Latest news with #HamptonCourtPalace
BBC News
3 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival highlights decline of swifts
A display highlighting the dramatic decline of swifts - the "symbol of summer skies" - will feature at this year's Hampton Court Palace Garden Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) which puts on the annual festival, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have created a show garden focused on the birds, which usually arrive in the UK from early May, spend almost all their lives in flight – eating, drinking, mating and sleeping on the depend on healthy insect populations and suitable nesting sites for their breeding season in the UK, conservationists say. How to identify a swift:Dark, sooty brown but can look black against the skyPale patch on the throat, but this is often difficult to see in flightLong, pointed wings held in a boomerang shapeShort, forked tail which can be folded to a pointBullet-shaped headA call that sounds like a high-pitched scream. The species has seen numbers plummet by 68% between 1995 and 2023, data indicates, and they are "red-listed" over concerns about their insect-friendly planting would support the birds and other wildlife, and nesting sites, such as "swift bricks" can be introduced into buildings to give them somewhere to in the swift garden include field maples, common limes, teasel, catmint and devil's bit scabious, which all support and attract insects.
The Independent
7 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Swift garden at Hampton Court show highlights at-risk ‘symbol of summer skies'
A display highlighting dramatic declines of swifts and how households can help the 'symbol of summer skies' will feature at this year's Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) which puts on the annual festival has teamed up with wildlife charity the RSPB for the first time to create a show garden focused on swifts, supported by comedian Bill Bailey. Migrating 3,400 miles to Africa and back each year, the birds spend almost all their lives in flight – eating, drinking, mating and even sleeping on the wing – and depend on healthy insect populations and suitable nesting sites for their breeding season in the UK, conservationists say. But the species has seen numbers plummet by 68% between 1995 and 2023, and they are 'red-listed' over concerns about their survival. The swift garden aims to raise awareness of the species' declines, as well as celebrating their extraordinary migrations, and representing habitats frequented by swifts in the UK including meadows, woodlands and gardens. It will promote diverse, insect-friendly planting to show gardeners how they can support the birds and other wildlife, and feature sculptural representations of nesting sites, such as 'swift bricks' which can be introduced into homes and other buildings to give them somewhere to breed. Plants in the garden include field maples, common limes, teasel, catmint and devil's bit scabious, which all support and attract insects. Lilly Gomm, landscape architect and garden designer who is designing the show garden, said: 'These magnificent birds are a true symbol of summer skies and they need our help. 'By showcasing habitats rich in biodiversity and the small changes we can all make, like planting insect-friendly flowers or installing swift boxes, I hope visitors will feel inspired to take action for wildlife in their own gardens.' Bailey, an RHS ambassador, said swifts were 'majestic birds'. 'I'm delighted to be joining forces with the RSPB and the RHS to bring attention to these incredible aerial acrobats, whose presence is such a joyful part of summer,' he said. 'Their dramatic decline is deeply worrying but there's still a lot we can do to help. 'This garden is not only a celebration of swifts but also a timely reminder that by making our homes and gardens more wildlife-friendly, we can all play a part in securing their future.' RSPB executive director Emma Marsh said the garden was 'a great opportunity for us to demonstrate to visitors not only how incredible swifts are, but to highlight the very real peril they currently face, due to habitat loss and therefore their homes, and declining insect populations which means they have less food available'. 'We've lost more than 60% of the UK's swifts in the last 30 years,' she said. 'They need our help urgently and this amazing garden will show people how they can take action themselves.' She added that all gardeners working together to support wildlife would make a huge difference for swifts and other birds.
