop supplanted the earlier war elephant in the game. The chessmen were buried on Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, when the island was part of the Norwegian empire, and only found in the early 19th century.

Skull and bones

The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein the Younger, National Gallery

A perennial favourite at the National Gallery in London is Hans Holbein the Younger’s 1533 double portrait The Ambassadors. Jean de Dinteville and Bishop Georges de Selve were close friends and are shown standing on either side of a table loaded with scientific equipment and religious texts. The picture was painted in London the year in which Henry VIII broke free of the Catholic Church and married Anne Boleyn. The snapped string on the lute suggests harmonious discord and the mathematical treatise is open to the page on division, but the strangest addition is the slick of brown and cream paint across the floor — only when you squat down on the right side does it make sense, morphing into a large skull that hovers in front of the men. Despite appearances, it seems to suggest, these men will soon be dust. Only Christ — visible on a tiny silver crucifix top left behind the curtain — lives forever.

Don’t lose your head

Apotheosis of James I, Rubens, Banqueting House

Standing inside Inigo Jones’s Banqueting House will give you vertigo. The ceiling is 55ft high and is home to nine paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, whose dizzying feats of trompe l’oeil have you ascending to Heaven together with James I. Today, you can book a tour to see them, but, when Rubens’s paintings were first installed in 1636, this room would have been used for the highest diplomatic negotiations. The Banqueting House formed part of Whitehall Palace, the main residence of British kings and queens from 1530 until it was destroyed by fire in 1698. Only this building survived. Rubens was a diplomat, as well as an artist, and this commission was finalised after he arrived in London to broker a peace deal on behalf of the King of Spain. It was requested by Charles I to commemorate the reign of his father. Ironically, it was the last thing that Charles saw as he walked to the executioner’s block after losing the Civil War.

A brush with greatness

Self-portrait with her husband and son, Mary Beale, Museum of the Home

Today, Mary Beale’s self-portrait with her husband and son (1660) is on display at the Museum of the Home in London, but it would have originally hung in the artist’s four-storey townhouse off Fleet Street (and later in her Pall Mall studio and home in fashionable St James’s). In it, we see her husband and son forming a domestic circle through their interlocking hands, with Beale pointing to herself and looking directly at us — if it is a painting you are after, she infers, you should be in no doubt that you should be speaking to the woman of the house. Beale supported her husband, Charles, and sons Bartholomew and Charles Jnr through her studio practice, specialising in portraiture. Charles Snr was her studio manager, keeping the books and preparing canvases, and her sons started out as models, before graduating to becoming her assistants.

An Englishman’s home is his castle

Sir John Soane’s Museum

This Wunderkammer of a museum never ceases to fascinate. From the Egyptian sarcophagus of King Seti I in the Sepulchral Chamber to the concertinaed Picture Room that includes William Hogarth’s ‘A Rake’s Progress’ (about 1734) and Canaletto’s Riva degli Schiavoni (1735), it is packed with sculptures, prints, architectural models, books and curios. Sir John Soane was a neo-Classical architect who accumulated antiquities and works of art at such a rate that he had to buy the house next door (then a stable block behind and finally another neighbouring house) to accommodate it. After falling out with his son, he disinherited him, leaving the museum and its contents to the nation. It opened in 1837.

The greatest gift

Turner Bequest, Tate Britain

Joseph Mallord William Turner raced out of the blocks to join the Royal Academy Schools at 14 and become the youngest ever Academician at 26 (Constable had to wait until his fifties to be so rewarded). He roamed the British Isles and beyond, filling 300 sketchbooks with views that he shaped and honed into paintings in his London studio. Harnessing the Sublime and the Picturesque, he was deft in oil and watercolour, as well as at translating his landscapes into prints. The Turner Bequest remains the largest single donation of works by an artist to the nation. It was originally given to the National Gallery, where his Dido building Carthage (1815) and Sun Rising through Vapour (before 1807) remain on display with paintings by Claude (as stipulated in Turner’s will). However, the rest of the 300 paintings and 30,000 sketches and watercolours are now housed in the Clore Gallery at Tate Britain.

The greatest horror

Human Laundry, Belsen: April 1945, Doris Zinkeisen, Imperial War Museum

Doris Zinkeisen had been a portrait painter and theatre designer in 1920s London, but with the onset of the Second World War she became an Official War Artist, one of only 52 women to be appointed, against 350 men. When the British liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, she was the first artist to witness its horrors. Some 60,000 prisoners a hair’s breadth from death were crammed in, next to thousands of corpses. ‘The shock of Belsen was never to be forgotten,’ she wrote home. Paintings such as Human Laundry, Belsen: April 1945 are moving portrayals of the skeletal bodies she encountered and the work of the Red Cross in trying to save the lives of those who had escaped death.

In the same boat

Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, Yinka Shonibare, Royal Museums Greenwich

Outside the National Maritime Museum in London is a three-masted ship with brightly coloured sails made from African batik fabric. It is a scaled-down copy of Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, encased in a huge bottle. Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle (2010) was made by Yinka Shonibare, who uses batik fabric in his work to signify the complex identities of British Nigerians such as himself. Batik fabrics were first made in Indonesia, before the technique was imported to Europe and colonial Africa in the 19th century. As Nigeria regained its independence from British rule in 1960, her people embraced the textile art form as symbolic of African nationhood, adding another layer to its identity. Since the 1990s, Shonibare has used batik to clothe headless mannequins, as the sails of colonial vessels and for the covers of Imperial (and immigrant) texts, asking us to consider the complexity of being British in a post-colonial world.

Follow the links for our other instalments of this series which look at the East of England and Ireland.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Fit for a king

Sutton Hoo, Suffolk

Today, all you can see at Sutton Hoo itself is a grassy mound. However, you can imagine the excitement when, with the Second World War looming, the first imprint of timbers from a 7th-century Anglo-Saxon ship burial was found beneath it. The ship turned out to be nearly 90ft long. The timbers (and the corpse) had dissolved in the acidic soil, but other non-organic items had survived intact. Could this have been the final resting place of King Raedwald, a powerful ruler of East Anglia? He was a well-connected man — the grave goods included Byzantine silverware, Frankish coins, a helmet from Scandinavia and Saxon jewellery. The finds from Sutton Hoo are exhibited in the British Museum, London (until they are taken to Normandy, France, in 2026, for display in exchange for the Bayeux Tapestry), but there is an excellent visitor centre at the burial site, with replicas of the grave goods.

Take a rain check

Wenhaston Doom, St Peter’s Church, Wenhaston, Suffolk

Although no longer located in its intended site at the end of the nave, this painting of the Day of Judgement can still be seen in the church for which it was originally created in about 1520. The work would have been completed by a journeyman painter, someone who moved from parish to parish producing Biblical scenes, and depicts the Archangel Michael weighing the goodness of human souls. It is known as a Doom (as in ‘doomsday’) and there would once have been a wooden crucifix and figures of Mary and St John nailed over the top. The unnamed artist compensated for these, ensuring that the naked figures, saints and devils were not obscured. The sculptures were torn off during the Reformation and the Doom painted over. It finally came to light in 1892, when the whitewashed boards were placed outside on a rainy night during a refurbishment of the church — and the painting was revealed. Divine intervention?

Send her victorious

The ‘Armada’ portrait of Elizabeth I, Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

Elizabeth I understood that portraits were propaganda. She kept tight control on who could paint her likeness — Walter Raleigh went so far as to say she ordered poor-quality (and perhaps unflattering) portraits to be destroyed. Styling herself the Virgin Queen, she chose to age slowly in official portraits, living up to her motto of Semper Eadem (Always the Same). The ‘Armada’ portrait in Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, is one of three versions by an unknown artist or artists that commemorates her victory over Spain when the Spanish Armada attacked the English fleet in 1588. It is a painting of majestic assertion. The Queen wears an ornate gown strewn with pearls, her bejewelled crown visible on a table nearby. Behind her, we see British fireships attacking the invading vessels as a storm destroys much of the Spanish fleet. Elizabeth stands steadfast and victorious, but her right hand, positioned on a globe, reveals her true ambition: it rests on the Americas.

Home, sweet home

Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk

Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk, in 1727, and spent his childhood there. A precocious talent who would play truant from school to go sketching in the countryside, he trained in London from 1740, but returned to Sudbury when his father died in 1748. It was in his family home that (in about 1750) he painted his early masterpiece Mr and Mrs Andrews. Gainsborough became highly regarded as a deft portraitist who often placed his figures within the English countryside, employing increasingly feathery brushstrokes to bring each scene to life, although his preference was for the less-commercial landscape genre. In 1958, the Gainsborough’s House Society was able to acquire his childhood home and it opened as a museum in 1961. A significant refurbishment in 2022 allows Gainsborough’s birth-place to be seen with changing exhibitions.

This green and pleasant land

Constable country, Suffolk

Few places remain as unchanged as the flat green fields and picturesque river views of Constable country, the rural Suffolk setting that was home to the acclaimed 18th-century landscape painter John Constable. His father inherited Flatford Mill and the artist’s childhood was spent playing on the banks of the Stour and by the locks of The Navigation, a canal that facilitated the movement of wheat and supplies inland. Today, you can walk along the riverbank and see where Constable stood to paint his 6ft The White Horse (1819) and The Hay Wain (1821), as well as the smaller Flatford Mill (1816–17). You can stay in East Bergholt, the village where the artist was born, and follow trails from Manningtree to Dedham, where he went to school.

Art of the home

Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

When you step through the door at Kettle’s Yard, there’s a palpable sense of balance and harmony. This was the former home of Tate curator Jim Ede and his wife, Helen, and is filled with the Edes’ art collection, which includes paintings by Joan Miró, William Scott and Winifred Nicholson, as well as sculptures by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Henry Moore and Constantin Brâncuşi. Ede began collecting in the 1920s, buying work from the Hampstead Modernists and the outsider Alfred Wallis. In 1957, he moved to Kettle’s Yard, a house he created from four derelict cottages in Cambridge and, until 1973, anyone could ring the doorbell and take a tour with him. Today, knowledgeable guides take his place, allowing you to contemplate the Edes’ outstanding collection, together with pleasing spirals of spherical pebbles, vases of flowers and the worn furniture of lives well lived.

You can see the previous series on places in Ireland here.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

In the 2nd century AD, Roman polymath Ptolemy gathered together hundreds of coordinates corresponding to the cities and towns of the British Isles in his Geography. These were used to create a map that ‘terminates at all points with the ocean’. Far from defining the region as remote, however, this sea was the source of our relationship with Europe and with the countries that traded materials along the Asian Silk Roads and African ivory routes. It was also crucial for our creativity: artists in medieval Britain used garnets from India, walrus ivory from Greenland and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan — and Cornish gold has been found on prehistoric art in Germany.

This connectivity wasn’t restricted to materials: ideas flowed along sea routes and across kingdoms, bringing new perspectives and creating a fertile climate for art. Invaders brought fresh approaches: the Romans loved figurative sculpture; the Saxons preferred a sinuous, anthropomorphic style. Later, the British Isles became a place of refuge for Huguenot and Jewish artists and a place of opportunity for the Windrush generation, all of whom added to the rich history of British and Irish art.

Artists often worked in situ, painting the walls of churches and palaces, carving shapes into hillsides and tomb walls. We are fortunate that many such works are still visible today, often in buildings run by volunteers. Others are on display in our national museums, ensuring our collective visual history is preserved. For it is this history that brings us closest to our ancestors — to the things they held most dear, their spiritual and moral beliefs, their prejudices and their generosity.

The first place on our map this week is: Ireland.

Follow the sun

Brú na Bóinne, Co Meath, Ireland

To view the Brú na Bóinne passage tombs, you have to take a shuttle bus from the visitor centre near Drogheda in Co Meath and bump through the Irish countryside, before disembarking at each one in turn. The tombs are truly spectacular, a testament to the ingenuity and creativity of our prehistoric ancestors as they began to form permanent farming communities. They date to 5,200 years ago, but were only rediscovered in 1699 and not excavated until the 1960s. You can step inside Newgrange tomb and walk down the stonelined passage to the central chamber, where, on the winter solstice, a shaft of morning sunlight illuminates a complex triskele (three-headed spiral) on the back wall. Nearby, the grassy dome covering Knowth tomb is nearly 230ft across. Around the perimeter are carved kerbstones covered in spirals, crescents, serpentine lines and zigzags. These abstract patterns could once have communicated a world view, a belief system about our ancestors’ place in the cosmos.

Piece of the puzzle

'Decoration' by Mainie Jellett, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Ireland

In recent years, museums and galleries across the British Isles have rethought their collections to present more work by women artists, which has enabled stories to resurface that are central to our understanding of our shared creative past. That of Mainie Jellett is one of them. She was born in Dublin in 1897, but studied in Paris in the studio of Cubist painter Albert Gleizes. Together with fellow Irish artist Evie Hone, she worked alongside Gleizes to push Cubism into new territory: abstraction. Jellett exhibited Decoration in 1923 at the Society of Dublin Painters, where it was the first abstract painting ever shown in Ireland. Despite the work’s Modernist credentials, it was met with incredulity and derision — one critic called it an ‘insoluble puzzle’. At a time when Ireland was fragmenting politically, Jellett’s orientation towards Europe was at odds with a fierce nationalism that saw painters such as Jack B. Yeats rapidly gain in popularity.

Tend to the sick

F. E. McWilliam’s Princess Macha and William Scott’s Mural, Altnagelvin Hospital, Derry, Northern Ireland

In 1948, the NHS was established and its first purpose-built hospital was Altnagelvin, on the outskirts of Derry. The architects commissioned William Scott to create a 15-panel mural (1959–61) to welcome visitors, keen for contemporary art to add an uplifting aspect to their design, and F. E. McWilliam’s Princess Macha (1957) was installed outside the entrance. He drew on Irish history for the commission: Macha was believed to have established the first hospital in Ireland more than 2,000 years before. She sits on a low stool and welcomes patients with open arms. The dove perching on her extended hand symbolises St Columba, who also treated the sick at his monastery in the 6th century.

Derry boys

‘The People’s Gallery’, Derry, Northern Ireland

In 1969, a civil-rights march from Belfast to Derry was attacked and Royal Ulster Constabulary officers and B-Specials flooded into the Catholic Bogside area of Derry. Residents fought back, declaring ‘Free Derry’. This began The Troubles, the 30-year sectarian conflict that saw Loyalists pitted against Republicans. Both sides were armed, but also harnessed the power of public art to create inflammatory propaganda murals on walls along the Shankill and Falls Roads in Belfast and in Bogside. Following the Good Friday peace agreement, three Bogside artists — brothers Tom and William Kelly and Kevin Hasson — created ‘The People’s Gallery’ (1994–2006), a series of murals that reflects on the history of The Troubles, yet offer messages of hope and peace.

This feature originally appeared in the December 31, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

As is traditional, here is a look back at the highs and lows of the theatrical year. These are my personal accolades, which I once christened, in the spirit of the Oscars and the Tonys, the Billies. No red carpets, no statuettes, no speeches — only an idiosyncratic selection of the plays and the people that stick in the memory.

Best new play: Punch

There were several strong contenders, including Sir David Hare’s Grace Pervades, which transfers from Bath to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, in April, David Ireland’s The Fifth Step and Mike Bartlett’s Juniper Blood, but the palm goes to James Graham for Punch. This devastating work, which arrived in the West End from Nottingham Playhouse, dealt with the emotional after-effects of a fatal knockout blow. When you add to that the timely revival in the Olivier of Mr Graham’s Dear England, in which football acted as a powerful metaphor for national identity, it has clearly been a year that has reinforced his position as our leading chronicler of contemporary life.

Best revival: Mrs Warren's Profession

For reasons that baffle me, the plays of Bernard Shaw are now largely ignored by British theatre. That was all the more reason to welcome Dominic Cooke’s production of Mrs Warren’s Profession, which reminded us of the work’s enduring topicality in its attack on social hypocrisy, unbridled capitalism and the exploitation of women. The final showdown between Dame Imelda Staunton as the worldly Mrs Warren and Bessie Carter as her blue-stocking daughter showed Shaw’s genius for giving two sides of an argument equal weight.

Best and worst Shakespeare productions

I recently commended Tom Morris’s current production of Othello for its emphasis, in a concept-crazy age, on acting, narrative and language: so rare as to be a welcome shock. At the opposite pole was Rob Hastie’s Hamlet at the National Theatre, where a normally reliable director allowed the actors to scuttle through the text; the lead actor reminded me that W. A. Darlington once said of the young Richard Briers that he played the prince like a ‘demented typewriter’.

Best actors and actresses

This is always a crowded field because British actors, male and female, are world beaters. Among the men, I would single out Ralph Fiennes for his brooding intensity as Sir Henry Irving in Grace Pervades, Roger Allam for his bulldog tenacity as Sir Winston Churchill in Howard Brenton’s Churchill in Moscow and, in a relatively small role, Finbar Lynch for investing the struck-off doctor in Sir Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea with a quiet steeliness.

