Lifestyle
Country Life UK
Let's get this party started
Whoever snaps up one of these five homes gets a bonus perk-a party barn built for unforgettable events and non-stop fun and frivolity
3 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
A life in costume
PHYLLIS DALTON was a costume designer extraordinaire, her creations winning Oscarsfor Doctor Zhivago and Kenneth Branagh's Henry V-and appearing in almost 50 other films, including The Man Who Knew Too Much, Lawrence of Arabia, Oliver!, A Private Function and The Princess Bride.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
The cold never bothered her anyway
Wrapped in fur, easel strapped to her waist, Anna Boberg braved swirling snowstorms to paint the shimmering colours of the icy Lofoten islands in Norway
5 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Country Mouse As clear as mud
THE pale yellow glistening mud that covers the Thil pake allow the gray gread that very nud that is spread like enamel over the valleys.'
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Seeing red
Whether the jewel-like native of Britain's bogs or the North American cousin of the Christmas table, the cranberry is a fruit of fascinating biological and cultural prestige
5 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
The jolly sportsman Fox terrier
WHATEVER may or may not be said as to the mischievous propensities of the foxterrier, there is no denying the fact that of all dogs he is the most sportive,' COUNTRY LIFE noted in 1897.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
The taste of Britain Northumberland: Craster kippers
IF you attended an English public school Ib you attended, n English public school probably induce a shudder, rather than a 'merry cry' akin to Bertie Wooster's in 1946's Joy in the Morning.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Picking up steam
Chugging and chuffing their way around heritage lines across the country, steam locomotives continue to capture our imagination, says Octavia Pollock
4 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Sacred grounds - The Convent Garden of Il Redentore, Giudecca, Venice, Italy
The recent exemplary restoration by Paolo Pejrone of the 16th-century monastic gardens is not to be missed,
5 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Drawing tracks
Although some perceived the advent of the locomotive as a threat to the countryside, by allowing artists a quick and easy way to travel, it broadened their choice of painting horizons, discovers Carla Passino
4 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Cracking the art of photographing birds' eggs
THE beauty of birds' eggs has been captured by commercial food and drink photographer Stephen Robert Thornton in a new book, Oology.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Sweet little lies
Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer made headlines when it was sold last month, but behind the dizzying price and the magnificent artwork hides the story of an ingenious ruse to escape Nazi persecution
4 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
It's down to the pub
COUNTRY people are rooted in their local communities.
2 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
My new best friends are unreal
If you are wired for nostalgia, it can take you in unexpected ways.
2 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
A gem of a show in the heart of Paris
In a collaboration between the V&A Museum and the Al Thani Collection, 140 jewels are being displayed together at the Hôtel de la Marine in Paris, France, once the royal furniture repository where Louis XVI exhibited the crown jewels to the public one day a month.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Nature on track
Endangered bumblebees, sifting spoonbills and trespassing tortoises- Britain's rail network is a rich and unlikely wildlife haven, finds Vicky Liddell
5 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Climbing walls
OF all the trees that are in the wood, the holly bears the crown' or so the carol tells us.
3 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE December 19, 1925
I AM at present suffering from of 15, who, with the independence of the modern generation, refuses flatly to recognise that she is coming to years of discretion, and that the time has come when she should change over to the only decent manner of riding for a woman, viz., the side-saddle.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
The missing lynx in the food chain?
Beavers and red kites may be flourishing in Britain, but the reintroduction of apex predators here is a trickier issue. Could there be practical and philosophical benefits and would a trial release of lynx be a worthwhile experiment?
4 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Georgie Wykeham turned a Georgian coach house with stables into an entertaining space, complete with a kitchen and wine cellar
WHEN the owners of a Georgian house in Hampshire asked interior designer Georgie Wykeham for help redesigning their coach house, she could barely push her way in through the door to examine the possibilities.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Small, but mighty
Being diminutive in size is no obstacle to character and charm when it comes to miniature railways and their endearing locomotives, discovers Octavia Pollock
3 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
What you might have missed
I have been checking the betting sites to see who might play the next James Bond, having convinced myself that Jeff Bezos (who now owns the franchise) will make the Big Announcement at Christmas.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
All signals green
Gently tended by devoted staff, the country-station garden has become a rural idyll in its own right, says Andrew Martin
3 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Historic England unveils this year's 'unusual' listings
A MOTLEY array of site types, from an 'enchanted' interwar garden populated by elves, pixies and fairies to a Victorian church kitted out in corrugated iron, stars in Historic England's celebration of its 19 most unusual listings granted protection in 2025.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Illegal waste dumping problem heats up
THE now infamous mountain of illegally dumped waste near Kidlington, Oxfordshire, first reported by locals in June, is still there—150m by 6m (490ft by 20ft), stinking, heating up and leaching into the waters of the River Cherwell.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Mind the (hungry) gap!
Whether Metroland breakfasts or picnics on the go, the railways have transformed how we eat forever
4 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Scholars start search for long forgotten Celtic words
ΑCADEMICS at Aberystwyth University are compiling a dictionary of the ancient Celtic languages of Britain and Ireland that were spoken before the arrival of the Romans and up to about the year 500.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Full steam ahead
The railway revolution opened up new destinations, expanded our culinary horizons and dramatically improved trade.
4 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Town Mouse Democratic overenthusiasm
IN the final days before Christmas, London sheds the final some of its character as a working city and prepares in earnest for the holidays.
1 min |
December 24, 2025
Country Life UK
Kitchen garden cook Chestnuts
Baked gnocchi with chestnuts, pancetta and Parmesan
1 min |