The artist Leah Wood moved to Northamptonshire with her family six years ago. Born in Los Angeles in 1978, she’s enjoyed a multi-faceted career spanning stints as a model for Vivienne Westwood, and a musician fronting the Leah Wood Group (Leah is the eldest daughter of Rolling Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood).
Today she works from a studio at the bottom of her garden. Her latest series, Cherry Blossom Portraits, is currently exhibiting in Tokyo and had a London presentation on 26 March.
When I first saw our house in the heart of the Northamptonshire countryside, I was smitten. Until then, my family – my husband Jack and our two kids – had been living in a pokey little flat in Kentish Town, London. We moved during Covid at a time when my son was unwell. Thankfully, he’s much better now – being surrounded by greenery and cleaner air really helps.
Northamptonshire – or “The Notswolds” as some call it – has emerged as a more affordable alternative to the Cotswolds in recent years: it shares similar postcard-perfect stone villages and rolling countryside, but without the crowds.
The town of Northampton is a great starting point. If you’ve never been, try Magee Street Bakery, run by a husband-and-wife team who have excellent sandwiches and coffee. Beyond that, the countryside is dotted with lovely villages such as Blakesley, which has amazing coffee shop/florist hybrid Chapel&Co.
Living here also means you’re within easy reach of some exceptional restaurants. On Valentine’s Day this year my husband and I visited Thyme in Oxfordshire (it’s actually in the Cotswolds, not the Notswolds, but we’ll let this pass because the food is sensational). Set in a gorgeous big barn and decorated with romantic candles, we enjoyed a case of caviar which arrived with a single ready-salted crisp instead of blinis.
One surprising thing about moving here has been the quality of Asian food. Akasaka is a Japanese/Korean fusion restaurant in Northampton. My husband and I will always try to eat something new, such as flying fish roe. He’s more adventurous than me – he once ate lobster brain, which numbed his tongue.
Kobe in Milton Keynes is another lovely Japanese restaurant which specialises in Kobe beef, as well as Wagyu steaks and inventive non-alcoholic cocktails. Northampton also has a great Korean supermarket too.
The Japanese threads running through Northamptonshire don’t end there. Just outside our gate stands a beautiful cherry blossom tree. Every year, it takes my breath away. It blooms for only around three weeks, before the petals fall and are gone. It’s a moment of beauty and impermanence, reminding us we need to be patient. I started painting a cherry blossom, then did another. Before long I’d painted five or six watercolours.
My Cherry Blossom Portraits series has reminded me I need to visit Japan again – a place I haven’t been since I was a teenager.
Back then, my dad was promoting his paintings and brought the family along. The trip was a real eye-opener. So many moments have stayed with me: sitting cross-legged in traditional Japanese restaurants, the Tokyo obsession with cuckoo clocks and Hello Kitty, or getting hot tea drinks from vending machines (worlds away from the UK’s machines which only produced Walkers crisps).
We also visited a karaoke bar with my dad’s art promoters. I remember a guy really getting into his Michael Jackson song and drinking so much sake his face went a plum colour. Japanese people certainly know how to have fun.
In Japan, sakura (cherry blossom) season is a time of reflection. I’ve been doing a lot of that since moving to Northamptonshire, mainly thinking, ‘Why didn’t we do this years ago?’
Leah Wood’s Cherry Blossom Portraits is currently exhibiting at Harmonyst Gallery in Tokyo.
Words: Christian Koch
Christian Koch is an award-winning journalist and editor who has written for the Evening Standard, Q, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Director, Cosmopolitan, ShortList, Stylist, Glamour, Metro, The Face, Muzik, FHM and many more.