The women who dazzled were led by Rosamund Pike as a multi-tasking Crown Court judge in Inter Alia, which transfers from the National to Wyndham’s in March; Indira Varma, who was a wittily ironical Jocasta in an over-produced Oedipus at the Old Vic; and Ruth Wilson as the dreamily self-deluded heroine in Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon For The Misbegotten at the Almeida.

Most underrated play: The Brightening Air

It was a hectic year for the Irish writer Conor McPherson, with revivals of The Weir and Girl From the North Country as well as a script, which I will come to later, for The Hunger Games. However, I was surprised that his new play, The Brightening Air, at the Old Vic, received so little praise. Set in Co Sligo in the 1980s, this was a Celtic Uncle Vanya all about wasted lives, missed opportunities and family arguments over a decaying property. As in Chekhov, you were caught between laughter and tears.

Most overblown musical: Evita

This was a runaway victory for Jamie Lloyd’s production of Evita at the London Palladium. I had no qualms about the heroine delivering Don’t Cry For Me Argentina from a public balcony in Argyll Street and Rachel Zegler packed a vocal punch as Eva Perón, but the narrative, such as it is, was buried under a wealth of mind-numbing showbiz hoopla. The friend who accompanied me, never having seen the show before, had no clue as to what was going on. Lloyd was once a quietly accomplished director. Here, I felt the ego had landed.

Irritant of the year

For me, it is the endless reimagining of the classics so that we get plays billed as ‘after’ Sophocles, Ibsen or Chekhov rather than the original work. I concede that the results can occasionally be stimulating. I have just praised Conor McPherson for using Chekhov as an inspiration and this year also brought us Thomas Ostermeier’s radical re-working of The Seagull with Cate Blanchett outstanding as the self-centred Madame Arkadina. However, we have also had My Master Builder in which an Ibsen masterpiece was reduced to the level of an American soap opera.

If I have one wish for 2026, it is that our theatre does more to explore the European classic repertoire (I long once again to see plays by Lope de Vega, Racine, Schiller and Ostrovsky, to name a few) and that we are allowed to see the authentic play rather than some dubious, parasitic rewrite.

It is the morning of the Nativity service in the village of Stockington-on-the-Moor and the Angel Gabriel has tonsillitis. The vicar’s wife, Mrs Cranberry, a retired drama teacher whose annual lot it is to direct proceedings, receives the disappointed parental call with weary resignation and wonders if she dares promote nine-year-old Carolla from her role as First Shepherd. The child is reserved, but possesses a sweet, true singing voice that would make angels weep.

Mrs Cranberry’s thoughts are also occupied by the mildly troubling issue of Herod, a country boy who has taken to inhabiting his part as the baddie of the story a little too keenly (‘Why can’t I bring a gun? Herod would definitely have had one, probably a Purdey’). ‘No, Joey, it’s all right. Get down from the pulpit, please. Mary and Joseph don’t want to be hit by a rocket.’

Mary is insisting that her Baby Jesus doll (‘He’s actually called Bruce, not Jesus’) wears a Batman outfit (‘He feels comfortable in it, Mrs Cranberry, and he’s out of nappies now’), and the innkeeper, son of the landlord at the Boar’s Head, has an unnerving tendency to ad lib: ‘You’ll love Room 8, Mary — it’s got a free-standing bath.’ Other minor crises include the loss of a tooth by one of the wise men, his piping ‘I bring francinthenth’ slightly diminishing the sense of occasion, a double booking by the organist (‘So sorry, I didn’t realise the St Agnes’s Nine Lessons and Carols was on this evening’) and the mislaying of a hearing aid by Mr Manger, genius creator of props. ‘I said let’s put the star above the door, not out on the moor… Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry.’

The tradition at Stockington — some would say high-risk strategy — has always been for real animals to attend the crib. This has led to some memorable incidents, including the accidental release of a ferret smuggled in by a previous Herod and a pet bantam noisily laying an egg underneath the altar. However, it is a policy that does at least mean there is no sulky inhabiting of the stifling rear end of a pantomime ox. Instead, Mrs Cranberry’s cast will include a real donkey, a sheep and an alpaca, the latter playing the part of the Three Wise Men’s camel and looking snooty in a gold paper crown. The long-suffering church warden, Mr Lamb, will be on duty with a shovel — it’s only a stone floor after all, and it doesn’t do any harm to provide urban incomers with a reality check.

Stockington’s Nativity is a rather far cry from the Cambridge Footlights with Sirs Nick Hytner and Stephen Fry, but Mrs Cranberry has never been one for dwelling on her brief RSC career, which ended when a young clergyman fell in love with her Ophelia at Stratford. She has long been content gently to encourage children’s talents to flower, at the same time as being marvellously firm with pushy parents and effortlessly batting off tiresome political correctness. She pulls on her Fair Isle beanie and walking boots and sets off to retrieve the Angel Gabriel outfit, a masterpiece of sequins, fruitcage netting and wire coathangers, from its stricken wearer. She has been wrestling with whether it would be best to spring the solo on Carolla in church — apparently, that’s what cathedral choirmasters do, to prevent the chosen child from becoming too nervous — but decides that would be unfair.

She arrives at Mistletoe Farm to find Carolla out on the quad feeding sheep with her father, Dave. Her co-shepherds, Stevie, seven, and Cas, five, are busy doing last-minute training of their star sheep, Frosty, who they insist doesn’t need a halter and will follow a bucket. This provides a great opportunity for a quiet word with their mother, Holly, who is in the kitchen, pulling yet another tray of mince pies out of the Aga.

‘I really think Carolla can do the solo,’ says Mrs Cranberry. ‘I’m hoping that she won’t have time to be nervous now and she’s got such a lovely voice.’

‘Well, it would be a wonderful boost for her and will make a change from worrying about what her little brothers are up to,’ replies Holly, retrieving clean striped tea towels from the linen basket for the junior shepherds to wear on their heads. ‘She so enjoys her music. We’d love her to go to a school where she could have some proper lessons, but everything’s so uncertain with farming right now and the fees are just beyond us at the moment.’

Listening to this, an idea occurs to Mrs Cranberry, but she keeps it to herself so as not to raise false hope. Back at the vicarage, she makes a telephone call. ‘Nick, I know you’ve got wall-to-wall services, and I’m sorry to be a pain, but I don’t suppose you could bear to play a few carols at our nativity? We’ve had the organ repaired since last time, I promise. Pleeaase! There’s mulled wine and a pheasant casserole in it for you.’

It is 4.45pm and the congregation, well layered against the lack of heating, with the odd hip flask of sloe gin nestled in pockets, is trooping towards the little 13th-century shepherds’ church, which is magically silhouetted in moonlight against the rising moorland, its windows twinkling with cheery yellow candlelight. Inside are magnificent swags of holly, jam jars of mistletoe and hellebores and the delicious aroma of mulled wine, hot chocolate and sausage rolls.

The cast is assembling outside. Miss Snow the smallholder has fluffed up the white coat of her prize alpaca, Sprout, who is well used to being the centre of attention as he is getting all sorts of employment as a ‘tranquillity animal’, visiting nursing homes and the like. Less reliable is Lord and Lady Berry’s elderly donkey, Carrots — Mrs Cranberry’s one concession to health and safety is for Carrots to be led into church, rather than ridden; Mary and baby Jesus being neatly bucked off is still fresh in the memory.

Herod’s catapult has been confiscated — the lisping wise man split on him: ‘He’s trying to hurt Baby Jethuth’ — Joseph has trodden in alpaca dung and the shepherds, tea towels slipping over eyes, have lost control of Frosty the sheep, who is cantering, sans halter, around the gravestones. Holly carefully tweaks Carolla’s golden tinsel halo and straightens her wings: ‘Just pretend you’re out in the fields singing to the lambs and it will be lovely.’

It is 5.30pm, and all has gone surprisingly smoothly. Mr Lamb’s shovel has been redundant, Herod and Joseph, suddenly overawed, stuck to their scripts, Carrots and Frosty behaved with solemnity and Carolla’s pure rendering of Once in Royal David’s City caused eyes to glisten.

Mrs Cranberry taps Holly on the shoulder. ‘Holly, Dave — I’d like you to meet my good friend Nick, who has been an absolute saint. He’s the choirmaster at St Wenceslas’s Cathedral school. He’s recruiting choristers, all fees paid. He’d like to have a chat.’

The cultural stories attached to the turtle dove are so complicated, so varied, that you could well imagine them framing one of those riddles you find inside a Christmas cracker. ‘Which bird, named after a marine reptile, has a song considered the very essence of summer, but has somehow become a symbol for our Yuletide celebrations?’

We’ll come to those stories shortly, but one turtle dove fact on which most agree is its status as the most beautiful of our five native pigeons. The bird’s breast is a soft vinous pink and the belly linen white, but the most arresting features are the finely barred black-and-white neck patch, the bright rufous-orange mantle and wings liberally spotted with black. Vivid colours are only part of the aesthetic appeal, because turtle doves are also exquisitely shaped — elfin-sized with a sweetly rounded head and long attenuated wings and tail that come to a perfect point at the rear.

Equally unequivocal is the bird’s status as our most calamitously declined species. As recently as the 1970s there were an estimated 125,000 pairs in Britain. Then came a rapid reduction in range and numbers, until the species diminished to only a patchy presence in southern and eastern England, where the final few thousands are still slowly dwindling. The key factors in this collapse are thought to be habitat loss and agricultural intensification — particularly the disappearance of seed-bearing ‘weeds’ in arable areas — but also the wearisome tradition of hunting turtle doves throughout the Mediterranean.

Those practices may be centuries old, yet they now bear down on the bird at a time of crisis. Mercifully in 2021, there was an EU-wide moratorium on the legal shooting of turtle doves, which almost immediately demonstrated the birds’ powers of recuperation — they increased by 400,000 pairs — together with the baleful consequences of the shooting in the first place. Despite the proven value of staying the hunter’s hand, the EU Commission backtracked this year and sanctioned the resumption of legal hunting, albeit with a quota.

Nightingale and spotted flycatcher may closely match the turtle dove’s overall 99% losses in Britain, but not its wider story as a red-listed species threatened with extinction from north-west China to Iberia. This may make it a suitable mascot for our age of environmental anxiety, although that couldn’t be further from the original notions we once assembled around this creature for thousands of years.

Turtle doves are unique in being the only family member to perform a long-distance migration out of Africa. Their sudden and, at one time, inexplicable reappearance was a dramatic indicator to people of seasonal change. ‘Yea, the stork in the heaven know-eth her appointed times, and the turtle and the crane and the swallow,’ announces the narrator in the Book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament. However, the dove’s spring arrival also signified something equally elemental in our affairs: that here was a renewed moment for courtship and for love.

Turtle doves were almost tailormade for these associations because they seem especially bonded as pairs, males and females sharing equally the tasks of incubation and feeding of their young. I can well remember the birds in my childhood — you almost always saw them in pairs or you would hear a male singing to his mate — and it is with the song that we touch on something at the heart of the bird’s special status.

With most celebrated birdsongs — that of nightingale or song thrush, for instance — the sounds arrest our attention. We stop to listen and they captivate us. Yet, with turtle doves, there is little of that conscious process, because it is a soft, almost background purring noise. Singing turtle doves don’t announce their presence, they insinuate themselves into our unconscious minds, laying down a mood within us like a layer of gentle colour. I want to say beige, but that suggests something bland, when it is both soothing and temperate, yet enormously vital. I liken it to the colour of ripening wheat made audible. Those who know the sound name it as the very essence of summer.

The thrill of it plainly moved our ancestors and they incorporated this gentle music into the turtle dove’s status as a symbol of romantic love and marital fidelity. In The Parliament of Fowls, Chaucer wrote of ‘the wedded turtle with her heart true’. As in so much of life, Shakespeare perhaps put it best when he wrote in Troilus and Cressida:

'As true as steel; as plantage to the moon

As sun to day, as turtle to her mate'

Even in the US, where no turtle dove has ever graced the summer fields, the associations live on. A very striking example is in Buddy Holly’s hit That’ll Be The Day, where he turned the bird into a verb (‘give me all your lovin’ and your turtle-dovin’). It is, of course, the species’ own song that gave rise to its rather strange name. There are no links whatsoever with a hard-shelled reptile; ‘turtle’ is an anglicised version of the French word for the species — tourterelle, which is itself a transliterated echo of the sound.

Now, we can finally turn to the third part of our Christmas cracker riddle. How on earth did this quintessence of summer find itself entangled in our solstice celebrations? The answer is the beloved carol, which may well have originated in northern England in the 18th century, but also seems to have strong French connections and which we all know as The Twelve Days of Christmas. Among the bizarre miscellany of items presented by ‘my true love’ to his beloved, there is one that stands out as deeply appropriate. On Boxing Day, he gives her a pair of turtle doves.

From this single reference, those birds have spread their symbolic wings until they too have become a synonym for the season. On the morning of the 25th, I suggest you scan your chimneypiece of cards or the wrapping-paper designs beneath the tree to see if you can spot a turtle dove nestled among all the other customary iconography. Yet, if Christmas is a moment for family affection, then perhaps we should agree: what better motif could you wish for than this beautiful, soft-voiced, endearing dove?

However, if Christmas is also the time for our wishes to come true, then mine would be to restore the real dove to its rightful place in our countryside and for this to unfold Europe-wide.

Disappearing doves

There are now many English projects to give desperately needed help to turtle doves. The best of these focus on creating the right habitats for the birds, which require us to rethink one of the most badly named and misunderstood land forms — ‘scrub’. Turtle doves love ‘edge’ places where tall shrubs mingle with more open ground. The whole supplies both the nesting places the birds prefer and the weedy plants, such as fumitory and bird’s-foot trefoil, that form their seed diet.

One of the most important of these initiatives is in the North York Moors National Park and called the North Yorkshire Turtle Dove Project. It occurs across a 100,000-hectare (247,105-acre) swathe of country between Scarborough and Thirsk and centres on the last population of the species at the very northern edge of its range. Against the odds, the area has somehow managed to hold onto 50–100 turtle doves. Run by volunteers and dependent on small-scale grants, the project focuses on some of the habitat details that turtle doves need. As well as planting the requisite seed-bearing plants, the group’s members have dug about 10 ponds. Turtle doves feed their young a liquified seed mix known as ‘crop-milk’ and for this they need ready access to water. This habitat creation has benefited the turtle doves, but also a spectrum of other beleaguered animals, including woodcock, crossbills, frogs, toads and dragonflies.

Ecologist Richard Baines, spokesman and lead volunteer for the group, says that: ‘We know from historical records that this was always a great place for this species. Our efforts have kept an outlying colony stable in the past decades, but there are very few other successfully breeding turtle doves within 100 miles of us. If we’re going to keep this fabulous creature in these islands, then we need more work like ours, but we need it everywhere, and especially in southern Europe. The turtle dove is a symbol of good partnership and it’s telling us all that we need to play our part.’

This feature originally appeared in the December 3, 2025 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

London comes alive at Christmas — some would say too alive. The West End, a chaotic place at the best of times, turns into something resembling Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, the misleadingly titled triptych at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain, that warns against excessive pleasure and offers in its third panel a vision of Hell. For something closer to home, simply head to Soho, where thousands run amok in search of Christmas bargains (spoiler: there aren’t any).

A few might go see a pantomime instead, hoping to escape the chaos for a grand total of three hours before re-entering the fray in a more tolerable state of inebriation. Others flock to Bond Street in the hope of nabbing a couple of last-minute candles as gifts. (They won’t.) Unsuspecting visitors are told the Christmas lights on the King’s Road are better than those in the West End and are, to varying degrees, horrified when they find everyone — yes, everyone — has been told exactly the same thing.

I am not saying any of us should be blamed for the London Christmas hell-scape. We have all, at some point, been part of it, unwilling contributors swept up in the seasonal frenzy. One of the more quixotic assignments in my previous job involved buying Sir Ian McKellen a coat from Casablanca (the brand, not the Moroccan city) and delivering it to his dressing room when he was on stage at the Duke of York’s Theatre, playing Mother Goose, on a Thursday evening in mid December. I am the guiltiest party of all.

Too few people know how to do Christmas right, whether they’re travelling into London for the holidays or living here all year round. One should be able to get the shopping done far from the madding crowd or grab a drink at the pub without having to fight your way in (or worse, having to queue). At times, the crowds are simply unavoidable, but with gems hidden all over the city, a handful of Londoners know exactly where to go to embrace fully the Christmas spirit and avoid the sort of situation that inevitably conjures the Ghost of Christmas Past. Our insider’s guide should helpfully cover the basics, with a few extra tips thrown in for good measure.

