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 Gwen Joy Ludlow • Gwen is a sustainability consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers and is engaged to Rowan Milne, whom she will marry in Edinburgh next year. She is the daughter of Geoffrey and Iona Ludlow of Hythe, Kent, and follows in the footsteps of her grandmother, aunt and sister, who have all appeared on the Frontispiece.

New life for old homes

Country Life

Town & Country

Town & Country Notebook

Letters to the Editor

The alternative Budget

Athena • Cultural Crusader

My favourite painting Alastair King

Entertaining His Majesty • In the second of two articles on this magnificently restored building, John Goodall tells the story of its enlargement in the 1560s and 1620s to receive Elizabeth I and then James I

The legacy • Gordon Beningfield and the Countryside Regeneration Trust

Landscape of ‘seamless sameness’ • Once considered a vast, stretching terror-land synonymous with bog, the national perception of the ecologically invaluable moors has dramatically changed, says John Lewis-Stempel

‘Let us go forward together’ • As the 150th anniversary of the great man’s birth approaches, we pay tribute to Sir Winston Churchill using his own words

Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, jelly made of paint • Comestibles of all kinds have inspired artists since time began, with the added benefit of staying perfectly still. Catriona Gray meets the modern makers besotted with food, glorious food

When stars align • Celestial delights for the party season, chosen

‘P’ is for puddle • A nursery-rhyme favourite, small pools of water have been delighting children for centuries, but puddles also provide valuable habitats for some of our rarest species, finds Laura Parker

Why is a ravenlike a writing desk? • Offering a delightful distraction from daily emaddenings, nonsensical writers have excelled at contriving new words when the right one has proved elusive

Sex, lies and sewing machines • The innovators who thought of a practical tool to speed up stitching could never have expected their invention would both become an emblem of domesticity and develop a kinky reputation, as Matthew Dennison discovers

Architectural conundrums • When making decisions on restoring or replacing an old building, there’s rarely a straight answer, finds Giles Kime

Hidden gems of the North • Estates across North Yorkshire, Northumberland and the Borders offer a variety of opportunities

I’ve got a little list • The listing of a house by English Heritage doesn’t preclude imaginative and stylish updating, as demonstrated by these properties, where much of the hard work has been done, says Kate Green

Wisley reinvented • Piet Oudolf, father of the New Perennial Movement, has dug up his famous double borders at the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in Surrey and transformed them. John Hoyland takes a look

Earthly delights

Some like it hot • All will argue that theirs is the one-and-only true recipe, but when it comes to a Texas chili, tomatoes and beans are sacrilege, says Tom Parker Bowles

Glaze of glory • Italian potter Ulisse Cantagalli had a genius for reproducing Renaissance ceramics, but...