Month: December 2023

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses People

The 8th Marquess of Waterford + Curraghmore Portlaw Waterford

Heirs and Graces

Of course we had no idea at the time it would be the last interview to be given by the 8th Marquess of Waterford. We did know it was a rare opportunity though: he rarely spoke to the media. So on a drizzly day in May 2014, it was with a great tingle of anticipation that we watched the gates electronic gates slide open before racing down that great eternal avenue. The Marquess, in a wheelchair and sporting trendy trainers, cheerfully greeted us at the top of the steps of the voluminous entrance hall. And so began our glimpse into the magical world of Curraghmore.

In principio erat domus.

The shadows were closing in. On a dark night in 1922, while heavy clouds curled and unfurled over the Comeragh Mountains, four IRA men crawled up the 6.5 kilometre driveway of Curraghmore. The fourth of four castles owned by the de la Poer family, who’d come to these islands during the French Catholic Norman Invasion, was about to become a ruin. But St Hubert would save the night. As the terrorists approached, a flicker of moonlight silhouetted the crucifix atop the stag of St Hubert on the balustrade of the entrance tower. Illiterately, the terrorists assumed the family inside must still be Catholic. They fled and burned down the crucifix-free Woodstown House nearby. The de la Poer motto is Nil Nisi Cruce: “Nothing without the cross.”

We’re in the James Wyatt designed staircase hall of Curraghmore. It’s a Sunday morning and John Hubert de la Poer Beresford,  8th Marquess of Waterford, has graced us with his presence. Inspecting our vintage postcard of Curraghmore, he remarks, “Look, the fountain in the lake is clearly visible. It was the tallest fountain in Europe before my grandfather took it down.” The estate boasts the tallest tree in Ireland, a Sitka spruce. At 47.5 metres tall, its full height is not immediately apparent as it grows out of a dell. The Marquess is less than impressed by wind turbines visible from the neighbouring farm which mar the otherwise Arcadian setting.

“That dashing red haired gentleman,” says the Marquess pointing to a portrait on the landing, “is Henry the 3rd Marquess. He was hot tempered and one day got into such a fierce argument with his father he charged up the staircase on his black stallion. That’s how the middle step got cracked. The portrait of his wife Louisa the 3rd Marchioness, herself an artist, is rather lovely. The 3rd Marquess was killed while fox hunting. My brother Patrick is a great soldier. He was awarded the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst.” The current Marquess was a talented polo player and is a friend of the Duke of Edinburgh. “I’m lucky to have three sons and five grandsons. Richard, my eldest grandson, is 6’8” and a professional polo player.” Sport’s in their (blue) blood. The 3rd Marquess enjoyed partying as much as sport. He was one of several wild sportsmen who sprayed the tollgate and houses of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire with red paint. The phrase “painting the town red” was born.

“That’s Aunt Clodagh,” the Marquess grins gesturing to another portrait. “Do you know what the Irish name Clodagh means? Muddy water. Lady Muddy Water Beresford.” Over six kilometres of the Clodagh River run through the estate. “Curraghmore has always been a working farm.” Even more than that, it was once a self contained community. In contrast to the format of wings elongating the façade, at Curraghmore the ancillary quarters stretch forward from the entrance doors to form the mother-of-all-forecourts. More Seaton Delaval than Russborough. As well as the stables for 60 horses, this parallel pair of wings at one time housed the accountant, bookkeeper, butler, doctor, estate manager, gamekeeper, headmaster and woodcutter. An estate school lay behind the gatelodge. Basil Croeser, the retired butler, still lives in one of the Gibbsian detailed houses lining the forecourt. A new butler, aged 23, has just started. He’s yet to be fitted for his uniform. Later, he will serve the Marquess lunch, a silver tureen on a silver tray concealing fresh produce from the estate. Game soup’s a favourite. There are 25 estate staff, including a cleaning lady for every floor. There may be fourposter beds but bathrooms are on the corridor. No en suites. This is an Irish country house, not a hotel. Chamber pots at the ready.

“That painting’s by Gilbert Stuart who famously was George Washington’s portraitist. Those are of my parents and grandparents. Do sign the visitors’ book.” Lavender’s Blue is added to Prince Albert of Greece, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and, eh, Iain Duncan-Smith. “The house is surprisingly warm, even in winter,” comments the Marquess, “thanks to roaring fires in the main rooms and the thickness of the walls.” We move into the Blue Drawing Room, walking across a 1770 Axminster. The wealth of art between these thick walls becomes even more apparent. One, two, three Joshua Reynolds. Same again for Rubens. A portrait of Catherine the Great by Giovanni Battista Lampi hangs over the doorcase. A Gerrit van Honthorst here; a Thomas Lawrence there. In the adjoining Yellow Drawing Room, filled with morning light from two windows on two sides (blind windows were unblocked in a major restoration 25 years ago), is a painting of another family aunt, Lady Wyndham. She’s wearing the pearl necklace Mary Queen of Scots handed to her lady-in-waiting before she lost her head. The pearls are upstairs, in the Marchioness’s dressing room.

The dining room retains its original skin tone coloured walls and the nine metre long linen tablecloth dating from 1876 is still in use. Standards are high at dinner parties. The Marquess and Marchioness sit at opposite ends of the table, 17 privileged guests on either side. Men wear bow ties; ladies, long dresses and jewellery. Candles perched in three silver candelabra provide the only lighting. Dinner is served on 10 dozen floral Feuillet plates. Upstairs, far flung corners of the house are piled high with boxes of English, French and Chinese china. After dinner, at a nod from the Marquess, the ladies withdraw to another room. A larger than usual party was recently held when the Marquess celebrated his 80th birthday with 80 guests.

There’s so much else to write about Curraghmore. The stuffed lioness and her cubs lurking in a glass box. Elephant trunk and feet umbrella stands. The quatrefoil shaped shell grotto. The grass avenue which stops abruptly, unfinished since the 3rd Marquess’s untimely demise. The Curraghmore Hunt painting by William Osborne with nameplates for everyone including the hounds Jason and Good Boy. Grisaille panels by Peter de Gree. Roundels by Antonio Zucchi. Francini brothers plasterwork. Most of all, the great sense of peace that presides throughout the 1,620 hectares of Ireland’s last wilderness.

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Architects Architecture Art Country Houses Luxury People

The Baglianis + Gaultier Lodge Woodstown Waterford

Townland and Country

Bastardstown, Cheekpoint, Mooncoin, Passenger East, Priesthaggard … Names, names, such memorable names. Say them with a cut glass accent. Only in Waterford, the civilised southeast coast of Ireland. Geography is close, history closer. Everything is near water, everyone remembers generations past. Land of Molly Keane. Nowhere is more horse and hounds than Gaultier Lodge (pronounced “Gol-teer”) thanks to its country pursuits loving owners, Sheila and Bill Bagliani. Animal motifs abound, on potpourri sachets, coasters, wallpaper friezes, upholstery, saltshakers, pepper grinders, paintings (there’s an artist in residence – Sheila), even wine glasses. “We’re a bit obsessional!” jokes Sheila.