Will Hosie's top tips

1. Skip the crowds at Regent Street and get your gifts from Shepherd Market. These backstreets of Mayfair are a treasure trove of rare bookshops (Heywood Hill, Maggs Bros), cigar shops (Birley, Fumar) and watch dealers (Vertex, Watches of Mayfair). The real gem, however, is Simon Carter, a menswear designer from whom I once bought a pair of wine-bottle-shaped cuff-links for my father. They currently sell these in the shape of acorns, seahorses and even British passports. The perfect gift.
2. Avoid the lines at the National Gallery by going on a Friday evening. The museum exceptionally stays open until 9pm, a fact surprisingly few people seem to have caught onto despite the headline-making rehang, which really has changed the game.
3. Head to The Royal Hospital Chelsea for the city’s best Christmas carols. Home to the Chelsea Pensioners, the Christopher Wren-designed building hosts what insiders believe to be the best carol concerts of the festive season, on December 10 and 18. Book now to avoid disappointment.
4. Buy your tree from Pines And Needles. The company operates no fewer than 41 locations across the city and further afield on a temporary basis, each year, from St John’s Church in Notting Hill to the foot of Highgate Wood. The trees are consistently healthy and fragrant.
5. Grabbing a bite before seeing a play? Theatreland is full to the brim with excellent pre-theatre menus, but with most shows these days beginning as early as 7pm, you’re better off going for dinner after the performance. If you can handle your spice, Speedboat Bar is just the ticket.

6. The best day to go to the theatre is Tuesday and the best value-for-money seats are always at the back of the stalls.
7. Impress visiting family members by taking them to The Connaught Bar, one of the few Mayfair addresses that strikes the right balance between elegance and ceremony. Order the martini or, during the game season, the aptly named Game Changer cocktail, which blends sloe gin, homemade bergamot and tonka-bean syrup, topped with one of the bar’s signature aromatic sprays.
8. When it comes to treating yourself, there’s nowhere quite like The Ritz Restaurant. The executive chef, John Williams, is the son of a fisherman and one of the only restaurateurs who has successfully married British ingredients with the techniques of haute cuisine. His menu would not look out of place in some of the top fine-dining establishments in Paris, France, yet it’s also somewhere that serves its own sourdough, made in-house with Guinness, straight from the oven. Even the crème de la crème of British luxury knows it needs those extra comforts thrown in.
9. The best mince pies are found at Aldi. Enough said.
10. London has had a spate of luxury openings since the end of the pandemic: visitors are more spoilt for choice now than they ever were. The best new hotel is The Emory; the sexiest is At Sloane.
11. Besides the festivities, Christmas is also a time to unwind. Lily Collins is a fan of Martine De Richeville, whose spas offer the best massage in the city from locations in Marylebone and Kensington.
12. The prettiest frosts are found in Richmond Park. Go early in the morning when most people are still asleep.
13. Watching a Christmas classic on the silver screen is now possible, thanks to Close-Up cinema. This 40-seat arthouse cinema in Shoreditch allows you to connect your laptop to the projector and view anything from old classics to Netflix originals. I discovered its existence earlier this year when a friend arranged a special viewing there for the season finale of The White Lotus. A find.
14. Cycling, even in winter, is the easiest mode of transport to get around. Simply make sure you wrap up warm and wear a helmet.
15. Whatever you do, don’t leave your Christmas shopping to the last minute.

Will Hosie's favourite pubs

• The Camberwell Arms: Even beyond the roast lunches, this might be London’s favourite pub: cosy, yet buzzing, with a great wine list to boot. Chef patron Mike Davies breathed new, gastronomical life into this 19th-century building when he took over the kitchen in 2014 and it has been the pride of Camberwell ever since
• The Harwood Arms: Described by The Guardian in 2009 as the ‘handsome and precocious’ lovechild of Notting Hill’s The Ledbury and Berkshire’s The Pot Kiln, London’s only Michelin-starred gastropub is almost impossible to beat, 16 years on. Book for 2pm and settle in for the afternoon
• Marksman: Shoreditch’s answer to The Harwood Arms, Marksman draws a more hip and stereotypically east London demographic: expect L. F. Markey workmen’s jackets and Blundstone boots and waiters named Hugo and Ben. An anthropological study that might not taste as sweet were the food any less delicious than it is
• The Duke of Hamilton: You’ve heard of The Spaniards Inn and The Holly Bush, but both are rammed this time of year. The lamb shoulder at the Duke of Hamilton is reason enough to crown it Hampstead’s best pub. Ideal after a walk on the Heath

This feature originally appeared in the December 3, 2025 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

I challenge anyone to find a city that embraces Christmas decorating more than London. Whether it's the lights, festooning Carnaby Street, Savile Row and Regent Street, Annabel's extraordinary façade designs — which must require a serious amount of engineering — or imaginative window displays designed to tempt you in to shop, the capital just does it better, and on a bigger scale, than anyone else.

Here are some of our favourites.

The Royal Arcade

The Royal Arcade was constructed in 1879 and connects Old Bond Street with Albemarle Street. It is the epitome of Victorian design with a saddled glass roof, stucco arches and curved glass window bays.

Original shopkeepers included Mrs Ellen Turner, an artificial florist, and John Latha, a boot maker. Head down today and you'll find ED Meyrowitz Optician, puveyors of handcrafted spectacles for even longer than Country Life has been around for, and George Cleverley, The King's shoemaker who recently collaborated with Hedley Studios on an electric Bentley Blower.

Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren's 'Holiday' experience is Sloane Square's biggest-ever brand installation to date.

Directly opposite its bricks-and-mortar store, the peak-Americana brand has built a barn for activities such as wreath-making workshops and cookie decorating, a Ralph's Coffee outpost and a holiday shop.

Lavender Green Flowers

B-Corp certified Lavender Green Flowers nearly always take the crown for best King's Road Christmas display.

This year's centrepiece is a gilt ferris wheel that gently spins.

As well as flowers and wreaths, the shop is stocking pretty ornaments and trinkets throughout the festive period.

Cartier

Cartier's Christmas efforts are the jewel in New Bond Street's crown — so much so that people form orderly queues outside to have their photograph taken in front of the shop — and this year is no exception.

The giant scarlet ribbon that once enveloped the building come December has been discarded in favour of two loping panthers — the brand's motif since 1914. (Not entirely incidentally, Louis Cartier, heir to the Cartier maison, nicknamed his lover, Jeanne Toussaint, the 'Petite Panthère for her bold personality and penchant for panther furs. Toussaint later worked for Cartier, rising through the ranks to become director of haute joaillerie.)

Burberry

Burberry's original equestrian knight design — a man in a suit of armour atop a galloping horse — was the winning entry of a public competition to create a new emblem for the brand, in about 1901.

This year, a life-size knight (horse: missing in action) has appeared in Burberry's advertising campaigns, at Claridge's hotel to unveil the Christmas tree designed by chief creative officer Daniel Lee, and in shop windows.

Annabel's

The question on everyone's lips is: what on earth is the person who comes up with Annabel's otherworldly facade displays on?

There are have been three-dimensional pirate ships, Amazon rainforest tableaus and, now, a set of white and gold gilt doors and a larger-than-life lion — a clear homage to Narnia and the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

According to The Glass Magazine, the design is meant to recreate the feeling of returning to childhood and spark imagination.

Fortnum & Mason

Fortnum & Mason (F&M) is synonymous with the hamper — and this year they take centre stage in the historic department store's window displays.

F&M first started selling hand-packed wicker baskets, for wealthy travellers, in the mid 1700s. Sir John Franklin took one to Everest, Henry Morton Stanley to Africa, and Howard Carter to Egypt.

And for the fifth consecutive year, the Piccadilly building's façade has been decorated to look like an Advent calendar.

Brunello Cucinelli at Harrods

Perhaps the award for the most enchanting displays go to Brunello Cucinelli — who was invited to fill 21 windows at Harrods.

Earlier this year, the Italian designer authored a tale about a very old Italian hamlet, brought back to life by a 'young dreamer' called Philo the Griffin (inspired by his own medieval hamlet hometown of Solomeo) and it is this story that plays out, chapter-by-chapter, window-by-window. It all looks as fantastical as the narrative reads.

However, Signor Cucinelli did not stop there. Inside, he's created an immersive experience comprising two themed pop-up space, video projections and an exclusive-to-Harrods capsule collection.

Best of the rest

Melissa Woolford is on the phone, having an animated conversation about powdered sugar. ‘We need it today,’ she implores. She is the founder of the Museum of Architecture and The Gingerbread City, a sugary masterpiece that has been created at Coal Drops Yard in London’s King’s Cross. It has been a big undertaking, although one with a sweet pay off. When I meet her, I am practically fizzing with excitement, even though I can’t eat gluten.

Melissa has been running the Museum of Architecture for almost 20 years and The Ginger Bread City for nine. It’s their annual fundraiser (the museum is a registered charity). ‘The mission of the museum [which ironically does not yet have a physical building] is to help the public better engage with architecture,’ Melissa says. ‘We look at things that people are familiar with, like a gingerbread house, and say: “How can we make this extraordinary?” By getting architects, engineers, landscape architects, and other people in the built environment to transform these things and to be able to talk about these different themes within architecture.’

In an age of increasing AI influence, gingerbread is also a clever way of getting children interested in something that isn’t a screen, Melissa tells me. However, there is an AI feature at the end of the exhibition that shows you what you’d look like as a gingerbread biscuit.

Each year there is a different theme, and this year’s is ‘play’: a concept the architects involved have really taken and ran with. ‘They are very competitive,’ Melissa assures me. The museum provides all the contributors with a ‘special structural gingerbread recipe’ to ensure their creations can survive their display period. ‘It doesn’t taste very nice,’ Melissa admits, but the structures still look so mouthwatering. Temptation still wins out, however, with bits and pieces of the creations disappearing as the exhibition goes on. ‘I think we do have some sneaky fingers, but for the most part the children are actually well behaved. It's the adults who are like: “Is this real,” and start poking things.’

The City itself is astounding in its complexity. A miniature steam train circles the perimeter high above as masterpieces of confectionery constructed by this country’s finest architects compete for my attention. Gingerbread Big Ben looms large, the clock face of the Elizabeth Tower rendered in sugar and lit up from the inside. Below it, a tube station’s entrance has become a sugar-cube igloo and marshmallow snowmen and women commuters pile in and out. Elsewhere, a picture-perfect gingerbread rendering of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion stands proud, decorated with ice gems, custard creams, love heart sweets boasting slogans such as ‘TRUE LOVE’ and ‘BE MINE’, and, of course, a horde of rainbow jelly sweets. Other highlights include a gingerbread tree house created by PLP Architecture (the brains behind Tiktok’s new kaleidoscopic headquarters in London); a reimagining of the quidditch grounds in Harry Potter by Gianluca Gianfiglio and David Balboa Gonzalez; and a black gingerbread and liquorice Parliament, complete with gummy bear MPs overseeing the Gummy Budget, courtesy of UHA.

‘You might think editing Country Life has its stressful moments, but it is nothing compared to making a gingerbread house,’ Country Life’s Editor in Chief, Mark Hedges, once told me. Two people that can relate are Great British Bake Off star Pui Man and the principal of the London-based architecture studio SPPARC, Trevor Morriss. They have been collaborating tirelessly on a gingerbread version of the exhibition hall of Olympia, the events venue in London that SPPARC are currently reimagining. It’s a masterful offering, complete with an animated fairground inside with a carousel and Christmas tree that spins around and other illuminated features.

‘I have always loved making gingerbread houses,’ says Pui, absentmindedly wiping away trails of stray icing on her creation. ‘It took me over a week just to bake’. Trevor was responsible for the templates for the build. ‘The timing was more challenging because he didn’t give me the templates until the last minute,’ she says, looking at Trevor pointedly. He laughs. She has only slept for four hours in the past two days in order to get their creation completed in time. Trevor, as an architect, is used to late hours and tight deadlines.

‘We applied the same love and care to this as we apply into Olympia as a main project,’ he says. ‘One of the very first shows that was held in the Olympia in the 1890s was a circus, so we wanted to get some of that history coming into this idea as the old Olympia now merges into the new Olympia.’ He thinks The Gingerbread City has been a great way of raising awareness of his industry. ‘It does absolutely get kids across all ages — not just little kids, but big kids too — thinking about design, and I think if we put cakes and architecture together, that's a pretty potent set of ingredients to get people interested.’

‘Next year,’ he promises me with a manic, ambitious glint in his eyes, ‘we are going to go even bigger’. The expression on Pui’s face says it all.

For more information about The Gingerbread City and how to visit, see their website.

The last grocer at Covent Garden packed up his stall in 1973. The flower, fruit and vegetable market, which had operated continuously for centuries, was relocated to Nine Elms after traffic congestion made trading untenable. The site languished for decades before giving way to the smorgasbord of luxury shopping and wine bars we know today, all dutifully lined up in the shadow of the Royal Opera House. Over in The City, Leadenhall Market — which once sold game and poultry under a roof of green, maroon and cream — is now home to jewellers and bouji cheesemongers and is a favourite among tourists visiting a spot where Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was filmed.

The reinvention of our markets is one of London’s great success stories. With few left, however, the sentiment has shifted in favour of conservation. Last year’s announcement that Smithfield Market was due to relocate somewhere outside central London caused an outcry from wholesalers and customers alike. The move is due to take place before the end of the decade — albeit no earlier than 2028 — and a new site has not yet been confirmed.

A couple of wholesalers also remain on site at Borough Market. They jostle for space with more and more artisanal shops that have set up stalls in the area. There are countless cheesemongers, deli stands, bakery outposts and even one man selling truffles. Another stand sells oysters and another Dorset venison. On Park Street, one of the market’s tributaries, is a row of upmarket shops, including Aesop, Cubitts and APC. Pictures of Borough are among the first results when doing an online image search on the theme of gentrification.

At No 9, Stoney Street, The Market Porter has presided over Borough since 1799. There has been an alehouse of some description in this very spot since the 1500s, says Tony Sommerville, who has managed the pub for 19 years. It is one of London’s last remaining early houses, open from 6am every market day. A special licence, granted by the Government as an exemption to the Defence of the Realm Act of 1914 (which restricted pub opening hours to specific times of day), allowed pubs catering specifically to the markets to serve nocturnal wholesalers, whose shift ran from midnight to 6am.

‘[Borough] Market has changed so much in the 19 years that I’ve been here,’ Tony says. ‘There used to be a lot more of the overnight wholesalers coming in here when I started.’ The pub was also popular with railway engineers in the 1970s, when the Jubilee line — which runs right underneath the market and links Southwark to London Bridge — was being built. Among its top customers at the time were press cutters, a now-obsolete profession where people were paid by companies to read through all the newspapers after they were published every evening, to identify all the articles in which said companies had been mentioned. Easier with a pint in hand.

The clientele has evolved considerably since those days. With only a few wholesalers left at Borough Market, the publican profile in the early hours of the morning has changed from grocer to, more typically, a nurse or a constable who has just finished the night shift, either at nearby Guy’s Hospital or the local police station. Tony is keen to stress that there is still a strong sense of community. ‘You really felt that after the terrorist attack in 2017,’ he says. The tragedy occurred just minutes down from the pub, on London Bridge. ‘One of my staff was stabbed… one of my regulars was stabbed. But it brought everyone together.

‘I still run [The Market Porter] like a backstreet local boozer,’ the manager continues. There’s a real sense of camaraderie — our publican walks his neighbour’s dog and some of the restaurants dotting the market still receive their produce fresh from the remaining wholesalers — mixed with lots of gilets. The corporate takeover of London Bridge in the past 10 years has introduced a new demographic into the backstreet-boozer mix: men in suits. Yet although their ascent seemed definitive a decade ago, their numbers are currently dwindling.

Work-from-home culture has dealt a blow to what was once a roaring trade on a Friday afternoon — prime time for any publican. This is also a problem for The Fox & Anchor (above), another early house located in Smithfield. ‘Most people who work in this neighbourhood are architects,’ explains the manager, Marc Hall. Unlike ‘his friends down the road’ whose pubs cater to bankers and consultants — and whose companies take a more intransigent line on work-from-home Fridays, in that they forbid them — Marc has a particularly tough time on the very day that used to be the pub’s busiest. ‘Before covid, it was a different world,’ he says. ‘The market was still in full swing and, when I would walk by on a Friday lunchtime, there’d be 30 or 40 market guys outside the pub. Nowadays, you get five or six.’

The Fox & Anchor opens later than The Market Porter, serving punters from 7am on weekdays and 8.30am on weekends. It’s a small pub, with only 12 tables, and ‘we get very few people coming in who are younger than 30,’ Marc notes. It has been part of Young’s Group since it was sold just over a decade ago. The parent company operates nearly 280 properties across the country and revenue is up 24.9% this year. Forced to reinvent the pub in line with the changing demographic of potential customers, Marc and his team have decided to change tack. ‘We’ve shifted the focus to food rather than drink and make the most of our proximity to Smithfield,’ he explains. The speciality, unsurprisingly, is steak, supplied directly by one of the market wholesalers. ‘Sundays are our busiest day now.’

