25 Apr 2021
HUSSEY BY NAME: Museum founder John Bowes’ father fell deeply in love with the married Sarah Hussey
In the latest of her regular columns, Dorothy Blundell takes a sideways look behind the scenes at The Bowes Museum where she is a volunteer
REGARDLESS of whether you believe in things that go bump in the night, the stories of a family’s long dead ancestors can make for entertaining reading.
If nothing else, they breathe life into the dusty pages of history.
Like the story from 300 years before museum founder John Bowes was born, when Janet Douglas, wife of John Lyon, the 6th Lord Glamis, was burnt at the stake after being accused of witchcraft by King James V of Scotland. Although clear that the accusations were false, the king had Janet, along with her family and servants, tortured until she “confessed”.
William Waterfield, plantsman who created a famous garden in the South of France – obituary
The Telegraph hailed him as ‘unquestionably the figure to whom all who toil seriously at their craft turn for counsel’
25 January 2021 • 3:56pm
Waterfield: a keen botanist from childhood, he brought horticultural expertise and hard work to Le Clos du Peyronnet at Menton
William Waterfield, who has died aged 78, was one of the last of a succession of British gardeners distinguished for their skill and expertise on the French Riviera.
The list includes Lady Aberconway (1854-1933) at the Château de la Garoupe on Cap d’Antibes; Harold Peto (also 1854-1933) at the Villas Sylvia, Maryland and Rosemary on Cap Ferrat, as well as at Isola Bella in Cannes; and Lawrence Johnston (1871-1958), the designer not only of the garden at Hidcote in Gloucestershire, but also that at Serre de la Madone in Menton.