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Sophie Winkleman reveals what marrying into the royal family is really like
Sophie Winkleman has opened up about her relationship with her in-laws - the royal family - and has revealed she adores 'all of them.' Peep Show actress Sophie, 44, married Lord Frederick Windsor - the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent - in a lavish ceremony at Hampton Court Palace in September 2009. Her husband's father, 82, is the first cousin of the late Queen Elizabeth II and the first cousin once removed of King Charles III. 'Family isn't always brilliant but this lot are very sweet,' Sophie said when she was asked about her relationship with the royal family on The Daily T podcast. Sophie, who's styled as Lady Frederick Windsor, added: 'I love all of them'. The half-sister of The Traitors presenter Claudia Winkleman, Sophie looked back to her big day, pointing out that many of the royals 'didn't go to the wedding.' While Princess Eugenie and Lady Gabriella Windsor were in attendance, King Charles - who was the Prince of Wales at the time - and Queen Camilla were not present. Sophie explained: 'I've got much more friendly with them as I've got to know them.' At Royal Ascot in 2023, she was pictured sharing a joke with King Charles, who she has since described as a 'very dear friend', and laughing with Queen Camilla. And, in September of last year, she hinted at a close relationship with Kate, describing the Princess of Wales as 'amazingly brave' and as 'beautiful as ever' in the aftermath of her cancer battle. Sophie, who has just finished filming a BBC1 drama called Wild Cherry, also shared amusing details about her wedding with podcast host Camilla Tominey. 'I don't remember a single thing about it,' Sophie admitted. 'Nothing.' Explaining that she hadn't 'thought about the wedding' because she had been preoccupied with a new acting job in Los Angeles and the couple's imminent move to the US, Sophie recalled that her hairstyle was horrible. 'Freddie still gets upset about it,' the actress and Cambridge graduate joked. 'It was just disgusting.' In a previous interview with Tatler, Sophie elaborated: 'I was so determined not to be a bridezilla, I didn't even work out my hairstyle and I cannot tell you how disgusting it looked. 'Coming up the aisle, the first thing I said when I saw Freddie was, 'I'm so sorry about the hair.' He said, 'Yes, what on earth have you done?"' While she 'didn't really mind' that her mother-in-law, non-fiction author Princess Michael of Kent, 80, 'did absolutely everything' for the wedding, Sophie conceded that, had it been left to her, she would have chosen a different dress. 'My mother-in-law chose my dress, which was very sweet and puffy, but I looked barking,' Sophie laughed. 'Now I look back on it and think I should have warn a simpler dress and I should have got my hair blow-dried by someone who had done it before,' she added. Sophie equally opened up about her childhood in Primrose Hill 'when it was still quite shabby' and told how she was 'irritatingly lucky' to have 'two very wonderful parents' to whom she remains 'far too close'. Reflecting on becoming a mother herself, she was self-deprecating, saying that she's 'doing it all - badly'. Sophie shares two daughters, Maud, 11, and Isabella, nine, with husband Frederick. Looking back to when the children were young, she was not embarrassed to admit that 'it was astoundingly knackering.' 'I couldn't believe that no one had told me,' Sophie added. 'I just didn't understand how people had done this for thousands of years.' And, in an admission that will resonate with mothers across the country, she added: 'And, I still am tired. I don't think I've not been tired since they were born and everyone else seems to be fine, so I'm definitely doing something wrong...' Sophie explained that she and her husband don't have someone who looks after Maud and Isabella regularly - just a couple of evenings a week. She added that they can't find 'anyone nice and normal we can afford', a detail which may come as a surprise to fans of the actress and her financier husband. 'Life is chaos, actually,' she told podcast host Camilla. Yet, reflecting on her own young family, Sophie explained that her main concern has to do with her daughters' - and other children's - education, specifically, how it's being derailed by the advent of 'hugely unproven' EdTech in schools. 'I'm beginning to worry that this country just doesn't care about children,' Sophie, who is patron of several children's charities, said. 