Sunday 13 June 2021

My New Forest Home by Irene Soper (1996)


Added in september 2023: This is my most popular post. If you are interested in Irene Soper and/or Juliette de Bairacli-Levy don't forget to read all the comments, as people have added interesting information.

Photo's of both cottages, floorplan and map can be found here

 

I ordered this book knowing just the title. It turned out to be the story of Irene and her husband Arthur, both artists, who have lived in the New Forest for about 30 years.
The New Forest is one of the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in Southern England, covering southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire. It was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror, featuring in the Domesday Book. It became a National Park in 2006
Irene and Arthur live in Abbots Well, near Frogham. In their garden is a small cottage, which used to serve as a home, lastly for herbalist and writer Juliette de Bairacli-Levy. They do up this cottage (including re-thatching), which they then use as a studio.
Irene’s garden is surrounded by the forest and is visited by many birds, rabbits, badgers, foxes and stoats.  
They become enthusiastic beekeepers. Irene writes that many people in the New Forest used to keep bees, and that at one time it was famed for mead. I knew mead was made with honey, but I had no idea the caps (cut off the honeycombs) and wild comb (pieces of wax made by bees to fill up gaps) were used as well.
This is her mead recipe: Place cappings and pieces of wild comb in a pan, add enough cold soft water or rainwater to cover, and bring to the boil. Simmer gently until the wax rises to the top. Allow to cool. Remove the wax, strain the remaining liquor into a covered vessel. When luke warm stir in one teaspoonful of mead yeast and put in a warm place to ferment. When bubbling has ceased, strain into a cask with air-lock and store for a year before bottling off.

They are also avid badger watchers. First around their house: Arthur even riggs up an alarm system so they know when a badger is entering their garden. Later they go out and discover badger setts and badger watch in the evening. This involves sitting or standing still for long periods dressed in mosquito proof clothing (wellies, leather gloves, net veil over the face).

They delight in exploring the surrounding forest.
Standing on the hill that mooring I realized just how much there was to explore - the Forest around Abbots Well offered great variety. There was open moorland with large stretches of furze (or gorse) and heather where many species of birds were to be seen and which gave cover to several foxes’ earths. There were wooden enclosures where badgers had their setts and deer grazed peacefuly beneath the shade of the leafy branches. Peat-stained streams meander their way through wooded glades and open moorland, here and there opening out to deep pools where small brown trout would lie. Treacherous bogs were numerous, deceptive in beauty with bright green moss, colorful flowers and rushes.
While searching for mushrooms they often come across fragments of Roman pottery. In certain places there is so much that moles throw it up when they dig and it can be found on top of their mounds.

The New Forest is famous for its ponies: Probably the picture which comes to mind at the mention of the New Forest is that of ponies. They appear on postcards and calendars and are the subject of very tourist’s snapshot. As they are running free the give the impression of being wild but each one has an owner and carries a brand-mark to prove it.
Spring is perhaps one of the best times for the ponies as they can enjoy the sunshine without the tormenting flies which come with the summer. In spring too the new foals arrive. It is always interesting to watch the mares leave the village in the evenings and make their way up Hampton Rudge to the open Forest where they spend the night, and to see them return again in the morning with perhaps a new foal born overnight running with them.

The Forest has many products to offer in one way or another: From olden times to this day the forester has taken advantage of this and turned them to good use. Apart from food, rabbits, hares, wild berries and fungi, which were all available to the peasant, there were materials such as heather, bracken, timber and peat.

Irene ends the book with tips for making a potpourri of forest finds to capture a tiny bit of the Forest to last you through the winter, using gorse petals, golden bracken, seeds, catkins, nuts, lichen, larch cones, pine needles,wood chippings, sloes, rose hips and bark.

I have not been able to find any information on Irene or Arthur Soper. The publisher (Ex Libris Press in Bradford on Avon) still exists, so I plan to contact them. Irene also wrote a cookbook: New Forest Cookery (1983).
Juliette de Bairacli-Levy wrote many books, among them Wanderers of the New Forest (1958).

23 comments:

  1. I hadn't come across this - it sounds interesting so thank you

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  2. Thanks! I wonder if they still live there .... I'll try to find out.

