Entertainment
Country Life UK
Shear brilliance
So fine is this topiary collection, one might think it dates back to the 18th century, yet it has been created over the past 20 years by a former antique dealer with little interest in gardening
5 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
If the blackcap fits
Small, shy and chubby with a neat black cap, this effervescent bird sings its heart out in spring. Jack Watkins meets the blackcap, also known as the March nightingale
5 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
Ripe for the picking
Character cottages for less than £1 million
2 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
The store-cupboard superstar
Nothing beats griddled sardines fresh from the sea, but, tinned, these iridescent beauties can be feasted upon year-round, celebrates Tom Parker Bowles
4 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
Golden moments
It is 90 years since Golden Miller won the first of a record-breaking five victories in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Jack Watkins looks back at other equine heroes of the race and assesses Al Boum Photo’s chances of making history at this year’s Festival
7 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
Happy families
Home is where the heart is at three family-sized properties that have not been seen on the market for decades
4 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
Dressed all in white
As attractive to artists as it is to moths and butterflies, the ‘White Period’ of heavenly spring blossom is upon us and John Lewis-Stempel couldn’t be happier
7 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
Charity begins at home
Built for the clergy, the military, retired estate workers and, most commonly, for the poor, almshouses are as important today as they ever were, finds Clive Aslet
7 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
A most welcome return
An award-winning restoration project has addressed serious structural problems within an important Palladian house and brought it back to life as a modern family home. Oliver Gerrish reports.
8 min |
March 09, 2022
Country Life UK
Power to the people
Long gone is the Thames-side wasteland– a new neighbourhood is thriving and the transformation of its centrepiece, Battersea Power Station, completes in September
5 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
To the point
An echo of a forgotten age, arrowsmith Will Sherman and his mongrel Bodkin spend their days in a Victorian forge surrounded by medieval weaponry. Ben Lerwill pays a visit
6 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
‘Sharp in detail, clean in colour'
Known as ‘the boy’ and only 39 when he died on active service in the Second World War, Eric Ravilious had already accomplished so much, thanks to his fastidious eye for mundane detail
8 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
This is me
In a bid for immortality, painters through the ages have returned to the face they know best. Yet these self-portraits are not necessarily a window into the artist’s soul, believes Matthew Dennison
8 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
In the thick of it
Wading through mud and rueing February for its fickle nature, with frost one day and rain the next, John Lewis-Stempel takes a moment to admire the heron’s ability to keep clean in the mire
4 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
Plantaholic heaven
The Coach House, Ampney Crucis, Gloucestershire The garden of Mr and Mrs Nicholas Tanner. It’s no surprise that the garden belonging to the organiser of The Specialist Plant Fairs is filled with very special plants, but it is the way they are displayed that really makes the site distinctive.
6 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
By royal example
A grand house ‘practically in the palace gardens’ of Hampton Court and another on the site of a royal hunting lodge in Oxfordshire show how to live the good life
5 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
Southdown sheep
ONE of the most charming passages in Gilbert White’s The Natural History of Selborne is his letter to Daines Barrington of December 1773, reflecting on how, despite having travelled the Sussex Downs for more than 30 years, he still investigated ‘that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year’.
4 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
Love or lustre?
Inspired by the East Anglian countryside, a potter, poet and songwriter is reinterpreting shimmering Persian lustreware for the modern age, finds Lucien de Guise
3 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
Building on history
Harrow School, London HA1 The property of the Keepers and Governors of the Possessions, Revenues and Goods of the Free Grammar School of John Lyon within the Town of Harrow on the Hill. As the school celebrates its 450th anniversary, John Goodall looks at its early history and principal buildings
9 min |
February 23, 2022
Country Life UK
Think big
The old advice always used to be to plant small and wait, but recent innovations mean that gardeners can plant outsize trees with confidence, says Charles Quest-Ritson
6 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
Three men in a triptych
As children grow into adults in the blink of an eye and with three sons in their twenties, Clive Aslet decided to capture this moment of their youth in a group portrait
4 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
Twinkle, twinkle ancient stars
A bronze ‘sky disc’, thought to be the world’s oldest map of the cosmos, is the star attraction of an exhibition about Stonehenge, finds Vicky Liddell
3 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
Pure acting
Four mesmerising performances bring works alive
5 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
The Eden project
The singer on gardening, climate change and using music to propagate a topic
5 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
The bloodhound gang
Far from snoozing on a porch all day, bloodhounds are highly active pack-hunting dogs that require ‘slobber cloths’ when in company, discovers Katy Birchall
7 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
Better by design
A house built of Beer stone in Devon has commanding views, as do a cleverly converted Chilterns farmhouse and a Scandinavian style property in prime Shires hunting country
5 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
Friends for life
I DON’T accept the old adage ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. I buy books I already own when I see a new edition with a wonderful cover. Then there is the title.
6 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
ENGLISH HOMES OLD & NEW Part 2 Lancastrian and Yorkist 1400–85
Each month of this 125th anniversary year, COUNTRY LIFE will illustrate a period in the development of the English great house, from the Middle Ages to the present day. This week, John Goodall looks at the 15th-century home
9 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
A lack of common knowledge
Enshrined in law since 1215, commoners’ rights allow the unrestricted grazing of all sorts of livestock–including ducks–that learn to ‘heft’ or ‘lear’ to the land in an ancient farming system that’s now under threat, says Octavia Pollock
7 min |
February 16, 2022
Country Life UK
A brush with history
A family in Wiltshire has built a 100-year-old empire on brushes for sweeping, scrubbing, cooking and construction, finds Julie Harding
6 min |