Latest news with #Britishcountryside
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Hidden UK Farm Reveals Trio of Forgotten Classics, Including a Hillman Imp and Austin A30
⚡️ Read the full article on Motorious A remote British farm hides long-abandoned Hillman Imp, Austin A30, and VW Beetle, slowly being reclaimed by nature. Deep in the British countryside, a long-forgotten farm has revealed a remarkable trio of classic vehicles hidden beneath decades of overgrowth and decay. Captured on camera by urban explorer 'Exploring With Boss,' the site appears untouched since the late 20th century and is home to a Hillman Imp, an Austin A30, and a Volkswagen Beetle. The first vehicle spotted is a green Hillman Imp, partially protected under a barn's collapsed roof. A product of the Rootes Group, the Imp was the first British mass-production car with an aluminum engine block and head. Launched in 1963, it struggled with early reliability issues but remained in production until 1976. Around 440,000 units were built, and while not highly collectible today, surviving examples in solid condition are increasingly rare. Next is what appears to be an Austin A30, nearly indistinguishable beneath thick brush. Produced from 1951 to 1956, the A30 was Austin's answer to the Morris Minor. Powered by a modest 803cc inline-four, it offered frugal motoring for postwar Britain. Fewer than a quarter-million were made, and rust claimed many of them decades ago. Finally, partially obscured in the dense foliage, a Volkswagen Beetle can be seen — the world's most produced car of the 20th century. Though details are scarce due to its position, the rounded fenders and sloping roofline are unmistakable. The vehicles' exact location has not been disclosed, likely to protect them from looters or vandalism. Yet without intervention, the odds of their survival are slim. 'These cars are history, frozen in time,' the host says in the video. 'It's a shame they'll probably never move again.' Their fate, like that of many rural relics, remains uncertain — slowly surrendered to rust and roots.
Daily Mail
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
You star Madeline Brewer shares romantic wedding album as she ties the knot with Jack Thompson-Roylance
You actress Madeline Brewer has married Jack Thompson-Roylance. The July 12 wedding took place in the British countryside and was inspired by wildflowers, according to the 33-year-old star's Brides profile. The New Jersey native and Englishman met on a dating app in October 2022 and got engaged in January 2024. 'Knowing where Jack's from and knowing what the southwest of England looks like, I would have wanted to get married there no matter what,' Madeline explained about their destination wedding. According to Brides, Jack presented Madeline with a vintage ring he procured in London's Hatton Garden district. 'It was the most beautiful ring I've ever seen in my entire life!' the Handmaids Tale star gushed. After connecting with his future wife online via an app, Thompson-Roylance recalled their first date. 'I met her outside the bar, and with the street lights behind her, she looked like an angel,' he shared. But the meet-cute wasn't without a hiccup: 'I said, "Hi Madeline," and she looked at me and went, "It's Maddie." And I thought, Oh, this is not off to a good start.' Madeline shared her perspective as she remembered, 'He smiled and I saw that he had a half tooth and my brain went, "Next!"' But, she noted, 'He was really cute. Plus, I traveled all that way and he was wearing this nice button-down shirt. He's really charming and English, and was so suave.' The nuptials took place at North Cadbury Court in Somerset, England with 130 of the couple's closest loved ones. More guests joined the festivities for an indoor reception. 'Knowing where Jack's from and knowing what the southwest of England looks like, I would have wanted to get married there no matter what,' Madeline explained about their destination wedding Brewer walked down the aisle in a vintage Vera Wang ball gown and teamed it with a veil from London's Jane Bourvis. She tailored her dress to make it strapless and noted, 'I wanted the corseted feeling and we kept the bows down the back which were my favorite part of the dress.' 'The vision started with inspiration from English wildflowers and the ribbon tower at Glastonbury Festival,' Brewer dished to Brides ahead of the ceremony. She added, 'I knew I wanted lots of color and the easy, floating on the wind feeling from ribbons blowing in the breeze.' Looking toward the future, Madeline said, 'I have loved calling Jack my fiancé, but I'm really excited for us to be husband and wife.' For his part, Jack is looking forward to parenthood with his new bride. He added, 'I'd like to see some little Jacks and Maddies running around in the future.'
