Mr. Plow and I have taken two glorious trips to England, and the United Kingdom is always on our short list each and every time we start planning for vacation travel. Like many, we've been completely gobsmacked by the verdant splendor of the rolling hills, the comfortable snug of the pubs, and the stalwart dedication to historical preservation. We long for the Cotswolds at least once a week - and now, thanks to Netflix, we can get our weekly hit of Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire with a deft finger to the remote!
If you also long for the English countryside (or if you just like architecture and houses and gardens) then you, too, might enjoy a Netflix binge of any or all of these three highly recommended and completely satisfying programmes.
Escape to the Country
Escape to the Country ticks a lot of boxes - beautiful homes, bucolic settings, charming house hunters, and enough history and culture to satisfy even the most discerning Anglophile. The premise is simple: homeowners who have grown weary of city life look to restart their lives and restore their souls in the peaceful English countryside. In each episode, one of a rotating cache of presenters (our favourite is Nicki Chapman, who seems sincerely invested in helping the couple-of-the-week find exactly what they want) accompanies the potential buyers on tours of three properties, including a "mystery house" that often provides a quirky interpretation of the buyers' list of must-haves. The couples are always delightful (read: not annoying like the Americans on
House Hunters) and the character properties are envy-inducing, what with their reception rooms and kitchen/diners and luscious gardens. And because each episode also includes two features related to the history and traditions of the local area (like the 200-year-old aqueduct over the River Dee in northeast Wales or the Victorian estate known as Cragside, the first to be powered by hydroelectricity) you'll actually learn something while longing to pack up all your belongings and move to a cottage in Cornwall.
Big Dreams, Small Spaces
Big Dreams, Small Spaces focuses on a very particular aspect of English homeownership - cultivating a proper garden. The host, Monty Don - referred to by one of the fledgling home planters as the "guru of gardening" - is a British horticulture legend, inspiring genuine flutters when he enters any back yard. Each episode follows two subjects attempting to transform their outdoor spaces from overgrown and ugly to fertile and glorious. Monty offers advice and even lends a hand to help with everything from clearing nettles to planting lavender (put rocks in the bottom of the hole so that the roots never have to sit in soggy soil). If you're dubious about the appeal of watching a show about gardening, I advise you to start with Episode #2 and feel both your heart warming and your eyes leaking as Alethea creates a community vegetable patch in her front yard while across town Josh and Emma reimagine their back yard as a sensory garden for their son, Noah, who has Down's syndrome. Big dreams, small spaces, boundless joy.
Grand Designs
While the two shows above are replete with tradition,
Grand Designs focuses on homeowners who are embarking on unusual and elaborate architectural projects. Host (and script writer) Kevin McCloud chronicles each build from embarkation straight through to completion, with a particular emphasis on unanticipated complications in both construction and financing. (Side note: obtaining a mortgage in England seems extremely daunting and even more stressful than it is here in the States.) The first episode featured on Netflix is one of the best. Homeowners Gwyn and Kate purchase an old, dilapidated cinema house from the Edwardian era and proceed to transform it into a modern marvel that both preserves the traditional facade and updates the interior with beautifully brutal concrete. And here's an additional observation about this really savvy show: the script is amazing. While watching Episode #3 (in which a family turns an old barn into a modern showplace), I seriously considered having my AP students watch the episode just to listen to the incredibly descriptive, sophisticated, and intellectual language used to describe something as rudimentary as a house.
Start streaming, y'all!
Mr. Plow and I have taken two glorious trips to England, and the United Kingdom is always on our short list each and every time we start planning for vacation travel. Like many, we've been completely gobsmacked by the verdant splendor of the rolling hills, the comfortable snug of the pubs, and the stalwart dedication to historical preservation. We long for the Cotswolds at least once a week - and now, thanks to Netflix, we can get our weekly hit of Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire with a deft finger to the remote!
Comments
Post a Comment