Norman conquest: an imaginatively restored French farmhouse

With everything from running water to a new roof needed, the key to updating this once-derelict farm in Normandy was patience

When Vincent Dewas first came to view the farm that is now his Normandy home, several potential buyers had already been put off by its derelict condition. But one glance at the property and its adjoining outhouses, built in 1875, was all it took. “I didn’t need to go inside to make up my mind,” he says. “What sold it to me was its proportions, the extensive grounds and the fact it sits quietly in Le Perche national park, close to the village of Bellême, surrounded by trees and cows. I told the agent I wanted it and I signed the papers there and then on the bonnet of the car.”

In France, we take the occupation of antique-hunting so seriously that we have a verb for it – chiner

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Norman conquest: an imaginatively restored French farmhouse

With everything from running water to a new roof needed, the key to updating this once-derelict farm in Normandy was patience

When Vincent Dewas first came to view the farm that is now his Normandy home, several potential buyers had already been put off by its derelict condition. But one glance at the property and its adjoining outhouses, built in 1875, was all it took. “I didn’t need to go inside to make up my mind,” he says. “What sold it to me was its proportions, the extensive grounds and the fact it sits quietly in Le Perche national park, close to the village of Bellême, surrounded by trees and cows. I told the agent I wanted it and I signed the papers there and then on the bonnet of the car.”

In France, we take the occupation of antique-hunting so seriously that we have a verb for it – chiner

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Illuminating: the making of Bert Frank's luxury lighting – in pictures

Robbie Llewellyn and Adam Yeats met by chance at a London lighting shop, and soon found they shared a vision. Llewellyn’s design ideas and Yeats’s industrial knowledge have been beautifully combined to create Bert Frank.

In Yeats’s presswork factory in Clerkenwell, London – a high-end metalwork enterprise that has been in existence for more than a century – old-school manufacturing techniques and cutting-edge technology are used to produce the brass and copper shapes layered with alabaster, marble, smoked glass and bone china, that have become Bert Frank’s hallmark design

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Illuminating: the making of Bert Frank's luxury lighting – in pictures

Robbie Llewellyn and Adam Yeats met by chance at a London lighting shop, and soon found they shared a vision. Llewellyn’s design ideas and Yeats’s industrial knowledge have been beautifully combined to create Bert Frank.

In Yeats’s presswork factory in Clerkenwell, London – a high-end metalwork enterprise that has been in existence for more than a century – old-school manufacturing techniques and cutting-edge technology are used to produce the brass and copper shapes layered with alabaster, marble, smoked glass and bone china, that have become Bert Frank’s hallmark design

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Rich pickings: a fashion stylist’s palace of glamour

Floral wallpaper, luxurious textures and jewel-toned accents rule in Leith Clark’s romantic home

From gold-patterned wallpaper and velvet upholstery to peacock feather fabric, there is barely a corner of Leith Clark’s glamorous Victorian house that isn’t filled with rich, dramatic shades. The hallway is papered in dark floral blooms, inspired by the cracked canvases of Dutch masters; the dining room has bold gold-and-black wallpaper and shimmering brass cupboards, giving the room the feel of a jewellery box; and the master bedroom has a decadent De Gournay decorative wallpaper. A pale grey living space – the most “calming” room – is the closest this house comes to neutral.

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Gardening tips: plant a black-stemmed dogwood

Then visit the Giant Houseplant Takeover at RHS Wisley or read about modern plant hunters

Plant this Looking for something showy for your garden this month? Black-stemmed dogwood (Cornus alba ‘Kesselringii’) underplanted with evergreen grasses or snowdrops makes a dramatic winter picture. This hardy shrub will reach 2m each way and is suitable for most aspects, aside from deep shade.

Visit this Even though my family thinks there’s a houseplant takeover already happening in our house, I’ve got nothing on RHS Wisley in Surrey. From its huge glasshouse hosts the Giant Houseplant Takeover, where hundreds of plants grow wild in a Victorian house.

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Which plants are the best bird feeders? | Alys Fowler

Although I feed song birds with meal worms, suet and seeds, I’ve come to realise that my garden can do the job just as well

I was admiring the glorious orange limbs of my strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo, meandering elegantly and covered in bright red baubles of fruit among glossy green leaves, when I spotted a blackbird, its beak crammed full of a single fruit. I was contemplating preserving this year’s bounty of fruit, but the sight of that happy blackbird was enough to make me realise I didn’t need any more jam in my life. This tree is far more giving to all of us in the garden than I could have conceived when I planted it to obscure my neighbour’s shed.

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