Country Life

come the revolution

IT is likely that the countryside will come out a clear winner from the pandemic. Until March, Britain was in love with its cities—they were vibrant, cosmopolitan, fun. People had at last discovered that they liked living as Continentals do, hugger-mugger. Lockdown killed that buzz overnight. Young people fled back to their nests in the countryside, where families did not suffer cabin fever, but could go on walks, tap into local supply chains, live out of a well-stocked freezer and cool off in the sea. As London became a ghost town, the countryside, for many people, continued much as always. This is already being reflected in a surge in buyers for rural property. This sea change has big implications for planning, but it does not mean that more housing should be scheduled…

a first-class stamp

A TEMPORARY holiday on stamp duty on the first £500,000 of property sales has been met with positive reviews by estate agents and property experts. The holiday, which was announced last week as part of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s summer budget update, intends to kick-start the property market in England and Northern Ireland after the shock of the coronavirus pandemic. The holiday came into immediate effect and will last until March 2021. ‘Today’s announcement will provide a welcome boost to property transactions across the market and comes at a time when activity levels and interest have already started to recover following the two-month market shutdown,’ says Oliver Knight, head of residential development research at Knight Frank. ‘Clearly, the Chancellor recognises the multiplier effect that moving house can have on the UK economy, with…

a giant mystery

THE history of the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset has been called into question by his smallest foe yet: the humble snail. It is believed the 180ft-long chalk sculpture was either an ancient fertility symbol or a likeness to Hercules, but archaeologist Mike Allen has analysed soil around it and found fragments of snail species that first arrived in the UK in the 13th or 14th century, suggesting the sculpture could not have been created before medieval times. The site was gifted to the National Trust some 100 years ago by the Pitt-Rivers family and the organisation began tests earlier this year to determine its age, but the results have been delayed by lockdown. Mr Allen and Martin Pap-worth of the Trust believe the figure ‘may not be prehistoric, nor even…

bag a butterfly, virtually

IT feels as if, in the past two weeks, we have all emerged from our cocoons, spread our wings a bit and headed out into the world. However, we mustn’t forget where this beautiful skill of metamorphosis originally appeared. This Friday, the Big Butterfly Count returns for its 11th edition. Last year, more than 113,500 people took part in the survey, submitting 116,009 counts of butterflies and day-flying moths across the UK. The survey takes place when the butterfly population is at its peak and helps the Butterfly Conservation charity assess the health of our environment. The activity is easy and simple: either download the Big Butterfly Count app or record your results from the downloadable sheets on the website’s survey. Then head outside on a sunny day for 15 minutes,…

good week for

Centuries-old graffiti Two workers have discovered graffiti dating from 1830, during the restoration of Wentworth Woodhouse, South Yorkshire. The inscription, about beer and cold weather (some things never change), was written on a roof timber above the Van Dyck Room by three workmen named Jack Falding, Jack Vickers and Jack Wragg Cross River gorillas New photographs of a group of Cross River gorillas show the parents with young, raising hopes that the animals, of which there are only 300 left in the wild, are actually reproducing. According to the WWF, the sub-species is the ‘world's rarest great ape' Singing from the clifftops Land atop the White Cliffs of Dover is alive with songbirds and wildflowers after their meadows were restored, says the National Trust. The land was purchased some two years ago after a fundraising…

bad week for

Australian drivers An Australian man was driving happily down the highway when he realised he had an unwelcome passenger, an Eastern Brown snake. The snake, one of the world's deadliest and responsible for the most deaths in Australia, was fended off by a seatbelt and a convenient knife. The driver, Jimmy, was unhurt Japanese rollercoasters A theme park in Japan has asked riders of its rollercoasters to avoid screaming to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The park has instead asked all passengers to ‘keep a serious face' and to scream internally, a trick the British perfected centuries ago…