If The Fox & Anchor seats few people, it can sleep as many as 12. It is, per the description given by its manager, a ‘pub with rooms’ (they don’t call it an inn). There are six of them, typically accommodating those who planned to stay in EC1 and found that the next-door hotel, a Malmaison, was fully booked on the dates they had to be in town. ‘We get lots of breakfast people,’ Marc explains. ‘A mix of hotel guests, some of them staying at Malmaison, but choosing to eat here, as well as some city boys.’

If early houses have, so far, been able to adapt, what happens to the market trade when it is forced to move? Will new pubs with early-house status begin to spring up in Stratford or other areas earmarked as alternatives to Smithfield’s current site? Indicatively, there aren’t any early houses in Nine Elms or Poplar, respectively home to the new Covent Garden and Billingsgate markets.

‘You would have to be mad to buy [a pub],’ wrote Jeremy Clarkson last year in The Times. Friends of the columnist advised him that they were closing ‘at the rate of more than 1,000 a year’. To buy a pub, he chuckled, would be ‘insane’. We all know how that particular sermon ended (‘So, I’ve bought a pub’), but, unless he wishes to do this again on the outskirts of east London, those reliant on places serving fry-ups and pints when their shift ends at 6am will need to find a new Magwitch.

This feature originally appeared in the November 5, 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Is there anything more embarrassing than riding a Brompton bike? Legs akimbo, looking very much akin to a circus bear peddling around on a laughably small tricycle. The model of transport immediately brings to mind both Hugh Bonneville’s incompetent and middle-aged BBC executive Ian Fletcher in the TV series W1A and awful trendy hipsters in Hackney who drink flat whites, wearing beanie hats too small for their heads and lecture you about recycling while surreptitiously taking a peep down your blouse.

Embarrassment, however, is not an issue to its millions of fans who wax lyrical about how it’s changed their commuting life in London. Nor is it an issue for Will Butler-Adams, the CEO of the collapsible bike company who is wearing shorts, in winter, when we meet at Brompton’s west London factory. ‘On you get,’ he says, thrusting an electric model into my hands. The best way to experience a Brompton is, naturally, to ride one — not possible for everyone due to their £1,000-£6,000 price tag, a bit of a gear change from the £320.78-£368.95 it cost in the early days of the bike company. I must admit that they’re a slick ride, especially the electric model which propels me forward with a surprising force.

‘In the very early days, yes, you needed confidence to ride a Brompton,’ Will says, pedalling casually around the factory's exterior, greeting colleagues as he goes. ‘It was a problem when I first started riding — I'm 6ft 4in, and my friends took the mickey out of me. You know, tiny little wheels, tall, gangly guy whizzing along, but that is no longer the case. We've normalised Bromptons because they’re so useful.’

I am here as it is the bike company’s 50th anniversary year and they are celebrating in style: they have opened their factory doors to the general public for behind-the-scenes looks and launched a special edition bike to honour the milestone.

The company’s founder, Andrew Ritchie, created the first bike in 1975 in his London flat which overlooked the Brompton Oratory, a Roman Catholic parish church in South Kensington, and the brand has only gone from strength to strength since they adopted the building’s name. A Brompton bike, ridden by Sir Chris Hoy, was chosen to represent London in the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and won Prince Philip’s Designers Prize for ‘outstanding achievement in design’ shortly afterwards. With more than a million bikes designed, developed and made, and distribution to 47 different countries, Brompton bikes’ collapsible nature, and ability to fold down to a third of their size, has become invaluable in many commuter cities, including London. They are less likely to get stolen as they can be brought inside with their owner and make combo-journey’s (involving cycling and public transport) a relative doddle.

There are over 80,000 Brompton bikes on the roads in the capital, according to the brand. A Yorkshireman and self-identified ‘country bumpkin’, CEO Will got the job quite by chance, when he was chatting to a man on a bus to Henley-on-Thames. That man happened to be a friend of Andrew, the bike’s inventor. On discovering Will was an engineer, the two were put in touch. ‘He was somewhere between Back to the Future and A Beautiful Mind, his socks tucked up into his trousers,’ Will says of his first meeting with Andrew.

Motivated by his distaste for the Underground, Will was brought on to develop the Brompton brand. ‘I’m not good in cities. They're claustrophobic, they're busy and they swish you down and put you underground,’ he says. ‘Whereas with a bike in the city, suddenly you have this liberation. It really made living in London a delight. And then I met our customers, and they have had the same experiences. A bike changed their life.’

He is not, he insists, a cyclist: ‘You walk a lot of places, but you don't call yourself a walkist,’ he says with a tone that implies: ‘Duh!’ ‘No one in Amsterdam or in Copenhagen calls themselves a cyclist,’ he adds, clarifying that Brompton’s are more for people like him who use a bike to get from A-B, rather than for hard-core cyclists. ‘Lycra’s never been my thing,’ he says.

The merits of a Brompton bike are obvious. Their foldability mitigates their ability to be stolen, assuming you can take them with you wherever you end up. (I recently interviewed someone at the restaurant Franco’s in St James’s and they had a sign on the front door which indicated that they had had quite enough of the brand, thank you very much).

It has fans among the rich and famous too. James May is a devout Bromptoner and has previously called it ‘the ideal motorists bicycle’ in the pages of Country Life. Actors Owen Wilson and Henry Golding are among the Hollywood stars that have been spotted merrily peddling merrily away on the brand’s bicycles and BBC 2’s Jeremy Vine often scrunches his 6ft 3in frame over a model when departing Broadcasting House.

I had assumed the biggest competition for the brand would be the hirable Boris bikes or their Brat-coloured Lime alternatives — beloved by many drunkards on a night out in the city centre for a hilarity-inducing and incredibly dangerous end to their night. Not so. It’s the tube and cars that are Brompton’s biggest adversary. ‘You think it's better to go under the ground where there's awful quality of air, stuffed into a metal, round tube with lots of people with illnesses spluttering on you, doing no exercise?’ Will asks me, accusatorily, when I admit that I don’t cycle to work. ‘You think that's better and lower risk than going above and learning about your city and cycling through Hyde Park and discovering the little back streets?’ he continues. I delicately mention that I worry about being hit by a car on London’s busy roads. This suggestion is dismissed. ‘Many more people will die of cardiac arrest, mental health illnesses and heart disease per capita. The risks are so much lower,’ he says.

Their other main competitor is, surprisingly, Ozempic, he seems to suggest. ‘People are running around thinking that the solution to their wellbeing is injecting themselves with a fat drug rather than doing more exercise … In the 1950s people got around by bike, and we didn't have the same chronic health problems that we do now.’

The proof is in the pudding: a lot of Brompton’s employees on the factory floor cycle in and seem more than happy to do so, and indeed to work for the company. They can borrow a bike for up to six months when they join and then can buy one, for 40% of the retail price, and pay for it over two years. They work a four day week and are paid well for it, Will says. ‘If we look after them, they will look after us,’ he explains. ‘Golden Handcuffs! We invest a lot in them, but it's a very unique skill.’

But although Brompton factory workers are said to be fans, other reviews are decidedly mixed. Journalist Lucy Higginson rode a Brompton bike for years on her London commute. ‘Often I would ride the thing one handed over speed bumps, with a laptop bag and a very expensive and delicious mocha in the other hand, and I became quite good at that,’ she recalls, wistfully.

‘They're the best, basically. I mean, when you flick them together to squash them you become like a kind of SAS officer with an AK 47 — you just become very dexterous. And they are beautifully engineered. Also, given that bike theft is rampant, it's very useful to be able to take your bike with you and not lose sight of it.’

Alas, Lucy’s journey on her Brompton came to an end when her husband illadvisably went into Costa coffee, leaving her beloved bike outside and thus completely negating its primary feature — portability. ‘In the time it took him to be handed a double espresso, it had gone. He didn't lock it and I've still not quite forgiven him. I’d never replace it now — they’re just too stealable.’

Country Life’s architecture editor, John Goodall, was also a Brompton commuter before he moved house. ‘I could put it on any train so I could cycle to the station and from the station at the other end,’ he recalls. Visually ‘there's something of absurdity about it,’ he admits ‘and they are very heavy’. The T Line model weighs on average 7.97kg, while the standard model weighs 11kg and the electric one comes in at 16.6kg. Will says Brompton are working on this but that ‘lightness is expensive’ and makes it hard to keep the costs of the bikes down while still ensuring they are durable.

Another Country Life staffer is more matter-of-fact when I ask about their experiences: ‘I bought one two years ago and I’ve actually never used it. It’s in my attic.’ However, Mike, who works in HR in financial services, uses one every day. ‘I bought, to the best of my knowledge, the very last one that was available in London, in lockdown, before the great Brompton drought of 2020,’ he tells me.

‘It is the heaviest, worst-handling and slowest bike I've ever owned. It is also, by a margin, my favorite ever bike. It's the one that has had the most impact on how I live my life, on my quality of life. It fits in with London, because I'm in a flat, so I haven't got much room. I don't lock it outside the office. It comes in with me. I go to the pub. It comes in the pub. They're great. They are perfectly tailored for living in London.’

In Will’s eyes, the big city is unnavigable without one. ‘I think it has really, really contributed to the complete shift of how people think about cycling in London,’ he says. ‘It's so flexible, because it takes away fear — fear of the bike being stolen and fear of being stranded and not being able to go somewhere with your bike, because you can fold it up, jump on an Uber or get on a tube. Also, there's something rather joyous about the Brompton. It's very nippy and it's very agile. So we've contributed to that.’

He offers to loan me a bike so that I can try for myself. I um and err, not a confident cyclist at the best of times, and fearful of London’s roads after hearing of a friend’s dad’s life-changing accident while riding a bike in the city. ‘Life's too short. F**k it. Just do it.’ Will responds. ‘Say yes and grab the opportunity.’ With that kind of attitude, it’s undeniable that for Brompton, the only way is up as they look forward to their next 50 years of being the most useful, and funniest-looking bike in London.

The direction in which we travel is often a response to the headwinds we’re facing. At present, the geopolitical gusts feel as blustery as they’ve ever been; it’s all rather End Of Days. In times of uncertainty, comfort is found in the familiar and nowhere is this more true than in restaurants.

Chefs are downing their tweezers in favour of food that doesn’t need explaining as it’s served and even dining rooms look more like they used to: low lighting, dressed-up waiters, reassuringly crisp white tablecloths and seating that is actually comfortable. None of this is in the idle name of nostalgia or owing to a deficit of creativity, but is because it’s what diners want.

‘It’s really resonated — in fact, it’s been one of our most popular menus, with hundreds of orders in the first month alone,’ declares Jamie Shears, executive chef at Mount St Restaurant in Mayfair, London W1. He’s talking about the decidedly old-school three-course set menu he launched over the summer: prawn cocktail, a chicken vol-au-vent with mash and a slice of strawberry-swirled Arctic roll. It has gone down a storm — visiting on a Monday evening during peak holidaying-abroad season, every table was full, with some occupants visibly moved by their transportive nursery-luxe puddings.

Where did it all begin? Perhaps at Bouchon Racine, which opened in late 2022 in Farringdon, EC1, a revival in a way of a Knightsbridge favourite that closed in 2015. The man behind both is Henry Harris, a classicist cook of extraordinary talent. In a simple room of dark floorboards, white tablecloths and a blackboard menu handwritten in chalk, he offers dishes such as coarsely cut chicken-liver pâté, rabbit in mustard and côte de boeuf with a Béarnaise. The wine list is dedicated to France; there’s also lots of Armagnac and Pernod and other dangerous bits. Nothing challenging, nothing too expensive. Culinary boundaries have not been pushed. It is the sort of experience recognisable even to those whose interaction with French culture goes no further than a few reruns of ’Allo ’Allo!. Yet critics and chefs raved — top marks from The Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Standard. Accolades flew in. ‘The beauty of brown food is back at Bouchon Racine,’ declared Nigella Lawson.

Not that it ever went away at the old-guard proper, which has returned to the ascendant. Getting a table at Oslo Court, that extraordinary 1970s time capsule on the ground floor of a block of flats in St John’s Wood, NW8, requires near military levels of strategising, such is the demand for Melba toast and steak Diane. Harrogate tea room Bettys, with its unapologetically Edwardian menu of fancies and custard slices, is wildly popular on social media, as well as attracting pilgrims from all over the country to North Yorkshire. Simpson’s in the Strand, WC2, which counted both Sherlock Holmes and his creator as admirers, will soon be serving roasts on silver-domed trolleys once again under the watchful eye of Jeremy King (formerly of the Wolseley, now channelling the spirit of Le Caprice on its old site at Arlington, SW1). The Roux family’s Waterside Inn, overlooking the Thames in Bray, Berkshire, has barely changed since it first earned three Michelin stars in 1985, but it doesn’t need to.

Then there’s Sweetings, the venerable, lunch-only seafood restaurant in the City of London, EC4, which still looks much as it did when it opened in 1889, from the faded cricket-team photos and caricatures of long-forgotten dignitaries on the walls to the menu of fish pie, smoked salmon with capers, slices of brown buttered bread and absolutely no coffee or tea, only more booze. It has never been more popular: the queue seems to get going shortly after breakfast and the ‘nicotine cream’ of the walls, developed organically before the 2007 smoking ban, has been seized on by interior designers custom-mixing paint to match it. Part boarding-school dining room, part rural railway-station refectory, it’s hard to imagine anywhere less fussed by the zeitgeist, but its resistance to trend, its confidence in the old ways, has never felt more appealing. You know what you’re getting with Sweetings.

That, says Tatler restaurant critic Fay Maschler, who has assessed the scene for more than 50 years, is the point. ‘Recherché ingredients, unfamiliar spicing and exigent authenticity is not perhaps the thrill the restaurant chef and management think it is. Far too many constructs, such as small plates, service when it’s ready, tasting menus — especially tasting menus — suit the kitchen, not the customer. The annoyance is worsened when they are presented as exciting and modern.’ Her sentiments are pithily echoed by Gavin Rankin, the restaurateur behind royal favourite Bellamy’s in Mayfair, W1. ‘People are fed up: they ought to be allowed to choose what they want to eat, not what someone else thinks they ought to. When they come out from a meal, they don’t want to feel hungry and at the same time deprived of a couple of hundred quid.’

During tough times, we all look to old friends — even restaurant critics. When Jay Rayner left The Observer for the Financial Times, his debut review was an affectionate letter to Rules, WC2, London’s oldest restaurant. Both The Times and the Standard have recently written up Daquise, a Polish restaurant in South Kensington, SW7, which opened just after the Second World War. With its dumplings and borscht and dumb waiters, its appeal is legendarily wide — Jeremy Clarkson names it as a favourite — but it is also where bright young 20-somethings go to let their hair down.

Then there’s Wiltons in St James’s, SW1, founded in 1742 and on its current premises since the 1980s. It is known for its Dover sole and Stilton soufflé, for serving Meursault by the case-load and for being a kind of immersive advertisement for Turnbull & Asser shirts. Margaret Thatcher was often in. Suddenly, it’s a hit with a younger set, even doing a deal with this year’s London Fashion Week. It’s a relief nowadays to be somewhere so determinedly of the analogue world: the whole package, from the soothing hush in the dining room to the total lack of 5G signal that makes it almost impossible to plonk your phone on the table and get drawn into emails or doomy headlines.

None of the above comes as a surprise to the landlord of The Devonshire, W1, Oisin Rogers. ‘When I look at the most successful restaurants in town that have been around for a while, the dishes that people eat there really are reminiscent of classic, British, brown, delicious cooking — and the chances are, if you order something in any of those restaurants, it’s going to be really great.’

His own pub, on the edge of Soho, proves the point: a four-storey behemoth, famously booked out for months on end, its menu (hand written) opens with pea-and-ham soup and potted shrimp before moving onto the likes of hotpot and suet puddings. The building itself, which dates from 1793, has been lovingly restored to its burnished former glory.

Ground is not being broken here and yet The Devonshire may be one of the most sought-out restaurants in the country, even 18 months after opening. There’s a winning formula, which to my mind is this: food everyone might want to eat, at justifiable prices, in a room that makes you feel good. You wonder why anyone deviated from it in the first place.

'To fly a bird of prey is to enter her world. You move through the landscape using her eyes — or a dim version — thinking with her mind, seeing the world differently,’ marvels Candida Meyrick, artist, falconer and author of Be More Bird: Life Lessons from a Harris Hawk (to be published in January 2026 by William Collins). ‘Her flights reveal invisible patterns in the sky: thermals and updrafts, eddies and gusts. It’s exhilarating because of this combination of physical thrill and profound empathetic connection.’ Although the British Falconers’ Club defines falconry as ‘the traditional art of hunting quarry in its natural state and habitat by means of trained hawks’, to many, the ancient sport also seems to possess an unquantifiable magic that enraptures as powerfully as when it was first practised centuries ago.

‘The falconer witnesses an exhilarating sequence of natural events,’ says Dr Nick Fox, a renowned falconry expert and author of Hunting Ethics. ‘A rabbit is flushed, the hawk reacts and the rabbit instinctively knows a predator is after it, so it bolts. Had you shot the rabbit: “Bang!” It’s dead. The rabbit doesn’t understand the noise of the gun. Falconry offers the immense privilege of observing a battle between predator and prey matched by evolution.’

