For city miles, the unfeeling metal architecture of railways: parallel lines and skeleton gantries. Beside the track, spavined, dieseldosed bushes of buddleia. Creeping bramble, as bad as barbed wire. Not much to see.
Slough. Poor Slough. Doomed forever by Betjeman for its urban (lack of) planning and its industrialisation. ‘Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now/ There isn’t grass to graze a cow…’
Heading to Reading, towards the dawn. Two white swans on a flooded gravel pit. Morning light on thin water. A sort of relief. Cold optimism.
January is the contrary month, named for the Romans’ two-faced god Janus. A transitional month. The bulk of winter done, spring on the horizon. Often the coldest month of the year (England’s lowest ever temperature, -26.1ËšC, was in January 1982 and recorded in Shropshire), but there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
Beyond the rain-streaked window of carriage B: new-build houses, red-brick homes for humans, where Nature once lived. They are building over England.
Esta historia es de la edición January 26, 2022 de Country Life UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición January 26, 2022 de Country Life UK.
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The original Mr Rochester
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Get it write
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'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
