CLOS DU PEYRONNET is renowned as the best English garden on the French Riviera. It surrounds a handsome Belle Epoque villa at the eastern end of the town of Menton, in the upmarket district of Garavan. The Italian frontier and the three-star Mirazur— named last year as Best Restaurant by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants website—are no more than 500 yards away. The property has been owned and developed by super-plantsman William Waterfield and his family for more than a century and, over the past 50 years, has acquired near-legendary fame among garden-lovers all over the world. The homage of a COUNTRY LIFE article is long overdue.
The property was bought by William’s grandparents Derick and Barbara Waterfield in 1912. Derick had abandoned a promising career in the Indian Civil Service on the insistence of his wealthy wife, but, as did many old India hands, the couple recoiled from the cold and gloom of the English winter. Menton had a large population of over-wintering Englishry at that time—their lives revolved around the tennis club, the lending library, the Anglican Church and endless At Homes. For nearly 30 years, the Waterfields wintered at Menton and spent summers in Staffordshire.
The garden for which Clos du Peyronnet is now so famous was substantially laid out in the 1950s by Humphrey Waterfield, Derick and Barbara’s eldest son. Humphrey was a gifted intellectual who was recommended for a Fellowship of All Souls, but opted for the arguably more fulfilling life of an artist. William inherited the house and garden from his uncle after Humphrey’s untimely death in a motor accident in 1971 and moved to Clos du Peyronnet in 1976, where he has lived ever since. It is the last of the famous English gardens of the Riviera that has remained in the ownership of the same family since before the First World War.
Denne historien er fra January 22, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 22, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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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.
