The GWCT is headquartered just outside the charming Georgian town of Fordingbridge, untouched by Starbucks or Costa. Once this backwater might have been appropriate for the GWCT but today the organisation finds itself deep in the mid-current of conservation and environment politics. In her 21 years as chief executive, Teresa…
A punk rocker is nothing without his anger, and Feargal Sharkey, former lead singer of The Undertones, is furious. Sitting beside the sparkling River Lea at Amwell Magna Fishery, with a cuckoo distantly keeping the beat, it is hard to find anything to be even vaguely irritated about, let alone…
It is not every day that you take a bite from a police dog. But this is exactly what I am doing thanks to the persuasive skills of the Countess Bathurst, the chatelaine of Cirencester Park, Gloucestershire. She’s described by the Duchess of Rutland in her popular podcast Duchess as…
Being the fishing consultant for Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing has been the best gig of my professional life. I’ve been part of a great team of talented, dedicated professionals, and been given a ticket to travel to the most wondrous rivers and lakes in the UK. Above all, though,…
THE Reverend Dr Jamie Hawkey, Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and a Chaplain to HM The King, goes to put the kettle on. Through the windows of his sitting room I can see a magnolia tree in a walled garden, where a narrow lawn occupies a space where the chapel…
In the welcoming front room of Captain Ian Farquhar’s Gloucestershire home, a lit wood burner casts a mellow patina of light over a lifetime of memorabilia: paintings, silver foxes, photographs, stud books and poems. They have been accumulated over a family century of breeding and hunting hounds, to which Farquhar…
Annika Purdey is poised by the grand fireplace in the Long Room at Audley House, the headquarters of James Purdey & Sons in Mayfair. She’s having her photograph taken and looking very much at home. As well she might, for on the walls around her are the portraits of her…
“I burst into tears when heading east on the M4” is not a statement one expects to hear from one of the most celebrated war correspondents this country has produced and, famously, the first man into Port Stanley in June 1982 as Britain seized back control in the battle for…
Racing up the foothills of the Carneddau mountains, trying to beat the next rain pulse, my opening question for Gareth Wyn Jones is blown away by a breath – no, a howling gale – of fresh air. That’s what it is like meeting Gareth and two of his dogs, Max…
Eleanor Doughty meets the modern-day chatelaines to find out what life is like running some of Britain’s most historic stately homes, and how they make it work. They may be a little quirky, but when it comes to quintessentially British sports cars, the iconic Morgan is as close to perfection…
