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Country Life UK Magazine - July 23, 2025

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In this issue

‘The kindest, sweetest dog’ Why the greyhound won Jilly Cooper’s heart Bedtime rituals: how to keep the romance Steam power and not-so-lonesome pine martens

Ayes on the ground

THERE once was a time when MPs fell over themselves to go to The Game Fair (held this weekend at Ragley Hall, Warwickshire) and other countryside events in order to burnish their rural credentials and impress potential voters. Similarly, the serious press attended to report what they had to say for the next morning's papers. Now, it seems that country dwellers need to go directly to Westminster to attract the attention of politicians and to explain the realities of life.

1 mins

Hear the insect hum

THE 'insectageddon' foretold by some conservationists may be on hold: 2025 is turning out to be a remarkable year for insects.

2 mins

The delphinium that wouldn't die

WHEN a customer arrived at Graham and Nina Austin's Hertfordshire nursery 15 years ago bearing a cutting of a beautiful deepblue delphinium, they knew straight away that it was the rare and endangered Delphinium 'Alice Artindale'.

1 mins

Game on for hot topics

UNSURPRISINGLY, inheritance tax, the future of farming and other threats to the rural way of life will be issues for debate at this year's Game Fair, which takes place at Ragley Hall, Warwickshire, this weekend (July 25-27). Other topics under scrutiny in the Carter Jonas Theatre include how shoots can improve their conservation credentials and what to do about the increasing problems of moorland wildfires and river pollution.

1 mins

Love conquers all

AS rebellious acts go, commissioning a large silver sculpture of rutting stags society.

1 mins

Let them eat venison

INITIATIVES are being established across the UK to get more venison, a ready source of lean, vitamin-rich meat, onto plates. Deer numbers—at about two million—are at their highest level for 1,000 years; landowners report losing more than a million pounds’ worth of crops a year to deer damage, plus they destroy woodland; up to 74,000 deer are involved annually in road-traffic accidents. The obvious solution is a culinary one, but there are challenges.

1 mins

All change for gun owners

SHOOTERS are feeling nervous as the Government prepares to consult on restricting shotgun ownership by aligning parts of firearms-licensing legislation.

1 mins

Sleeping at the Cathedral

ONE of the most exclusive addresses in Britain is now available to rent.

1 mins

Let sleeping cows lie

THIS week, our cows are in Great Broad Oaks, the field closest to the house. Sadly, after weeks without rain, there is not the usual supply of lush grass, but, as we're not overstocked, we ought just to manage. It’s hard for them in the hot sunshine, despite the shade from overhanging trees. Oddly, cows don't always seem to congregate where there is shade, but range over the field with no discernible pattern, except, being cows, they tend to end up on the drive just when I want to get out.

2 mins

A canary in the coal mine?

LAST week, there came the unhappy announcement of proposed redundancies at the National Trust.

2 mins

My favourite painting John Gilhooly

The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio

1 mins

A tale of transformation

Sennowe Park, Norfolk, part 1 The home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards In the first of two articles, John Goodall looks at the creation of a Georgian lodge and its Edwardian transformation at the hands of a local architect into a luxurious home

7 mins

The legacy Denys Watkins-Pitchford (‘BB’) and rural writing

The wonder of the world The beauty and the power The shapes of things, Their colours, light and shades These I saw, Look ye also while life lasts.

1 mins

Nature and nurture

Our schools can—and must—lead the way in teaching the next generation the incalculable value of the natural world, contends Roger Morgan-Grenville

3 mins

The hounds of love

Gentle, soulful and elegant, greyhounds inspire unending devotion among their many admirers-not least Dame Jilly Cooper and Twiggy-discovers Katy Birchall

6 mins

One pine day

The pine marten may have a taste for jam sandwiches, but its razor-sharp claws and appetite for eggs and grey squirrels makes it a predatory force to be reckoned with

6 mins

Gettin' piggy with it

As he coaxes a galumphing porcine up to her summer abode on a bright July morning, John Lewis-Stempel considers whether it was an uphill struggle or simply a pig of a day