The Guardian
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years review – a wild walk between life, death and sheep-shearing
Rural life hits you in the face like the stink of cow dung as soon as you step into the Royal Scottish Academy. Andy Goldsworthy has laid a sheepskin rug up the classical gallery's grand staircase – very luxurious, except it's made from the scraps thrown away after shearing, stained blue or red with farmers' marks, all painstakingly stitched together with thorns. This is the Clarkson's Farm of art retrospectives, plunging today's urbanites into the raw sadness and beauty, the violence and slow natural cycles of the British countryside. Goldsworthy may love nature but he doesn't sentimentalise it. At the top of the stairs there's a screen and through its gaps you glimpse the galleries beyond. It feels mystical and calming, until you realise it's made of rusty barbed wire strung between two of the building's columns that serve as tightly-wound wire rollers. It made me think of Magnus Mills' darkly hilarious rural novel about hapless fencers, The Restraint of Beasts. Later you can relax looking at seductive, purple abstract watercolours – until you discover they are made with hare's blood and snow. The show is titled Fifty Years, which might make anyone feel old, and Goldsworthy may have been goaded by it. He fills the gallery's main floor with new and recent work, while you'll find an archive of his 20th-century career downstairs. But how could he exhibit his past achievements except in photos and video? Since the 1970s Goldsworthy, who was born in Cheshire and grew up on the outskirts of Leeds, has been making art with nature, in nature, even for nature, since some of his interventions could only be experienced by birds or sheep before the colour faded from a rubbed stone or a mat of leaves decayed. Other outdoor works are more permanent, using dry stone walling to make sheepfolds and little houses in sculpture parks and nature reserves. In Cumbria you'll find his monumental Grizedale Wall snaking between the trees. What makes this a work of art? It's simple. There's no practical reason a farmer would place an elegantly curving stone line in a forest. But by making it, Goldsworthy insists you ask what art is. He's a peasant dadaist. In photos of an early action he throws bunches of sticks in the sky to see how they fall – a fresh air reworking of Marcel Duchamp's 3 Standard Stoppages in which chance determined how a string fell. An entertaining video shows what happened when Goldsworthy brought a giant snowball from the Scottish Highlands to London's Smithfield meat market in June 2000: the meatpackers have fun moving it about with a forklift. Inside the snow, the artist gently explains, is a core of hair from Highland cattle. He's not saying meat is murder so much as what we consume is divorced from any sense of natural life. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion It is our connection with nature he wants to reawaken, not in a quiet contemplative way but as a shock. Earth and blood are the same, he suggests in the most powerful room. It is dominated by a whole wall made of cracked red clay that he collected by hand in Dumfriesshire's Lowther Hills. The epic scale and fiery colour seem more American than Scottish. Goldsworthy shows you this is a big country, too. The work is called Red Wall – but I don't think it's a political joke. The redness is all. In the same room a three-screen video records an alchemical performance in which Goldsworthy rubs a rock in a Dumfriesshire river to reveal a layer of iron-rich pure redness; the red appears as bloody clouds in the green water. Iron reddens the earth and reddens our blood. We are part of nature's cycle. Our bodies will return to the earth – at least, if you live in rural Dumfriesshire as Goldsworthy does. When you die there you still get buried, in a churchyard, according to Goldsworthy's grand project Gravestones, for which he has taken photographs of Dumfriesshire churchyards under stormy skies. Goldsworthy's 'gravestones' are not headstones but the pebbles and rocks that have to be removed when fresh graves are dug. He wants to create a vast monumental field with them, to show that there is animate nature and inanimate nature – blood and stone. We return to the earth, leaving our imperishable elements. He tests his idea in an installation here. Stones from graveyards form a continuous floor, like a rocky seashore, completely filling a room except for a narrow walkway. The stones have literally been cut short, neatly sliced through, to form a straight boundary between the artwork and the observer. It's typical of this artist's poetic precision. You wonder how he cut the stones in two so neatly, and accurately measured the perfect line they make. Then it hits you. This is the straight smooth absolute line between life and death. That's true in the country, and the city, too. Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years is at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh from 26 July until 2 November 2025
The Independent
01-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Independent
Field to fabric: Can bioregional fashion change how we dress?
