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.

Dr Helena Meyer-Johann

The language of sustainability

Country Life

Inspired by birds, informed by science • The British Trust for Ornithology, a charity that prides itself on its scientific approach, is celebrating its 90th birthday. Jack Watkins reports

Town & Country Notebook

Letters to the Editor

Ups and downs

Our late Queen deserves the best

The way we were Photographs from the COUNTRY LIFE archive

My favourite painting Alistair Smith

Aberystwyth is so bracing • Walking along the cliffs in Ceredigion tempts one to tackle Wales’s entire coastal path

Brighton Rock

Style with sympathy • Chandler’s House, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire The sympathetic restoration of a delightful house has created new, liveable and stylish interiors within potentially awkward constraints, as John Goodall discovers

Native breeds Albion cattle

The lord of the books • From a sentence born of an exhausting teaching job, J. R. R. Tolkien crafted a series of fantastical novels that, 50 years on from his death, still loom as large in our imagination as Sauron’s all-seeing eye, says Matthew Dennison

Not to be sniffed at • Claire Jackson meets the highly intelligent sniffer dogs that can help to detect invasive Japanese knotweed, even when it lies dormant in the ground

From Arkle to Zarkander • Here is all you need to know about the Cheltenham National Hunt Festival, one of the greatest sporting occasions on earth

How green you are • Each month, Hetty Lintell chooses a significant colour to represent the season. Green epitomises early spring and the hue translates perfectly to fashion and interiors, too

The glory of the gratin • A no-nonsense feast to gird the belly and quicken the heart, the gratin–whether it be slathered over meat, fish or vegetables–is all about an indulgent excess of cream topped by crispy cheese, says Tom Parker Bowles

The C OUNTRY L IFE Top 100 • There are few more rewarding experiences than successfully breathing new life into an old house- or commissioning a new one. For the seventh year, COUNTRY LIFE has compiled its ever-evolving list of architects, interior designers, garden designers and specialists with the experience and creativity required to get it right

The search for a ‘forever’ house • These ancient Kent houses were built to last

Reject tradition, embrace the eccentric • Our nation is built on whimsy and these five properties are all a bit out of the ordinary

Growth factors • The kitchen garden at Gravetye Manor, near East Grinstead, West Sussex Mary Keen talks to head gardener Tom Coward about bringing life and produce back to William Robinson’s magnificent elliptical walled garden

Juicy fruits

Nothing to get in a flap about • Often dismissed as ‘rats with wings’ or avian fly-tippers, few birds inspire as much hatred as pigeons. But, if we knew them a little better, we’d love them more, says Vicky Liddell

Away with the fairies • She first took up painting as solace from disease, yet Cicely Mary Barker’s whimsical illustrations–most notably her flower fairies–still hold great appeal 50 years after her death, observes Claire Jackson

Medici masterpieces and...