'I've been banging on about screen damage to children for about three years now - and now there's a spate of very intelligent articles about how screens are ruining adults' cognitive health and suddenly everyone's very interested.' Sophie, who earlier this year spoke publicly about the 'digital destruction of childhood', told the podcast that she was annoyed when her daughters' school gave them iPads without telling her. Offering an insight into her parenting style, she said: 'I'm incredibly lazy in every other way apart from screen use. 'They can do whatever they want. They don't do cello and they don't do Chinese. I don't care. 'They can just do what they like but the screen thing I was quite fanatical about because it was so obvious during lockdown that it was such a terrible way to learn. 'They are completely un-put-down-able - all these devices.' While she acknowledged that 'it's too late' to ban internet-enabled devices for under-16s, Sophie admitted that this kind of radical action was her utopia'. So concerned was Sophie that her daughter Maud would end up glued to a smartphone at 11 when she moved on to secondary school that she tried to get all the parents to agree not to give their offspring the devices. She revealed: 'I had to become that maniac mother who got everyone together before year seven and said, "Can we maybe not do this?" 'And, it was so anti my nature to do that - [to be] the sort of noisy, irritating goose at the school gates.' The mother-of-two's efforts were not wasted as she revealed that there's 'quite a big cohort' in her daughter's year seven form who don't have phones. 'They're not isolated - and that's really helpful,' she added. Beyond the issue of smartphones, Sophie was dismayed by the decline of traditional forms of learning in schools, arguing that being on screens most of the day is stunting children's development. 'It's such a physically unhealthy way to learn - bad for eyesight, bad for their posture, bad for their sleep rhythms,' she said. 'It's even bad for hormones and it's terrible cognitively.' Instead, she advocated the use of paper and pens and encouraged schools to get children to handwrite, adding that it 'implants information so much more profoundly and long-lastingly into the brain than typing does.' The actress argued that kids should be allowed to get bored - rather than being constantly stimulated by endless clips and games on screens - to help them develop their imagination. While the UK's Online Safety Act has so far focused on the harmful material that children are exposed to, she suggested that 'the decimation of children's attention span' is just as serious. She said: 'I think we've gone way too far. I want parents to be confident enough in every kind of school to say [to teachers] "How is this better than a book, paper and pen?"' In another bold suggestion, Sophie added that the 'NHS needs to come on board'. 'I think it needs to be a public health warning. Even 11-17-year-olds shouldn't have more than 1-2 hours of screen time during the day,' she added. Yet, for all her passion, Sophie was not overly confident that changes are on the horizon. Admitting that it's 'very hard' to get other people to listen, she put the onus on those who are being affected every day. 'I think the revolution has to come from all the young people,' she concluded.
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Queen Camilla unveils star-studded lineup for her literary festival - with Rivals author Jilly Cooper and Bridgerton creator Julia Quinn set to attend
The Queen is taking her highly anticipated literary festival to Chatsworth this year, with a star-studded line-up of authors for a celebration that will delight bookworms across the country. The Queen's Reading Room, the literary charity launched by Camilla, 77, in 2023, announced that the festival will see authors Jilly Cooper, Helen Fielding, Richard Osman, Natasha Brown, and Jojo Moyes carrying out interviews and panel discussions. Taking place on 19 and 20 September, with tickets going on sale today, the festival celebrates and promotes the transformative power of books. Over the last two years, the festival has attracted audiences from as far away as the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. In its first two-year tenure at Hampton Court Palace in 2024, it sold nearly 20,000 tickets. Even more famous faces are expected to take part in this year's events, with Lorraine Kelly set