Super-rich buying up 'Downton Abbey estates' to escape pandemic

Sales of £15m-plus English country homes breaking records as wealthy families ‘recalibrate their priorities’

The world’s super-rich are seeking to escape from coronavirus lockdowns in cities by buying multimillion-pound English country estates to create Downton Abbey lifestyles, complete with butlers, cooks, housekeepers and armies of gardeners.

Estate agents are reporting a surge in sales of vast country estates and former castle properties, which until Covid-19 struck had become increasingly hard to shift as the richest of the rich instead opted to live in luxurious skyscraper penthouses, on tropical islands or superyachts.

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The office block has had its day. But what will replace it? | Simon Jenkins

Cities emptied by the coronavirus can focus on cultural activities, while the countryside we flee to must be protected

Does a Christian need a church? Does a shopper need a shop? Does an office worker need an office block? We know these places help bring people together and can deepen the experience. But when the coronavirus has passed I believe the truth will be revealed. Technology means that we can perform most of these tasks from anywhere, including home.

After the first lockdown, surveys suggested that the office’s days were numbered. Since the 1990s, the internet has supposedly liberated white-collar workers from their desks, but it has taken a pandemic to truly break the ritual. When the initial lockdown ended in the summer and Boris Johnson ordered the nation back to work, surveys in July reported that most workers wanted to split their time between working at home and in the office. Even so, there was an assumption that most businesses would eventually return to almost pre-pandemic practices.

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Homes for sale featured in TV and films – in pictures

Locations used in Doctor Who and Doctor Dolittle or by models and pop stars

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How to grow a verge garden: 'Since I've been doing my gardening, I know half the street'

Transforming underutilised urban spaces into productive or beautiful gardens has a host of benefits

Kate Nightingale wields a pair of secateurs in her footpath garden in Camp Hill in Brisbane’s east, and passersby keep stopping to chat.

Related: It’s official: allotments are good for you – and for your mental health

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Keep the home fires burning? Don’t even think about it!

They’ve kept us warm for thousands of years, but a new study says open fires may cause more pollution than the traffic on a busy road

Name: Open fires.

Age: As old as mankind.

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'How does one wash up without this?' Zoë Foster Blake on her three most useful objects

As you might expect from someone who has spent months in lockdown, the objects the writer has come to rely on are unashamedly pragmatic

Slowly emerging from months of lockdown in Melbourne, the writer and beauty entrepreneur Zoë Foster Blake has had plenty to occupy her time.

She’s released a new children’s book, Back to Sleep, illustrated by Mike Jacobsen, which is a role reversal of the typical bedtime story. And she’s been making playlists. A lot of playlists.

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Palm Springs comes to Surbiton: the airy villa shaking up Britain's quintessential suburb

The commuter haven is hardly known for its cutting-edge architecture. So how did a California-style dwelling end up in its tranquil streets? Our writer explores an inspirational build

It is surprising, for a profession dedicated to erecting very large, very expensive and very durable structures, that architects are never taught how to actually build. In the five years of education in Britain, there is the occasional module on structural principles and the odd lecture on bricks, but most students graduate without a clue how to build a building.

So when you encounter that rare species of architect who has worked on a building site, it shows. Design decisions take into account the practicalities of how things go together, rather than an idealised image being handed over for others to resolve. Such things as the weight of a breeze block and the process of hand-trowelling a concrete floor are given due consideration, as are ways of saving time and money.

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Let there be light: 10 simple ways to brighten your home – from pale pink walls to changing bulbs

We may be confined to home as the days draw in, but here’s an expert guide to maximising the winter light inside

Things are looking gloomy – seasonally speaking, if not also metaphorically. It was one thing to be locked down when the days were long and the heatwave heavy, but we’re facing a run of dark months, mostly indoors. Here are some expert tips on staying on the bright side, and maximising winter light.

