Country Life

Published by Time Inc. (UK) Ltd Country Life, the quintessential English magazine, is undoubtedly one of the biggest and instantly recognisable brands in the UK today. It has a unique core mix of contemporary country-related editorial and top end property advertising. Editorially, the magazine comments in-depth on a wide variety of subjects, such as architecture, the arts, gardens and gardening, travel, the countryside, field-sports and wildlife. With renowned columnists and superb photography Country Life delivers the very best of British life every week.

Miss Olivia Francesca Dean • Olivia is a features journalist for The Daily Mail and an alumna of Queen’s College, Cambridge. She is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Jonathan Dean of Goudhurst, Kent.

Hooray for horticulture

Country Life

Town & Country

Town & Country Notebook

Letters to the Editor

Natural food bites back

Athena

My favourite painting Mark Cocker • The Mystery of the Missing Migrants by Charley Harper

Where traffic stops for sacred cows • A visit to Rajasthan highlights a different attitude to cattle

The legacy • The Revd John Russell and the terrier

Riding to the rescue • The gardens at Dowdeswell Court, Gloucestershire The home of Julian Dunkerton and Jade Holland Cooper

Spring • In the second part of our series, flower grower Anna Brown prepares her nursery for the busiest time of the year

Planters punch • Go big to create an impact with pots chosen

Violets • Tilly Ware visits Groves Nursery in Bridport, Dorset, which has been breeding violets since 1866 and, today, holds a National Collection, as well as offering more than 200 varieties for sale

Sixty years a gardener

Grandeur in granite • Cluny Castle, Aberdeenshire The home of Cosmo and Bronya Linzee Gordon

‘After everything they do, we owe them’ • It is no exaggeration to say that dogs and horses risk life and limb to keep us safe. As search-and-rescue dog Vesper wins the Hero Dog Award at Crufts, Katy Birchall finds out more about the charity supporting our retired service animals

The very nature of Middle-earth • A Nature writer at heart, J. R. R. Tolkien drew on his love of the Malvern Hills and the surrounding countryside to paint his fantasy realm, says James Clarke

Petal pushers • With spring now upon us, Hetty Lintell embraces floral designs to add joy to the home and wardrobe

Soak it up • Elegant fittings and furnishings for the bathroom, selected by Amelia Thorpe

‘The field with the best view’ • From an impeccably renovated terrace of farmworkers’ cottages to a grand old hall, Cornwall’s character and beauty are unparalleled

A breath of fresh air • Wherever possible, kitchen doors should be wide open into the garden, as these houses allow

Spring onions

Desert-island risks • In 1824, painter Augustus Earle went to sketch remote Tristan da Cunha, where no other artist had ever set foot. He ended up being stranded there for eight months

It’s a kind of dark magic • Immersed in myths of monkey puzzle trees and sorcery, blackly beautiful Whitby jet deserves to shake off its mournful, if illustrious past, says Harry Pearson

Depth in Venice • The sale of furnishings from the Italian city’s Palazzo Volpi yielded many treasures that trashed their estimates

A special relationship

How to revive a classic • Ibsen and Chekhov both receive excellent re-workings, two plays about the NHS are well acted and a pair of Shakespeares is worth seeing

Back to square one • ‘Spooner’s baking disaster is warning to the complacent’: complete gibberish or catnip to your cryptic-crossword-loving brain? Rob Crossan puzzles through 100 years of the...