Originally a method of obtaining food, falconry has forever been a fieldsport accessible to all — think ‘an eagle for an emperor, a kestrel for a knave’. It is thought that falconry was practised in the UK as early as 670AD (‘a bit before my time,’ Nick admits) and it grew in popularity rapidly. In medieval times, the office of Royal Falconer was created and was regarded as one of the most highly ranked titles. Birds of prey became prized assets, given as gifts and used to pay fines and rent. However, with land enclosures, the development of guns and a fall from fashion, falconry saw a decline in popularity over the centuries.

It was only in the 1980s that a resurgence began, influenced by authorities on the subject such as the late Roger Upton. ‘My father was a famous falconer who wrote many books and made a film on grouse hawking, which encouraged many into the sport,’ declares his son, Mark, who has taken up the gauntlet of championing falconry through his roles in various organisations, as well as his art. ‘Not only do I aim to produce an accurate representation of a falcon, I wish it to be recognisable to the falconers who know the individual bird. Many wildlife artists have an ability to produce photorealistic paintings, but I feel that often the subject’s spirit and character is lost in the exactness.’

He is well placed to make such observations: ‘I was given my first falcon when I was 10 and my first peregrine in my early twenties. I have flown peregrines at grouse ever since. Grouse hawking takes you to some of the wildest landscapes, where you feel a closeness to Nature and understanding of the environment and quarry that few experience in a modern world. It is hard to beat the excitement of watching a peregrine you have trained stoop from 1,000ft, going more than 100mph at a grouse in its natural environment.’

The sport’s appeal is wide ranging. ‘Not everyone has a grouse moor in their backyard, so you cut your coat according to your cloth,’ Nick observes. ‘Some simply enjoy their birds in an aviary or flying their birds in displays, others race them; it is many things to many people.’

His preferred form is hunting crows in Northumberland: ‘I fly the falcon out of a hood, slipping it like an avian greyhound at the crow, which will fly to cover perhaps two miles away. We are on horseback, so we have to ride hard to get there in time. I am a whipper-snapper at 75 years old, I’ve been a master of the Northumberland Crow Falcons for 33 years and have done it since I was a boy. Many people say it’s in the blood and sometimes we have three generations out with us. With only 12 horses at each hunt, it isn’t too intimidating, which is a draw.’ One suspects another lure is the mid-afternoon stop the riders make for a cup of tea and homemade cake.

Training is a fundamental part of falconry, but requires a singular approach. ‘You can’t growl at hawks if they do something wrong, they don’t understand punishment,’ Nick says. ‘They aren’t pack animals, they don’t follow by example or dominance. The only way to train them is with positive reinforcement, which is challenging when they aren’t doing what you want. They teach humility.’ Candida concurs: ‘Falconry is a form of partnership where it is understood that your bird holds all the cards. At any moment, your bird is free to fly away and not return, so the fact that she does not do this is extremely moving.’

Before selecting a bird of prey, one must consider its purpose. Hawks have short wings and a long, broad tail and can be flown around wooded areas at a range of prey. Nick advises: ‘The average British falconer is likely to fly a Harris hawk, as it is user-friendly.’ Mark suggests the same about peregrines being the most popular in the falcon family ‘due to their temperament and ability’. With their longer wings and shorter tail, falcons require open spaces and height to stoop, and they tend to be flown at crows, rooks and gulls or used for game-hawking.

The fact the landscape is left unscathed by something so natural and low impact helps the sport’s profile. ‘Hawks don’t wound — they either catch or they don’t — and they go for anything sick or lame first. You come back proud if your bird actually gets something. Plus, you don’t leave a trace,’ Nick asserts.

However, there are still some who oppose falconry. ‘Some object to the fact that we keep falcons, but if welfare was poor the birds wouldn’t have the fitness to catch quarry,’ Mark argues. ‘Falconry techniques are also used in training raptors for vital jobs such as bird clearance at airfields and sensitive sites.’ He explains, too, that: ‘Falconers pioneered raptor breeding, which enabled reintroduction of some species, and, when the peregrine nearly became extinct in the 1950s, it was falconers who did the most to save it. It is now one of the greatest conservation successes. What we all need to be facing up to is our own impact. Our biggest problem is the damage to the environment, which means quarry species are in decline and country is disappearing.’

Protection is required elsewhere, too. Calvin Crossman may have survived a childhood of climbing trees to retrieve nesting birds for his father to perform his job as a licensed bird ringer, but he is now working in a dying trade making falconry gloves. ‘There are only two commercial glovers left in the UK and less than a handful of people that make falconry gloves. It’s on the critical list of endangered crafts, as is bell-making. I am the only commercial falconry bell-maker left in the UK, yet there is no government funding or anyone to hand these skills down to.’

However, there is much to be heartened by. In the UK, there are about 25,000 people practising falconry, a number that could soar with the current appetite for ‘a closer and deeper connection with Nature,’ Candida observes. ‘Flying a bird of prey resets your life in tune with the seasons, the weather, the climate. It reminds me of what C. S. Lewis called “the deeper magic”, the numinous connection between all living things.’

She, alongside everyone else lured by the spellbinding qualities of these birds, is certain of one thing. ‘Once you’ve fallen in love with falconry, it’s for life.’

We have all seen it. You are driving over the moor in dead winter, the snow descending unceasing; but, by the wayside, there is an Exmoor pony, or a Welsh, grazing unconcernedly. Or, you open the bedroom curtains on a January morning, the garden mummified in mortal white frost, and a tiny, fragile wren is, somehow, hopping perkily about the acacias.

How do they survive the depths of winter, the animals and the birds? Winter in Britain is variable, yes, often mild and wet, but then it soars in all its cold majesty. In English, the seasons are not capitalised, but Winter must be. Winter, with the majuscule initial, Winter with its ice and its snow. Winter when the pond freezes over with a pale ice lid, the snow builds unremittingly to the hedge top and the earth of the wheat field is cast in iron, unyielding to the beak of the rook. We humans flip up the car heating, turn around the dial of the house thermostat, shove an extra dog on the bed. Yet, the natural things outside, really, how do they survive?

They have their stratagems, the wild things. Most obviously, flee! Hence the pre-hibernal migration of our avian summer visitors, the swallow, the warbler, the cuckoo and all, southing to warmer climes, the avian Club Med, even beyond. Our resident birds are also cognisant of the evasion manoeuvre, the flight before the white storm, with the curlew gliding down on its long wings from high moor to low coast, a continental difference in climate — the seashore rarely freezes.

Smaller birds, the passerines, the finches and the larks, may join travelling bands to stay in front of the talons of the wind, constantly alighting, pecking for food. Winter, after all, has two killing claws: the cold and the lack of food, both of them requiring dressing in initial capitals like Winter itself. These are Hypothermia and its handmaiden Famine.

If you can’t run, you can hide. Burrow, shelter. The badger (Meles meles) goes down, deep down, some 12ft under the earth into its sett, where the air temperature will be within the range of 6˚C to 19˚C, whatever Winter is doing above ground. As the Inuit know, snow itself is a surprisingly excellent insulator and the ptarmigan grouse (Lagopus) is a possessor of the same secret. The bird duly scratches itself a snow cave, a little igloo, in which to rest safe. Queen wasps chew their way into the hollow stem of hogweed, where they may share Winter quarters with other insects, such as earwigs. Winter doth strange bedfellows make.

Reptiles and amphibians will bury themselves under stones, under leaf litter, under a log pile, where they will enter a period of low metabolic function, reducing body temperature and heart rate to conserve energy. They will be intermittently active. The scientists term this half-asleep state ‘brumation’. Some adult male common frogs (Rana temporaria) will spend Winter down in the detritus in the bottom of the pond — a risky strategy, as smaller ponds can freeze over, causing an oxygen shortage and the frog perishes, suffocating unnoticed under the ice sheet.

Hibernation, simply sleeping the Winter away to avoid the hard, hungry times is the option of only three British mammals: the bat family, the hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) and the hazel dormouse (Muscardinus avellanarius). Hibernate is derived from Latin hibernationem, ‘the action of passing the winter’, but dry words fail to convey the mystery of the suspended animation by which the tiny dormouse can sleep soundly for more than half a year by reducing its metabolism by 90% or the hedgehog drop its heartbeat from 190 per minute to 20 during its long lethargy. Bats chill out so much during hibernation that they may be kept in a fridge, although a more usual winter roost is the church steeple, cottage attic or hollow tree. During hibernation, they take only five breaths per minute.

The prerequisite for hibernation is gorging beforehand, turning the body into a larder, so it can live off the fat. Hedgehogs pig out in autumn, fattening up by half a pound. The dormouse doubles down on food, doubling its weight. As the dormouse is, the British mammals that hibernate to avoid the hard, hungry times are insect-eaters, or part-insect eaters; in Winter, the huzz and buzz of the insects is all but gone, replaced by the sound of silence.

Fattening up on autumn’s fruits and food to survive compassionless Winter is a familiar for many, not only the true hibernators. Badgers do it for their ‘torpors’, their short semi-hibernal snoozes. The grey seal puts on fat as insulation to see the grim, grey season at sea through, yet remains as flippery active as ever. The blubber of the grey seal in Winter can be more than 4in thick. Moles and shrews, meanwhile, get through the lean times by getting lean. They shrink themselves, with Moley reducing body size by up to 11%. Sorex araneus, the common shrew, can decrease its skull by 20%. The diminutive creature’s organs are likewise contracted. The less the body, the less the energy required.

Insulation is the key trick of numerous stick-it-outs. The fox grows denser fur to trap air against its skin. Getting hairy is also the method of the ponies of the high country, such as the aforementioned Exmoor and Welsh. (The old breeds of pony have redoubtable innards, too, able to thrive on iron rations, such as bramble, much as deer do.) ‘Rugging up’ is not restricted to the wild and the feral. Utterly domestic lap dogs do it, leaving you with much hoovering when they shed this surplus fur in spring. The primitive breeds of sheep, such as Herd-wicks and Hebrideans, possess two coats, a protective, coarse outer jacket and a cosy inner. The blizzards of Winter roll off their backs, as the fine underwool keeps them snug. There are stories of Herdwicks being buried in snowdrifts for a fortnight yet surviving.

All our birds will fluff up their feathers to trap a layer of insulating air; a birdy duvet coat. The downy feathers of the eider duck (Somateria mollissima), an especially efficacious insulation, has been used for more than 1,000 years for bedding, hence ‘eiderdown’ as synonym for quilt. In cold weather, birds can often be seen tucking their heads and bills into the warmer layer of air under their back feathers. Breathing in this warmer air maintains their body temperature more efficiently. Also, birds of feather huddling together helps keep them warm in inclemency. Usually, wrens are highly territorial birds, but will roost communally should the mercury of the thermometer drop dangerously. The overnight record for the most wrens roosting together is 61, found in a single nestbox in Norfolk in 1969. Some wildfowl, meanwhile, have a trick up their legs, a counter-current heat-exchange system whereby warm arterial blood and cold venous blood pass each other closely in legs and feet. The result is that the birds’ feet and the external cold are near equivalent in temperature. Paradoxically, this reduces the risk of frostbite. It is why the tootsies of the mallards and pintails resting on the frozen surface of the lake do not fall off.

If Winter brings death, death itself is a survival strategy. The insects are masters of this, with the colonies of the social wasps, hornets included, dying off in autumn as food supplies diminish. The only survivors are the queens. All for one and all for one is their motto. Yet, the species lives on in the shape of the one and only queen. In contrast to this ultra-Darwinism, hive bees stay active, sustained by calorific honey. Clustering around the queen bee, they maintain her ambient temperature at about 35˚C, the workers constantly rotating to share the duty and give all a chance against the creeping-in cold.

Insects have existed for 480 million years, seen the Ice Ages come and go. They know the fantastic ways to endure Winter. There is metamorphosis, with the fleshy butterfly caterpillar making a hard-shelled chrysalis in which to mature safely, and there is producing glycerol to prevent water in the body turning to ice crystals. Brimstone, small tortoiseshell and peacock butterflies all wing it through winter as adults on Nature’s own antifreeze. The Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus) similarly employs ‘antifreeze glycoproteins’ to allow it to swim in frigid depths of the North Atlantic where few other fishy creatures dare go.

Spare a thought for the common black slug (Arion ater) when you look out on the garden this winter to see white death has come. The mollusc boasts no magical fluid, no super-insulation and no great reserve of fat. Its preference in Winter is for dark shelter, a crack in the ground, a crevice under rock. Sometimes, however, when Winter arrives, Arion ater is caught out in the open. Yet it will survive being literally half-frozen to death at -1˚C for two days, then come back to life. The slug slugs it out with Winter.

This feature originally appeared in the November 12, 2025 issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

When Shakespeare rhapsodised about these isles as ‘a blessed plot’, he could have had our happy lack of dangerous animals in mind. We have only one poisonous snake, the adder (Vipera berus) — Northern Ireland is free even of this serpent — and the surrounding silver sea is devoid of the sort of sharks that bite you in two. Having found bears unbearable, we removed them from the scene. The packs of wolves were similarly sent packing.

Yes, savage and life-threatening animals are luckily found ‘abroad’… or perhaps not. Out there in the non-wilds of Britain exist potentially lethal creatures. Some, such as domestic dogs, could be said to be hiding in plain view; in 2023–24, there were 16 deaths in England and Wales due to canine attacks (the wolf’s revenge, perhaps).

Other could-be killers lurk, hidden or camouflaged. The lesser weever fish (Echiichthys vipera), which has needle-sharp, venomous spines, secretes itself in the shallow, sandy beach waters so pleasant to paddle about in; the yellow-tailed scorpion (Tetratrichobothrius flavicaudis) lives in the dark cracks of walls of buildings. A scorpion? In Britain? Yes: a poisonous scorpion. The stingy-appendaged thing is an invasive species, an accidental import. One can introduce trouble into Eden. Then there are the mislabelled. Horseflies (Tabanidae) do not restrict themselves to biting equids and, although they rarely cause human death directly, they do spread diseases such as rabbit fever. Despite the ‘rabbit’ in the name of the disease, and the ‘horse’ in the nomenclature of the insect vector, tularemia is a life-threatening illness for humans.

The British countryside, pace Shakespeare, is overwhelmingly a safe space. Enjoy it, but respect Nature and give some species a wide berth — such as this dangerous dozen.

Sting in the tail

A confirmed resident in England and Wales, the Asian hornet’s (Vespa velutina) greatest threat is to the honeybee population — it kills up to 50 honeybees a day to feed its nest’s carnivorous young. The insect’s stinger is a whopping ¼in long, a positive insectoid syringe, and for anyone allergic to venom from the Vespidae family (which includes wasps and bees) an attack could be fatal. They also happen to be notoriously bad tempered, waspish even, when interrupted doing their housework. There have been numerous fatalities across the Channel from Asian hornet stings, too — including that of a Normandy gardener, Laurent Duval, last year.

A freak from the deep

Named, aptly, after a type of old warship, the Portuguese man o’war (Physalia physalis) is a convincingly menacing marine creature, really quite the Jules Verne. The animal’s poisonous tentacles can reach 100ft in length and oft the beast comes not singly, but in armadas 1,000 strong. The sting causes rashes, fever and, rarely, death. Although resembling a jellyfish, the animal is in fact a siphonophore: a colony of specialised clones with various forms and functions, from feeding to reproduction, all working together as one. The oddity of the thing makes it that tad more unnerving. The global warming of our surrounding sea is making Blighty an increasingly attractive destination for Physalia physalis.

The (potential) widow-maker

False widow spiders (Steatoda grossa) may not be as life threatening as true black widow spiders, but their fangs can still give a nasty — and venomous — nip. A non-native species, which arrived in fruit crates from the Canary Islands in the 1880s, the eight-legged creepy-crawly has a distinctive bulbous abdomen that sometimes possesses a skull-like pattern, appositely. Although no lethal bites have been recorded in the UK, in 2012 a woman nearly lost her hand after too close an encounter with the arachnid.

A pain in the foot

Sea urchins (Echinus) live in the coastal shallows, where they feast on whatever floats towards them. Related to sea cucumbers and starfish, their intriguing remains, globes of delicate shell, are often washed up and sold in souvenir shops. When alive, however, their long spines are rather effective at puncturing human feet. Should such an eventuality occur, it is worth hopping along to A&E. The sting is, in rare cases, deadly — but it is always painful and some pain-killing may be required.

