Alex and Oli Khalil-Martin at home
WANDERING through the streets of Lavenham, with its colourful timbered houses leaning drunkenly at impossible angles, feels like stepping into one of the magical lands at the top of the Faraway Tree or the pages of Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose.
Among the higgledy-piggledy pink- and yellow-washed houses, the eye is drawn to the most marvellously wonky and charming of them all. On the crest of the hill on the High Street stands-or perhaps ‘staggers' would be more appropriate—the pumpkin-hued Crooked House. To the observer, it appears to be propped up by its neighbours, although it has stood here, sturdy and secure, since 1395.
During the past 600-odd years, The Crooked House—which recently appeared on the front cover of this magazine (January 12, 2022)—has gone through many iterations. Built as a merchant's house, it originally contained a weavers' workshop when Lavenham was at the centre of the medieval wool trade. In recent years, it has served as an art gallery, an estate agent's office and a tea room. It was in that last incarnation, four years ago, that Alex Martin, then in his early thirties and living and working in London, first saw the house when he came to Lavenham on a weekend away. "The moment I stepped inside, I thought, I want to live here one day—which, of course, sounded completely mad,' he recalls.
For years, Alex nurtured dreams of retiring to The Crooked House. Then, in 2020, it came onto the market. Soon after, the first lockdown arrived—and, suddenly, young professionals no longer needed to be tied to a desk in town. In a village so magical it has appeared in the 'Harry Potter' films and inspired nursery rhymes, it is delightfully apt that not one, but two fairy-tale romances ensued.
Denne historien er fra April 27, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra April 27, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
