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 Daisy Sims-Hilditch

‘Peace on earth and mercy mild’ • We have a tendency to exhaust ourselves trying to create the perfect Christmas, but we should return to the charitable heart of the season and be mindful of those who are struggling, advocates the Revd Daniel A. French

Country Life

Imperfect 10

Words of honour

Thanks, Aldred

Good week for

Bad week for

Going deeper underground

Tally-ho!

Could studios go global?

Mouse • Merry Christmas one and all

Town Mouse • One cushion or three

COUNTRY LIFE • December 17, 1921

Oh, the agony! • Agony aunt Mrs Hudson solves your dilemmas

Town & Country Notebook

Wines of the week

In the spotlight • Ivy (Hedera helix)

What a cracker

Contact us (photographs welcome) • Email: countrylife.letters@futurenet.com

Letters to the Editor

Glad tidings

The lost art of disagreeing well

The way we were • Photographs from the Country Life archive

My favourite painting John McEwen • The Good Shepherd by James McEwen

Journey of the Magi

What they said

The men in bowler hats

As pure as the driven snowflake • Whether described as ‘silent and soft’ or ‘God’s pillow fight’, the manner in which snowflakes flutter to the ground like feathers is a lullaby to the soul, says a rapturous John Lewis-Stempel

Let it snow: the science of snowflakes

The big sleep • Dormice sleep for months, hedgehogs snore in quilts of moss and wood frogs turn to ice–a spellbound John Lewis-Stempel investigates the annual mystery of hibernation

Sleeping beauties: the bird that hibernates and other stories

All is calm, all is bright • On a two-coat, chilly December night, John Lewis-Stempel and his labrador Plum venture out into the glass-hard air to check on the sheep and drink in the stars

Holly nil, ivy one • Of all the trees in the wood... Storm Arwen wreaks havoc, but spares the creeper

A coronation church • In anticipation of The Queen’s Jubilee Year, COUNTRY LIFE had the opportunity to photograph the majestic interiors of our coronation church amid the quiet of lockdown. In the first of two articles, John Goodall explains how, in this building, events from the deep past continue to touch our lives today

On the feast of Stephen • Better known as Boxing Day, the origins of St Stephen’s Day are sinister and macabre, especially for poor wrens, as Aeneas Dennison discovers

Just off to Jerusalem • You can visit New York, Hollywood, Jerusalem and New Zealand all without leaving the country, discovers Eleanor Doughty

The name game

Hung up by the chimney with care • Children around the land will soon awake in the darkness of early morning, straining their eyes to make out the shape of a now-bulging Christmas stocking–but when did we start filling socks with satsumas, sixpences and tin whistles, asks Matthew Dennison

Pull your stockings up

Deck the halls with… spiders’ cobwebs? • Each family in Britain has its own cherished Christmas traditions, but venture further afield and you’ll find carp in the bath, peace apples, carved...