Country Life

Talitha works in corporate social responsibility for Howden Group Holdings and is a keen Muay Thai boxer. She is the daughter of David and Fiona Howden. Photographed at home on the Cornbury Park estate in Oxfordshire by Anya Campbell ■

CONTROVERSY has arisen over the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s (AELTC) plans to develop 73 acres of Capability Brown-designed, Grade II*-listed landscape, currently a golf course, within Wimbledon Park, building 38 grass tennis courts and an 8,000-se

A COLOURFUL pageant of more than 500 horses and 1,000 performers, including dancers, actors, musicians and military men and women from the Commonwealth and Europe, will bring The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee to life, it was announced last week. In the gr

RADIOHEAD fans will be very excited to see six works by Stanley Donwood, who has collaborated with the band since 1996, in an exhibition at Christie’s, King Street, SW1, next month, alongside drawings, lyrics and digital art by both Mr Donwood and fr

MANY charities and organisations have suffered over the past 18 months, but the British Hen Welfare Trust (BHWT)—which has rehomed more than 850,000 commercial chickens since 2005—was able to use the change in circumstances to its advantage. The dema

A NEW research project seeks to identify the best strategies for habitat restoration across the UK. Launched by Cranfield University in partnership with the National Trust, Stirling University, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and Forest Researc

OF all the articles of costume the glove possesses more than any other a peculiarly human interest. The hand has been regarded at all times as an index to the character of the individual, and the close-fitting glove becomes with much wear a mould, as

A discreet resident of woods, parks and gardens with mature trees, the nuthatch is more frequently heard than seen. But the patient observer will spot her patrolling in an upward, downward or spiral route around the tree trunk, oaks being a favourite

I MUCH enjoyed your article on William Morris (September 8). There is another who deserves even greater recognition: William Richard Morris (1877–1963), who probably did more than any other to bring motorised transport within reach. He founded the Mo

THE English have a habit of taking their pleasures for granted, so it would be a good thing if they thought harder about their love of visiting country houses. Although people across the world are interested in historic buildings and travel to see th

Published August 30, The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is greeted by a dog at the gateway of Cotehele House, Cornwall. This Frontispiece accompanied the first of a pair of architectural articles published on the house. The first one opens with an almost ide

‘I feel incredibly lucky to have spotted the talent of David so early on in his career, before he became a big name. For years, he has been raising awareness about climate change and deforestation, particularly in the Amazon. This painting was made o

HEROES of the Age of Steam tend to fade into obscurity in this century of hi-tech. James Watt, the Scottish engineer, is hazily recalled for his engine designs and George Stephenson is remembered as the father of the railways, but it was the Cornish

He may not be a household name, but Richard Trevithick’s legacy has been variously commemorated. A stained-glass window in the nave of Westminster Abbey, unveiled in his memory in 1888, shows figures of various Cornish saints, with the head of St Pir

DURING the miseries of the pandemic, it has been particularly cheering to be reminded of Nature’s immunity to such minor distractions as human diseases. As David Hockney pointed out during the first lockdown, ‘do remember they can’t cancel the spring

WE don’t know the full story. Did he have a hot toddy to hand? Was there a heap of damp labradors steaming in front of a gun-room fire? And were his friends ribbing him over a very obvious and witnessed miss? All that’s certain is Sir Hugh Eyre Campb

FOR tech start-up entrepreneur Kristian Forsberg, co-founder of the Gundog app (@gundogapp on Instagram), training his own gundog was a lifelong dream. So, after he and his wife, Rose, moved from London to the Cotswolds in 2017, he got a black cocker

WOULD you like a dog that sits and stays, comes back when it’s called, greets people nicely without jumping up and doesn’t bark or chew its bedding?’ asks award-winning gundog trainer Ben Randall. ‘Well, I can help you get that.’ This might seem like

WHEN drifting around the other day, just north of the A66, completely lost, I was suddenly struck by a notice informing me that I was close to the Philip Wayre Upland Trust. I was looking for a house near the High Force Waterfall in Teesdale, but my