Gaultier Lodge may have been referred to in Victorian times as “Gaultier Cottage” but don’t be misled by its reticent exterior. This is a sophisticated design befitting its former status as a hunting lodge of the Earl of Huntingdon. Four rooms span the original beach front, linked by a tripartite gallery along the entrance front. The middle two rooms are deeper with more ornate mantelpieces and cornices. Now the drawing room and dining room, they are interconnected by a vast pair of panelled doors. In the middle of the gallery is a square vestibule with symmetrical openings. Twin sets of doors include a false door for visual harmony. A guest bedroom bookends either extremity of the beach front.

The hand of a master is at work. His name is John Roberts, the architect who designed much of 18th century Waterford City and worked on Curraghmore, the Marquess and Marchioness of Waterford’s stately home. Never has a piano nobile been more appropriate. The raised ground floor provides breathtaking views across Woodstown’s unspoiled golden strand to a Knights Templar church on the opposite side of the Waterford Channel. “Thank goodness low tide goes out 2.5 kilometres,” says Sheila. “Otherwise we’d be as developed as Tramore.”

In the early 1900s a two bay bedroom wing was added – no country house, however miniature, should be without one. And a porch. “We’ve done our best to dress up the plain porch,” she continues, “with pillars and sash windows.” A pleasant colonial appearance is the result. The coastline was damaged by the Lisbon Tsunami of 1755. Gaultier Lodge was built four decades later. A photo dated 1870 shows the retaining wall along the beach part concealing the lower ground floor. “A storm has since washed away the mound of rabbit burrows against the wall. In 2013, last winter, another storm flattened our greenhouse and blew 100 slates off the roof.” There’s a price to be paid for the beauty of proximity to nature. Not that it’s apparent, on a long spring evening sipping wine on the lawn watching the remains of the day.“Historic houses are like horses,” declares Sheila. “They’re expensive to run!” That hasn’t stopped the Baglianis buying another one on the opposite side of Ireland. “Castle ffrench was the home of Percy French. Maurice Craig compares it to Bonnettstown in his book Classic Irish Houses of the Middling Sizes. All the original furniture was sold but we’ve bought suitable pieces, many from the US.” Sheila and Bill also own a stud in North Carolina, suitably called Castle French Farm.

The fire roars. Frequently read books on the country and houses and country houses and country house owners and lovers of country houses and country house owners’ lovers pile high on occasional tables. “When I used to go to Mount Juliet, it was just like the famous Colman’s Mustard advert, where the butler is sent back from the hunt to get mustard for a guest’s sandwich. The butler really did cater to every whim,” recalls Sheila. Bats noiselessly swoop in eternal graceless circles across the lawn while inside dinner is attentively served. Red onion and goat’s cheese tart is followed by monkfish with salad on the side, an American touch. The hallmark of Gaultier Lodge cooking is fresh country produce, layered with taste, such as the carrots soaked in butter and citrus. Gin and tonic sorbet – what’s not to love? Pudding is Italian carrot cake “baked with ground almond instead of flour to make it lighter”.

Woodstown has always been famed for its decadent high end hospitality. In 1967 newly widowed Jackie Kennedy and her children Caroline and John stayed at nearby Woodstown House. The Daily Herald breathlessly reported, “Woodstown House, about seven miles from Waterford City, where the Kennedys will stay during their visit is one of the most beautiful residences in the area, known for its gracious mansions … Mrs Kennedy will occupy the main bedroom which is toned in a predominantly dark blue colour.”

It keeps going, “The Woodstown area itself probably carries the greatest concentration of Anglo Irish blue bloods in the country and the social whirl runs at a pretty fast pace. Among her neighbours in the county will be the Duke of Devonshire who owns Lismore Castle and the Marquess of Waterford who lives at Portlaw.” Another temporary resident in the 1960s was Jack Profumo who decided to lie low at Ballyglan, his brother’s house across the road from Gaultier Lodge. Names, names, such memorable names.

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Architecture Country Houses

Holy Hill House Strabane Tyrone + Ballymena Castle Antrim

The Big White House and Relics of the Old Decency

Holy (pronounced “Holly” as in Holywood, Country Down) Hill House is a Planter’s house of comfortable grandeur. Set in the wilds of County Tyrone, its shining white walls are testimony to the efforts of Hamilton and Margaret Thompson. They purchased the estate in 1983. “My family were tenant farmers here with 20 acres, half of which was peat land,” Hamilton reminisces. “We bought the house along with 230 acres. But we didn’t want anyone overlooking us so we bought a few surrounding farms too!”

“The last in the line of the Sinclair family was Will Hugh Montgomery, High Sheriff of Tyrone,” says Hamilton in 2015. “He was a confirmed bachelor until he met Elizabeth Elliott, a doll from Philadelphia. Will died in 1930 but Bessie continued to live here along until 1957. Bessie was a snob! She wanted to marry someone with a title and army rank and with Will she got both.” Upon her death in 1957 the estate was inherited by a Sinclair relation, General Sir Allen Henry Shafto Adair, who subsequently sold it to the Thompsons. Hamilton notes, “The Castle of Mey was a Sinclair property. They’d quite a few bob between them. One of their other former homes has been in the news lately: Anmer Hall, Prince William and Catherine’s home. Adair Arms in Ballymena is named after them.”

“The very doghouses are listed!” he exclaims. A village of early 19th century limewashed rubble stone outbuildings embraces the rear elevation of the house. The laundry still has its mangle; tongue and groove panelling lines the coachman’s house; and the stable stalls are fully intact. A saw mill, forge with bellcote, byres and walled garden add to the complex. “I wanted to keep it as authentic as possible,” says Hamilton. “The estate would originally have been self sufficient. Years ago there weren’t any supermarkets!” Metal cockerel finials top the stone entrance piers to the courtyard.

Holy Hill House bears a passing resemblance to Springhill, The National Trust property in County Tyrone. The harled front, a roughly symmetrical grouping of windows centring on the middle bay, slates on a secondary elevation, a Regency looking bay window and so on. But while Springhill is gable ended, the double pile hipped roof of Holy Hill swoops down from the chimneys to the eaves like a wide brimmed garden party hat. The roof contains one of Holy Hill’s hidden glories. More anon. Single bay screen wings topped by ball finials elongate the entrance front. A 1736 map by William Starratt in the library shows the main block of the house. So it’s at least early 18th century but the rear part likely dates from the previous century. Sir George Hamilton, brother of the Earl of Abercorn at Baronscourt, built a house here but it was destroyed in the 1641 Massacre of Ulster. Reverend John Sinclair then bought the estate in 1683 and the building he erected was to become the family seat for a quarter of a millennium. That is, save for a sojourn when the Sinclairs retreated behind the Walls of Derry during the Jacobite conflict.