to interview Jilly Cooper and actress Celia Imrie speaking to Richard Osman. Journalist Reeta Chakrabarti will interview Natasha Brown, author of Assembly. Bridgerton fans are in for a treat with special themed panel discussion featuring none other than Julia Quinn, the author of the beloved series herself. Samantha Shannon, Sarah Winman, Joanna Cannon, Kristin Hannah, Peter James, Rupert Everett, Robert Harris, Peter Frankopan, Sebastian Faulks, Lady Anne Glenconner, Gyles Brandreth, Sarah Waters, and Alan Titchmarsh have also all been confirmed to take to the festival stage. The location in which the festival is being held also has a special literary meaning; Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, is the famous backdrop for the film adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This year also marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen, which will be celebrated with a special screening of Pride and Prejudice in the Chatsworth Garden to open the festival. Visitors will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the life and legacy of one of the greatest novelists in English literature via a pop-up exhibition of Jane Austen artefacts. The exhibition is curated especially for The Queen's Reading Room by Jane Austen's House, an independent museum located in what used to be her cottage in Hampshire. To end the festival, visitors will enjoy a showing of Sense and Sensibility in the garden. Vicki Perrin, chief executive of The Queen's Reading Room, said: 'After the success of last year's Queen's Reading Room Festival which saw us fill over 10,000 seats in a single day, we are delighted to be bringing our flagship event back for 2025 - this time to the magical surrounds of Chatsworth. 'As a charity, we are committed to ensuring that everybody can access our events. Bridgerton fans are in for a special treat - series author Julia Quinn will take part in a special discussion panel at the festival 'We are therefore so excited by the opportunity of connecting with more audiences in the UK at Chatsworth and are immensely grateful to Chatsworth House Trust for hosting us - it's clear that, like us, they are deeply committed to championing creativity and the joy of books. 'Whether you're a fan of romance or fantasy, crime fiction or historical fiction - there really is something for everybody at The Queen's Reading Room Festival and we can't wait to see you there!' Jane Marriott, director of Chatsworth House Trust, added: 'We are delighted to welcome The Queen's Reading Room Festival to Chatsworth, and to share this exciting celebration of storytelling with our local communities and guests from across the UK and the world. 'We often say that Chatsworth is more than a house; it's a place of creativity and community, learning and ideas. 'This partnership between our two charities demonstrates how true this is, and we can't wait for the festival to begin.' Queen Camilla previously said her hopes for her literary charity is that it 'will be something that everybody can delve into, and find something that suits them, and enjoy it'. The charity, which reaches more than 12 million people in 174 countries, also published neuroscientific research in 2023 that found that reading for just five minutes a day can reduce stress levels by almost 20%. Earlier this year, The Queen's Reading Room launched a medal to recognise people who are championing literature in local communities. The King and Queen held a event to celebrate the launch at Clarence House in March, attended by a slew of famous actors and authors including Sigourney Weaver, Richard E Grant, Helena Bonham Carter, Dame Joanna Lumley, Antony Horowitz and Kate Atkinson. 'Through literature, we experience life through another's eyes, we are comforted, strengthened, we laugh, we cry, we travel to different lands, and we escape the real world. 'In short, books and those who create them, make life better…much better – so thank you!' the Queen said. Camilla is a longstanding campaigner on literacy and encouraging reading, and is patron of organisations including the National Literacy Trust, First Story, Corma Beanstalk and Booktrust. Last year, a report published by the National Literary Trust found that reading rates are the lowest on record, with one in two adults not reading a book at all in the last year. The Queen's Reading Room Medal aims to highlight the work of 'reading heroes' across the country who are working to help their communities overcome that reading crisis.
