Winter in wiltshire

Whether winter-faded ferns, the spindly harvestman or the tyrannical stare of an irate chicken, through-lines from the prehistoric to our modern age are all around us in November, says John Lewis-Stempel

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GETTY IMAGES; WROUGHT IRON & BRASS ...

THE fire in the great hall burned brightly to welcome Lady Dunstone’s guests to the event of the season, the Dunstone Manor Christmas Ball. The Manor was splendid this year. Snow glittered on the tree

IT was two days until Christmas and the afternoon sky was blue and crisp as Lydia’s car pulled up in front of the magnificent Bristol Hotel. Why was it called the Bristol? she wondered. It was nowhere

HELLO, little one!” Penny Dauntless greeted a robin-redbreast, who cocked his head as she pushed along her trolley of post on the daily round. “How often is there such a perfect mid-December morning?”

It was Christmas once again, and Matilda would need her magical woodland spirit more than ever