The glazed entrance door set in a lugged sandstone architrave opens into the entrance hall which leads onto the three storey staircase hall. The Thompsons, though, use a more informal entrance through the left hand screen wing. Antlers and maids’ water cans hang from the white walls of this hallway. Above a sofa is the first of Holy Hill’s hidden glories. A stained glass window of great provenance. Over to Hamilton, “I found the 10 stained glass windows in a shed outside. They’re from Ballymena Castle, once home to the Adairs. When the castle was demolished in the 1950s, Sir Allen brought the windows with him to Holy Hill.” They are now installed throughout the house: some as external windows; others as internal doors. Each stained glass panel is a storyboard telling the history of the Adair family in their Ulster Scots context. A low ceilinged sitting room in the older part of the house is made even lower by a colossal timber beam. ‘Count Thy Work to God 1900 Everina Sculpsit.’ So engraved the evident carpenter and Latin scholar Miss Sinclair.

Hamilton put back the separating wall between the entrance hall and drawing room. The ante room – “Ideal for a glass of sherry!” – is now the library. Delicate ceiling roses and cornicing have been reinstated where missing. “The entrance front faces east,” says Hamilton. “So we generally keep the window shutters pulled.” A new kitchen was installed in the former library at the back of the house. This allowed the basement Victorian kitchen to be retained as a museum piece. Clocks chime on the multiplicity of skyward landings on the 19th century staircase. Time doesn’t stand still, not even at Holy Hill. The dining room is pure magnificence. Crimson flock wallpaper; a higher ceiling; that bay window; and the dining table from Flixton Hall, another former Sinclair residence.

And now for Holy Hill’s highest hidden glory. The front top floor bedrooms have extraordinarily high coving which swallows the roof space above. The top floor bedrooms to the rear have domes. As a result, on what would normally be the nursery floor is a lofty suite of cathedral guest rooms. “Adrian Carton de Wiart stayed here in the 1920s,” says Hamilton, pointing to a copy of Happy Odyssey by the author. “Mrs Sinclair liked entertaining. She had 15 staff. Five lived in the house.” Down to the ground floor. The lowest hidden glory is a Victorian loo. “The Sinclairs built a passageway to a privy,” smiles Hamilton, “so when nature called they didn’t have to run to the end of the garden.” Off said passageway, stone flagged steps lead to the rabbit warren of former servants’ quarters and cellars. “We’re seven feet underground,” says Hamilton in the billiard room, once a servants’ hall. The vegetable store has an earthen floor. “Bessie buried the family silver under here in case of a German invasion.”

It’s been a sad year for country houses of Ireland. Dundarave, Glin Castle, Markree Castle and Mountainstown all up for sale for the first time in their history. Most of the contents of Bantry House and some of Russborough at risk. Not so Holy Hill House. It has never looked smarter, gleaming inside and out, even on a drizzly Ulster summer day. The big house stands tall and proud, surrounded by an apron of soft emerald banded lawn.

John Sinclair was agent to the Earl of Abercorn. On 20 June 1758 he wrote, “Inclosed I send your Lordshipp an account of the halphe years rent due at May 1757 which I hope will please. William McIlroys I think I may get, but I fear Harris Hunter never will pay; about five weeks agoe he went to Scotland and is not yet returned; his mill is in bad repair. Gabriel Gamble is returned in arrear; he will not take a receipt for his halph year’s rent; he says the boat cost him much more and expects to be allowed all his cost; Mr Winsley has not paid for his turf bog for the year 1757; he has three acres, a part of which he hopes your Lordshipp will allow for his house, fire and desired me to let your Lordshipp know he was willing to pay what you pleased to charge him but did not incline paying untill I acquainted you. James Hamilton of Prospect has one acre and a halph, a part of which he also hopes you will allow him for his fire; the remainder he is willing to pay what your Lordshipp pleases. If the manner in which the account is drawn is not agreeable I hope your Lordshipp will excuse me as I am not acquainted with the proper method but shall for the future observe your Lordshipp’s directions if you will please to instruct me.”

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Architects Architecture Country Houses People

Elveden Hall + The Elveden Estate Suffolk + Maharajah Duleep Singh

The White Stuff

In conversation with Arthur Edward Rory Guinness, the wonderfully knowledgeable 4th Earl of Iveagh, the great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the original Arthur Guinness of the 1759 Black Stuff fame, and his wife, the extraordinarily beautiful 4th Countess of Iveagh. Or Ned and Clare as they are informally known. It’s September 2014. Over the last number of years Lord Iveagh has turned round the 9,100 hectare estate in Suffolk he inherited aged 21 into the largest working farm in Britain. Over 4,000 hectares are given over to producing great quantities of grain, onions and potatoes. Around 1,600 hectares are forest – conservation is taken seriously. The Elveden Estate as it’s called is a world of its own, complete with a smart inn and even smarter farm shop. They might be billionaires, but even the Iveagh family have found the 26 bay 70 bedroom Grade II* balustraded, columned, niched, pilsastered, quoined and rusticated Elveden Hall a little on the large side. After his father sold the contents in 1984, this palatial barracks of a place was barely lived in again. But plans, they are afoot.

“In fact,” starts Ned, “Elveden Hall has been only used as a permanent Guinness family base for 10 years out of all the time we’ve been here. It was a shooting box. A large shooting box! Apart from films – Eyes Wide Shut and Vanity Fair were shot here – and some special occasions, it sits quietly here.” But it is the graveyard of the 900 year old estate church of St Andrew and St Patrick that best neatly tells the history. Cheek by jowl with the Guinness family plot are the gravestones of the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire and his wife Princess Bamba. What? Here in rural mid Suffolk? Indeed. The first country house was built here in the 1760s by Admiral Keppel whose descendants Alice Keppel and Camilla Parker-Bowles would famously become royal mistresses. The East India Company forced the Punjabi Maharajah to relinquish his territory and the Koh-i-noor diamond after the end of the 2nd Anglo-Sikh War. He bought Elveden in 1863 with the compensation he received. His architect John Norton engulfed the Keppels’ house into a larger 13 bay building which is now the west wing of Elveden Hall.

“Sikhs from around the world visit the graves,” Ned comments. “It was in my great great grandfather’s day that it became two churches. The Maharajah’s successors were disinherited so us Guinnesses, we bought Elveden.” A simple plaque reads: “This church was restored and the north aisle and chancel added by Edward Cecil, 1st Earl of Iveagh, in the years 1904 to 1906. He died on 7 October 1927 aged 80 years and is buried in the northeast corner of the churchyard.” Ned explains, “The 1916 bell tower and colonnade were added in memory of Adelaide, his wife, the 1st Countess. It’s a beautiful working church and school. Between 1895 and 1910 my great great grandparents built the estate model village using red brick from our brickworks.”

“Two houses with something special in the middle,” is how Ned succinctly describes Elveden Hall. The Guinnesses spruced up the exterior of the Maharajah’s house and duplicated it on the other side of a porte cochère behind which lies that something special: the breathtaking Marble Hall. “The decoration of the Indian style room at Queen Victoria’s Osborne House is actually made of plaster. Ours is Carrera marble. The handiwork of 700 craftspeople working on site. We were immune at that stage to financial restrictions,” he smiles. “Although my great great grandfather was still very careful with money too. He recorded what he spent on newspapers.” This architectural aggrandisement isn’t entirely unlike the transformation of Straffan House into the K Club, only several notches up again. “Clare and I were married in the Marble Hall. It makes for a great party! It’s got a sprung dance floor but is a terrible room for echo!” The spectacular galleried domed space, all four storeys of it, is cathedral meets mosque. “It expresses my great great grandparents’ desire for exoticism and plays tribute to Elveden’s history.”