4 mins

If you see Sid, tell him

With a penchant for puns worthy of Punch, Neil Patterson, ad man-turned-angler, is as sharp as a fox in a world of piscatorial piffle-peddlers

5 mins

‘Though she be but little, she is fierce’

Scourge of the bird feeder and a master of ‘shock and awe’ assassinations, the sparrowhawk pursues its quarry with such tenacity and unpredictability that it often blindsides its prey

3 mins

Full steam ahead

Acres of gleaming brass, piercing whistles and history come alive: traction-engine rallies are a gloriously British summer celebration attended by hundreds of thousands of steam devotees, says James Hamilton

3 mins

And so to bed...

Forget the standard double: country-house sleeping arrangements have undergone all sorts of intriguing (and eyebrow-raising) shifts throughout history

5 mins

Modern grandeur

Four-poster beds aren't for historic houses alone. A new generation of designers is using them to create a pared-back contemporary look, finds Arabella Youens

2 mins

Eastern promise

These three East Anglian houses include a medieval moated manor once owned by the inspiration for Shakespeare's Falstaff, the home of a sculptor and a converted watermill

5 mins

Tales from the riverbank

These houses with fishing rights would make great catches for keen anglers, says Arabella Youens

2 mins

A blank canvas

Grove Ley garden, Somerton, Somerset The home of Dr and Mrs Michael Horder With many viewpoints and changes of level, this was not an easy site on which to make a garden, but key to its success, writes Caroline Donald, has been enlarging the pond and creating long beds full of robust perennials and grasses

4 mins

A new way of seeing

IT is a rare privilege for a gardening writer to have a new edition of a book published posthumously.

3 mins

Kitchen garden cook Sweetcorn

Sweetcorn and herb gratin with summer seafood and chilli

1 mins

The sound of (almost) silence

Whooshing trees, clattering fish, fizzing reed piles: at the National Trust's Wicken Fen Nature Reserve, a new trail conceived by audio-visual sculptor Kathy Hinde gives voice to the life that hides under or around the surface of ponds and ditches

7 mins

Water, water everywhere

Hokusai imagined a massive breaker about to crash on tiny fishing boats. Sandro Botticelli had his Venus float in her shell on a mere sea ripple. Large or small, soothing or frightening, waves have long captivated artists, finds Michael Prodger

5 mins

One for the record books

Brown Jack not only won six consecutive times in Ascot’s Queen Alexandra Stakes, but was also the model for one of only two finished sculptures by Sir Alfred Munnings. A cast of it made top price at auction—as did a Canaletto at another sale

3 mins

I do like to be beside the seaside

HAPPY are the seaside railway-terminus stations, for they signal the escape from the dusty inland city and the beginning of the summer fun. The names trip off the tongue: Eastbourne, Brighton, Skegness, Scarborough, Blackpool and Llandudno are among the best known of these resorts of human delight. Perhaps that description belongs in the past tense, however. In 2023, in her lugubriously affecting The Seaside: England's Love Affair, author Madeleine Bunting drew a picture of a relationship turned sour. Some of these places are now resorts of despair for the left behind.

2 mins

Et in Arcadia, ego

A 68 year old should be well into enjoying the promised upswing in the happiness age curve. Numerous studies show the curve bottoms out in a person's forties and achieves euphoric heights in their seventies. I'm not feeling it, however. The current state of the world brings despair. Usually, literature is a trusty refuge. To escape into a good novel is to leave idle cares behind for a spell, but that has failed me.

2 mins

Read all Stories from Country Life UK

Country Life UK Magazine Description:

Publisher: Future

Category: Lifestyle

Language: English

Frequency: Weekly

Country Life; architecture, gardens, countryside, property, the very best of British life Published by IPC Media. Country Life, the quintessential English magazine, is undoubtedly one of the biggest and instantly recognisable brands in the UK today. It has a unique core mix of contemporary country-related editorial and top end property advertising. Editorially, the magazine comments in-depth on a wide variety of subjects, such as architecture, the arts, gardens and gardening, travel, the countryside, field-sports and wildlife. With renowned columnists and superb photography Country Life delivers the very best of British life every week.