Put some graphite in your pencil

Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell

Dulce et decorum est

Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday

Heaven is a place on earth

For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee

It's the plants, stupid

I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.

Pretty as a picture

The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market

How golden was my valley

These four magnificent Cotswold properties enjoy splendid views of hill and dale

The fire within

An occasionally deadly dinner-party addition, this perennial plant would become the first condiment produced by Heinz

Sweet chamomile, good times never seemed so good

Its dainty white flowers add sunshine to the garden and countryside; it will withstand drought and create a sweet-scented lawn that never needs mowing. What's not to love about chamomile

All I need is the air that I breathe

As the 250th anniversary of 'a new pure air' approaches, Cathryn Spence reflects on the 'furious free-thinker' and polymath who discovered oxygen

My art is in the garden

Monet and Turner supplied the colours, Canaletto the structure and Klimt the patterns for the Boodles National Gallery garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Wonders of the Weald

Three enchanting houses amid rolling hills have been well cared for

Bright ideas brought to life

Prepare to be dazzled: six designers currently dreaming up rooms for this year's WOW!house share their plans

Mane stay

A hard-wearing textile with a pearlescent sheen, horsehair is much more than mere mattress stuffing. Deborah Nash meets the last British company creating this heritage fabric

Slugging it out

Have you ever encountered leopard slugs in the throes of passion? They may lack grace, but some of our toughskinned mollusc species are a curiously beautiful sight

'When the ass begins to bray, surely rain will come that day'

Is a leaping trout more accurate a rain gauge than Michael Fish? John Lewis-Stempel ponders the accuracy of proverbs portraying our wildlife as weather forecasters

A lily among weeds

This year is the bicentenary of the birth of the prolific Victorian architect George Edmund Street. Clive Aslet considers his life, his buildings and his remarkable achievements

Of roses and strawberries, cherry blossom and crushed turf

A MID all the hoopla that surrounds the horticultural event of the year that we call the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, at its heart is a group of folk who continue a tradition that is as old as Adam.

Summer

In the third and final part of our series, flower grower Anna Brown tackles the massive job of planting out 6,000 annuals

A timeless view The garden of Pusey House, Oxfordshire The home of Mr and Mrs Richard Perlhagen

In the care of its new owners, major renovations and a programme of tree planting have all enhanced the simple beauty of this garden, set in its 18th-century landscape

Beneath the boughs

Tom Stuart-Smith returns to Main Avenue with a hazel grove for the National Garden Scheme. Joanna Fortnam takes an exclusive look behind the scenes at its creation

The year of the tree

Kathryn Bradley-Hole on what to look out for at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show next week

The Icarus effect

TEN years ago, the inaugural publication of the Tall Buildings Survey at the 'London's Growing Up!' exhibition staged by New London Architecture, EC2, predicted the imminent arrival of 236 tower blocks (20 storeys or more).

A haunt of ancient peace - The gardens at Iford Manor, near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire The home of the Cartwright-Hignett family

After recent renovations, this masterpiece of Harold Peto's garden-making must be counted one of the finest gardens in England

Mere moth or merveille du jour?

Moths might live in the shadows of their more flamboyant butterfly counterparts, but some have equally artistic names, thanks to a 'golden' group, discovers Peter Marren

The magnificent seven

The Mars Badminton Horse Trials, the oldest competition of its kind in the world, celebrates its 75th anniversary this weekend. Kate Green chooses seven heroic winners in its history

Angels in the house

Winged creatures, robed figures and celestial bodies are under threat in a rural church. Jo Caird speaks to the conservators working to save northern Europe's most complete Romanesque wall paintings

There is no sting in this tale

A living prehistoric relic, the scorpion fly is a permanent guest at the ugly-bug ball, says Ian Morton

Blow the froth off

Nodding and waving to passing traffic as it engulfs our roadside verges, exuberant cow parsley is almost unstoppable, says Vicky Liddell, as she takes a closer look at the umbellifer and its sometimes sinister kin

This is how we brew it

Having lived in the shadow of its Antipodean counterpart, British coffee-shop culture is finally thriving. Ben Lerwill visits the Cotswolds, where it all began

The legacy Isabella Beeton and recipes

MANY of Isabella Beeton’s 900odd recipes were not her own for which modern-day cookery writers have taken her to task—but she is credited as the first to publish them in the clear format (ingredients followed by method, including cooking time, right) that everyone uses today.