House and Garden November 2019

JAMES LOWE Chef Founder and head chef of Lyle’s in London’s Shoreditch, James Lowe recently opened a sister restaurant, Flor, in Borough. He cites a childhood love of restaurants, and memorable meals at The Fat Duck and St John as his inspirations. For this issue, James has written recipes for game that are ‘perfect for winter, cold weather and family gatherings’ (pages 155-160). He admires the chefs Ruth Rogers and Heston Blumenthal and eats at Brawn, Rochelle Canteen and The River Café whenever he is not working in his own kitchens. Which ingredients are always worth investing more in? ‘It would have to be fantastic olive oil and anchovies. Life’s too short for bad anchovies.’ TARA CRAIG Interior designer When not visiting museums or reading biographies, Tara Craig heads up the bespoke furniture brand Ensemblier London.…

In this issue, we’ve broken an unwritten rule and featured a hotel among the houses. The whispering about what has been happening at Hadspen, the house in Somerset formerly owned by the Hobhouse family, has been building up over the past few years, after it was bought in 2013 by Karen Roos and Koos Bekker, the duo behind Babylonstoren in South Africa. Such was the mystery that when a hand-drawn map of an estate and garden called The Newt, with an apple sapling and only an Instagram handle as a contact detail, arrived on my desk a few months ago, I did not immediately put two and two together. But then it dawned – just quickly enough to ensure that we are the first to give you all a tour…

SIMON BROWN; JAMES MERRELL; TOM SCOTT…

It was a trip to India almost 15 years ago that prompted Amy Kent to branch into rug design. ‘I visited a rug-making community in Bhadohi near Varanasi and was amazed by the incredible skills that go into making each rug,’ says Amy, who had worked previously for the interior designer Caroline Nelson. She recalls: ‘At the time it was either Habitat or The Rug Company with little in between.’ So Amy drew up her first designs. ‘They were simple and organic, inspired by shapes in nature,’ she recalls. She emailed these to the rug makers in India, who scaled them up on graph paper before dying and spinning the yarn and hand-knotting the rugs on a loom. Complicated designs require up to eight people weaving on the loom at…