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    1. The new house the Sopers built appears to be disused; the Rose Cottage is disused, & a Grade II listed building. I can find no documentation, in her book, for Irene's recipes, whatsoever - or anything else, come to that. This is not helpful for anyone with an interest in the history of the New Forest, I feel.

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  3. Here are some ideas that I wrote about on my blog today
    Hope Bourne - Wild harvest
    Neil Ansell - Deep Country
    Denise Hall - Stones and Stars
    Sally Borst - Self Deficiency
    Daniel Butler -Urban Dreams, Rural Realities
    Anne Cholawe - Island on the Edge
    Patrick Rivers - Living on a Little Land
    Katherine Stewart - Croft in the Hills
    Hilary Burden - A Story of Seven Summers

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  4. Thanks so much! I know and own some of them, but some titles are completely new to me. Will be added to the list!

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  5. I have that book (or had at around the time of moving - so many books went in those final weeks). I know the New Forest very well, having grown up in Southampton and ridden wand walked the Forest. I do miss it, even though it's SO much busier than when we used to explore it as kids. People didn't go far from their cars then.

    I have Juliet de Bairacli-Levi's books too. I always found it so strange they never had food cooked, it was all raw (healthier I suppose but not much fun on a cold winter day).

    The Sopers have obviously lived there for a long time. I found this clip dated from 5 yrs ago when her husband had died, but Irene was still alive: https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/14261374.plea-to-restore-the-ancient-well/

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  6. Thank you! By the way, am I right in thinking that you, Sue in Suffolk and me all were librarians in our professional lives? How interesting!

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  7. Irene Soper also wrote a little booklet about the cottage of Juliette de Bairacli Levy's - the cover had a photo of the cottage - in the 1980s. I remember Irene and Arthur taking me all through the little cottage and around Abbots Well. Joanna

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  8. Irene Soper also wrote in 1980s a booklet about Juliette de Bairacli Levy's little cottage - the cover had a photo of the cottage. I remember after visiting with Irene and Arthur they showed me the cottage - to walk around the interiors was amazing. Joanna

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  9. Thanks for this, how interesting! Do you know anything more about them? Are they still there?

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    1. Links to Irene Soper and Juliette de Bairacli Levy on New Forest: http://www.newforestromanygypsytraveller.co.uk/stories.php?p=hme

      Irene Soper's booklet on New Forest Cookery: Traditional Recipes from a Forest Cabin: https://www.mappit.net/bookmap/books/48038/new-forest-cookery-traditional-recipes-from-a-fo/

      Photograph of the New Forest Cottage: https://www.facebook.com/603631363340708/posts/cottage-at-abbots-well-where-for-a-few-years-juliette-bairacli-levy-author-and-h/875024439534731/

      Joanna

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  10. Hello, I live in beautiful The New Forest, just a couple of miles away from The Well House where Irene Soper lived. Currently, her former home is for sale by auction. In the garden there is a rather special second property which is included in the sale. Its a very old thatched dwelling of historical importance, which is known as a New Forest hovel.)

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  11. Thank you, so nice to hear from you!

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  12. I only just found this interesting post and links added by other commenters. Thanks everyone for sharing. I've just ordered Irene's books, and others may be interested to know that Juliette de Bairacli Levy's book Wanderers of the New Forest has recently been reprinted, as second-hand copies are hard to come by and very pricey

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  13. A week or so ago I went to photograph Rose Cottage; I was a bit shocked to see on the gate a listed building planning application for Rose Cottage. It will be such a shame if this is allowed.

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  14. I would love to have a photo of the cottage. Could you sen dme one?

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    1. Hi I have some photos of Rose Cottage, the New Forest Hovel dwelling at The Well House, I took them this morning when I went for a walk there (I live nearby). Not sure how to send them to you, as I can't see a way to attach them to this message. Please advise.

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    2. Hi I have just emailed you some photos.

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    3. So nice of you! Have you sent them to farmsonmybookshelf@gmail.com? Haven't received them yet.

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    4. Yes, I used that email address.

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  15. I received this anonymous comment recently, but somehow it was not published on my blog, so I am copying it here: "The new house the Sopers built appears to be disused; the Rose Cottage is disused, & a Grade II listed building. I can find no documentation, in her book, for Irene's recipes, whatsoever - or anything else, come to that. This is not helpful for anyone with an interest in the history of the New Forest, I feel."

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