Hiss off, or else

It would be an exaggeration to say that the adder’s (Vipera berus) hiss is worse than its bite, but our only venomous snake is a shy, retiring thing and only bares its fangs when disturbed — such as you mistakenly treading on it. About 50 to 100 people are bitten annually. Since records began in 1876, there have been only 14 reported deaths from adder bites in the UK and no adder-related demises since 1975. Biting incidents occur chiefly in early spring, when the snake wakes from its winter torpor and is, to be frank, a bit slow on the uptake, or in summer, when it likes to snoozily sunbathe. We must give credit where it is due, however, as no other reptile has brought a British kingdom to ruins. Warned in a dream to avoid confrontation with usurper Mordred’s army, King Arthur tried negotiation. During the talks, according to the Stanzaic Morte Arthur of about 1350: ‘An adder glode forth upon the ground;/He stang a knight, that men might sen/That he was seke and full unsound./Out he brayed with sworde bright;/To kill the adder had he thought…’

Arthur’s party, seeing a sword flash in sunshine, mistakenly believed themselves attacked. Thus ended the life of King Arthur and 100,000 knights in a legendary bloodbath, due to the bite of a single adder and the confusion its slaying caused. Hedgehogs, incidentally, have a degree of natural resistance to snake venom, which handily allows them to hunt adders — making Mrs Tiggy-Winkle a bit of a femme fatale herself.

Killer cows

For a decade or more, Bos taurus has been in the dock because of its methane ‘emissions’ (or, in Anglo-Saxon, its farts), which warm the atmosphere, inducing climate change. As every country person knows, charging cows with responsibility for the End Times was always daft and science is increasingly letting Ermintrude off the gallows. It’s the how, not the cow. Cattle on old-fashioned outdoor grazing are doing more climate good than harm.

Now the rub. Cows in fields really can be B-movie horror stuff. According to the Health and Safety Executive, between 2017 and 2022 cattle killed 32 people in England alone. An average Holstein Friesian, an entirely average cow, weighs 1,700lb, so when it charges and tramples, it becomes a bovine armoured car. Cows are extremely protective of their herd. Accordingly, cows will charge and trample any person perceived as a threat: notably farmers, veterinary workers and members of the public walking through their pasture. Remember this: Daisy, despite her apparent docility, really, really does not like dogs. You may think that Fido is a darling pooch, as he accompanies you on your wander through a cowfield, but the cows see ‘wolf’, and activate their pre-domesticated state of auroch, entering herd-protective mode. Anyone taking a dog into the midst of cows is asking for an express ticket from the gene pool. A cow’s top speed is an udderly fantastic 25mph. That’s faster than Usain Bolt. Are you?

Oh, deer

When speaking of dangerous animals, Bambi’s mummy and daddy probably do not come leaping to mind. After all, she is a doe-eyed beauty; he is a majestic mountain-top Landseer figure in antlered headgear. They are also dense flesh and bone. Thus, by simple physics they make a considerable obstacle when encountered by a travelling car on a prosaic road. A fallow deer (Dama dama) buck weighs in at 176lb. Although cows kill more people one-on-one, some 200 deer and car collisions occur each day, leading to 20 annual deaths. Alas, none of Britain’s six deer species seemingly attended The Tufty Club. Peak danger periods are May, when young males leave the herd, and the autumn rutting season, when deer are on the move and, frankly, their minds are on things removed from how to traverse tarmac and avoid a moving mass of metal. Top Country Life tip: deer are social animals, so the first deer crossing the road in the car headlights is likely to be followed by more.

A critter to get ticked off about

Ticks (Ixodida) are tiny parasitic arachnids that, Dracula-style, attach to warm-blooded animals and suck out haemoglobin until full. The list of the tick’s victims includes us humans. Ticks are deadly, as they spread tick-borne encephalitis and Lyme disease. The latter can cause, inter alia, cardiac attack and partial paralysis (about 1,000–2,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year in the UK). Ticks can also disseminate other diseases, including Q fever. A tick’s modus operandi is to lurk on long grass or low vegetation, meaning knee-height for humans. Conclusion: in affected areas, put the trews on when walking.

The tail end

Common stingrays (Dasyatis pastinaca), which are ubiquitous around our coastlines and especially in England, can reach 5ft across and weigh 80lb. Which, should one happen to meet the fishy thing when swimming in the briny, may frighten a person to death. Less fancifully, the stingray is called such for the good reason that it has a barbed and venomous tail that, when whipped around defensively, can pierce human skin. The Australian celebrity conservationist Steve Irwin was fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray in 2006.

A plague on all our houses

Historically, the real contender for most dangerous organism ever extant in these isles is Yersinia pestis. That is: the cause of the Black Death. Between 1348 and 1350, the plague killed an estimated one-third to half of Britain’s population, roughly 2–3 million people. There were subsequent pandemics caused by the bacterium, transmitted principally via fleas and rats, most notably the Great Plague of 1665–66. Thankfully, plague is currently absent from Britain, although active abroad, and sometimes in unsuspected locations. In July of this year, there was a plague death in Arizona, US. Advanced civilisation is not always the bastion one hopes — a small, if harsh, lesson from Nature.

Hair-raising stuff

Few caterpillars in Britain pose a problem to humans, but the oak processionary moth caterpillar (Thaumetopoea processionea) is the exception to the rule. When touched, the caterpillar’s toxic hairs may cause vomiting, rashes, breathing difficulties and other allergic reactions. The larvae can release the hairs intentionally as a defence mechanism. The oak processionary is a non-native pest, accidentally introduced from southern Europe in 2005. As the creature’s moniker indicates, it lives in oaks and moves about in creepy, nose-to-tail processions.

Tiddles, the furr-ocious mass murderer of urbia

Let’s not be human-centric in evaluating Britain’s most dangerous creatures. If one were a bird or small mammal, you’d probably cite the domestic cat as the national killer sans pareil. Research suggests that Felis domesticus, of which there are at least 9.5 million specimens in the country, kills up to 270 million wild animals annually, a quarter of them our beloved tweety feathery things — which is cat-a-strophic.

This feature originally appeared in the November 5 2025, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

On Bonfire Night, Country Life hosted a party at 14, Savile Row, to launch this year's edition of Gentleman's Life. The building once housed the atelier of Sir Hardy Amies, dressmaker to Elizabeth II, and now operates as Hackett's Bespoke townhouse, J P Hackett, where customers can choose every detail of their suit from fabric, styling, lining and trims.

The party welcomed esteemed guests such as Dafydd Jones, Harold Tillman, Viscountess Newport and Caroline Michel, as well as friends of the magazine the Hon George Plumptre, William Hanson, Katy Hessel and Sophia Money-Coutts. Historians Alice Loxton and Honor Cargill-Martin, along with comedians Max Fosh and Luke Millington-Drake, also joined in the festivities, with canapés courtesy of Elliot Grover of 45 Park Lane and cocktails served by Savile Row Gin.

The party marked the ten-year anniversary of Gentleman's Life and it was, fittingly, a party for the ages. 'Why don't you throw these every week?' Harold asked. Speeches were given by Jeremy Hackett, the brand's founder, and Country Life editor-in-chief Mark Hedges, with guests partying late into the night.

Are you a true gentleman? Click here to take the Country Life quiz to find out.

For 21 years, the Georgian Group Architectural Awards have celebrated the very best of Georgian style, lauding those who have demonstrated the vision and commitment to restore Georgian buildings and landscapes, as well as celebrating those who have created new work in the spirit of the Georgian era.

Last night, the winners were recognised in a ceremony at the Inner Temple in London, with awards presented by Country Life Architectural Editor John Goodall. Projects spanned the country from Durham to Dorset, and include a folly, a Wren church, and the 21st-century renaissance of one England's finest stately homes. What's not to love.

'This year’s shortlisted projects were of unusually high quality and this made the judging process as challenging as it was enjoyable,' Dr Goodall said. 'It has been a great privilege to meet the figures behind these incredibly varied projects — the common theme is their absolute determination to get things right through painstaking research and the highest standards of craftsmanship, materials and design.'

Without further fanfare, here are this year's eight winners.

Restoration of a Georgian Building in a Landscape: Beckford's Tower, Bath

Leaking, inaccessible, with outdated interpretation and only one display case, prior to practical completion in March 2025, Beckford’s Tower was failing to reach its potential as a museum and had been added to Historic England’s At Risk Register. The sensitive yet ambitious 'Our Tower' project, saw the small Beckford’s Tower team not only restore the Tower, but also open up the landscape, uncover a hidden grotto, restore a subterranean Vault, decolonialise the interpretation, and incorporate solar panels and air source heat pumps.

Restoration of a Georgian Country House: Gorhambury House, Hertfordshire

Gorhambury House (1777–84), designed by Sir Robert Taylor, is a Grade II*-listed Palladian villa, raised on a high basement storey and approached up a flight of steps. A product of the Grand Tour, it contains chimneypieces incorporating 'antique' panels acquired from Piranesi. The house also contains a comprehensive collection of portraits dedicated to the Grimston family, ranging from the 15th century to the present day.

The awarded project has resulted in the repair and conservation of the whole house and reuse of the main block as a vibrant home for this young family and its guests in the 21^st century. Throughout, the work has been led by Conservation Planning to ensure that the significance of the listed building was revealed and enhanced. Historic archives at the house and in the county record office were researched. Authenticity of design, materials and workmanship have been guiding principles in the refurbishment of Gorhambury.

Restoration of a Georgian Interior: The Tapestry Drawing Room, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire

The new Tapestry Drawing Room at Castle Howard is a completely new architectural treatment to a room that was destroyed by fire in 1940 and had been left as an empty shell of charred stonework ever since. The brief was to restore the room to what the architect of the house Sir John Vanbrugh would have created and to incorporate the four Vanderbank tapestries which were designed and woven for the room in 1706. The architect Francis Terry worked in collaboration with interior designers Alec Cobbe and Remy Renzullo to realise this vision.

Care has been taken to use traditional materials and techniques where possible. All architectural elements of the project were hand drawn by Francis Terry at full size. Unusually, the room uses on-site run plasterwork made in the traditional way, rather than fibrous plaster made off site.

Restoration of a Georgian Building in an Urban Setting: St Stephen Walbrook, City of London

The current Grade I-listed Church of St Stephen Walbrook was constructed after the Great Fire of London destroyed the earlier medieval church on the site. Designed by Christopher Wren, it is a masterpiece of his City Churches.

Following the construction of an adjacent building in the 2010s, the Church Warden noted crack propagation to the external elevations, the western end of the nave, and internally in the tower. Following extensive monitoring and investigation, structural repairs and cosmetic remediation to areas of structural damage began in 2024 — along with other necessary repair and maintenance works, as identified in the Quinquennial Report, to make use of the scaffold access provision and the necessary closure period. These works have relied on the traditional skills and knowledge of the entire design team. In particular, the involvement of craftspeople skilled in traditional lime plaster and stonemasonry was crucial to realise the repairs sensitively.

Re-Use of a Georgian Building: The Rising and Gardens at Raby Castle, County Durham

Raby Castle’s magnificent suite of 18th century equestrian buildings has been fully restored as part of a wider regeneration project. Over the last two years three beautiful, but neglected, buildings have been given a future. The Grade II* listed Coach House and Stables by John Carr of York, originally housing carriage horses, carriages and grooms' accommodation, had latterly become a cramped café and shop display accommodation. The Riding School had been neglected, used only to provide cover for events in inclement weather. Finally, the Grade II* listed Dutch barn, a hidden architectural gem, has been saved from dereliction after falling out of use for over a century.

New Building in a Georgian Context: Hardwicke Court, Gloucestershire

Hardwicke Court is a Grade II*-listed country house by Sir Robert Smirke, built 1818–20 for the Lloyd-Baker family (who continue to live there). The winning project covers the family and back of house areas of the house and the rear estate yard, all of which were tired and in degrees of disrepair.

At the rear of the main house, two rooms were opened up to form a family kitchen and eating rooms, with new architect-designed joinery. These open through existing openings extended to the ground into a new garden room extension at the side of the house. Built in local Bath stone ashlar, the extension takes its scale from the house and design cues from Smirke’s spare detailing. Full height glazing sits independently behind the stone façade, expressing layers of history.

The Diaphoros Prize: Poundbury (Phase III), Dorset

Designing a town in the spirit of the Georgian era — made up of numerous Classically-inspired houses and public buildings — is inevitably far more complex than designing an individual building. It is perhaps the greatest challenge for traditional architects, and one which draws on all aspects of architectural and urban design expertise. The north-east and Northern Quadrants at Poundbury, which make up phase 3 of the development, were commissioned by the Duchy of Cornwall, within the masterplan by Leon Krier.

This phase extends from Queen Mother Square at the heart of the development to the ancient Poundbury Hillfort. Phase 3 has been undertaken as a close collaboration between George Saumarez Smith of ADAM Architecture and Ben Pentreath of Ben Pentreath Studio working closely with the builders CG Fry, Morrish Homes, and Places For People.

The Giles Worsley Award for Work in the Spirit of the Georgian Era: Newnham Paddox, Warwickshire

Newnham Paddox is one of the oldest of English country seats. The estate remains the home of Alex and Susie Feilding, the Earl and Countess of Denbigh & Desmond, and their young family. A house was first constructed on the site in the 16th century. This building was likely timber-framed and later rebuilt in brick. It was replaced by a new house in 1768 designed by Capability Brown to sit within his landscaped parkland. The house was enlarged by Thomas Henry Wyatt and eventually demolished in 1952. A temporary house was erected on the site in 1982 but, by 2016, its replacement was urgent.

Following an architectural competition in 2017, Giles Quarme Architects (GQA) was selected to design a new house to a tight budget, suitable for modern living, but with enough traditional presence to sit within the context of an historic and established Capability Brown parkland. Julian Cripps, senior designer at GQA, was responsible for the design of the new house which is far more compact than its historic predecessors (seven bays to Brown’s eleven) and sits in front of the old foundations for archaeological reasons.

Thanks to its respectful scale and allusive architecture, the new house fills the void created by the loss of the 19th-century house while responding sensitively to setting.

Bonfire Night is tomorrow, but in Sussex, things have been whizz-banging since September. Unofficially, bonfire season kicked off in Uckfield (a town known for its large torchlight procession) with the Carnival on September 6, and will wrap up on November 22, when the villages of Robertsbridge and Barcombe set their Guys alight.

All in all, there are more than 30 bonfire celebrations throughout Sussex (mostly in East Sussex), staging nights of performative civil disobedience and protest while collecting money for local charities. Plenty of residents attend and even march in more than one event. If you liked, you could spend the autumn here doing next to nothing else.

When my family first moved from London to Firle, a small estate village in the South Downs National Park, at the end of the summer in 2020, we joined the Firle Bonfire Society (£10 per person, per annum; pick up your button at the pub) the same way you might join the community WhatsApp group. That is to say, without a lot of thought. We were in the dark about what, exactly, the society did, right up until the night in question, when the drums started beating, and hundreds of people in wide-ranging traditional costumes, their flaming torches and crosses held aloft, started congregating in front of the village shop. The atmosphere was upbeat and broadly anti-authority: a mass of focused participants, wearing costumes to represent historical rabble-rousers. There were smugglers in stripy tops (probably the most popular bonfire costume, in this seaside county), American revolutionary war soldiers, pirates, and Romans in the mix. The spirit of it was catching. We’ve attended every year since.

The biggest and best known bonfire night in Sussex, probably in all of Britain, is held in the medieval, earthy-crunchy market town of Lewes. The annual event has been running since 1795, but really began to pick up steam in the mid 19th century, following a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment (Pope Paul V, the leader of the Catholic church during the Gunpowder Plot, remains a popular effigy today, and gets blown up in Lewes most years; some bonfire societies still march beneath signs reading ‘No Popery’). Like other bonfire celebrations, Lewes commemorates the thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot, but it also pays tribute to the Lewes Martyrs — 17 protestants who were burned alive in the town during the reign of Queen Mary I in the 1550s — adding some local lore to the festivities. The event almost always takes place on November 5, unless that date falls on a Sunday. Locally, people will tell you it’s the only proper Guy Fawkes night left. Elsewhere, people might say it’s a tricky occasion to parse from the outside: full of fire and hollering, vaguely Pagan, expansively anti-establishment, sometimes intimidating in press photos — more so than it is in real life.

While most participating villages have a single bonfire society, Lewes is home to seven different bonfire societies, each with their own history, costumes and allegiances (and occasionally, rivalries). Each of the seven societies builds an effigy of their choosing, which is often kept under wraps until the 5^th. The effigies are larger-than-life symbolic figures of real people, or sometimes objects, paraded through the streets before jeering crowds and then set on fire. Pope Paul V and Guy Fawkes are mainstays, and other effigies vary from year to year, influenced by events in the UK and across the world. In the past, effigies have been made for plenty of British prime ministers, Jeremy Clarkson, Donald Trump, and Kim Jong-un, among many others. Last year, Nigel Farage was depicted clutching a pint and a cigarette, holding a lead latched to two male rioters wearing dog collars; Paula Vennells, the disgraced former CEO of the Post Office, cruised down the high street atop a Royal Mail van.

