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 Emma Buckley

Time to suspend belief

Country Life

Town & Country

Good week for

Bad week for

Country Mouse • Crowning the holly

Town Mouse • Domestic debate

We wish for a merry Christmas • New agony aunt Mrs Hudson solves your dilemmas

100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE • November 26, 1921

Town & Country Notebook

Wines of the week

A sticky business

Letters to the Editor

Sow, reap, eat

Hogarth: The Curator’s Progress

The way we were • Photographs from the Country Life archive

The Boxer by Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell • Charlotte Mullins comments on The Boxer

Messiah • by George Frideric Handel

Handel in London

What they said

Antiquarian horror • In his ghost stories, M. R. James had a perceptive eye for architectural detail, as Jeremy Musson explains and Matthew Rice evokes in specially commissioned drawings

Like a puppet on a string • Three men become one horse; four become one elephant. The life of a puppeteer is full of magic, discovers Katy Birchall, as she speaks to War Horse supremo Mervyn Millar

A house of cards • From the first Christmas card, born out of a lack of time, to today’s, adorned with crystals or wildflower seeds, the soft thud of festive post on the mat continues to spread good cheer, says Ben Lerwill

Show your cards: all about festive greetings

Put it on ice • Medieval castles, thrones, dragons, curtains, serving dishes and cheeky luges can all be fashioned from ice, if you have the magic touch and can take the chill factor, discovers Jane Wheatley

If geese grew on trees • Barnacle geese are fruit, not flesh: we can eat them on Fridays. Quite wrong: they’re fish, grown from barnacles in the sea! Our forebears drew some strange conclusions where Branta leucopsis was concerned, discovers Ian Morton

On a wing and a barnacle

Setting the scene • Country Life columnist Melanie Johnson summons up five scenarios for festive entertaining, with a rich array of decorative tableware against a backdrop of patterned tablecloths

Playing with laying • The craze for ‘tablescaping’ is bringing new drama to dining tables, believes Eleanor Doughty

Top table • Everything you need to spruce up your dining table, chosen

Let there be light • Now scented with peony, leather and musk rather than more traditional rose, vanilla and lavender, we continue to be drawn to luxuriously fragranced candles, says Julie Harding

The flame game: the evolution of candle-making

The big smoke • An alchemy of salt and a delicate curing process over wood chips or sometimes peat makes for the ultimate smoked salmon, says Tom Parker Bowles

The best smoked salmon Tom's top 10

The first cut is the deepest • How a well-roasted joint is sliced will affect how it looks and tastes. Nick Hammond leaves no whetstone unturned to discover the best way to carve meat

On a knife edge: the best carving kit

Up the sprout • Whoever does the PR for the Brussels sprout deserves a medal, says Debora Robertson

Brussels sprouts with bacon and black...