Country Life 18-Jan-2023

GARDENS have traditionally played second fiddle to houses, but in John Sales, head of gardens at the National Trust from 1973–98, they found their champion. And what a champion. He instigated the 100-year plan for Stourhead in Wiltshire (1978), which was, incredibly, the first ever long-term plan to conserve the concept and the design of a garden and identify its key qualities. This preempted his other genius innovation: the Statement of Significance. Prepared for the many new gardens the Trust took on in those early days, it was adopted—and remains the norm—across the horticultural world. With Sales’s death last month, the garden world has been mourning not only the loss of a charming, much-loved and brilliant colleague, but one who gave so much of his time and knowledge. Horticulture is filled…

United to save our plants ANEW biosecurity strategy was announced by Defra last week, in a bid to ‘protect native species and drive economic growth’. The plan, created in partnership with the Forestry Commission and the Scottish and Welsh Governments, sets out a five-year vision for plant health, with a focus on monitoring online retailers and social-media sites to prevent the importation and trade of high-risk plant products. The strategy sets out how more than 30 signatories, such as the NFU, the RHS and the Woodland Trust, will deliver ‘an ambitious programme of behavioural change across society through public engagement’. The new scheme builds on the work of the previous biosecurity strategy, which was created in 2014 in response to the outbreak of ash dieback. ‘That strategy put in place lots of…

Quiz of the week 1) Which is Britain’s fastest land mammal? 2) Which wife of Henry VIII was the first English Queen to publish a book under her own name? 3) Which East Anglian artist completed The Hay Wain in 1821? 4) What colour are the berries of Hedera helix (ivy)? 5) In which fictional Japanese town is The Mikado set? Word of the week Misoneist (noun) Someone who dislikes or hates new ideas and change 100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE January 20, 1923 THE daily Press recently published a very happy illustration of Lord Grey’s interest in wild birdlife, but I was disappointed to find him citing the robin as an example of a low moral order. A cock robin lived with me through last winter, and in March brought a mate to the bird table—one mate.…

Letter of the week A bread-and-butter issue RECENTLY, a reader wrote to note how difficult it was to order the perfect hot buttered toast at an hotel (Letters, December 28, 2022). Here is a recipe from Choice Dishes at Small Cost, a cookbook from 1883, that would, I think, be very difficult to beat: ‘Rather stale bread is best. The bread should be cut into slices about one-third of an inch thick. It should be toasted quickly in front of a clear fire a nice golden brown on both sides. It should be quickly buttered on both sides, and placed in a hot dish. Another piece should then be toasted and buttered, and placed on the top. When four or five slices have been piled up, cut though the heap, and cut the…

THIS starts as a much under-reported ‘everyday story of country folk’. Just before Christmas, in rural Shropshire on the borders of Wales, the rule of law was undermined by the very organisation charged with upholding it: the police. The popular local hunt was to hold a carol service in St George’s Church, Clun. It’s a regular occasion and everyone looks forward to the day. This year, a collection of hunt-haters, mostly from outside the area, sent out details of the service and called on their obsessive supporters to protest to the vicar. They gave out her name, address and telephone number, being under the impression that she was going to officiate. Although that was not the case, she was concerned about these extremists and, rightly, the Diocese notified the police. A small…

ASHDOWN HOUSE in East Sussex is a compact, neo-Grecian villa built in 1793 for John Trayton Fuller, who was descended from an old Sussex family of iron founders. Less colourful than his cousin, ‘Mad’ Jack Fuller, a patron of Turner, he was inspired in his choice of Benjamin Latrobe as his architect. An early exponent of the Greek Revival influenced by France, Latrobe emigrated to the US in 1796 and supervised construction of the Capitol in Washington DC. Not merely one of Latrobe’s few works in Britain, Ashdown could be the best preserved of all his oeuvre. Inside, the elegant stair hall remains, with scagliola columns bearing the palmette capitals of the Tower of the Winds in Athens. Windows go down to the ground, allowing the Regency owners to step…