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 Annabel Victoria Louisa Blackett • Annabel works in the National Country House Department of Strutt & Parker and recently returned home to Scotland to run prime sales there and in England’s northern counties. She is the daughter of Simon and the Hon Geva Blackett of Braemar, Aberdeenshire, and follows in the footsteps of her grandmother, the late Lady St Oswald (née Loyd), who appeared on the Frontispiece on May 20, 1954.

Tilting at windmills

Country Life

Town & Country

Town & Country Notebook

Letters to the Editor

Why we need to make a mess of farming

Athena • Cultural Crusader

My favourite painting Tom Byrne

Barking up the right tree • We risk losing the major species that currently form our forests within the next few decades. If we are to preserve Britain’s woodlands, received wisdom needs reviewing and the language of trees re-learning

Building on history • In the first of two articles, John Goodall explains the importance of Scone–and the great abbey that formerly stood here–in the grand narrative of Scottish history

The legacy • James Boswell and the biography

Thistle do nicely • The boorish cousin of the dainty daisy, the emblem of Scotland was historically blamed for donkey flatulence and recommended as a treatment for depression, discovers John Wright

Dive in with both feet • Do you know your great crested grebe from your little grebe? Your red-throated from your great northern diver? Marianne Taylor gets to grips with these masters of the underwater world

Working their red socks off • Each August, a merry band comes together to help run the Chatsworth Country Fair. Simon Reinhold, who’s pulled up his volunteering socks for the past 33 years, explains how the tradition came about

Great Scot • Plenty of luxuries herald from the Highlands, from textiles to gold. Hetty Lintell chooses prime pieces designed or made in Scotland

The designer’s room • A house on the south Cornish coast has been brought to life by the team at Sims Hilditch

Caning it • Bamboo-inspired furniture and accessories to delight, chosen by Amelia Thorpe

O flowers of Scotland • A million bulbs in one garden are not the only objects of beauty across three Scottish estates new to the market, two with houses by Robert Adam

Scotland calling • Five contrasting properties, from a croft to a castle, a boathouse to a converted Highland church and an Edinburgh penthouse flat, all have great potential for interesting lifestyles, suggests Kate Green

Sculpting with plants • Inspired by the Dutch plantings of Piet Oudolf, Elizabeth Salvesen has replanted the walled garden with perennials and grasses to create a fine backdrop to her sculpture collection, writes Caroline Donald

Idle hours

Kitchen garden cook Chillis

Is that a plum in your mouth? • ‘Coe’s Golden Drop’, ‘Valor’ or, perhaps, ‘Pershore Yellow Egg’? To taste the rainbow of heavenly British plum varieties, you may well have to get your hands dirty, says Tom Parker Bowles

Hippy, hippy shake • When the petals have fallen, rosehips–stockpiled for vitamin C in the Second World War–have sweet and savoury uses, but beware the irritant...