Season of the Witch at Ampney Park
An isolated manor, a silent supper, guests draped in black. It sounds like the ending of an Agatha Christie novel, but in the world of LOST ART, this was the beginning of the Season of the Witch.
The day after Halloween, guests descended on Ampney Park, a Jacobean manor in the Cotswolds that’d been opened to the public for the first time in decades. After a long restoration, the carvings on its lofty ceilings and burnished hallways gleamed to welcome visitors, who could look out across miles of gardens and three lakes, and even glimpse deer prancing through the trees as though summoned by the evening’s magic.
Usually, LOST ART’s Secret Ceremony events are confined safely within London’s borders—but not tonight. For more than a year, our magazine’s film club has curated esoteric movie screenings matched with aesthetic venues that include Gothic churches, jewellery stores, and contemporary art galleries. Naturally, for Samhain—the Celtic precursor to Halloween, when the veil between life and death is thinnest—we had to celebrate in style.
Guests began filing through the cobblestone entrance by early afternoon, dressed impeccably in jet-black gowns and elegant suits, and were greeted by a welcoming fire. In the manor’s screening room they settled down to watch Season of the Witch, a cult-classic feminist fantasy by George Romero (best known for the Night of the Living Dead series). Despite the luxurious surroundings, we also threw in an ode to childhood trick-or-treating in the form of bowls of Halloween candy for guests to help themselves from.
For anyone preferring a more grown-up treat, the bar was ready to supply martinis and G&Ts featuring spirits from Cygnet Gin, as well as sparkling wine from the neighbouring Poulton Hill vineyard. Tarot readings by Tia Xixa Tarot went on at a candlelit table, while the sun sank lower and our team of chefs assembled our meal.
Naturally, we couldn’t just serve any old dinner. At a grand table laden with candelabras and heaps of dark fruit, servers brought in a feast of all-black dishes, served according to the ancient tradition of the dumb supper. Meant to invert our perspective on life as the seasons change, the meal is served back-to-front, beginning with petit fours and ending with soup.
Dumb suppers are also called silent suppers, and in accordance with this, the first course was an Allhallowtide soul cake with blackberry compote, eaten in complete silence. At first glance, the gleaming chocolate pearls garnishing each cake might be mistaken for the compote, but each pearl added a surprising crunch to the bite-sized dish.
After this course of fancies, the afters (which came before) was a black sesame ice cream with crispy cavolo nero, sea salt and olive oil. Served in a natural shell, the ice cream’s hints of salt brought seaside flavours to this woodland manor. For this course’s accompanying ritual, guests each placed a rose petal in a bowl of water, a tribute to loved ones no longer with us.
Next came an entree of squid ink tagliatelle topped with browned butter, crispy sage, and Parmesan. While the guests ate the sage-scented dish, we burned sage to cleanse the air and mark a divide between the past and future. This banquet ended where most meals begin: a starter of autumnal beetroot and burnt orange soup, accompanied by a layer cake of rye bread and whipped butter, a combination that fused sweet and savoury, dessert and starter.
We finished off the evening with a roaring bonfire, filling the garden with a dazzling red glow as attendees tossed in a slip of paper, where they’d each written down one thing they wished to let go of. Meanwhile, the table’s centrepiece—a black Guinness sponge cake—was being portioned into boxes so that guests could bring pieces home as a midnight snack. Dried flowers and sliced figs, garlands of blueberries and heaps of blackberries, gleamed against its rich chocolate frosting, a final treat from this jet-black meal. And as everyone headed to their cars while embers from the bonfire drifted into the sky, you could almost feel a change in the air…
‘Must be the season of the witch.’
Photographs courtesy of Xavi Buendia