The design of the Marble Hall was inspired by the rooms of the Maharajah’s house. “He wanted to be reminded of the Court of Lahore. The walls and ceilings are ornately decorated between mirrors. His Drawing Room is divided by slender Indian style columns into conversation areas. The cantilevered staircase cost £30,000. The Maharajah was furious as this took up a large portion of his annual allowance. We whitewashed everything, us Guinnesses,” observes Ned, “it does get dark in winter in Suffolk!” Upstairs an enfilade overlooks the driveway: the King’s Bedroom, the Queen’s Bedroom, the Ladies-in-Waiting’s Bedroom. They retain remnants of Edwardian plasterwork and stencilled paint effects. “George V, George VI and Edward VII were frequent guests,” he explains. Mrs Keppel came too. The Royal Family last visited here for a shooting party in 1931.

On the other side of the Marble Hall, the rooms in the west wing reflect “the neoclassicism of my great great grandparents” confirms Ned. “The Boudoir opposite the Dining Room is where ladies congregated while men retired to the Smoking Room. It once held a collection of ecclesiastical themed tapestries. They must have faded as it’s south facing. More recently the Boudoir was the setting of my 30th birthday complete with oyster bar!” The Guinnesses’ architect was William Young. He’d proved his capability by designing the ballroom of Iveagh House, their Dublin City townhouse on St Stephen’s Green, and making alterations to Farmleigh, their County Dublin country house in The Phoenix Park. Practical design at Elveden includes double glazing on the north facing entrance front: sashes placed behind external casements. The 1st Earl asked Caspar Purdon Clarke, director of the V+A and an expert in Indian decoration, to design the Marble Hall to link the new and the old.

“I’ve managed the estate for 23 years. It pays for itself now.” The current Earl and Countess live with their young sons Arthur and Rupert in a rectory on The Elveden Estate. “But Elveden Hall is an enormous work in progress, an unfinished canvas. Our policy is to use the estate team for all restoration work where possible. I love the house but it’s a big challenge. You can’t see the fruits of our work so far. I’m very proud though we’ve reroofed the whole building, quite an engineering feat. The roof is now tilted to allow rainwater to run off. We’ve secured the shell of the building and it’s watertight now. What’s next? I want to use the house, to safeguard its future. Tens of millions of pounds of restoration you’re talking about. One step at a time. That’s my plan. I’ve furniture in storage too,” ends Lord Iveagh. Over to Lady Iveagh, “I’m not moving in until there is at least heating and hot water!”

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Art Design Fashion People

Carmen Dell’Orefice + Claridge’s Hotel Mayfair London

Model Behaviour

Lavender’s Blue caught up with the inimitably monocled magnificently manicured Carmen Dell’Orefice when she recently stayed in a Diane von Furstenberg designed hotel suite (where else?) in London. She was fresh – very fresh indeed – off the runways of New York Fashion Week where she stole the show walking for Norisol Ferrari.

Those cheekbones sharp enough to slice bread with … the thoroughbred aquiline nose … the gunshot grey and lilac hooded eyelids … the supremely elegant arch of her back … that majestic mane of silvery white hair … Her legendary beauty and regalness have been captured on countless occasions by the great and the good of the photographic world. But in the flesh she is even more enticing, more exquisite, more natural and best of all armed with a wicked sense of humour that celluloid could never capture. We fell about laughing as she exaggeratedly demonstrated some of her more extreme model poses with all the elasticity of a teenager. The secret of her suppleness? One hour’s stretching exercises in the morning, she confided. Over to Carmen:

“I have worked with all the best photographers long before digital photography came along. Back then, photographers talked a different language. I don’t consider images taken of me belong to me. They are the products of the photographers who are mental and spiritual sculptors. I don’t think about the labels people give me. I’m too busy! I never chose to be in my profession. I learnt to achieve. Have the passion to live. Life is worth living. Do some good when no one is looking.” Inspirational isn’t a strong enough word.

“I am still thinking of who I am. Think of who you are and where your passions lie. When young guys like you tell me I’m inspiring I know there’s hope for the future of this world. The idea is from 80 to 100 to slow down but quite sure how I’m not sure yet. I may be the last link to a golden age and I’m going out with my heels on! I love being silent. Take life seriously.” And with that, she burst out laughing.

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Architecture Country Houses Design People

Viscount + Viscountess Mersey + Bignor Park West Sussex

Downy Grass with Tufts of Alpine Flowers Catching the Slow Train to Dawn

Bignor Park is quite simply the most romantic place in the South Downs. Not just the dream of a house, all shell pink walls and shuttered sashes. Nor the parkland like a leaf out of a Humphry Repton Red Book. Nor that it was the home of a seminal Romantic poet. Nor that it is the home of a successful composer. The golden dusk settles it. Romance belongs here in the most literal fashion, for Bignor Park is the setting of 12 weddings a year. Kisses on the wind and then some. “We love hosting them. Such very happy occasions. At the end of the proceedings people get pretty sloshed!” smiles the 14th Lord Nairne, 5th Viscount Mersey of Toxteth, descendent of the Lords of Kerry. Also known as Ned Bigham, the esteemed music producer and composer.

That explains the pile of CDs on the drum table in the entrance hall. And the drum kit in the library. He’s an eclectic musician; his CV ranges from producing songs for Amy Winehouse to writing ballads for the Scottish Ensemble. Ned was once drummer for Neneh Cherry. His new album, Staffa, was the highest entry by a living composer in the Classical Charts. “Half my working life is taken up composing; the other half, I’m an estate manager.” Bignor Park is the home of Ned, his elegant wife Clare and their two daughters, Flora and Polly. “In 2006, two momentous events happened in my life. The first was a happy one: the birth of my second daughter Polly. The second was sad: the death of my father one month later.” That meant a change of title (form of address) and a change of title (address).

“We have undertaken major conservation work on the estate with funding from Natural England,” he relates, “restoring acres of heathland, planting new hedges and encouraging the rare Field Cricket. We now have one quarter of the UK population of the European Field Cricket. We’ve also created a wildflower wetland. I remember as a child the lovely cry of the lapwing. We are trying to encourage it back again.” There are 120 hectares of forestry and 320 hectares of organic farmland. And fortunately a few hectares left over for ornamental gardens. A million miles from anywhere. Although a surprising 90 minute drive from London.

Somewhere between the house and the stables and the dovecot and the swimming pool and the orchard and the Quadrangle and the Ceremony Garden and the South Lawn and the Dutch Garden is the Walled Garden. Clare is justifiably pleased with recent improvements: “In January 2011, Louise Elliott and Lisa Rawley of Fleur de Lys, the gold medal winner at the previous year’s Chelsea Flower Show, began an ambitious programme of new planting. Louise now manages the garden with help from Andrea Lock, Kirsten Walker and Peter Sherratt. In the centre of the Walled Garden over the pond is Geoffrey Stinton’s Aeolian harp. It hums quietly when the wind blows. Beyond the low wall is a line of pleached limes. They’re pruned to preserve views of the South Downs.”

