Why It Makes Scents to Celebrate Whiffs of the Past ; the Discovery in a Dartmouth Cottage of a Book Containing Forgotten Formulae for Some of Britain's Oldest Perfumes has Led a Chartered Surveyor and His Exmouth-Raised Wife to Gamble Everything to Bring the Exotic Scents Back to Life. Gillian Molesworth Sniffs Out the Full Story

Summary

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THIS is THE box," said Amanda Brooke, and her husband Simon echoed delightedly: "THE box". Carefully they placed a bevelled, cream and gold carton on the table. Amanda brandished a small key, jingled it in the air first. There was a moment of hush and we craned our necks to see: journalist, photographer, costume curator, and assembled curious faces from Killerton House near Exeter. Click went the lock and the box yawned open to reveal the fruits of five years' labour: three glittering crystal bottles filled with amber liquid.

I wonder if that's how the perfume was presented, to the Queen, perhaps, at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

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Why It Makes Scents to Celebrate Whiffs of the Past ; the Discovery in a Dartmouth Cottage of a Book Containing Forgotten Formulae for Some of Britain's Oldest Perfumes has Led a Chartered Surveyor and His Exmouth-Raised Wife to Gamble Everything to Bring the Exotic Scents Back to Life. Gillian Molesworth Sniffs Out the Full Story

The story of how these bottles came to be on this table is one of luck, tenacity, nous and imagination. It began with a family tree, and ended with the resurrection of one of the country's oldest brands.

"I've always been interested in the family," said Simon, a Manche...

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