Marches & More

Beefstock: Things are getting smokey I have already told you about Under the Nut Tree, my current answer to the question “where shall we go for dinner?” regardless of whether anybody asking lives remotely near Herefordshire. If you missed that particular love letter: it’s a supper club hidden down a lane on the Kentchurch Estate, where Simon and his family cook dinner over an enormous hand-forged live-fire grill beneath an old hazel tree. I left smelling faintly of woodsmoke, extremely well...

Russell Howard in a brand-new Hereford big top I have a real soft spot for people building new places for us to go, so The Amp has immediately got my attention. The Courtyard has basically plonked an enormous Big Top on its Hereford site for the summer and filled it with people you would usually expect to travel considerably further to see. The Amp, short for The Courtyard Amplified, holds around 1,400 people, making it Herefordshire’s largest live performance space. It is deliberately...

Under the Nut Tree: Dinner with added fire Some places feed you. Under the Nut Tree fires you up for an entire evening. Hidden at the end of a long lane on the Kentchurch Estate, the supper club sits beneath a magnificent old hazel tree. At its centre is another tree entirely: an enormous hand-forged grill built for cooking over live fire. You watch dinner take shape, smell it long before it reaches the table and become deeply invested in whatever glorious thing is hanging above the flames....

Circus by the lake Some recommendations arrive with such a pleasing local stamp of approval that you have to pay attention. Peregrine Circus came our way via the team at Pobl Bakery, which already gives it excellent credentials. People who understand good pastry are rarely wrong about joy. We will be accepting no further questions on this matter. Peregrine's show, Belly of the Whale, is currently at Llandrindod Lake, and it sounds like exactly the kind of odd, beautiful, slightly otherworldly...

WELCOME DARLINGS! The Marches have entered the group chat, and they’ve arrived loudly. The very first MAM is here, packed with castle gigs, Welsh wine, lake swims, brilliant pastries and enough good plans to keep you busy until next Thursday. I’ll see you here every week, so forward this to the friend who’s always asking, “Why didn’t anyone tell me about that?” Sarah Seaton - Editor/Head MAM Proof that Ludlow can, in fact, stay up past 9pm. LUDLOW TURNS IT UP For a few glorious weeks, Ludlow...