Country Life

Published by TI Media Limited 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.

Lady Henrietta Stanley • Lady Henrietta is an associate consultant at a strategy consulting firm and an advocate for endometriosis awareness. She is the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Derby, of Knowsley Hall, Prescot, Lancashire, and will marry Alexander Reviakin at Liverpool Cathedral next July. She follows in the footsteps of her great-aunt Lady Isabel (née Milles-Lade), who appeared on the Frontispiece on July 30, 1948 and September 12, 1952.

Blinded by bats

Country Life

Town & Country

Town & Country Notebook

Stuff & nonsense

Letters to the Editor

All change at Defra

Athena • Cultural Crusader

My favourite painting Franny Moyle

A life remembered

A school transformed • A fine 18th-century estate building with a remarkable history has been converted into a stylish home, as John Martin Robinson discovers

The legacy • Marianne North and botanical painting

When not in Rome • The confident and aggressive Romans brought savagery, great taste and efficiency to the Cotswolds, crowning Cirencester Britain’s second city, says Charles Harris

Stile and substance • Historic and idiosyncratic, friend to lovers and an enemy of ageing canines, every stile has a tale to tell, says Harry Pearson

Smooth moves • For half a century, Beckford Silk has supplied remarkable textiles to customers ranging from Westminster Abbey to Strictly Come Dancing. Ben Lerwill discovers what makes its wares materially different

Moth to a flame • Warm orange is the radiant hue your autumn palette needs, finds Amie Elizabeth White

Culinary creations • The latest kitchens and accessories, selected by Amelia Thorpe

Time for tea at the vicarage • Georgian rectories in this sought-after landscape tend to stay in the same hands for decades, if not centuries, but a tantalising few have now come to the market

Cotswold charmers • Arabella Youens finds a collection of delightful cottages and farmhouses within one of the most sought-after National Landscapes

Pick and mix • Mary Keen visits the organically run Chippy Flower Farm in Oxfordshire, set up five years ago and already a great success locally–especially its pick-your-own area

Pining for home

Kitchen garden cook Cucumbers

Of ancient repute • With its ability to rouge cheeks, settle stomachs and operate as Nature’s loo roll, verbascum is as surprisingly useful as it is pretty, discovers Ian Morton

Natural selection • When fate handed artist Conrad Martens the chance to join HMS Beagle, he captured the flatlands of Patagonia, the wood-cloaked shores of Tierra del Fuego and the ‘castles, peaks, and pinnacles’ of the Andes with both brush and pen

Brooching the subject • Over the centuries, the brooch, invented to fasten garments, has become a glittering gem, a coded communication–an art mastered by Elizabeth II–and a way to express personality. Mary Miers traces the history of a jewel that is back in style

The theatre that released a queen • Music was the antidote to stuffy court life that Marie Antoinette craved. Henrietta Bredin explains how the doomed Dauphine reinvigorated the French opera scene

A passage to India...