MICHAEL and Anne Heseltine bought Thenford House in 1976 and immediately set about creating its garden and arboretum. They did so with an energy and passion that continues unbounded today. The story is thrillingly narrated in their book Thenford: The Creation of an English Garden (2016).
Lord Heseltine is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable plantsman, with a special interest in trees and shrubs. His collection amounts to an arboretum, within which are many self-contained gardens and architectural features. These include an array of stone troughs planted with alpine plants, a spectacular cascade of water known as the Rill and Lady Heseltine’s splendid sculpture garden. But it is the trees—more than 3,000 different species and cultivars—that offer the greatest horticultural interest. The presence of water—lakes and streams—has added immensely to the possibilities and the beauty of the display. ‘Water is the making of the garden,’ says Lord Heseltine.
Much of the tree planting has been carried out within the thin and neglected woodlands that surrounded the park in 1976. The Heseltines have received advice and help from many distinguished experts over the years— including Sir Harold Hillier, Roy Lancaster and Keith Rushforth—but the driving force behind making the arboretum has always been Lord Heseltine himself.
Denne historien er fra October 05, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra October 05, 2022-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.