An estimated 40,000 people assembled in Lewes for the festivities in 2024, and this year, as is now custom, the Sussex police and various emergency services groups have issued a joint statement asking out-of-towners to stay away: ‘We ask that you do not attend Lewes Bonfire unless you are local,’ the statement reads, ‘because the crowds and narrow streets can present unique safety challenges.’ Today, trains from London won’t stop at the stations nearest to Lewes, and roads in the vicinity will close. If you happen to be nearby, you’ll see cars parked alongside the A27, left by revellers who hoofed it the rest of the way. By necessity, in other words, Lewes will pull up the drawbridge. But the silver lining? Bonfire night, around here, will stay as strange and exuberant as it ever was.

The English have a rich tradition of inventing things and then not using them properly, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in our football team.

Association Football, to give it its proper title, was created alongside the Football Association in 1863, with 13 laws ratified at the Freemason’s Tavern on Great Queen Street in London. In terms of international success for England, it has been mostly downhill since then, apart from in 1966, when Bobby Moore held the Jules Rimet trophy aloft at Wembley Stadium in front of 98,000 fans and millions more watching at home.

Moore almost had nothing to hold, after the trophy was stolen in March of that year, but thankfully it was later found and recovered by David Corbett and his dog, Pickles.

Back to the football. For the first and only time, England were world champions, having defeated Mexico, France, Argentina, Portugal and, famously, West Germany on their way to victory. The players — Moore, Alan Ball, Bobby and Jack Charlton, Roger Hunt, Nobby Stiles, Gordon Banks, manager Alf Ramsey and hat-trick hero Geoff Hurst — have been immortalised. Many can still hear Kenneth Wolstenholme’s famous call in the 120th minute: ‘Here comes Hurst… some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over. It is now!’ In Germany, it is still a matter of public record that, for Hurst’s second goal, ‘the ball never crossed the line’.

Moore went on to receive 108 caps for England, a record for an outfield player that stood until 2009, when it was surpassed by a right-footed midfielder named David Robert Joseph Beckham — the middle name ‘Robert’ had been borrowed from Sir Robert ‘Bobby’ Charlton, the favourite footballer of the young player’s father.

Since 1966, the legacy has been one of disappointment: penalty misses, the ‘Hand of God’, red cards and goals that never were. Chasing the heights of World Cup glory will never cease, however, and, next summer, 60 years after ‘Football Came Home’, Harry Kane and 10 others will be hoping once again to reach the summit of footballing glory. We will be watching.

This feature appears in the October 2, 2025, issue of Country Life, edited by Sir David Beckham. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.

Art reigns supreme in London this week with the return of Frieze London (contemporary art) and Frieze Masters (dedicated to art made before 2000) — both of which take place in Regent’s Park. The two shows see more than 160 galleries coming together to exhibit artwork spanning 6,000 years, from antiquity to present day. There are also a myriad supporting exhibitions, sales and events taking place across the capital.

It’s a lot to keep track of, so here’s what you need to know — and don’t want to miss.

The Mount Street Neighbourhood Arts Festival

The Mayfair festival — organised to coincide with Frieze — has returned for a second year (until October 18) This year’s iteration shines a spotlight on the world of books with a series of talks and performances designed to explore the relationship between art and literature.

Highlights include a Fitzcarraldo Editions pop-up at 95, Mount Street (above), selling limited edition books, contemporary fiction, long-form essays and exclusive merchandise, a chance to meet Métier founder Melissa Morris at Farm Shop Wine Bar (64, Audley Street) and the launch of Nordic Knots’s six month pop-up residency at 130, Mount Street.

In Chelsea, Sloane Street, the art fair’s first-ever ‘Destination Partner’ has unveiled an outdoor sculpture trail — mere months after work finished on major pedestrianisation works.

Sotheby’s live auction of exceptional and rare works

More than three quarters of the works going under the hammer in Sotheby’s London Frieze auctions have never been exhibited before. They include four works by Francis Bacon and Auguste Rodin, held together in the same private collection for nearly a half century.

Seventeen of David Hockney’s iPad drawings — last shown together at the Royal Academy in 2012 — are currently on display in one of the auction house’s New Bond Street galleries and will go up for sale on October 17.

The combined value of all of the masterpieces going up for sale this week is more than £200 million.

dunhill’s Curator and Speakers Programme

The third iteration of dunhill’s Curator and Speaker Programme — which unite artists, curators, writers and more in conversation with one another — might be their best yet.

Tonight (Wednesday, October 16), writer and historian William Dalrymple is joined by Susan Stronge, senior curator of the V&A Museum’s Asian Department; on Friday, October 17 Tracey Emin, who needs little introduction, will sit down with Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum; and on the Saturday, Antony Gormley will strike up a conversation with Arturo Galansino, director of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.

Each conversation is going to be recorded and released in podcast format, starting in November.

The fair itself

A trip to the gargantuan white tents covering Regent’s Park is obviously a must. There is: ‘Focus’, the section of the fair dedicated to young galleries and ‘Artist to Artist’, solo presentations of works by artists selected by their peers, plus, one of our favourite stands of 2025: Ben Brown Fine Arts who are exhibiting a flock of François-Xavier Lalanne’s famous, life-size sheep sculptures.

While you’re in London…

There are lots of other exhibitions on right now in the capital that have nothing to do with Frieze.

If you catch anything this week it should be The Hayward Gallery’s exhibition ‘21ST CENTURY PICTURES’. The celebration of duo, and couple, Gilbert & George’s work is truly unmissable.

The pair have been working together for over 50 years and are trailblazers when it comes to British contemporary art. Drawing on themes such as homosexuality, politics and London’s East End, their large-scale works provoke awe, surprise, laughter and, at times, melancholy.

No one does it better, or in a bolder fashion, than Gilbert & George. One of the pieces on display is titled: ‘Ha-ha’ and another ‘White Bastards’, making the show worth a visit for this alone — especially considering that the two artists are now in their later years and look hilariously ordinary when compared to their extraordinary works.

Nicknamed the ‘The King of Vogue’, Cecil Beaton was renowned in the 20th century for his illustrations, costume designs and portrait photography, but ‘Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World’ at the National Portrait Gallery, is the first solely dedicated to his contributions to the world of fashion.

It features portraits of some of the biggest names in show business including Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. Oh, and Elizabeth II.

‘Peter Doig: House of Music’ at the Serpentine gallery is free to visit and explores the role music and film have played in the artist’s practice. The gallery has been transformed into a listening space, forcing sound and artwork to interact which makes for an immersive experience. Music selected by the artist, to match his landscapes, plays out on vintage sound systems. It looks — and sounds — fabulous.

For 12 years, it has been impossible to get a reservation at Carbone. That is, unless you know the chef, the maître d’ or the person on the door who turns away the blaggers. The famed New York restaurant, which serves linguini vongole and spaghetti puttanesca under the heading ‘macaroni’, has welcomed Leonardo DiCaprio and Barack Obama and has outposts in Miami and Hong Kong. It is now the toast of London, where it opened two weeks ago at No 30, Grosvenor Square, instantly cementing itself as one of the most talked-about restaurants in the city.

The menu of Italian-American classics is almost irrelevant. People queue for the vibe. Within the same block as the restaurant is the Chancery Rosewood, the latest addition to London’s luxury hotel scene in what has been described as the year’s buzziest opening.

The site is of historic significance: it was formerly home to the American Embassy, which moved to new, bomb-proof premises in Nine Elms in 2018. Just down the road is Lombard House, one of Mayfair’s grandest buildings, erected in 1901 — then, it was known as Sunderland House — for America’s most notorious dollar princess, Consuelo Vanderbilt.

Anglo-American relations have long proved fertile ground for storytellers. Yet the USA’s current obsession with Britain feels close to reaching the high it did in 2001, when American students flocked to St Andrews, Fife, in the hope of meeting Prince William. Netflix enjoyed huge success this summer with My Oxford Year, in which an American student falls head over heels for a British PhD candidate amid the dreaming spires. Only months before, the streamer scored big with Lena Dunham’s Too Much, in which a loud and mouthy New Yorker moves to London for work.

In the real world, too, there’s something in the air. A century or so after the Vanderbilts first laid claim to Mayfair, their present-day counterparts are doing the same. Much has been written about wealthy Americans buying up the British countryside: last month, music moguls Beyoncé and Jay-Z were said to be eyeing up a house in the village of Great Tew. Twenty minutes down the road is the Cotswold outpost of Restoration Hardware, an American home-furnishings company that took over Aynhoe Park, a Sir John Soane-designed building, last year. Yet it is in the capital, more than anywhere else, that a cavalcade of expatriates is putting glitter and gold back into our wealthiest districts.

It is a tale as old as America itself. From Newport to San Diego, our cousins across the pond have long romanticised the green and pleasant land from whence their forefathers came. They see a country whose customs, no matter how quixotic or dated, they are still inextricably bound to; the home of picnics, sweeping lawns and Harry Potter. This enthusiasm reached fever pitch after President Trump was re-elected last November: applications for British citizenship by US citizens increased by 40% in the last quarter of 2024.

‘There are more Americans buying now than at any other point in my career,’ says Charles Leigh, sales director of luxury developments The Whiteley, and 60 Curzon, who has worked in the London property sector for 30 years. In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Americans were ‘snapping up London mansions like never before’. Although the sale of high-end homes dropped this year after the Government closed a tax loophole on non-domiciled residents, American clients appeared unscathed. They now form the largest demographic of overseas buyers in the capital, accounting for one-quarter of prime purchases in 2025 — up from 18% two years ago, according to data from Beauchamp Estates.

Americans have historically bought in Chelsea; the 2001 population census showed that 6.53% of SW3 and SW10 residents were born in the USA. In the 2021 census, that figure dropped to 4%, a sign that American buyers were starting to look elsewhere. Notting Hill has proven especially popular with the latest wave. In the luxury market, Charles says there are two kinds of buyers: ‘the guys who turn up to a viewing in sneakers, jeans and a T-shirt’, who are more likely to buy in west London and ‘those who show up in an immaculately tailored suit with a tie, pocket square or a couture outfit’, who are more likely to buy in Mayfair.

Among the many developments targeting Americans the same way Russians were once courted for penthouses is the Reuben brothers’ Piccadilly Estate, a £1 billion project across some 1¼ acres of Mayfair, and the residences at The Peninsula in Belgravia. The penthouse there has reportedly been snapped up for £100 million by American hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin. ​​

US citizens are moving to Britain for three reasons: a desire for political stability, cultural entente and fiscal advantages. For many, these are overlapping categories, so contiguous in some cases that the Venn diagram is more of an eclipse. The first reason is straightforward: there is a genuine concern about the direction American politics is taking. The second reason also makes sense: Americans see great value in Englishness and can be more Anglophile than the English themselves. The third reason is more surprising, given America’s exceptional economic resilience.

Britain, we often hear, is in a deleterious state with stagnant growth, uncompetitive salaries and dwindling international influence. Yet to the wealthy American expatriate, our country offers greater thrills than those they could get for the same amount of money back home. Many of them take jobs in London knowing that they could be paid more in the USA, but believe the trade-off to be worth it. The different visas available to them mean they often end up in remunerative industries, such as tech, finance or medicine. ‘The new American dream,’ says Danielle Rackley, a Floridian expatriate studying towards a graduate degree in artificial intelligence, ‘is to leave.’

For entrepreneurs able to run their companies from anywhere in the world, London is a gold mine. The city offers the same luxuries as New York or San Francisco at a lower price, with more reasonable tipping rates, a better quality of life and none of the language barriers one might have endured in Paris, Tokyo or Zurich. For those who have already made their millions in America, London is also increasingly seen as a great place to retire.

More than a career or real-estate portfolio, expatriates buy into a lifestyle, drawn to the allure of a nation that gave the world Jane Austen, Kate Moss and Claridge’s. Some champion this to the extent that they refashion their identities around their embrace of Englishness. ‘When I married into the British aristocracy,’ says Julie Montagu, Countess of Sandwich, in a video on her American Viscountess blog, ‘it was the start of a wonderfully exciting journey.’ Hailing from ‘a small town outside Chicago’, she now welcomes viewers on tours of historic British homes on her YouTube channel.

For some, Englishness is not merely something they covet, but a means to escape what they perceive as American excess. Many expatriates say they wanted to leave behind a ‘crazy’ and ‘destructive’ corporate culture. One Ivy League graduate, who worked on Capitol Hill and is now a writer in London, explains that ‘in America, your sense of self worth is dictated by which university you went to, together with certain corporate and professional placements’. He describes American life as one that forces people onto ‘a treadmill of achievement’.

Nonetheless, Americans often bring an enterprising spirit to our old ways. For one thing, they have injected fresh blood into London’s artistic and culinary scenes. In the past 12 months, Hollywood A-listers Lily Collins and Sigourney Weaver have both graced West End theatres. American cuisine now rivals French and Italian for dominance in Soho, with establishments such as Rita’s (49, Lexington Street) and Grasso (81, Dean Street) opening after the pandemic.

There is a growing vogue for New York-style dining — cocktail menus longer than the wine list and places that stay open way past most people’s bedtime. At Claridge’s, where the Star-Spangled Banner currently drapes the Davies Street façade, the dining room has swapped out its usual menu for Dante’s, the celebrated Manhattan bar that has taken over the hotel until Christmas (above). Last week, Ralph Lauren announced that he was opening a branch of his lauded New York Polo bar in the capital (though you'll have to wait until 2028 for it to open).

Among the quintessentially English hobbies enjoyed by Americans, tennis is number one. ‘I was playing tennis in Bishops Park last weekend,’ Charles tells me, ‘and I was surrounded by Americans on all the other courts.’ Rumour has it that The Regent’s Park Tennis Club is similarly popular.

The English private school, which offers not only academic rigour, but cultural immersion and, in the case of some boarding schools, the closest thing available to the set of a Merchant Ivory film, still holds a major sway over American parents. No doubt, their children will come to fill the gap left by those who have been priced out of private education since fees were raised in line with the imposition of VAT. Charles reveals that his clients, who are ultra-high-net-worth individuals, had begun to feel ‘increasingly uncomfortable in the USA’. Both of them had planned to use their residences at The Whiteley as a pied-à-terre, but have since decided to relocate their entire families to London and live here full time.

Of course, there is also much to miss about the motherland. ‘The USA does suburbs so much better,’ says Taylor Holmes, a Kansas City native who, until recently, worked here in an investment management company. She says she would happily move back to the US if her family were to grow and require a bigger home.

Taylor currently lives with her British husband in a two-bedroom apartment in Putney, having previously rented in Fulham and Notting Hill. They bought their flat earlier this year because the area had fewer tourists and offered close access to the Thames. It wasn’t straightforward. ‘How does anyone buy a house in this country?’ she asks me, describing the process as ‘a nightmare’. ‘So much red tape… That’s crazy to an American.’

Another one of my sources is facing a similar challenge. ‘We’re currently doing up my boyfriend’s flat in an old stablehouse,’ he explains. It is a Grade II-listed building that the council submitted for a heritage conservation review, so progress has been painfully slow. ‘The house is in the courtyard of an old Victorian block, where the horses lived, and was abandoned until the 1990s’, noting that few of the original features remain. The couple hired a British designer with a strong understanding of the context in which the stablehouse was built, aiming to restore and replicate some of the period details. At time of writing, the council is still playing hardball.

Enduring the perils of British bureaucracy as an American is sobering — few will view the UK through rose-tinted glasses after that, which makes an expatriate’s decision to stay all the more compelling. If Americans shopping in the prime central luxury market are making headlines, many more are to be found in east London — particularly De Beauvoir Town, a quaint and newly gentrified area sandwiched between Dalston and Angel. As I wait to interview an expatriate at the De Beauvoir Deli, a swanky joint frequented by the fashion and media set, the model Alexa Chung turns up in large aviator sunglasses to order a coffee.

‘Have you noticed that there are more Americans in London now,’ I ask them, ‘than when you first moved here?’ Our interviewee goes silent and gestures forwards and backwards. The people at the table in front of us are from the USA; so are those sitting right behind us.

This article first appeared in the October 1 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.

Gilbert & George, the artists known for their vibrant and often controversial works, are teaming up with the Philharmonia Orchestra for a one-off concert in London this month.

Considering the artists once declared that ‘music is the enemy,’ the collaboration is an unlikely one. The concert will take place at the Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre on October 5 and comes as an exhibition of the pair's work opens at the Hayward Gallery, also at the Southbank Centre. The concert, titled ‘Gilbert and George: Sex, Money, Race, Religion,’ after one the pair’s pieces, will be one of the opening shows in the orchestra's 80th anniversary season. It will blend images of Gilbert & George’s with a programme of symphonic pieces that resonate with the title’s four themes.

Gilbert & George are some of London’s most celebrated and boundary-breaking contemporary artists. They began working together while studying sculpture at St. Martin’s School of Art in London in 1967. In a 2002 interview they told The Daily Telegraph: ‘It was love at first sight’ and they married in 2008. With a self-described ‘anti elitist’ approach to art, it is perhaps a surprise that the couple are Conservatives and outspoken supporters of Margaret Thatcher.

