BROWSING the COUNTRY LIFE archive is a heady trip down the rabbit hole. Eventually, one gives up specific searches, the results are too numerous and the amusingly dated advertisements for nylon tights and lawnmowers too distracting. In fact, it’s harder to find country houses that haven’t been featured one, two or many more times. Over the past 125 years, our property pages have revealed a strange timeline of the ebbs and flows of Britain’s fortunes, not to mention journalistic style. We’ve leapt from ‘Within easy reach of the Belvoir... eighteen best bed and dressing rooms… twenty-six loose boxes’ (Gaddesby Hall, Leicestershire, 1897) to helipads, saunas, electric gates and ‘7 bedrooms (6 en suite)’.
Within that time, we’ve seen a flurry of family estates come to the market after the First World War, hunting boxes and castles to let for £100 a year and cottages for £5 after the Second World War; we can trace everything from financial crashes to the rise of neo-Georgian architecture and the Church selling off old vicarages (ramped up in the 1960s), followed in later decades by luxurious newbuilds, controversial conversions and the odd Paragraph 55-approved plot.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 05, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 05, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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Kitchen garden cook - Apples
'Sweet and crisp, apples are the epitome of autumn flavour'
The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
Desks, once akin to instruments of torture for scribes, have become cherished repositories of memories and secrets. Matthew Dennison charts their evolution
'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
Souvenirs of greatness
FOR many years, some large boxes have been stored and forgotten in the dark recesses of the garage. Unpacked last week, the contents turned out to be pots: some, perhaps, nearing a century old—dense terracotta, of interesting provenance.
Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
Seventy years after Christian Dior’s last fashion show in Scotland, the brand returned under creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri for a celebratory event honouring local craftsmanship, the beauty of the land and the Auld Alliance, explains Kim Parker
Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
