Spectator Life

Spectator Life

An intelligent mix of culture, style, travel, food and property, as well as where to go and what to see.

Inside the Glastonbury home of Mulberry’s founder

Roger Saul founded Mulberry in 1971. He created their now iconic range of bags, belts and purses, but was ousted from the designer label’s board in the early Noughties. Undeterred, he reinvented himself as the purveyor of organic spelt cereal and flour brand, Sharpham Park. His range of products is de rigueur on every health-conscious

The irritating rise of home renovation influencers

Fifteen years ago there was no such thing as a social media influencer, but fast forward to 2023 and there are now an estimated 50 million full-time ‘creators’ worldwide. It isn’t hard to understand the appeal; no nine-to-five, no domineering boss, no skills, experience or talent necessary. Little input for potentially incredibly high returns, especially if you

There’s nothing scarier than a panic room

It’s not crazy to worry about getting home. It’s not crazy to lock your doors at night and check that the alarm is set. It’s not crazy to avoid the man who keeps gurning at you on the bus every time you look his way. It’s not crazy to worry. But is spending £50,000 to

Why Crete is the ideal island for a second home

Crete has a long and illustrious history: birthplace of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, and the seat of the Minoan ruler King Minos who is said to have ruled from a palace of 1,000 rooms.  The largest Greek Island, and nearly the one nearest to Africa (bar it’s tiny neighbour Gavdos) it’s also the

Solar panels in, swimming pools out: 2023’s property trends

Inflation has finally dipped a little but is still riding high, and mortgage rates may still rise further: Britain’s households are suffering a pay squeeze. But what are home-owners still spending their money on – and what has fallen out of favour? Here is Spectator Life‘s guide to the winners and losers in the property

The growing appeal of the outdoor kitchen

For most of us the main ingredients of outdoor cooking are a smouldering barbecue grill, slabs of alternately under- and over-cooked meat and a light sprinkling of frustration. But these days, it seems, there is another option on the menu. Ever since the pandemic, more and more homeowners have been investing in lavish outdoor kitchens

What’s behind the bungalow boom?

‘Bungalows are almost perfect,’ as the old gag goes. ‘They only have one floor.’ But these once unfashionable properties are rapidly becoming anything but a joke. While the mortgage crisis is cooling most sectors of the housing market, demand for bungalows is growing. Estate agents report the properties receiving dozens of offers, selling for tens

In praise of the suburban semi

In 1939 George Orwell took aim at burgeoning British suburbia and its population of lower middle class lackeys in his novel Coming Up for Air, memorably describing the new homes being built on the fringes of cities as ‘semi-detached torture chambers where the poor little five-to-ten pound a-weekers quake and shiver’. More than eight decades on

What Japanese cities can teach us about architecture

There are three things that occur to you when you travel the length of Japan: that kimonos are surprisingly good for any occasion; that the country’s reputation for cruelty may partly derive from breakfasts comprising tea porridge and prawn soufflé; and that the hordes of camera-wielding Japanese tourists taking thousands of snaps – a comic trope in the 1980s,

Move over Brighton: is Folkestone the next coastal property hotspot?

As the recent heatwave simmered on, tempura oysters were being washed down with chilled rosé on the beachfront tables at Little Rock, an offshoot of Folkestone’s Michelin starred Rocksalt restaurant. Looking from the shipping container that houses it past a handful of palm trees down the long shingle beach, a huge crane punctuated the clear

Has the regeneration of Elephant and Castle been a success?

It has been ten years since work began in earnest on the regeneration of one of the few surviving sections of old-school central London. While the rest of Zone 1 seemingly saw wall-to-wall gentrification, Elephant and Castle remained an outpost of stubborn, scruffy ordinariness, an oasis of discount stores, greasy spoons and traditional boozers. Over the

The invasion of the wheelie bins

Once I thought nothing could make residential Britain look uglier than pebble-dashing, PVC windows and satellite dishes. I was wrong. As if the country had not been brutally homogenised enough by the fact that every high street has the same shops, now every residential road is reduced to being an identical backdrop for a very persistent

The mysterious history behind an 11-bedroom country manor that’s up for sale

With its perfectly soaring Jacobean-style architecture, leaded windows and enchanting walled garden, all set within 17-plus acres of East Sussex countryside, Grade II* Listed Possingworth Manor is the rural idyll of an English country house.   Despite its tranquil appearance, however, the 11-bedroom, 8,500 sq ft manor near Uckfield has had a disproportionate share of drama over

The strange intimacy of flat-sharing

When I was younger, I dreamed of being a Jane Austen heroine. Nearly two decades on, in my late twenties, I am living in the guest room of a married older cousin in a leafy suburb of London, house-hunting in the middle of a housing crisis, waiting on a security clearance for a public-sector job,

Inside Denham Place, inspiration for the early James Bond films

House hunters nearly always have to make a compromise to suit their budget – the size of the garden, say, or those dated avocado bathroom suites, or the slightly inconvenient distance from the station. You might think that being a multi-millionaire would exonerate you from such stresses, making finding your dream home trouble-free.   Not so,

Laura Freeman

Can we know an artist by their house?