The Independent
04-03-2025
- The Independent
Pennyhill Park Hotel and Spa, Surrey hotel review
Location Pennyhill Park sits proudly among a sprawling 120-acre estate in the Surrey countryside. It's close to the leafy town of Sunningdale, which has the best-connected railway station for links to London (it's a 12-minute drive from the hotel). The hotel is also close to world-class golf courses, such as the superb Berkshire Golf Club and Walton Heath, as well as Ascot Racecourse. Kew Gardens, Hampton Court Palace and Windsor Great Park are also within a 40-minute drive of the hotel. The vibe An assured blend of old and new is at the heart of Pennyhill Park's aesthetic. The venue takes stylistic inspiration from its country house origins, while reimagining it for modern tastes. You walk up historic staircases, past rooms with beautiful old wooden panelling that contrasts nicely with contemporary graphic prints and tasteful lighting. The setting feels particularly geared towards romantic getaways for couples or relaxing trips with friends, given the variety of room types and the mix of excellent spa facilities and dining options, which all helps it cater to a wide range of guests. Service Expect ultra-refined service and attention to detail. The staff are invariably friendly and helpful, more than happy to assist with everything from booking taxis to looking for a misplaced pair of glasses. Bed and bath Each of the 124 rooms and suites has a character of their own and no two are laid out the same. There's imaginative decor that blends subtle modern design choices, whether it be in the statement carpet patterns or the bold upholstery introducing splashes of colour. The uniformly excellent and tastefully designed bathrooms also blend well with the hotel's many opulent original features – think beautiful timber beams, four poster beds and chandeliers. The smallest of the three room types are still generously sized. The Cubby rooms feature a walk-in shower, while the Cosy rooms feature a shower over tub; the slightly larger Heritage rooms feature a separate bath and shower. The signature suites are absolutely spectacular and can elevate stays into unforgettable experiences. Like the rooms, they all come with bespoke designs and come with unique selling points delivering real wow factor: the Muirfield suite comes with a private outdoor hot tub, while the Twickenham suite comes with an eight-seater jacuzzi and the Heywood has its own private terrace. Food and drink The standout dining experience is Latymer restaurant, which holds one Michelin star. The space features wood panelling, lavish fabrics and floral patterns, mixing the traditional with modern flourishes. The six-course menu is the brainchild of head chef Steve Smith and is constantly evolving. Guests can specify preferences ahead of time, with the vegetarian options just as inspired as the selections that include meat. Of all the exceptional dishes, one that sticks in the memory is the delicate carrot appetisers (that take three days to prepare); other delights include Aynhoe Park fallow deer and the indulgent Spenwood cheese with truffle. Expect excellent wine pairings selected by charming head sommelier Gabriel (highlights include an unusual oak-matured Alsace white and a sweet vin Santo from Tuscany). Elsewhere, the Hillfield restaurant bases its menu around ingredients sourced from the hotel's estate and Surrey Hills, with dishes including the Devonshire duck terrine, Dorking Brewery beer-battered haddock and Windsor Great Park venison cottage pie. The breakfast on offer at the Hillfield restaurant features a stellar buffet, including includes home-baked breakfast pastries, moreish and locally sourced meats and cheeses, and a delicious forest berry sundae. There's a myriad of options available from the kitchen, too, including the excellent full English. The Themis restaurant by the spa serves lighter dishes, including brunch options like granola bowls, poached eggs on sourdough and other staples. Facilities Pennyhill Park's spa is among the finest you'll find anywhere in the UK. The thermal suite is packed with facilities, including herbal saunas, a plunge pool, ice room and experience showers; mud bath treatments can be booked. The 80ft indoor pool is heated throughout the year, and is complemented by interior and exterior hot tubs. The star of the complex is the outdoor pool, which is heated in the summer months. There are plenty of treatment rooms, offering a comprehensive range of massages, facials, manicures and more. There's a state-of-the-art gym with an impressive collection of machines and free weights, plus complimentary fitness classes. Disability access There is an adapted room available on the ground floor accessible by ramp. Bars and restaurants are on the ground floor and wheelchair users can access the spa. The rooms are dog friendly. The Hillfield Bar, Drawing Room, Lily Pond Terrace and hotel grounds also welcome dogs. Check in/check out? Check in from 3pm; check out by 11am. Family-friendly? Cots and Z-beds are available in all rooms except the smaller Cubby and Cosy rooms. The spa has an over-16s policy, although children are permitted to use the heated pool in summer. At a glance Best thing: Exceptional spa facilities Perfect for: Romantic getaways Not right for: Young families Instagram from: The Latymer restaurant
