LAST year, John Goodall memorably described the architectural revelation of the empty City of London (‘London in lockdown’, April 22, 2020). However, the pandemic has also left a legacy of discovery through familiarising the famous London parks—in this case, central London’s linked St James’s, Green Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens—their secrets revealed and knowledge amplified.
To buy a picnic in Westminster’s Petty France from the Royal Artisan Bakery, with its irresistible window display, was an obligatory start. A stroll to the 1841 Swiss Chalet in St James’s Park provided a delicious waft of January wintersweet from one of John Nash’s ‘floriferous’ Regency shrubberies. The chalet, once the bird keeper’s house, now a meeting venue, has a garden that is (usually) open to the public. A path, dividing formally arranged vegetables from informal flowers, leads to the building’s bridge, which allows close acquaintance with diving ducks and their amusing antics. As are most waterfowl, they are at their most numerous in winter.
A dabchick (little grebe) enjoyed the pools to either side, popping up at half-minute intervals. Pochard passed underwater; a showy drake smew and North American hooded mergansers added the glamour. The latter can submerge for up to two minutes, reappearing far away, after the onlooker has lost patience.
Denne historien er fra March 17, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra March 17, 2021-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.
