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Left and right Cornwall is a land dotted with harbours and fishing towns, of changing skies and sudden downpours. The Bentley’s sumptuous cockpit and all-wheel drive transmission makes light of fickle weather. Chasing the sunset continued In more than 30 years of travelling to the West Country my undisputed world record stands at three hours 18 minutes. I might have broken the speed limit, but I was young, there were no speed cameras and it was a VW Golf with a very big engine. My friend who joined the Fleet Air Arm recounts that on full reheat, his McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom could get to Cornwall from Norfolk in just over 10 minutes. It’s not just me in a hurry to get to Cornwall, even fictional characters get their toes down. Maxim de Winter drove hard through the night when he learned his wife had lied to him in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. He was too late to save the blazing Manderley, though. Or what about those whizz-bang TV chefs, Jamie Oliver or Rick Stein, anxious to see how their stables of West Country restaurants are faring? My wife’s grandparents and friends used to race through the night to Cornwall from London. Nicknamed the ‘Jet Set’ they arriving on the north coast in the wee small hours to play endless rubbers of bridge fuelled with neat gin. They used to say that when the tangerine Cornish sun dipped behind the last wave at dusk you could see a momentary green flash, although I suspected this was a version of sunset seen through a green bottle of Gordon’s gin. Not true. I recently discovered the phenomenon was real, caused by the earth’s atmosphere bending the sun’s rays, with the blue/green wavelengths the last to sink beneath the horizon. Good grief! So the green flash does exist. Time to travel west to see this mythical phenomenon. Despite almost biblical rain, the Bentley Continental GT starts (naturally) in imperious fashion. There’s only one route to Cornwall, the A303 across the pillowy downs of Salisbury Plain, with Cranborne Chase’s multicoloured fields spread like a summer picnic to the south. My dad’s split-cane rods are in the boot. Last time out they hooked a little sea bass in the Camel estuary. I’m not sure who was more surprised, but I let him fight another day and I’m looking for a return match. The cathedral city of Exeter funnels traffic into the mutton-leg shaped peninsula, which stretches so far into the Atlantic Approaches that it gets its weather days before the rest of England. The high road skirts Dartmoor to the north, the low road heads south to Plymouth. We take the high road for Okehampton and the new Continental barely stirs a gear as its 6-litre, twinturbocharged 12-cylinder wafts past Exminster and onto the A30. The new W12 engine produces more power than its predecessor and packs a wallop matched by few. It murmurs along at low revs in top, sounding like the wind in the pipes. Prod it, however, and the kickdown is speedy and the response massive. Far hills become imminent inclines and overtaking is contemptuously easy. Fiercely independent, with a long history of exploitation (of land and people), Cornwall is defined by its isolation and a close relationship with the sea. The local radio station has two weather forecasts an hour, plus shipping and inshore waters forecasts, and separate reports from a harbour master and a coast guard; it’s a blast. 18
CONTINENTAL GT FISHING, TOO, USED TO BE A BIG EMPLOYER AND AS A FORMER LONG-LINE FISHERMAN, I’VE NOTHING BUT RESPECT FOR THE MEN WHO WORK THE NETS AND LINES FAR FROM SHORE IN ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS INDUSTRIES THERE IS. 19
Page 1 and 2: No.37 SPRING 2011
Page 3 and 4: FURNITURE FOR LUXURY HOMES OF THE W
Page 5 and 6: AVAILABLE MADE TO MEASURE
Page 7: NAVITIMER A cult object among aviat
Page 11 and 12: 60 28 Editor julia marozzi A former
Page 14 and 15: High performance Flybridge Motor Ya
Page 16 and 17: SUMMIT COVE TWO CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF C
Page 18 and 19: 16
Page 22 and 23: 20 SURFING, ONCE A SPECIALIST SPORT
Page 24 and 25: 22
Page 27 and 28: CONTINENTAL GT Chasing the sunset c
Page 29 and 30: LONDON - 165 Sloane Street, Tel: +4
Page 31 and 32: MARY-ADAIR MACAIRE 29
Page 33 and 34: MARY-ADAIR MACAIRE Left Pringle’s
Page 35: El Toro Patented Perpetual Calendar
Page 38 and 39: THESE ARE THE TYPES OF PIECES TO GE
Page 40: Luxury of choice continued They cap
Page 44 and 45: HERITAGE IN THE MAKING THE TONDA HE
Page 46: Stanhope Gate’s customers expect
Page 49 and 50: LINEAGE 47
Page 51 and 52: LINEAGE 49
Page 53 and 54: LINEAGE 1924 Mulliner can trace its
Page 55 and 56: Excellent Connection Excellent Conn
Page 57 and 58: BENTLEY BESPOKE and hushed environm
Page 59 and 60: BENTLEY BESPOKE At home with luxury
Page 61 and 62: BEST INTERNATIONAL PROPERTY Sugar B
Page 63 and 64: ICE DRIVING Champagne on ice JUHA K
Page 65 and 66: ICE DRIVING AS THE SPEED INDICATOR
Page 67 and 68: ICE DRIVING TIME FOR CELEBRATION Th
Page 69 and 70: OPPORTUNITY IS RARE. ELEVATE YOUR V
Page 71 and 72:
BENTLEY DRIVERS CLUB Mike’s story
Page 73 and 74:
BENTLEY DRIVERS CLUB SOME CLUB MOTO
Page 76 and 77:
New York state of mind WHETHER YOU
Page 78 and 79:
Below The Gothan Hotel’s location
Page 80:
Above James and David Chapman’s $
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BENTLEY WORLD NIGHT TO REMEMBER IN
Page 85 and 86:
BENTLEY WORLD UK DEALER EVENTS LIGH
Page 88 and 89:
contemporary tailoring, made to mea
Page 90 and 91:
Wonder rooms IT’S TIME TO DITCH T
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