“Bignor Park is a medieval development originally attached to the Arundel Castle Estate,” according to Ned. “The current house was designed by the Belgravia architect Henry Harrison in the 1820s. It cost £30,000. The architect complained he didn’t make any money out of it! His client John Hawkins brought back some rather wonderful Grecian marble reliefs from his Grand Tour. They hang in the loggia. My great grandfather, the 2nd Viscount Mersey, bought Bignor in 1926. His father was a divorce and maritime judge – quite a combination! – and presided over the Titanic and Lusitania inquiries.” Beyond the entrance hall lies an enfilade of reception rooms: the library | the drawing room | the dining room. They’re incredibly smart. Chic not shabby. “My grandmother came from Bowood –she booted out the old furniture! The Robert Adam drawing room doors are from Lansdowne House.”

As for the poet: “Charlotte Turner Smith lived at Bignor as a child,” explains Ned. “Being a female writer was exceptional for that time. She is considered to be the first ever properly confessional writer of poems and novels.” Married off at 15, after giving birth to 12 children she separated from her feckless husband. Not before she joined him for a sojourn at His Majesty’s Displeasure in a debtor’s prison. Leaving behind the halcyon days of Bignor Park, Charlotte gained plenty of material, no words remain unsaid, for her Sonnet XXXII To Melancholy:

‘When latest autumn spreads her evening veil, And the grey mists from these dim waves arise, I love to listen to the hollow sighs, Thro’ the half-leafless wood that breathes the gale: For at such hours the shadowy phantom pale, Oft seems to fleet before the poet’s eyes;Strange sounds are heard, and mournful melodies, As of night-wanderers, who their woes bewail! Here, by his native stream, at such an hour, Pity’s own Otway I methinks could meet. And hear his deep sighs swell the sadden’d wind! O Melancholy! – such thy magic power, That to the soul these dreams are often sweet, And sooth the pensive visionary mind!’

From late 18th century Romance to early 21st century romance. “We aren’t in the business of conveyor belt weddings,” Clare confirms. “What we want people to do is come and have Bignor as their home for the day, whether it’s a marquee on the croquet lawn or a party in the restored stables. Our marvellous Events Promoter Louise Hartley is on hand for bookings.” A breezeless Indian summer’s evening may, just may, add to the colonial air of this most romantic of Regency houses. Such grace, such calm, the smoothest of recesses and gentlest of projections offering fullness of form and precision of proportion. Then there’s Bignor village at the end of the driveway, so chocolate boxy (of the Godiva variety) it’s good enough to eat. Togetherness and nowness, living in the past, present and future. Bignor Park is quite simply the most romantic place in the South Downs.

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SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem + Tel Aviv

Diligent Hands Make Wealth

Achilles James Daunt CBE is not one to rest on his laurels. MD and reinventor of British bookshop chain Waterstone since 2011, back in 1990 the former banker purchased an Edwardian bookshop on Marylebone High Street (incidentally the US Ambassador to the UK Jane Hartley’s favourite London street), stocked it with the best titles, renamed it after himself, and the rest is literary history. The top lit three storey interior is lined with long oak galleries. Stained glass windows and William Morris wallpaper add to the period charm of what is now undoubtedly London’s finest bookshop. There are offshoots in Belsize Park, Cheapside, Hampstead, Holland Park Kentish Town, Oxford and Marlow.

We’re proud to announce Daunt Books Marylebone is the world exclusive stockist of the first book by Lavender’s Blue. You’re getting our dynamic: SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv now takes pride of place in the Middle East travel section shelves. It’s about all our favourite places rolled into two: one of the newest and one of the oldest cities in the world. Brought to fruition by the genius of Digitronix, industry leaders in multi disciplinary design and print. Not forgetting Pete R’s invaluable direction. Beyond conventional categorisation, for we are more than mere phantoms, maybe it’s best to quote some readers’ reactions (from Royalty to Archbishopry to Clergy to Society) to the first edition. Time for some laurel resting.

“This is an outstanding achievement. A vivid creative expression of your wide literary interests and your strong visual sense — and particularly for this subject, your personal spiritual values. Being a person of no religion myself, I’m enjoying your quotations from Biblical sources, especially those expressed in 17th century language. Also the well chosen theological and historical quotes from leading writers of today which are thought provoking. Your rich text together with your wonderful illustrations gives the reader so much to understand and to appreciate about the places described. Congratulations! This is a very engaging book for the reader, it feels like the living experience of a journey with the many historical facts, associations and emotions that are stimulated by travel. In many ways your book makes me think of Jan Morris, who is the ‘grand master’ of travel writing — though she doesn’t offer the reader your richness of visual imagery! I should add that I’m also enjoying your Nancy Mitford references and I really love your quote from Min Hogg: ‘Visiting a hot country especially for those who are not native to it reawakens the senses.’ This is so true.”

“Super, you capture the essence of the Holy Land and Presentation A1, your Singular Contribution to Publishing today. The Slip Cover, so enticing as is the Midnight Blue Binding. So many thanks for the mention, and so apt the dedication to Brother and Prince Alfred. Vulcans must have carried you from desk to studio, as I have never seen a publication arrive at such speed, it is the works of you and the God of letters and images. Now congratulations, and press on now with the next Project, you have The Gift!”

“How wonderful, beautiful, how gracious. So with the packaging still on the floor the next hour was spend reading the text and looking at the gorgeous photographs. Thank you SO much it was so kind of you to think of me for such a beautiful book. I look forward to reading more.  I’ve noticed how the Biblical texts seem so comfortable on the page but also how they are vibrant or energy filled almost as if they jump off the page. You have chosen so well and carefully.”

“Just opened the sumptuous tome on Tel Aviv. What fabulous photographs – they really inspire me to visit and confirm all the wonderful things I have heard about the city. I shall study as the nights draw in and dream of sun kissed climes. You are a true artist of the lens! Straight to the top of the pile … after reading.”

“I was blown away by the stunning book … It is beautiful! I am in awe of the clarity and depth of each picture that speaks so vividly they draw you in … And the time, skill and story you have shared through this stunning piece of art! Thank you so so much (I particularly like page 180)!”

“AND – yesterday we opened a parcel with an amazing book in it – Sabbath Plus One is amazing – what a wonderful creation … utterly incredible and what a lovely gift – we were both enthralled. THANK YOU so much for sending us a copy – beyond that I am speechless! Just THANK YOU.”

“An Amazing Work – I really can’t believe it was the fruit of a lay weekend visit. It feels like you really got under the skin of the place – and had great fun in doing so. Your work is already drawing much attention from those coming into my office.”

“A very interesting book – amazing photos taken with an architectural eye. Brought back memories! I see Newtownstewart and Pubble got a mention on page 28!”

“Amazing photography accompanied by your usual descriptive style and excerpts from Scripture too. Wonderful!”

“Super Daunt Books reception! You follow in the paths of H V Morton and Mary McCarthy. Again, press on and on.”

“A total entity onto itself.”