WHEN John Dennys’s designs for the 5th Duke of Westminster’s new Eaton Hall were published in 1970, the Duke of Bedford wrote to the editor of the Architectural Association’s AA Notes to say that ‘one of the virtues of the Grosvenor family is that th

IN this bedroom of an 18th-century manor house in Dorset, ‘there was no cornice, no dado, no chimney—nothing at all,’ explains Mr Hurst, an antique and interiors consultant who specialises in 18th-century furniture and art. ‘I found a neo-Classical c

AN indoor sport’ was how the US decorator Dorothy Draper referred to the business of eating. ‘You play it three times a day and it’s well worthwhile making the game as pleasant as possible.’ Unfortunately, what might have been true in the 20th centur

WITH research showing that one-third of couples plan to include their dog in their wedding day, Hedsor House in Buckinghamshire has launched a new Canine Concierge package to its roster of wedding offerings. Pooches can now be added to the guest list

THE Royal Warrant-holding embroiderers was founded in 1767, when M. Hand came to London from France as a Huguenot refugee. He began making and selling lace to military tailors, then grew to encompass military badges and uniform accoutrements. He beca

Ruby and diamond necklace and Winston Berry ruby and diamond earrings, price on application, Harry Winston (020–7907 8800; www.harrywinston.com); Colours of Love platinum 2.01ct oval-cut ruby ring with diamonds, £39,120, Fabergé (07818 507911; www.fa

IT’S been a very good year for sales of country houses and estates in the West Country and, according to Oliver Custance Baker of Strutt & Parker in Exeter (01392 215631), it’s not finished yet, as he kicks off his autumn campaign with the launch ont

Magnificent overhead timbers, cruck beams, a plankand-muntin screen in the hall and two original bread ovens next to the log burner in the dining-room fireplace are only a few of the attractive period features at 17th-century Whites Farm in Dommett,

The Hon Deirdre is permanently festooned with working cocker spaniels. There's one snoring on or under every seat in the cramped, slightly whiffy lodge where she lives on her family's Dorset estate, yet all are as sharp as can be in the field-as dust

AS a niece of the 10th Duke of Rutland, Libby Russell is no stranger to beautiful landscapes. Born Elizabeth Manners, she grew up on the Belvoir estate in Leicestershire and at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire and it was this sense of the beauty of her surr

HISTORIC gardens such as Iford are works of art that need careful handling. It would be all too easy for the distinct vernacular of these celebrated gardens to be diluted or lost and for them to become either museum pieces or superficial tourist attr

THE larks stopped their morning singing back in July, so it is a case of up with the Maran cockerel. Unlike the wild birds, Robespierre, ‘The Terror of the Farmyard’, never fails to announce the dawn. He works 365. Mist across the fields and valley;

Makes 6 125g unsalted butter, softened175g golden caster sugar3 eggs1 tspn vanillaA pinch of salt125g self-raising flour 150g blackberries2 tbspn golden caster sugar1 tbspn cornflour100ml double cream, stiffly whipped 75g unsalted butter, melted20

Take a medium-sized bowl and add two cooked beetroot, cut into wedges, 100g blackberries, a handful of spinach leaves and lightly toasted walnuts. Drizzle over extra virgin olive oil and balsamic and then toss together well. Lightly toast sourdough,

ELDERFLOWER blooms and briar roses frame a ripened wheat field. In the distance, a farmer in orange overalls is cutting corn. Two swallows swoop across the page, disturbing a meadow brown butterfly. Fluffy clouds and a blue sky provide a backdrop for

RICHARD WAGNER was both loved and loathed in his lifetime and his music has been received in similarly polarised fashion ever since. People tend not to react mildly to his outpourings: last year, the Brighton Argus ran a headline screaming ‘Wagner ma

DURING the 1980s, pine furniture was routinely sent to be stripped as soon as acquired, so it is lucky that the original green and red paint has survived on an early-19th-century dresser (Fig 1), with Chalet White at the Decorative Antiques and Texti

In 1938, Siegfried Sassoon wrote a poem titled A View of Old Exeter, inspired by a watercolour by James Baker Pyne that he had bought ‘cheap' 15 years earlier. It pleased the poet to think that the painter could make him ‘Sigh for that afternoon he t

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