Country Life 21-Apr-2021

WHOOSH! You could almost hear a year’s suppressed energy being released, as people rushed to do long-forbidden things: meeting friends, staying away overnight and eating in—or to be precise, outside—restaurants. How gloriously true to the national character that these new-found freedoms can only take place in the open air. We have a proud tradition of stoicism when it comes to outdoor events. Together with picnic baskets, we pack rugs, which inevitably end up wrapped around our shoulders. We shiver by the seaside. Ladies put on summer dresses and broad-brimmed hats to attend summer events, despite the goosebumps raised as the temperature drops—oh, the weddings, the cricket matches we have all attended under louring skies. Usually, there is a place of refuge, such as the pavilion, if the weather gets really out…

After William Beckford's death in 1844, his daughter, the Duchess of Hamilton, stripped the house and tower-some items she sold, some she took home to Scotland. She also sold the tower, but promptly bought it back when she heard it was being used as a pub and beer garden. Beckford's Tower was then reincarnated as a funerary chapel with adjoining graveyard. Since the 1970s, it has been slowly restored, first by the Beckford Tower Trust and now the BPT, and is now a museum to the unusual and eccentric life of Beckford. Some of his paintings, furniture and objects have returned to the tower; others are scattered around the country. There are 25 paintings at the National Gallery that were once in Beckford's collection, including works by Raphael and Velázquez. Room…

THE Bath Preservation Trust (BPT) has acquired and, if funding can be secured, plans to restore the 2½-acre plot of overgrown gardens that were once a landscaped idyll between Lansdown Crescent and Beckford’s Tower. William Beckford (1760–1844) was the richest man in England when he inherited his fortune at the age of nine and is famously known for draining his coffers by building Gothic Revival Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, which he later sold. But his legacy in Bath, where he spent the final 22 years of his life, stretches beyond the 120ft neo-Classical tower he had Henry Edmund Goodridge build to house his library and art collection. Beckford saw Lansdown Tower, as it was then called, as his personal retreat from a society from which he was largely outcast—this would have been…

Driving in style Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has reported the highest-ever first-quarter sales results in its 116-year history, up 62% on 2020 Animal acclaim Derbyshire's Chatsworth Farmyard -home to Suffolk Punch and Shire horses, Eriskay ponies, Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, Bagot goats and Cream Legbar chickens, among others-has been awarded RBST accreditation for its sterling contribution to helping rare native breeds thrive Living beside the seaside The Cornish town of Newquay has the fastest-moving property market in the UK, says Rightmove, with 80% of all homes listed since the start of the year now sold Getting the right message across Blue Peter has stopped telling children to ‘go meat-free' after a farmer complained; now, the pledge is to ‘choose a couple of vegetarian meal options during your two weeks as part of a healthy balanced diet'…

Beach walks A 430ft-tall sandstone cliff in Dorset has tumbled into the sea, blocking the coastline between Seatown and Eype Cricket purists Wickets could be referred to as ‘Outs' in the ECB's new competition The Hundred, in a bid to make the game easier to understand for new fans Darius The world's longest rabbit (4ft 2in) has been stolen from his home in Stoulton, Worcestershire. Darius's owner, Annette Edwards, is offering a £1,000 reward for his return Here we go again Grouse shooting will be debated in Parliament this month. The last debate, in 2016, resulted in the Government announcing there were ‘no plans to ban' the practice…

THE hum of a lawnmower is undoubtedly my favourite mechanical sound—add the sweet smell of newly cut grass and you have the perfect springtime combination. Fifty odd years ago, my father was a naval pilot in The Queen’s Flight and he would fly members of the Royal Family hither and thither, except when the Duke of Edinburgh was on board, as he always insisted on flying the helicopter himself. On one occasion, as they were coming into land, my father pointed out to the Duke that they were getting a bit close to the marquee and needed to go a little higher. At which point, all the newly cut grass clippings took to the air in a blizzard of green and the Duke turned to my father and said: ‘It won’t do…