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Country diary: this delicate centipede is the gardener's friend

Allendale, Northumberland: Fang-like modified legs near its front contain poison with which to inject prey such as slugs

Marigolds are still flowering in our veg garden, glowing bright orange against a dark mulch of new-laid compost. Between rows of carrots, beetroot and coriander in seed is a wooden board for walking on. I lift it carefully to see what’s underneath. Clods of compost stick to its underside along with worms, slugs and a centipede, chestnut brown, fast-moving and scuttling away to hide.

I often find centipedes when working in the garden: among crocks in the bottom of terracotta pots, in rotting leaf mould, when moving stones or dead wood. I pick this one up and it runs from one gloved hand to another in a fluid movement, repeating this over and over as I keep swapping hands. I drop it into an observation pot to count its legs: there are 15 pairs, one to each segment of its flat body. Fine antennae explore the pot and coil like some waving sea creature. Living in dark places and feeding by night, centipedes rely on antennae rather than eyesight.

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Countrywide estate agents receives £82m takeover bid from rival Connells

UK’s largest listed estate agency group was offered £90m by private equity firm Alchemy

Countrywide, the estate agency group that owns Hamptons International and Gascoigne-Pees, has received a £82m takeover approach from its rival Connells.

Countrywide, the UK’s largest listed estate agent group with 731 branches, said it had received an indicative approach from Connells at 250p a share in cash, which would take it back into private ownership. Countrywide shares surged 48% to 214.8p on the news.

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Inheritance, not work, has become the main route to middle-class home ownership | Lisa Adkins

The cost of housing is rising so much faster than wages that buyers increasingly rely on family wealth

In many of the world’s largest and most expensive cities, young people find themselves in a strange predicament. Although their educational credentials and employment prospects put them in the “middle-class” category, many have virtually no chance of ever making it on to the property ladder.

For almost four decades, property prices have increased at a much faster rate than wages. Although this trend has hardly gone unnoticed, what has received less recognition is how it has fundamentally reshaped both class and inequality in western societies.

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Should we maximise our mortgage if we move out of London?

We’re going to Belfast on a trial basis but want to make it as easy as possible to return

Q My wife, son and I have decided to up sticks from east London in order to try out my home town of Belfast on a two-year trial basis.

Given recent buy-to-let tax changes, we’d be losing money on our flat if we wished to rent it out in the meantime. Therefore I think we’d prefer to sell. If we managed to do this soon (while the market is still hot), we should get more than £400,000 for our little flat.

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French evolution: a historic mansion in Paris is given a new lease of life

Restored original features rub shoulders with design classics in this glorious Parisian home

Just a stone’s throw from the Bois de Boulogne, in the chic 16th arrondissement of Paris famed for its art nouveau flourishes, is the striking five-storey mansion that is home to Suzanne Tise-Isoré. Designed in the 1880s by architect Gustave Brière, it mixes elements of gothic and Second Empire style, and with its eccentric brick facade is a far cry from the nearby uniform Haussmann buildings.

“My husband Jean-Claude, who works in real estate, first saw the house in the 1980s, and later when it came up for sale we both viewed it, and despite the wildly painted green and purple interior, we just fell in love with all of the original decorative features,” says Suzanne.

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Is your cheese plant worth a small fortune?

Social media has led to an expensive new houseplant mania

In the 1600s, “tulip mania” gripped the Dutch republic. These exotic new bulbs from Turkey quickly became key status symbols among the highest echelons of society. Prices soon reached eye-watering levels, with single bulbs being sold for 10 times the equivalent of the annual wage for a skilled craftsperson. And we all know what happened next… Now, 400 years later, I wonder if we are seeing the beginnings of a bubble in the world of houseplants. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Here are my thoughts.

As recently as 10 years ago, houseplant availability in Britain was pretty awful, but then Instagram got in on the game with users posting images of some of the amazing and unusual options available, and increasingly stressed-out, nature-starved millennials loved it. Then cool indie start-up stores began popping up in city centres, beating the big out-of-town DIY chains for their sheer selection of plants, and a feverish trend was born.