Show me your downstairs loo and I will tell you who you are. Better yet, show me your kitchen, bedroom, billiard room and man cave. Can we know a man – or woman – by their house? The ‘footsteps’ approach to biography argues that to really understand a subject, a biographer must visit his childhood

How to join the beach hut brigade

They are expensive to maintain, plagued by tourists and influences seeking picture-postcard holiday snaps and cost more per square foot than houses in some of London’s most affluent neighbourhoods – despite lacking basic amenities such as running water. And yet such is the allure of the traditional seaside beach hut that, amid an otherwise shaky

The inconvenient truth about heat pumps

In Britain’s battle to cut carbon emissions, the government sees heat pumps as a key weapon. Unveiling the latest energy efficiency plan in March, energy secretary Grant Shapps doubled down on Boris Johnson’s offer of a £5,000 grant for anyone willing to install one. These smart bits of home technology work by transferring thermal energy from the air,

Blooming expensive: the growing cost of a garden

As Cicero is often (mis)quoted as saying, if you have a garden and a library, that is all you need. And since the pandemic, our love of a garden has only got greater. Yet these days it’s often less about getting your hands dirty in the flowerbeds and more about having somewhere to kick back

Why house-hunters are heading to Derbyshire

You don’t get much further from the seaside than Derbyshire, a county landlocked at the heart of England. During lockdowns house-hunters simply couldn’t get enough of coastal property, and prices in Wales and the West Country boomed. But three years after the start of the pandemic, a new property powerhouse is emerging.  According to the latest UK

Why are Americans buying up our castles?

You might think someone who grew up in the 356-room Belvoir Castle wouldn’t be too worried by a traffic fine. But when Lady Eliza Manners was caught speeding, she avoided paying off the full £100 ticket by claiming ‘financial hardship’. And apparently she’s not the only budget-conscious occupant of the Leicestershire property. Her mother Emma,

The Eurovision effect: how Liverpool is changing its tune

Few British cities can rival the musical heritage of Liverpool – and as the Eurovision Song Contest arrives back in the UK after 25 years, Merseyside is getting ready for its moment in the spotlight. An extra 150,000 visitors are expected to descend on the city for the sell-out event this weekend. While the world’s

How to speed up buying a house

Everyone has a story about the stress of moving house. For those buying a new home, the process of exchanging contracts is perhaps even more nerve-racking than loading their worldly possessions into the back of a van. When I started in the property game in the late 1970s, buying a property – that’s when you

Ross Clark

A beginner’s guide to (legally!) avoiding tax

You have to feel a little sorry for Rishi Sunak. When you have a wife as rich as Akshata Murty, just how do you keep tabs on all her investments, making sure that each one of them is properly declared as an interest in the House of Commons Register? The Prime Minister has suffered the

For sale: Jane Austen’s birthplace

‘There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort,’ wrote the eminently quotable Jane Austen in Emma, in 1815. ‘Nobody can be more devoted to home than I am.’   If the incomparable Regency writer and social critic could see Steventon House, on the site of her birthplace and childhood home in Hampshire, she would

Mean streets: the psychology of neighbour disputes

Eunice Day’s breaking point came when her neighbours asked if she would move her car from a communal grass verge in their cul-de-sac so that it could be mowed. After several weeks of polite hostilities, Day stormed a neighbour’s home in the Dorset town of Ferndown, a row ensued, and the resulting scuffle left the

How padel courts became hot property

Peloton has peaked and troughed, wild swimming has made its splash – and now, it seems, it’s padel’s turn for the prime spot. Said to be the world’s fastest-growing racket sport, the game – a hybrid of tennis and squash, with a dash of ping pong – is fun and sociable (it’s played in doubles)

Home is where the art is: inside J.M.W Turner’s last house

Joseph Mallord William Turner continues to occupy a singular place in British cultural consciousness. The English Romantic artist, watercolourist and printmaker – often referred to as ‘the painter of light’ – elevated landscape painting to high art and, when he died in 1851, left a legacy of 550 oil paintings, 2,000 watercolours and 30,000 works