“I like the book title.”

“A beautiful book.”

(Alternative imagery from the bestseller SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv).

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Architecture Art Design Hotels Luxury

SABBATH PLUS ONE Frishman Beach + Hilton Hotel Tel Aviv

Chartered Waters

“No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.” I Corinthians 2:7

The past is a foreign country; sometimes so is the present. Ah, the orgastic present. An amplification of sorts, a reawakening of existential and pragmatic reality. Golden crowns glisten upon the pent up jasper sea off the Mediterranean coast, glowing with the creative energy of God. Mighteous waves beat in from the allure of azure horizons, ethereal expanses of shining sand at once quotidian and crystalline. And then there is the sunlight, as efficacious as an Evensong prayer. Igniting unforeseen possibilities, purveying happenstance; renewals of experience apart, we remain unacquainted with neo and pseudo.

In What Are We Doing Here? (2000), Marilynne Robinson originates, “And yet the beautiful persists, and so do eloquence and depth of thought, and they belong to all of us because they are the most pregnant evidence we have of what is possible in us.” Keeping it surreal, through an interrogation of the Rogation, doxological precepts acknowledged, spangled heavens approaching, Tel Aviv stretches forth in vital immediacy under an ever-luring sky. Encountering beauty through the iridescent glow of an evanescent world, sidestepping the modish while fleeing material status, in a reordering of hierarchies, we sew the tapestry of our simple joyful lives.

Marilynne Robinson again: “We have looked into Melvillean nurseries, and glimpsed the births of stars that came into being many millions of years ago, an odd privilege of our relation to space and time. Properly speaking, we are the stuff of myth.” Our late afternoon stroll along Frishman Beach after dropping down from Independence Park (a hilltop fairy land of three hectares) proves singular and providential, echoing a strange efficacy, a special instance of the matrix of being. She muses, “There is something irreducibly thrilling about the universe … a reality whose astonishments we can never exhaust.” The Very Reverend Canon Richard Sewell told the congregation at St George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem, “The universe is stranger than we realise and is stranger than we can realise.” Wonders unto many, we are magnified and tainted by elegiac projection, poignancy and beauty. Today is the beginning of always.

“He told them, ‘The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables.” Mark 4: 11(Extract with alternative imagery from the bestseller SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv).

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Design Luxury People Restaurants

SABBATH PLUS ONE Shila Restaurant + Bar Tel Aviv

Quaffable Art

“Wine was served in goblets of gold, each one different from the other, and the royal wine was abundant, in keeping with the king’s liberality.” Esther 1:7

Stuffing the gnomic into gastronomic, palette to palate, culinary art courageously curated, platefuls of luxury signifiers. Outside may be sweating 39 degrees Celsius but inside this sanctum a coolly slick multisensory performance is underway. Welcome to the great indoors. The dining room and bar are reassuringly luxurious and luxuriously reassuring. Upmarket upscale top drawer top notch high class high octane, Shila on Ben Yehuda Street is a byword for brilliance, a deliverer of orchidaceous new delights. The ravishing people are here and there are some rather attractive couples at the other tables too. So … drum roll … the food is a triumph! Israeli fayre with an international sensibility personalised by local legendary Chef Sharon Cohen who knows his spring onions and summer truffle and cuts the mustard, never overegging the soufflé. It’s not cheap but what price umami? Worth every shekel.

Shila surpasses our wildest expectations and our expectations are pretty wild. Taste good dining in a good taste dining room. Flam Blanc from the Judean Hills, le goût de l’été, arrives in glasses big enough to swim in, capturing the lingering essence and aromatic bouquet of the grape. Knight that vintner! B’tayavon! L’chaim! Breathe in. Our amuse gueules, such appetising appetisers, are veritable constructs that look good enough to wear. Appealing to our inner epicureans are the Mexican fish burger, sea fish tartare on brioche and jalapeño aioli (Frances Scott Fitzgerald’s description in his short story My Lost City springs to mind: “a brilliant flag of food, called an hors d’oeuvre”). The main event is prawn and asparagus gnocchi with fresh tomato salsa, an engaging marriage of sea and farm, another orthonasal olfactory hit. Hervé This comes from a molecular gastronomy angle in Molecular Gastronomy, 2008, “As early as 1651 Nicholas de Bonnefons mentions small pieces of dough that have been ‘scalded’ in boiling water … from the oldest échaudés to potato gnocchi and gnocchi à la Parisienne the principle is the same: one begins with a dough composed of starch, egg, and water.”

“It is nearly impossible to not eat well in Israel,” raves local commentator Claudia Stein. Pudding, like revenge, is best served cold. Lemon and raspberry sorbet is as welcome as a snow-cooled drink at harvest time. Breathe out. Such a bacchanalian bout of riotous Augustan reminiscence! Our long languorous lunch, a carefully coordinated culinary voyage from primacy to regency, is coming to a climax. Service is so smooth. Ding-a-ling! You can get the staff these days. A postprandial elixir of strawberry daiquiri appears … ecstasy extended. It’s enough to stimulate the dopaminergic neurons of our ventral tegmental area into overdrive.

The beautiful changes. Later, much later, backed by the certainty of chance, we will ride through Tel Aviv in a sports car with the warm wind in our hair, channelling our inner Tamara in a Green Bugatti (she who was, “Possessed of a dazzling talent, a striking beauty, and an irresistible force of personality,”) sucking on our cheroot in a sherut, driving through the hazy mist of sweltering heat, finding forever in a fleeting moment, tasting the salty sultriness while nebulous desires persist and pursue us across a restless afternoon. Friday Street, plus one. Gilded days, halcyon days, hallowed days, happy days, hosted days, ordained days, salad days. Spinning round in the fields of freedom. The whole shebang and shenanigans. Such seductiveness; a momentary embrace; a dalliance to the cadence of time. A dynamic magnetised meeting. A hookah. A hooley. A hooray. As Elizabeth Bowen quipped in The House in Paris, “Any year of one’s life has to be lived.” In Bowen’s Court and Seven Winters she goes further, “no Irish people – Irish or Anglo-Irish – live a day unconsciously … for generations they have been lived at high pitch.” Our time is now. Élan has a new.

“People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.” Luke 13:29

(Extract with alternative imagery from the bestseller SABBATH PLUS ONE Jerusalem and Tel Aviv).

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Coal Drops Yard + Coal Office Restaurant King’s Cross London

Beyond the Espérance Bridge

At the close of last century, the land behind King’s Cross and St Pancras Railway Stations was promoted as the biggest development site in Europe. Over the post millennium decades new places and spaces have taken shape between and inside retained and restored structures. The cast iron frames of gasholders continue to provide a robust architectural presence. An ankle height plaque on one of their columns reads: “Erected 1864. Telescoped 1880.”