Just as farmers' markets and seasonal veg boxes have become staples of eco-conscious living, a new wave of designers, growers and makers are asking: what if our clothes came from the land around us, too? In the heart of the British countryside, a different kind of fashion story is unfolding. From handspun flax to antique fabrics salvaged from market stalls, bioregional fashion is aboutmaking garment production local. A collective of visionaries across the UK are relearning traditional craft; a quiet revolution is happening and it might just be the antidote to fast fashion we desperately need. The case for going local 'Big fashion hides its sacrifice zones from view,' says Sara Arnold, activist and co-founder of Fashion Act Now and 'It's not just about pollution. It's about labour exploitation, cultural erasure, and extractive systems that benefit the few at the expense of the many.' In contrast, Arnold sees bioregional fashion as a path back to connection. 'It's easy to forget that every piece of clothing starts with nature and hands,' she explains. 'Bioregionalism is about living in relationship with your local environment — seeing the impacts of what we make, and creating systems that are reciprocal, regenerative, and rooted in care.' is building visibility for community-led textile projects, from mills to mending circles. Arnold says: 'We map these initiatives so people can join in, but also so we can learn from each other. This is about building commons — not just supply chains, but systems of mutual support.' Fashion Act Now first came up with the concept of 'defashioning', a term that's gaining traction in activist circles. Arnold explains: 'Defashion means dismantling big fashion as a system, culture and paradigm. It's not just resisting — it's about replacing it with something else. Clothing swaps, fibre growing, shared workshops — these are all ways we reclaim our clothing cultures. It's radical in the truest sense: decentralised, regenerative, reciprocal, respectful, fair and nurturing.' For designer Nick Evans, co-founder of Fantasy Fibre Mill, the journey began with a question familiar to many: Where does my stuff come from? 'I was already eating local, seasonal food — it made sense. This mentality spread to other domains of consumption, I started asking the same questions of my clothes' he says. That led him to the Fibershed movement, a nonprofit organisation that develops local fibre systems that protect soil and connect people to the source of their clothing, and eventually to a deep dive into British-grown flax. 'There's so much potential in fibres like linen and wool,' he explains. 'But we don't have the infrastructure — the machines, the skills, the systems — to make local textile production viable at scale. That's what Fantasy is about. We're building 'infrastructure for the textile commons.'' Fantasy Fibre Mill is part lab, part community. They've collaborated on everything from handmade jeans using UK-grown flax to research projects supplying linen scrubs to NHS hospitals. 'We're not just making textiles,' Evans adds. 'We're making it possible for others to do so, too — cheaply, locally, and collectively.' Co-founded with flax expert Rosie Bristow, Fantasy Fibre Mill now prototypes accessible, low-cost flax and wool processing machines for communities across the UK and beyond. The mill collaborates on capsule projects — like UK-grown linen jeans with designer Brigitte Kaltenbacher. 'Our model is closer to a market garden than a factory,' Evans explains. 'Small, diverse, resilient. It's a complete rethink of fashion at its foundation.' Waste not, want not If rural bioregionalism grows from the soil, in cities it often grows from waste. Designer Laura Basevi has built a business turning antique fabrics, embroidered tablecloths and vintage lace into dreamy, one-of-a-kind pieces. 'I just never felt inspired by new fabric,' she says. 'But give me a 1940s cross-stitched tablecloth? I can see a whole garment in it.' Basevi's Dorset studio is full of old textiles with new stories. 'My friend lost her mum and she had a table cloth that belonged to her mother, we were going to turn into napkins. When I saw it I knew it would make an amazing kimono and it would be something that she could wear.' But her work isn't just bespoke fashion. It's also about empowerment. Through her project Rebourne, she runs workshops where people learn to upcycle their own clothes. 'You don't need to be a designer to make something beautiful,' she says. 'You just need a needle, some patience, and a good story.' Basevi sees urban waste as part of the city's natural fibre ecosystem. 'The countryside has flax and sheep. Cities have deadstock and charity shops,' she says. 'If we had textile sorting hubs like we do food co-ops, we could transform so much waste.' A garment grown with intention Justine Aldersey-Williams founder of Northern England Fibreshed embodies bioregional fashion. Her latest project with Patrick Grant, clothing manufacturer and Judge in the BBC's Great British Sewing Bee, Women Grow Jeans, documents her 600-hour journey growing, spinning and sewing Britain's only fully homegrown pair of jeans. 'I wanted to wear something I'd grown,' she says simply. 'To feel that connection — to the earth, to tradition, to craft.' The process, captured in a powerful new documentary, was about more than denim. 'Today we've been disempowered. We've been educated to be consumers instead of participants, this type of project feels incredibly empowering.' It was hard work but it's also full of joy wrapped in community connection, not just with people but with her locality. 'This is a journey, it's a relationship and it's a way for me to remind myself that my true nature is nature; I'm not separate, I'm completely interrelated with all the beings around me'. So what does post-fashion look like? According to these makers, it's personal. It's political. And most importantly, it's possible. 'It's about dignity, fairness, autonomy,' says Evans. 'It doesn't have to be beige and boring. It can be exciting and experimental — and still be good for the planet.' 'It's about finding joy in the everyday,' says Basevi. 'Wearing stories. Stitching memories. Feeling proud of what you wear because you know where it came from.' Arnold agrees: 'Bioregional fashion asks us to reimagine everything — from aesthetics to ethics. What happens when we stop dressing for profit, and start dressing for life?' In an era of climate anxiety, fast fashion, and endless scrolling, it's easy to feel detached from the natural world. But could that disconnection be driving our desire to consume more – especially when it comes to what we wear? We're conducting a short survey to explore how our relationship with nature affects our fashion habits, and whether social media plays a role in shaping our choices. It takes just a few minutes, your input is completely confidential and will help provide insight into modern attitudes on sustainability and consumption.