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The big picture: gardener of Eden

Robbie Lawrence’s poignant portrait of botanist Jim Taggart captures a man whose life was devoted to an alternative paradise

This portrait of Dr Jim Taggart, a renowned botanist and climate activist, was taken not long before he died last year, aged 84. Over 50 years, Taggart created one of Scotland’s most magical gardens on the Rosneath peninsula in Argyll and Bute. With his son, Jamie, Taggart had collected around 4,000 plant species from across the world, including rare magnolias and acers, 40 kinds of bamboo, and 300 different rhododendrons. Right up until his death, visitors were welcomed to the three rocky acres of Linn Botanic Gardens with soup and sandwiches, and given a philosophical guided tour of the rarities that thrived in its curious subtropical microclimate.

Among those visitors to Linn in 2016 was photographer Robbie Lawrence, who returned to capture the garden in all of its misty seasons, and struck up a friendship with Taggart. A book of Lawrence’s photographs, A Voice Above the Linn, is published this month, with poems by John Burnside. The book stands as a celebration of a singular life. Above the Italianate villa at the centre of his private jungle, Taggart had hoisted the red flag. He was a stalwart of anti-nuclear protests at the Trident base at nearby Faslane on the far bank of Gare Loch.

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After an absence, it’s good to see dawn break on the allotment

Returning to the plot after a two-week isolation, it’s hard to tell who has missed who the most

My first morning out of quarantine. The end of 2020’s second long absence from the plot. But this time it is deep autumn. I am at the allotment gate at 6.30am. The mornings were lighter when I was last here. It is still dark, mid-October before the clocks fall back. But I cannot wait any longer. I have been like a dog at the door, desperate for release.

There is an occasional pre-dawn chorus. The ground is wet and slippery. I use the torch from my phone. A first, I think. Raggedy cardoons leer at me on the path. I spot a cat’s eyes. It all feels a little unfamiliar. Until I turn the corner and catch the plot’s harlequin sunflower skeletons in the beam. Home.

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Ethical homeware - in pictures

New products from companies and creatives who want to change design, manufacture and consumption for the better

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Financial first aid: how to make it through the second Covid lockdown

Coronavirus has hit jobs and pay – here’s what to do if you’re struggling with bills, mortgage or rent, loans and other costs

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With much of the UK in lockdown and many businesses forced to close for at least four weeks, household finances are set to be squeezed again. This week, charities said they had seen an influx of middle-income families who needed to access food banks after being plunged into crisis by job losses and gaps in state help.

If you are being made redundant, are going on to furlough and face an income cut or are self-employed and having to close for weeks, there are places to turn to for advice and help. Here we look at what steps to take in a financial emergency.

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UK homebuyers told to act fast to beat stamp duty holiday deadline

Covid restrictions and high demand for mortgages create delays in property process

Homebuyers who want to take ad-vantage of the stamp duty holiday have been warned to act quickly as high demand for mortgages and coronavirus restrictions are creating delays in the process.

David Hollingworth of brokers L&C said getting a mortgage was taking about double the usual time as lenders struggled with the volume of business, and needed longer to review some applications. “To get a mortgage offer in normal times you are usually looking at a couple of weeks from the application,” he said, “Now you could be expecting it to take at least a month, or possibly longer.”

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Does everything you own need to be beautiful? | Coco Khan

There’s a reason I don’t have more things: I think most objects are ugly

The process of moving flat has got me thinking in cumulative numbers. “12,045 days” I mutter to myself while lying on a mattress in a shop (the amount of time we spend in bed during our lives), or “£16,000” as I peruse the steam cleaners (the money I would save over my lifetime if I cut out the dry cleaners).

And now I have another: two (the amount of large laundry bags needed to contain every single thing I own).

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