Country Life 23-Nov-2022

MERRY Christmas one and all. These words may ring hollowly in some ears, what with last week’s sobering announcements by the Chancellor and a pervading national atmosphere of anxious belt-tightening and frugality. We even have egg rationing in some supermarkets due to avian flu, which is wreaking havoc on the seasonal turkey and goose market and putting producers out of business. A first-class stamp costs nearly £1. Food banks are inundated, hospital waiting lists endless and casualty-unit staff must be dreading the party season. Overriding everything is the desperate situation in Ukraine. It is easy to mislay one’s sense of joy and hopefulness as we approach this Advent season. Yet there are, if we look for them, pockets of happiness to be found in the reassurance of familiar things. ‘There are…

For all the latest news, visit countrylife.co.uk TWO national parks are struggling in the face of severe spending cuts, those in charge have warned. In a statement released last week, Sarah Bryan, CEO of Exmoor National Park (above), said that she has ‘worked in national parks for 30 years and [has] never seen it anywhere near as bad as this’. Echoing those comments, Trevor Beattie, CEO of the South Downs National Park Authority, said that ‘it will be difficult to continue doing the job properly’, when asked by the BBC about past and future funding cuts. Mr Beattie said that funding for the South Downs had fallen by about 40% in real terms during the past decade and that the authority has had to make £1.1 million of savings this year. Ms…

Quiz of the week 1) Who wrote The Darkling Thrush? 2) Which are the UK’s smallest birds? 3) What’s the name of Tom Kitten’s mum? 4) Who was the last monarch of the House of Stuart? 5) Which is the UK’s largest Norman keep? Word of the week Mordacious (adjective) Biting, sarcastic 100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE November 26, 1922 THE arguments in favour of the proposed St Paul’s Bridge are two, only one of which is positive—for the other is the negative one that taxpayers would not be required to pay for it, the City Bridge House Estates paying for its construction. Thus, the only real argument in its favour is that it would continue Aldersgate Street south from St Paul’s Churchyard. But even then, a new road through the Borough would have to be cut. We…

Letter of the week In the bleak midwinter AS a child in Perthshire in the 1940s and 1950s, I thought it was quite normal that the frost was inside the bedroom window when I woke in the morning—Father demanded windows at night should be open (‘The winds of winter’, November 16). If one had a sore throat, as there were no antibiotics, a fire was lit at night in the bedroom and a small dish of a tar potion was burned, the shadows of the flame dancing on the ceiling. My schooling was in an old country house: before we sat at our desk, we had to jump up and down, flinging our arms around our bodies to keep the circulation going. Yes, I had chilblains, but it was all quite normal to…

AFTER rain, drought, punishing heat and a November that’s as warm as spring, gardeners are wondering what’s coming next. We’ve grown used to the earlier springs, to the blossoms in full bloom before the pollinators are awake and to the rarity of snow and frost, but now fundamental change is becoming ever more evident. Last week, renowned rose grower David Austin announced the withdrawal of some of its most popular examples. ‘Munstead Wood’ and ‘A Shropshire Lad’ can’t cope with today’s weather patterns, yet the former was only introduced in 2007 and the latter in 1996. ‘Munstead Wood’ is, of course, named after Gertrude Jekyll’s Arts-and-Crafts Surrey home, designed for her by Lutyens and featured so prominently in COUNTRY LIFE. A Shropshire Lad, the most famous collection of A. E. Housman’s…

THE need to generate green energy has never felt more urgent. Yet it is still exceptionally complicated for those possessed of Grade I-listed buildings, whether houses or churches, to install solar panels. In these cases, the planning presumption remains that panels should not change the outward appearance of the building. In some cases, however, that imperative for visual discretion makes the technology impossible to adopt, to the disappointment and expense of those involved. One response is simply to assert that the existing regulations are not fit for purpose; that whatever the visual impact of panels, circumstances dictate that we just have to live with them. In support of this view is the fact that these are long-term —but not permanent—additions to the buildings in question. Familiarity and need, too, will eventually…