ASK another Londoner to describe a few perfect days in town and their ideas will never line up with yours. London is one of the broadest urban churches on earth, and the people who live here, including me, are guilty of kippering in their own narrow habits. Even worse, more often than not, I am simply at home, rather than climbing the spiral staircase at a glasshouse in Kew or squinting at Big Ben. But this itinerary is what I wish I were doing. The writer Dorothy L. Sayers once said something to the effect that when she was stuck at her desk, she liked to lavish the fortune of the hero she created, Lord Peter Wimsey. ‘When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room, I took a luxurious flat for him in Piccadilly,’ she said. ‘When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet. When I had no money to pay my bus fare, I presented him with a Daimler double-six, upholstered in a style of sober magnificence, and when I felt dull I let him drive it.’ Reader, pull around your Daimler.
Friday
Emerging into the pinball grandeur of Piccadilly at about lunchtime, you’re spotted by a bellhop around the corner on Arlington Street, who reels you in and guides you under a shell of navy and gold awning to The Ritz (www.theritzlondon. com). The Ritz is a gilded hotel close enough to Buckingham Palace to make a telephone out of tins and string. There are families here for afternoon tea, choosing scones in the Palm Court, and young couples having bucket-list lunches in the frescoed dining room, as well as guests climbing the stairs to Louis XVI style bedrooms. The variety keeps the atmosphere moving.
Denne historien er fra May 03, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 03, 2023-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.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Give it some stick
Galloping through the imagination, competitive hobby-horsing is a gymnastic sport on the rise in Britain, discovers Sybilla Hart
Paper escapes
Steven King selects his best travel books of 2024
For love, not money
This year may have marked the end of brag-art’, bought merely to show off one’s wealth. It’s time for a return to looking for connoisseurship, beauty and taste
Mary I: more bruised than bloody
Cast as a sanguinary tyrant, our first Queen Regnant may not deserve her brutal reputation, believes Geoffrey Munn
A love supreme
Art brought together 19th-century Norwich couple Joseph and Emily Stannard, who shared a passion for painting, but their destiny would be dramatically different
Private views
One of the best ways-often the only way-to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris does exactly that
Shhhhhh...
THERE is great delight to be had poring over the front pages of COUNTRY LIFE each week, dreaming of what life would be like in a Scottish castle (so reasonably priced, but do bear in mind the midges) or a townhouse in London’s Eaton Square (worth a king’s ransom, but, oh dear, the traffic) or perhaps that cottage in the Cotswolds (if you don’t mind standing next to Hollywood A-listers in the queue at Daylesford). The estate agent’s particulars will give you details of acreage, proximity to schools and railway stations, but never—no, never—an indication of noise levels.
Mission impossible
Rubble and ruin were all that remained of the early-19th-century Villa Frere and its gardens, planted by the English diplomat John Hookham Frere, until a group of dedicated volunteers came to its rescue. Josephine Tyndale-Biscoe tells the story
When a perfect storm hits
Weather, wars, elections and financial uncertainty all conspired against high-end house sales this year, but there were still some spectacular deals
Give the dog a bone
Man's best friend still needs to eat like its Lupus forebears, believes Jonathan Self, when it's not guarding food, greeting us or destroying our upholstery, of course
