Entertainment
Country Life UK
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
3 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
4 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
3 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
4 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
3 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Lid pro quo
A product of post-war ingenuity, Tupperware lessened domestic drudgery and empowered thousands of women, but the party's finally over for this ubiquitous kitchen aid, discovers Rob Crossan
3 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Now we're just some gadgets that you used to know
Be it a spit wheel, a pudding prick or a tongue press, many kitchen utensils once considered essential have long been consigned to obscurity, laments Neil Buttery
5 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Stone mad
A ready supply of high-quality building stone in Devon and Somerset is reflected in three landmark properties-a manor house near Tavistock, a county council venue in Exeter and a historic former rectory near Taunton
5 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Thank you for the memories
What do you buy for the person who has everything? A special day out flying a Spitfire, sharpening their gardening knowledge or quaffing wine among the vines, says the COUNTRY LIFE team, as they try out some of the best gift experiences around Co-ordinated by Victoria Marston
9 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Pie say!
Today's baked goods pale in comparison to a Georgian festive speciality, says food historian Neil Buttery, as he lifts the lid on the Yorkshire Christmas Pye.
3 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Now that packs a punch
Today's punch might be an insipid fruit cocktail best left to students, but Charles Dickens and George IV knew how to conjure heady pleasures from their five key ingredients, says Lucien de Guise
4 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
First out of the lychgate
There are few things more romantic than a gabled lychgate leading to a charming church, says Jack Watkins, despite their funereal and functional purpose
2 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Worth its weight in gold
Myrrh isn't only an expensive motif of mortality, a potent analgesic and an Ancient Egyptian mouthwash, it's also associated with untamed lust and sensuality, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
5 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Beauty by numbers
What do spiders' webs, snowflakes and snail shells have in common? They all contain fractals: Nature's exquisite, endlessly repeating mathematical pattern. Deborah Nicholls-Lee unpicks their complex geometry
5 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Hardy and the country house
With the help of specially commissioned drawings by Matthew Rice, Jeremy Musson considers the abiding presence of the stone-built manor house in the stories of Thomas Hardy
8 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
A little mite with a mighty heart
Shy yet bold, furtive yet fearless and fond of nesting in your trousers, the tiny Jenny wren' has a lusty voice that matches its sense of adventure, observes Mark Cocker
5 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
The master builder
Harald Altmaier's photographs of floral tableaux, as colossal in effort as in scale, recall 17th-century Dutch still lifes, but the inspiration behind them is far wider, as Carla Passino finds.
3 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
The legacy
THE 'Carols for Choirs' series 'changed the whole sound of Christmas for everybody who sings,' according to the composer and choral conductor Sir John Rutter.
1 min |
November 27, 2024
Country Life UK
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
2 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
3 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
2 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
3 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
4 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
4 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
3 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
3 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
4 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
3 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
Rising supreme: the housethat stayed the course
A medieval manor in Derbyshire survives the building of a 'new hall' and two ancient Wiltshire properties reflect the care and innovation of successive families
5 min |
November 13, 2024
Country Life UK
The decorated bathroom
Make your bathroom feel more like your sitting room, says Flora Soames
2 min |