Country Life 15-Dec-2021

DECEMBER months in Salcombe seldom hold snow, but nevertheless, silver hues and low suns hang over the harbour, the sparsely populated beaches marking out Nature’s quieting of the seasons. Most yawls and yachts are back in boatyards, leaving the waters vacant for hardy surfers and persevering fishermen. Striking seascapes and close-knit communities make winter and especially Christmas in south Devon a glorious place to be. A solitary habit of mine is to rise early with a giant mug of tea and sit in our sea facing verandah to say the Psalms. With good timing, I can catch the winter sun breaking the horizon. Avoiding social media, opening emails, taking calls—before porridge and toast and even sorting out teenagers—this has to be the first duty of the day. If I forget or…

EVERY year, the Victorian Society compiles a list of the most endangered Victorian and Edwardian buildings in the country to draw attention to their plight. The latest, announced on Monday, includes an ornate former ‘lunatic asylum’ owned by the NHS in Cardiff, a Peckham department store on a ‘Golden Mile’ that once rivalled Oxford Street and a derelict flour mill on the River Avon. Once part of the extensive Hampshire estate of French-Gothic Minley Manor, Minley Home Farm was built in 1896 when new farms were rare, after the agricultural depression, and the attractive farmstead, with its dairy, pigsties and bull, calf and cow boxes, was on land acquired by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1935. Both SAVE and the Victorian Society oppose the MoD’s plans to demolish the farm. Another…

NEXT autumn, the Lindisfarne Gospels—‘the most spectacular manuscript to survive from Anglo-Saxon England,’ says the British Library—will go on display at Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery and, to mark the loan, a year-long cultural explosion is planned across the North-East. At Auckland Castle, Northumberland, ancient bishops’ palace and site of the Auckland Project, a Faith Museum will open—a first for England—occupying the Scotland Wing and a new extension. Looking at stories and artworks from today to 5,000 years ago, visitors may consider the meaning of faith and how it has shaped Britain. Also in the autumn, the Ad Gefrin Visitor Experience and Whisky Distillery will open at Wooler, focusing on the Northumbrian Golden Age and and its kings and queens in their 7th-century summer palace discovered at nearby Yeavering—a time when Northumbria…

Fruits of long labour After nearly three years, researchers at the Rijksmuseum have discovered the original sketch beneath Rembrandt's The Night Watch Dahlias The almost 2,000 individual plants (1,700 cultivars) that make up Cornwall's National Plant Collection of dahlias have been rescued and painstakingly moved by hand to a new home in the county Reusing your wrapping paper Google searches for ‘sustainable Christmas' have increased by 1,700% this month, the highest interest in the past five years Man’s best friend Some hate postmen, most love a scratch behind the ear, but new research shows that dogs recognise some 89 words or phrases, about equivalent to an 18-month-old child…

Trees Ash dieback will cause 30,000 trees to be felled this year on National Trust land, plus tens of thousands of larch trees affected by Phytophthora ramorum Oblivious landlords Police have discovered cannabis being grown in almost every room, worth a total of £1.4 million, at Woodlands Castle, Somerset Open-plan living Lockdowns have killed our love of a wall-less existence, says buying agent Ed Heaton, with buyers searching for separate spaces for adults and children; miniature vineyards, vegetable plots and storage power are popular, too Birds We're in the throes of ‘the largest ever outbreak of avian influenza on these islands,' says Jim Blee of the Department of Agriculture, with 38 confirmed cases in the UK so far; six pelicans have been removed from St James's Park as a precaution…

THE long-lost grotto tunnel built by William Beckford (1760–1844) has been discovered, turning our attention once more to the eccentric recluse who amassed treasures enough to enhance collections at the National Gallery, V&A, Tate Britain and Wallace Collection, among others. Accompanied by a pack of spaniels, Beckford would ride daily from his home at Lansdown Crescent through a mile-long series of gardens and paddocks to what is now known as Beckford’s Tower—a landscape acquired by the Bath Preservation Trust (BPT) earlier this year, thanks to a donation by the current owner of Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, which Beckford also built (Town & Country, April 21). Armed with little more than a 19th-century print (left), a BPT team of experts and volunteers searched patiently, until, finally, they uncovered the top of one…