Country Life 05-May-2021

IS THIS LONDON'S MOST EXCITING NEW INTERIORS SHOP? Bonadea, 20, Pimlico Road, SW1 Bonadea, a luxury tableware, glassware and objet d’art boutique, opens on the site of the late 1st Earl of Snowdon's photography studio, in June. It will be the e-commerce site’s first physical shop. The name comes from the Roman goddess Bona Dea -literally ‘good goddess' in Latin-who was associated with chastity and fertility in Roman women. One can only wonder what Bona Dea would have made of the Hollywood stars, royalty and music legends who passed through her namesake's doors, to sit for its then proprietor in the 1950s and 1960s. When the new shop opens, swathed in bespoke silk wallpaper, she may choose to look more favourably upon the expertly curated table-top edits. There will also be an…

HANDS clasped in his lap, Thomas More looks pensive, his gilded eyes turned upriver towards the Tower of London. Set in a pocket of greenery sheltered by neatly trimmed hedges, Leslie Cubitt Bevis’s statue stands as a tribute to religious freedom, but also to the first of the great minds that called old Chelsea—the roads that run on either side of Old Church Street—home. Henry VIII’s Chancellor moved to the village (originally a Saxon settlement stretching around the Old Church) in 1520 and built himself a house in Beaufort Street, where he kept ‘many varieties of birds, an ape, a fox, a weasel, and a ferret’, according to his guest Erasmus of Rotterdam. It was from there that he was taken to the Tower to be beheaded for being ‘the King’s…

Elm Park Lane, £3.75 million This white-washed mews house spans 1,954sq ft set across three floors. The ground floor has a large living and dining space, which opens onto the kitchen on one side and the sitting room on another. Upstairs are the magnificent master bedroom, complete with dressing room, and a guest en suite. One more bedroom and a media room are situated on the lower ground floor. Knight Frank (020–7349 4304; www.knightfrank.co.uk) Glebe Place, £1.395 million Situated on the second floor of a charming building, this 723sq ft flat is an ideal London pied-à-terre. The contemporary interiors feature a small entrance hall opening onto an en-suite bedroom on one side and to a flight of stairs on the other. This in turn leads to the open-plan living, dining and kitchen area…

Here’s looking at London in the Second World War • The Blitz took place between September 1940 and May 1941, then again in 1944 (with V1 cruise missiles and V2 rockets). It is estimated that the Luftwaffe dropped 12,000 tons of bombs. 30,000 civilians were killed • The bombs damaged 1.7 million buildings and destroyed a further 70,000. Every building affected was logged and mapped in real time by a team of surveyors, architects, engineers and construction workers. Their carefully colour-coded maps are still referred to by contemporary builders-who want to avoid coming into contact with an unexploded bomb • During the war, London housed eight displaced governments: Poland, Norway, Holland (now The Netherlands), Belgium, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia), Greece and Yugoslavia (now five independent countries). Full diplomatic privileges were…

Best for north There are 10 hard-surface courts and a resident LTA coach at Parliament Hill Fields Tennis Courts, NW5. From £5.55 an hour (www.clubspark.lta.org.uk/parliamenthillfieldstenniscourts) Best for east Golden Lane Tennis Courts, EC1, is also home to an indoor pool, gym and fitness centre. The Grade-II listed Brutalist Barbican estate overlooks the courts. From £13.60 per session (www.fusion-lifestyle.com) Best for south There are four tennis courts in Dulwich Park, SE21. They’re free to use, but pre-booking is essential (www.clubspark/lta.org.uk/dulwichpark) Best for west Campden Hill Lawn Tennis Club, W8, was founded in 1884, soon after the first Wimbledon tournament. It has six indoor and six outdoor courts and novelist Sebastian Faulks is a member. £565 a year, excluding joining fee. Discounted rates available for under-28s and over-65s (www.chltc.co.uk)…

egg 36, KINNERTON STREET, SW1 MAUREEN DOHERTY’S store, in a former, whitewashed dairy, has been the place to go in west London for understated and timeless clothes and objects (ceramics; stationery; incense) for years. Thankfully, its ongoing success has largely avoided mainstream press coverage and the masses have stayed away. This is the antithesis of rushed shopping in an overwhelmingly busy department store—and it’s exactly what we need right now, as we take our first, tentative steps back out into a busy London. Current clothing collections include plenty of pink and gingham (both in fashion this season), and cooling cotton pieces. If you want to make a morning or a day of it, The Berkeley hotel’s terrace and beach huts and Motcomb Street’s new Japanese and Nordic-fusion dining emporium, Pantechnicon, are both close by. Illustration…