Next to the gasholders is Coal Drops Yard, a collection of former industrial buildings transformed by designer Thomas Heatherwick into luxury shops (such as Le Chocolat by Alain Ducasse, Astrid and Miyu jewellers and Tom Dixon’s flagship store), galleries and restaurants. Overlooking Coal Drops Yard and backing onto the canal is a row of gorgeous converted commercial buildings. On the ground floor is designer Tom Dixon’s studio and – whoop whoop! – an Israeli restaurant. Further to the north are some of the most exciting new schemes in London. Not least Allison Brooks Architects’ Cadence tower of apartments over offices. The historic arches of the area are reinterpreted in bézier arched window openings on various levels of the 15 storey tower and adjoining lower blocks to striking effect.

Coal Drops Yard was built in the 1850s close to the canal and railway tracks to receive, sort and store the coal that powered Victorian London. Two decades later the coal trade shifted south of the canal and the buildings found alternative industrial uses. Glass bottle manufacturer Bagley, Wild and Company took over one of the buildings. Little did cousins William and John William Bagley know that a film studio in what was once their warehouse would retain their surname. Better still, the next use, a nightclub, would as well. Bagley’s occupied the three storey eastern block of Coal Drops Yard. It held the biggest and best raves in Nineties London with capacity (often exceeded) of 2,500 partygoers. Each floor would have a different music genre blasting to the beams. Pure ecstasy!

Next door to Tom Dixon’s studio, Coal Office is a collaboration between him and businessman Chef Assaf Granit (who owns the Michelin starred Machneyuda in Jerusalem). Over Saturday brunch at the restaurant bar overlooking the open plan kitchen we chat to Head Chef Dan Pelles. He studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York before working for five years at the nearby triple Michelin starred restaurant Jean Georges. His cooking is rooted in Israel and across the Levant: Dan is from Tel Aviv.

We name drop Shila (pronounced like the female name “Sheila”), our favourite Tel Avivian spot for lunch, especially on the Ben Yehuda Street terrace. “Shila is a great seafood restaurant,” Dan agrees, and referring to the owner Chef, “Sharon Cohen is a good friend. Israel is so so tiny – everyone knows everyone! Have some chilli olives.” We’re keen to understand what Israeli cuisine is all about.

“In New York there’s Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy,” he relates. “So many cuisines are separately defined. Not so much in Israel. In the Forties and and early Fifties Israel was filled with immigrants from Yemini to European. I have a Scottish grandmother and a Moroccan grandmother. It became a melting pot – the common language is food. There’s no other place like it in the world. Israeli cuisine is a blend of international traditions with healthy and fresh local ingredients. My Scottish grandmother made black pudding; my Moriccan grandmother cooked octopus. I eat both!”

“This dish has three types of aubergine.” Tarterie Oto (aubergine tartare, white and black aubergine cream, parsley and chilli aubergine) is served. The weekend brunch menu is divided into Small Plates, In Between Plates and Big Plates. We opt for ample sized Small Plates. Tapogan (salmon sashimi, potato crisp, horseradish crème fraîche, chilli oil, dill) is followed by Salat Dla’at (Delicat pumpkin, dandelion, Galotyri cheese, apple balsamic vinaigrette). Dan’s prestigious training and experience shines through in every dish. Alma White 2021 from Dalton Winery, Galilee, is the perfect accompaniment to the savouries. “Do you want an Israeli passion fruit dessert wine?” tempts Dan when sea salt caramel ice cream on carmelised pretzel arrives.

The sharply defined interior right down to the wine glasses and cutlery is designed by Tom Dixon. We interviewed the designer for Select Interiors Winter 2008. This glossy Irish magazine was published by Brigid Whitehead. Here’s the copy: We keep hearing the word ‘maverick’ bandied about in the media, especially on American television channels. Vice President hopeful Sarah Palin can barely make a speech without referring to her running mate John McCain as a maverick. Whether or not he fits the standard definition (“A lone dissenter: an intellectual, artist or a politician who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates”) is a moot point. A quick online search of the contemporary designer Tom Dixon’s recent career highlights – of which there are many – wouldn’t immediately suggest he is a maverick either. He’s been awarded no fewer than two doctorates and the highly successful design brand Tom Dixon has now expanded into the US. That’s just the tip of his iceberg sized CV.

His iconic status is there for all to see. Surprisingly, he’s self taught. His maverick status starts to emerge. “He is a self educated maverick whose only qualification is a one day course in plastic bumper repair,” is a quote once used to describe Tom’s background. In place of formal training, his interest in welding led him to experiment with furniture using found objects from a steelyard at Chelsea Harbour including iron tread plate, gas fittings and industrial nuts and bolts. Tom explains, “I was immediately hooked on welding … mesmerised by the tiny pool of molten metal viewed from the safety of darkened goggles. Allowing an instant fusion of one piece of steel to another, it had none of the seriousness of craft, none of the pomposity of design. It was industry.”

Recycling might be all the rage now, but back in the Eighties, Tom chartered new waters with his breakthrough designs. Others were left to play catch up. They still are. He continues, “London at the time was full of scrap metal yards and the skips were piled full of promising bits and pieces due to the Eighties boom … all of which presented themselves to me as potential chair backs or table legs. Unhindered by commercial concerns – I had my night job – or formal training, I made things just for the pleasure of making them. It was only when people started to buy that I realised I had hit on a form of alchemy. I could turn a pile of scrap metal into gold!”

At the end of the following decade, pundits were surprised when he accepted the post as Head of the UK Design Studio at Habitat. In the intervening years, he had been self employed and he was never considered ‘establishment’. Tom confesses his friends were horrified. Perhaps they thought he was losing his hard earned maverick status? According to him, “They said I would have my creativity compromised. I would be entering a stifling world of corporate politics.” But in reality, “It was as though I had a giant toy box … all the manufacturing techniques in the world from basket work to injection moulding. Everything for the home to design … everything at normal everyday prices!”

Six years ago, the company called Tom Dixon was set up by Tom and his business partner David Begg. In 2004 a partnership was established between the Tom Dixon founders and venture capitalists Proventus to form Design Research Studio. Today, the Studio owns and manages the brand Tom Dixon as well as Artek, the Finnish modernist furniture manufacturer established by Alvar Aalto in 1935. But Tom has ensured that he hasn’t sold out, joined the establishment. Instead he is fulfilling his lifetime ambition to make good design available to everyone.

Every icon must have his or her iconic work and Tom’s has grown from single pieces of furniture such as the S Chair and Blow Pendant Light to full blown interiors. Shoreditch House is Design Research Studio’s latest project, led by Tom. As usual, an innovative approach was taken to this private members’ club in a converted biscuit factory. The industrial character was played up by introducing even more raw materials while dedication to comfort with deep-pile rugs creates an enjoyable tension. In Tom’s words, the concept was to, “Celebrate honest materials with all their functional and decorative qualities. Their imperfections too.” We’ve heard that Damien Hirst, Jamie Dornan and Sophie Ellis Bextor all like to hang out there.

Tom has turned full circle. He recently joined a band called Rough; he plays with them when working for Artek in Helsinki. Last time he was in a band was in the Eighties. “We play bad Kylie Minogue covers,” he says, laughing. And in the last six months, Tom has started buying back original Artek pieces from schools and hospitals and replacing them with new versions. The institutions are glad of the update and collectors like to buy the originals. “The big idea underpinning the whole project is this discussion about sustainability,” he relates. It’s a new take on recycling. No matter what career posts he takes on, he’s always able to take an independent stand apart. Tom Dixon, ever the maverick.

