Entertainment
Country Life UK
Bridge
MY team had insurmountable logistical problems at the 11th European Transnational Open Teams in Poznan, Poland, last summer.
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Where there's a will, there's a whey "
France may be synonymous with fromage, but the terroir of our green and pleasant land gives rise to all manner of magnificent varieties of our own, declares Tom Parker Bowles, who picks his favourites
8 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Guest editor sets off for Chelsea
COUNTRY LIFE's guest editor Sir David Beckham is taking his passion for gardening in an exciting new direction by helping to create the RHS and The King's Foundation Curious Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 (May 19–23).
1 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
To Manderley again
The writer Daphne du Maurier was fascinated by the English country house. Jeremy Musson explores her evocation of these buildings with the help of specially commissioned drawings by Matthew Rice
8 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
The royal treatment
The Bohemian King Wenceslas really was good, but his reward for gracious piety was not, discovers Ian Morton
3 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Spare a thought
Creating a room where guests want to spend time takes the pressure off busy hosts, says Arabella Youens
3 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Thoroughly cream crackered
They might be plain in looks, but Jacob's Cream Crackers have had a colourful life. Tom Howells presents a bite-sized history of the Christmas cheeseboard staple
3 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Treasures in the shadow of Kilburn White Horse
Three historic country houses in Yorkshire, a stone's throw from the most northerly of Britain's 16 white chalk horses, offer comfortable contemporary living and fascinating backstories
5 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Is the UK's heritage flourishing or faltering?
ON the eve of lockdown more than five years ago, Athena paid a visit to Canterbury, Kent (February 5, 2020). At that time, the city seemed to be struggling with a decline in tourism and the closure of many shops. As she observed then, if such a well-connected, attractive and formerly prosperous place was struggling, what hope for many other historic cities? It was, therefore, heartening to return this week and to see it in a happier state, with a bustling High Street. Added to which, the cathedral—apart from the perhaps inevitable clutter of a Christmas market at the north porch—felt as if it was being spring cleaned for the forthcoming installation of the new Archbishop. Inside, it was busy with visitors and tour groups.
1 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Golden wreath walnut mince pies with clementine
Makes nine mince pies or one large wreath
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Outcry over Leaden Hall plans
A PLANNING scheme that could 'spoil' the view depicted in John Constable's 1820 painting, Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon, as well as other works, has sparked such controversy that the subject of 'settings' and 'views' has been raised in the House of Lords. Lord Patten, former Secretary of State for Education, questioned whether the gardens of the Grade I-listed Leaden Hall fall within a nationally significant setting to be protected as defined by the National Planning Policy Framework. Baroness Taylor of Stevenage last week answered that it is up to 'the decision maker to decide what the setting of a particular heritage asset is when considering a relevant planning application'.
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Oscar Wilde collection to go under the hammer
An extensive collection of Oscar Wilde memorabilia, which was amassed by Jeremy Mason over 60 years, will be offered for sale at Bonhams Knights-bridge, London SW7, on February 18, 2026, a fitting event to follow the 125th anniversary this year of the author, poet and playwright’s death.
1 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
My favourite painting Sarah Lamb
Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
The silver touch
Silverware, with its glistering surface and ornate designs, dresses the table like no other material and has an unmatched capacity for turning a meal into an occasion, as Matthew Dennison discovers
5 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
The legacy Carl Giles and the Giles cartoons
THE Giles family, whose daily doings kept Daily Express readers amused for 48 years, were born out of their creator Carl Giles's job as the paper's official Second World War cartoonist: he coped with it by depicting Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and Mussolini as a dysfunctional family.
1 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Parting is such sweet sorrow
A sale of Modern British Art earlier this year brimmed with the kind of wonderful works that auctioneers find a little heart-wrenching to let go, including a Waterfall full of wild windiness by Sir Kyffin Williams
4 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
The rake's progress
AND now the leaves suddenly lose strength... New strong/Rain-bearing night-winds come,' wrote Philip Larkin in a poem about autumn. 'Leaves chase warm buses, speckle statued air,/Pile up in corners, fetch out vague broomed men/Through mists at morning.'
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
It's crunch time
Which crisp pairs perfectly with Pinot Noir? What should you open to go with the Champagne? Can a cocktail really bring out the best in a bag of Monster Munch? Susan Low learns how to match drinks and crisps at Berry Bros & Rudd
5 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
It's the thought that counts
At one extreme are the smug planners; at the other desperate last-minuters
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
A window in time
Whether winter-faded ferns, the spindly harvestman or the tyrannical stare of an irate chicken, through- lines from the prehistoric to our modern age are all around us in November, says John Lewis-Stempel
4 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
A string to the bow
LORD EDWARD MANNERS stands in the 14th-century Eagle Tower at Haddon Hall with one hand resting on a curious timber frame fixed into the fabric.
1 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
The answer is blowing in the wind
IT'S tricky stuff, wind. We can't live without it—the wind dispersal of crop pollen being an obvious instance—but sometimes we rather feel we might like to. The frequency of wrecking hurricanes across the planet per annum would be monotonous if it were not tragic. It is tricky to grasp, too, wind. Quite a portion of this book by veteran journalist Simon Winchester is given over to human attempts to classify it.
3 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Sticking with it
Christmas stamps, as featured on this year's COUNTRY LIFE Advent calendar cover, are a cherished annual event- but how did they become one?
3 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Guest editor sets off for Chelsea
COUNTRY LIFE's guest editor Sir David Beckham is taking his passion for gardening in an exciting new direction by helping to create the RHS and The King's Foundation Curious Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 (May 19–23). Horticulturist, author and television presenter Frances Tophill will design the garden—her first at Chelsea—with Alan Titchmarsh an ambassador. The overall aim is to encourage curiosity about growing plants and creating pockets for the natural world. Sir David says: 'I hope we inspire people to get outside into Nature and to try something new.'
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
The happiness conundrum
MY flatmate has started taking online French lessons. It's a lot harder than when we took the subject at GCSE, she says, because her current teacher insists on over-philosophising everything. Truthfully, I once overheard him lecture the class on how happiness has become a pipe dream due to technology and that people were far happier in the days when Nero was setting Rome ablaze, amid a lesson purportedly about the past participle. She may have had a point.
1 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Post it
AN advertisement for the first ever Christmas card, in 1843, ran: 'Just published.
2 min |
November 26, 2025
Country Life UK
Roasted guinea fowl with parsnip-and-cauliflower gratin
Food Article
2 min |
November 19, 2025
Country Life UK
Slippery customers
The mysterious eel, with its ability to dive deeper than a nuclear submarine and complete a mammoth migration, is a symbol of a vanishing world and deserves to be revered
6 min |
November 19, 2025
Country Life UK
Past masters
Mary Keen visits Garden & Wood, the mecca for dedicated gardeners who prefer using tools made in the 1940s
4 min |
November 19, 2025
Country Life UK
The bare truth
IT is November 1964. Mr Mackenzie, in his black waistcoat, baggy black trousers, white shirt with tie, his head topped with the battered brown trilby he always wore come rain or shine, wiped the dewdrop off the end of his nose with the back of his horny hand and proceeded to dig up the maiden apple from the short row of fruit trees in his nursery.
3 min |