Their work has gained plenty of media attention, particularly for featuring depictions of (among other subjects) nudity, racial slurs, sexual acts and bodily fluids (including faeces and semen). Among their various accolades are the Turner Prize and an inclusion on The Guardian’s 2013 list of the ‘The 50 best-dressed over-50s’.

Some might consider them unlikely bed fellows for the Philharmonia Orchestra. The latter was founded in 1945 and is widely regarded as one of the finest symphony orchestras in the world. As well as the Southbank Centre, they also hold residencies in Canterbury, Leicester, Basingstoke, Bedford, at Garsington Opera and at the Three Choirs Festival. They have performed in China, Japan, Columbia and Mauritius as well as extensively throughout Europe and in America.

‘In some ways this idea of bringing together visual art and music is quite tried and tested, but there's something that's very different about this project, which is that Gilbert & George are on the record as saying: “Music is the enemy”,’ says the creative producer of the concert, Toby Chadd. ‘So, as opposed to most of these projects, where you have visual artists talking about the music that they love, this was completely different.’

The concert will feature an eclectic range of music, including pieces by the English composer Edward Elgar, the German composer Richard Wagner, the jazz pianist Duke Ellington and a melody of songs chosen, despite their supposed distaste for the artform, by Gilbert & George.

‘What fascinated me about [the project] was that it was not at all immediately obvious what it was,’ Toby adds. ‘I've done a lot of cross-art-form projects, but this was one that was a real creative dilemma.’

‘There's lots of orchestral music through the centuries that responds to those themes [Sex, Money, Race, Religion], and so part of the show is bringing together music from very, very different stylistic and cultural backgrounds. For example, for Sex, I took a movement from Wagner, an ancient love story told in one of the most iconic operas of all time. On the face of it, it is a world away from Gilbert & George’s work, which describes particularly what it is to be homosexual, much of their art being made during a time when that was illegal. And yet, when you put the two together, resonances reveal themselves.’

The medley of pieces chosen by the artists that features in the concert is perhaps its most interesting element, Toby thinks. ‘Given that Gilbert & George have such a strong public image, there's something very personal about finding out about the music that they love. It gives us a new angle on them as artists and as people.’

The world’s largest literary festival is held, unsurprisingly, in India. Each January, Jaipur welcomes the great and the good to the Rajasthani capital for conversations between Nobel laureates and Pulitzer winners. Yet it is Britain that remains synonymous with the 'lit fest'; there are so many, in fact, that you could feasibly attend one nearly every three days.

Cheltenham, which will celebrate its 76th edition from October 10–19, remains the proud original: a blueprint for the likes of Oxford, Cliveden and Hay, which Bill Clinton once called ‘the Woodstock of the mind’.

A lit fest is a smart affair, in every sense. In his memoir Experience, the late Martin Amis recounts an episode in which his son, Louis, asked him: ‘What class are we?’ ‘We’re outside all that,’ he replied. ‘We’re the intelligentsia.’ Nowadays, little separates the literati from the glitterati: lit fest attendees dress up, stand a little taller and pose for Tatler's Bystander. Although Martin was, by all accounts, a regular both on lit fest billings and in the society pages, I doubt even he could have anticipated quite how starry such events would become. To boot, 2023’s Hay-on-Wye headliners were not authors but A-list artists, Dua Lipa and Stormzy.

In an era where reading rates are on the decline, there is merit to attracting such names. They draw an audience interested, if not purely in books, then in the Arts and culture more widely. They generate discussion, chatter, gossip and column inches. It’s a far cry from the lit-fest-ageddon many had decried last summer, after Hay, Cheltenham and Edinburgh were forced by pressure groups to sever ties with their sponsor Baillie Gifford over fossil fuel-related investments.

If anything, literary festivals are thriving. From October 11–12, the country’s most glamorous returns to Cliveden House in Berkshire, with speakers including Sir Salman Rushdie, Tina Brown and Richard E. Grant. The sponsor? None other than Chanel. Up North, Ilkley Literature Festival in West Yorkshire — founded in 1973 by W. H. Auden — resumes in two days’ time and runs until October 19, with speakers including Nick Clegg, Simon Armitage and Jay Rayner.

Over in Wells-next-the-Sea, Dr Victoria Rangeley-Wilson is about to launch the second edition of the North Norfolk Festival of Literature and Landscape. Held over the weekend, it will host talks from Richard Mabey, Patrick Galbraith and Alan Hollinghurst. The festival is focused primarily on Nature writing, a genre that is unironically ‘quite urban in its origin’, its founder notes. ‘The goal is to give writers, who often lead solitary lives,’ she explains, ‘an opportunity to meet their fans and inspire them with Norfolk’s unparalleled conservation projects.’

Sign us up.

On London’s Holloway Road, an unassuming timber-clad building, once a garage, offers little hint of the treasures within. Behind the double doors lies an Aladdin’s cave of period costumes dating back to medieval times, as well as garments that form part of the owner’s private collection: a 400-year-old leather doublet, for example, and a dress worn by Queen Mary, her biscuit crumbs found in a pocket.

Inside, I’m taken past vases of dried flowers, oil paintings, a chaise longue and clothing on rails that actors will slip into behind giant curtains, before we head for the treasure trove: the glittering Accessories Room. I wonder how many actors over the years have perused the glass cabinets of rings and reticules or tried on the Venetian masks. I’m drawn to the racks of walking sticks and umbrellas. Perhaps among them lies the black-and-white striped parasol with which John Malkovich seduces Nicole Kidman in The Portrait of A Lady (1996) or the cane clutched by Downton Abbey’s sharp-tongued Dowager Countess.

Under the leadership of John Bright, award-winning costumiers Cosprop has been the go-to wardrobe for period productions of the stage and screen since 1965. Dressing everyone from Dame Helen Mirren to Hugh Grant, Madonna to Meryl Streep, the company has brought colour and historical authenticity to films, from Sense and Sensibility to The King’s Speech, and television series, from The Crown to Peaky Blinders and Downton Abbey.

More than 80 of Cosprop’s most famous costumes will be displayed at the exhibition ‘Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop’, at the London’s Fashion and Textile Museum. Exhibits range from John’s first television commission: Miss Havisham’s wedding dress, created for the BBC’s 1967 adaptation of Great Expectations; to the Bafta and Oscar-winning outfits, recently donated to the V&A Museum, worn by Helena Bonham Carter and Dame Maggie Smith as they picnicked in the Tuscan countryside in A Room With a View. Cosprop’s 60th anniversary, which coincides with John’s retirement, aged 85, is also being marked by a book, The Costume House: The Inside Story of Cosprop, featuring contributions from a distinguished cast of players who have brought Cosprop’s costumes to life.

On my tour of the premises, with deputy manager Mia Walldén leading me through the labyrinth, we have reached the Millinery Room. Few costumes are complete without a hat and this small space features floor-to-ceiling boxes of embellishments. One, labelled ‘the morgue’, is home to an assortment of small stuffed birds. It was here that Capt Ross Poldark’s tricorn was perfected, as were the lofty feathered hats worn by the stuck-up Bingley sisters in the BBC’s seminal 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, cleverly designed to reflect their elevated status.

In the Dye Room, magical transformations are taking place in huge vats and simmering pans. Here, coats are rewaxed and garments such as Capt Jack Sparrow’s raw-silk jacket distressed to suggest wear. In the main atrium, there are boxes and drawers as far as the eye can see. Some have labels, such as ‘narrow braces’, ‘hessian aprons’ and ‘spats’, evoking the upstairs-downstairs world that Cosprop does so well; others contain precious lace in a rainbow of colours, testifying to a lifetime of hunting and sourcing. There is even an entire room given over to buttons. ‘We are professional hoarders,’ admits Mia.

It’s true that nothing is wasted. The most exhausted clothing is harvested for fabric and fastenings and the most versatile is reincarnated. A dressing gown worn by Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster (1990), for example, was later donned by David Suchet as Hercule Poirot (2003); an empire-line dress — worn by Anya Taylor-Joy for the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma — features authentic embroidered panels lovingly preserved from the period, integrated with new fabric that has been carefully dyed to match. ‘There was history in every item of clothing, and this design process really helped us as actors,’ reveals Helena Bonham Carter in the book, noting: ‘We entered Cosprop as ourselves and walked out as the person we were playing.’

Of course, you can’t please everyone. Dame Maggie would joke that her wardrobe was made from ‘clothes off dead people,’ recalls John in the book. She also took issue with his choice of colour, he tells me later when we meet in his office. ‘You’re always putting me in green,’ she would grouse, about a colour she had disliked since childhood when her mother dismissed what she felt was a shining stage performance with the disparaging comment: ‘Whatever possessed them to put you in green?’

One of her most strident green ensembles, created for Downton Abbey, will feature in the exhibition. Even on the dummy, it is imposing with its heavily beaded high-necked blouse and gold-embroidered gown. Everything created for her ‘had to have an edge to it because she was quite a strong woman,’ explains John, clarifying, ‘both Maggie and the Countess’.

Asked if the esteemed actors he dresses are always well behaved, he supplies ‘a large No’. Bonham Carter, he confides, is ‘the one we’ve laughed with the most’ and Dame Judi Dench has a ‘general naughtiness’. He recounts a disastrous fitting for Sir John Gielgud’s 1975 production of The Gay Lord Quex, when a distinguished nameless actor, tired of waiting and now the worse for drink, began stumbling all over the stage. ‘This is too much!’ pronounced Gielgud, his nerves frayed by the farcical scene. Yet Dame Judi — whose focus, says John, is ‘extraordinary’ — remained grounded, announcing: ‘We’re getting rid of him. He’s such a pain!’

The linen shirt worn by Colin Firth as Mr Darcy when he strode out of the lake at Pemberley was one of 69 lots auctioned last year for The Bright Foundation, a charity set up by John to support children’s access to the Arts. The shirt alone fetched £25,000 and will be reunited in the exhibition with other Cosprop legends, including Kate Winslet and Alan Rickman’s wedding outfits from Sense and Sensibility and the velvet robes worn by Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth. John is unequivocal when asked what he believes was so special about this particular piece. ‘Well, it’s not to do with that shirt, is it?’ he smiles. ‘It’s the surprise and that he looked so good coming out of the water.’ The television history that Cosprop created with it was, he says, ‘a real mix of everyone getting it right’.

John began his theatre career as a professional actor, which has given him a unique sensibility. ‘John is the actor’s costumier,’ states Dame Judi in the book. ‘Through his own training as an actor, he understands how important it is to feel completely comfortable in the clothes you are given to wear in front of the camera or on stage.’ Hugh Bonneville is equally complimentary. ‘Over the dozens of productions I have worked on with Cosprop, [he] has usually been called upon at some stage,’ he writes. ‘As if from nowhere, he suddenly appears in the fitting room, like some twinkly avuncular wizard. He tweaks, he adjusts, he suggests… A magician of his craft.’

The most rewarding aspect of his work, says John, is ‘seeing the clothes used in the best possible way, when an actor or actress has made them their own’. Ralph Fiennes, he recalls, had a particular flat cap in mind for his role as Suffolk archaeologist Basil Brown in 2021’s The Dig and used it to immerse himself in the part. ‘There’s a marvellous moment in fittings when you can see the character,’ he writes in the book. ‘It’s terribly exciting… When I see that, I just pat the actor on the back and say: “That’s it, that’s you.”’

This article first appeared in the September 24 issue of Country Life. For more information about how to subscribe, click here

I recently received an email from a representative at Barrière, a French five-star hotel group, asking if I’d like to go horse riding on a beach at sunset, watch some films and have dinner with Pamela Anderson. My enthusiastic RSVP bit my kind host’s arm clean off.

The destination: Deauville, a tastefully-timbered town on the Normandy coast which is filled with Hèrmes, Louis Vuitton and Longchamp stores and sail boats clanking in the wind. There’s also a long and wide strip of golden beach.

The occasion: the 51^st annual Deauville American Film Festival, or Festival du Cinéma Américain de Deauville, which stands entirely apart from the flash and brash paparazzi-plagued shindigs in Cannes and Venice, where who wore what and why and tabloid gossip overshadows the filmmaking and storytelling. Deauville is simply the world’s classiest movie junket; it’s where the enigmatic grace of Old Hollywood still means something.

The French ardour for cinema is no secret. Heck, they — specifically the Lumière brothers — invented the artform. And they don’t just dig homegrown flicks about moody couples in cafés smoking cigarettes, they love Hollywood pictures too and Deauville is where the two worlds collide. Star-spangled banners fly from every post, transatlantic thesps and auteurs walk the red carpet, and every film shown is credited as American-made — yet the vast majority of those attending are chicly-dressed Parisians hoping to spot a screen icon.

Founded in 1975 by Lionel Chouchan and André Halimi, with the backing of then-mayor Michel d’Ornano and Barrière, the event was conceived as an opportunity to bring the two countries together and highlight Deauville’s Belle Époque hotels, casino, racecourse and culinary scene. The inaugural edition opened with Robert Altman’s Nashville, signalling a commitment to both mainstream and independent cinema. The 1980s and 90s cemented Deauville as a place where stars mingled with cinephiles. Heavyweights including Clint Eastwood, Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford and Jack Nicholson walked the wooden boardwalks studded with cabins named after visiting celebrities. And in Deauville romance isn’t restricted to the screen. It was here, in 1998, that Michael Douglas first got together with Catherine Zeta Jones (apparently he approached the Darling Bud at a meet-and-greet and said: ‘I’m going to be the father of your children’ — which I guess you could get away with in the 1990s if you happened to be a double Academy Award winner).

I started with dinner at Fouquet’s in Paris, part of Hotel Barrière Le Fouquet’s Paris, the Champs Élysées’ silver screen canteen (it hosts the annual César Awards’ dinner). Recent guests include Quentin Tarantino, Jodie Foster, Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. Black and white Harcourt portraits of notable diners hang on the mahogany panelling, and polished brass plaques point to the preferred banquettes of entertainment titans.

Deauville is where the Barrière Group laid its foundations as a leading hotel and casino owner, and friend to the film industry. Its Hotel Le Normandy (above), built in 1912, looms over the waterfront, and its Casino de Deauville, founded the same year, inspired the location of Ian Fleming’s 1958 novel Casino Royale. Le Normandy, constructed in a vast ‘Anglo-Norman cottage’ style, according to architect Théo Petit, is where many of the stars choose to stay, especially the continental ones (the Yanks are more often found in the Hotel Barrière Le Royal 200 metres down the promenade). Le Normandy is where I was put up, too. The popping sound of tennis balls scored the scene via the open windows; dozens of clay courts lie between the hotel and the beach. The festival’s red carpet actually extends through Le Normandy’s lobby, and guests can get papped in their finery, if they wish, as they stride from the lift to the hotel bar, one of the festival’s prime people-watching locations (the house cocktail for the festival’s ten day run was titled Le 51e: Monkey 47, Italicus, yuzu liqueur and Perrier-Jouët, €31). Movie fans and photographers line the scarlet gauntlet from Le Normandy and the Casino to the Convention Centre, where the festival’s award ceremonies and main screenings are held.

Among those receiving an award and standing ovation was Pamela, who’s enjoying a career revival with this summer’s reboot of The Naked Gun and critical acclaim for her lead role in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl. Her name now graces one of the boardwalk cabins, which is apt for an actress so closely associated with a certain red swimsuit. She undertook the unveiling with the requisite American flag (main image). I wonder if anyone has broken it to the organisers yet that she’s actually Canadian.

The festival’s Icon Award went to 92-year-old Kim Novak, the last living Hitchcock blonde, who made a rare appearance on the arm of Benjamin Millepied, the choreographer and former husband of Natalie Portman. ‘Far from the female stereotypes shaped by the industry, she asserted her individuality through a raw, instinctive performance style,’ Benjamin shared in a speech about the actress-turned-artist. The event screened Vertigo and Bell, Book and a Candle (she shares the screen in both with Jimmy Stewart). It also premiered a new documentary about her life, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, directed by Alexandre O. Phillippe.

Upcoming films screened in Deauville this year included the awards-buzzy Bugonia by Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone as a kidnapped CEO suspected of being an alien, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, starring The Crown’s Josh O’Connor as an amateur art thief in 1970s Massachusetts, Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water, and Scarlett Johansson’s first turn in the director’s chair, Eleanor the Great. But the opening night’s big screening came from a couple of indie comedy filmmakers with whom I wasn’t familiar: Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino wrote (and the latter directed) Splitsville, a very modern sex farce starring themselves and Dakota Johnson, which was very funny. I joined the pair at that night’s gala dinner at the casino, where Pamela was the guest of honour (although chef Pierre Gagnaire received the heartiest applause when he took his bow during pudding — cinema is still a distant second to cooking in France).

At the lavish dinner, Pamela was to sit next to the scion of the Barrière Group, handsome 38-year-old Alexandre Barrière. Given I didn’t want to get chucked out of my room, I thought it wise to keep the place settings as they were.