Returning to 2023, whole Coal Office is Tom Dixon’s next door neighbour, his upstairs neighbour is the celebrated architectural practice Herzog and Meuron. What’s new in his store below in Coal Drops Yard? He advises, “Elements: a series of fragrances inspired by the medieval alchemist and eastern philosopher’s quest to reduce all matter to four simple elements, four scents of extreme simplicity and individual character that reflect their elemental names of Fire, Air, Earth and Water.” A medium size candle is £125; large, £220. As we edge towards the middle of the third post millennium decade, the land behind King’s Cross and St Pancras Railway Stations has become one of the best developed sites in Europe.

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Kapara Restaurant + Wedgwood Mews Soho London

The Real Chinatown

“Is there such a thing as Israeli cuisine?” Ruthie Rousso asked in the inaugural issue of the Televivian Journal three years ago. “The international response settles the issues for us all: Israeli food is quickly becoming among the most popular in the world. Israeli restaurants bloom and boom in London and New York, Israeli cookbooks win international prizes, and Israel in general has become a place of pilgrimage due to its restaurants and not only because of the Old City and the Dead Sea.”

The Chef continues to muse, “Food is a reflection. Plates have narratives. They tell different stories. These stories have a very personal connection to the traditions and habits that pass from generation to generation. But there is also a much broader dimension related to issues of culture, history, conflicts, wars, international relations, and even GDP. The complex Israeli identity is contained on every plate. In every tiny heirloom Palestinian bamya with preserved lemon and brown butter served in haBasta, and in every steaming pitta stuffed with roasted cauliflower, crème fraîche and local hot pepper … Israeli cuisine, like Israeli identity, is a fragile and frail tissue of crossings and stitching, fraught with youth on the one hand, and with hindering history on the other, full of adventurous urges, creativity and courage. Yes, and some chutzpah as well.”

Shabbat shalom! Kapara is chutzpah in a pistachio nutshell. But first, it’s oh so quiet (to channel Björk). Seems like a no show. Then, predicting a riot (channelling Kaiser Chiefs) it’s suddenly oh so Soho. Sababa! Soon the Galilee Dry White Givon Chardonnay is flowing as the lights get dimmer, the music booms louder, and the imaginary patterns appear in the wall tiles. Or are they imaginary? Everything seems rather naughty but terribly nice. Mezze is: Roasted Plums and Feta (soft herbs). Brunch Plate is: Baby Aubergine Shakshuka (spicy tomato sauce, stewed aubergine, eggs, tahini, pickled chillies, chive). Sweet Ending is: Gramp’s Cigar (brick pastry, pistachio, rose, coco, passionfruit curd, chocolate soil, smoked tuile). From smoky to smoking to smoking hot. And in an even sweeter ending, the cocktails are: The Glory Mole (El Rayo Tequila, hibiscus, cardamom, ginger, lime, soda) and Space Cowboy (Konik’s Tail Vodka, port, pimento, caraway, strawberry, hop, soda).

Kapara is tucked away in a redrawn block stretching from the retained 17th century Portland House (stuccoed up in the mid 19th century) on Greek Street to the replacement Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road. Architectural practices Matt and Soda combined their pizzazz to bring the best piece of urban design to hit London this decade. Nine storeys above ground (some occupying the air space where the Wedgwood china factory once stood) and four underground. A glazed sliced cone nose diving into the earth lights the subterranean office floors. If this is Soho Estates cleaning up their act what’s not to like? One sixth of the site is dedicated to new public realm. The restaurant spills onto part of this realm: an elusive and exclusive courtyard. Terracotta stained GRC (Glass Reinforced Concrete), glazed bricks and scoop and scallop patterned tiles all add to the Mediterranean ambience. A four metre high stainless steel head sculpture by Cuban artist Rafael Miranda San Juan gazes across the courtyard.

Owner Chef Eran Tibi’s earliest memories involved food. “I helped my father, a Tunisian born baker, in our family bakery and I spent time with my mother trimming okra tips. Family and food became intertwined, inseparable, from a young age. Food was a means to an end for my family – it meant more, it was a way of life. My grandfather was a great lover of life and all its indulgences. He owned a bar, a restaurant and a club. He instilled in me the importance of living for the moment, of being present in the now.” Aged 30, Eran decided to formally train at Le Cordon Blue School in London. His first restaurant in the English capital is the wildly successful Bala Baya in London Bridge. Eran’s mission to bring localised Middle Eastern food to southeastern England proves there really is such a thing as Israeli cuisine.

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Old Union Yard Arches + Bala Baya Restaurant Southwark London

Behind The Music Box

It’s a long time since Gilbert and George sang Under the Arches (1969) and an even longer time since Flanaghan and Allen did too (1941). These days, railway arches are – like every square metre in London – hot property. The Low Line. Theatres, restaurants, bars and community hubs fill the stretch from Union Street to Surrey Row known as Old Union Yard Arches.

But before the arches were redeveloped, there was, and very much still is, The Music Box. The capital’s most exciting apartments and music college scheme. Developer Taylor Wimpey Central London had the vision to commission the exciting young architecture practice Spparc (now in full bloom) to design a building that entwines architecture and music in a standout standalone standing ovation on Union Street.

A mezzanine divides the archway of Bala Baya into two levels. The ground floor is achromatic in deference to the White City of Tel Aviv. Upstairs, the exposed brick vault lends a more rustic allure. Owner Chef Eran Tibi – you guessed it – is Televivian. Interior designer Afroditi Krassa added bright terrazzo slabs from a Haifa factory. Eran says, “I wanted to walk on floors that remind me of home.” Tableware comes from one of Jaffa’s famous flea markets. The rear wall of the mezzanine is built up in perforated breeze blocks of the type you see just about everywhere in gardens in Israel. But the biggest import is the custom built pitta oven from Israeli manufacturer Jagum.

The rumble of trains overhead provides an accompaniment to dancey music. Six years old, Bala Baya still strikes the right chord with a cacophony free lunch. Putting that oven to good use, pitta is served with mezze: Pink Tamara (smoked roe, extra virgin olive oil, chives). Fish Clouds (smoked haddock fish cakes, pita crumbs, poached egg, white taramasalata, apple, fennel) are a reminder of Tel Aviv’s western coast. ‘Bala Baya’ means ‘mistress of the house’ and the pudding Lady Baharat (pink lady, salted caramel, Baharat cream, wonton) proves to be a woo worthy sweet symphony. Israeli wines are labelled “from home”. Pale straw coloured Carmel Selected Sauvignon Blanc 2020 carries aromas of tropical fruit notes against a backdrop of cut grass. Like The Music Box, the wine is aging well.

Unsurprisingly Eran is a protégé of Yotam Ottolenghi. Michael Kaminer explained in his 2017 review of Bala Baya for The New York Times, “Before he became a global brand, Yotam Ottolenghi introduced Londoners to modern Israeli food – a minor trend that has become a phenomenon.” Bala Baya is part of this movement from minor to major, taking it up another octave. Encore! Encore!