THE thing I most love about the garden is that it has a magical quality. It had a very remarkable feel to it, even when I first took it on. I had noticed this atmosphere as a child when we used to visit the farmer who lived here.’
Interior designer Harriet Anstruther acquired the collection of dilapidated buildings and overgrown yards—a former livery and stables—close to her family home in West Sussex 25 years ago and has transformed it into a seductive, deeply comfortable haven. To get there, you disappear ‘down a lane, off a lane’ and find yourself arriving at a rambling, steep-roofed hamlet, a perfect small estate with the central two acres of groomed gardens edged with expanses of wildflower meadow, the whole embraced by sheltering woodland.
Ms Anstruther spends three months a year working under dazzling blue Los Angeles skies in California, US, and is clear that a passion for rock music infuses her work— especially Jimi Hendrix’s Axis: Bold as Love, which is ‘quiet, but powerful, bold, but beautiful’—but her heart is deeply rooted in the English countryside. ‘I grew up in woodland. We didn’t have a television as kids, so we spent all our weekends wooding with Papa, clearing and building bonfires and planting saplings.’
Denne historien er fra May 17, 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.
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Denne historien er fra May 17, 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
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
