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Travel: Retreat From The World
For his new book, Nat Segnit visited Britain’s quietest monasteries and islands to talk to monks, hermits and recluses
What is... a nail house?
Don’t confuse a nail house with a nail parlour. A nail house is an old house that survives as new building development goes on all around it.
Kent's stairway to heaven
Walter Barton May’s Hadlow Castle is the ultimate Gothic folly
Pursuits
Pursuits
The book that changed the world
On Marcel Proust’s 150th anniversary, A N Wilson praises his masterpiece, an exquisite comedy with no parallel
RIP the playboys of the western world
Charlie Methven mourns his dashing former father-in-law, Luis ‘the Bounder’ Basualdo, last of a dying breed
Arts
Arts
My film family's greatest hits
Downton Abbey producer Gareth Neame follows in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandmother, a silent-movie star
Books
Books
A lifetime of pin-ups
Barry Humphries still has nightmares about going on stage. He’s always admired the stars who kept battling on
Travel: Exmoor Ecstasy
In lockdown, Londoner Ivo Dawnay moved to Somerset’s coombes and moors. Now he never wants to leave this Garden of Eden
Virginia McKenna, the African queen
At 90, the actress is still saving the wildlife she fell in love with, filming Born Free, over 50 years ago. By Roderick Gilchrist
Renaissance miracles
For over 300 years, Italian painters produced the finest altarpieces in the world, says David Ekserdjian
Thank heaven for Leslie Caron
She starred in Gigi, danced with Fred Astaire and acted opposite Cary Grant. Hugo Vickers meets the great actress as she turns 90
Dearest Diana
Christopher Balfour fondly recalls a hilarious trip to New York with the princess, who would have been 60 on 1st July
Sex-mad DH Lawrence
His amoral wife made the jealous writer think sex was a tragedy. By Frances Wilson
Overlooked Britain: A philanthropist's palace
Heroic American steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie paid for 3,000 libraries and built glorious Skibo Castle in his native Scotland
I was a teenage Marxist
Bruce Anderson was bewitched by Marxism – until he saw the IRA at work in Northern Ireland
Churchill's mommie dearest
History hasn’t been kind to Jennie Churchill, who died 100 years ago. But the New Yorker was her son’s greatest influence. By Anne Sebba
How Mr Tickle Tickled The World
Fifty years after they began, Mr Men books have sold 85 million copies. Teacher Kath Garner pays tribute to the brilliant adman behind them
The best sermons ever
This Easter, vicars shouldn’t be obscure or arrogant in the pulpit. Like Jesus, they should be funny, says Reverend Peter Mullen
When the Hurricane hit Liverpool
Alex Higgins smoked, boozed and gambled as he met a delighted Gary Smith
Gainsborough in London
The Suffolk painter is best known for his rural scenes – but his last years in the capital were the pinnacle of his career
Suffering for her art
Tortured by love, longing for children, Elizabeth Bowen poured her pain into her exceptional novels, says her friend A N Wilson
The gripes of Roth
As a new biography appears, director Tristram Powell remembers working with a writer who could be kind – and scarily cruel
Gyles Brandreth's Diary: Appointment with death
After 30 years of double vision and headaches, I finally visited a neurologist and learnt the truth...
Wizards from Oz
A wave of brilliant Australians came to Britain sixty years ago. They included Clive James, Germaine Greer – and Barry Humphries
Pilgrimage to 84 Charing Cross Road
A New Yorker’s letters to a London bookshop were a big hit 50 years ago. Valerie Grove accompanied her on her first visit to Marks & Co
Chips with extra sauce
Chips Channon was the ideal political diarist – truthful, vulnerable and gossipy.
Gregory Gregory's Stately Pleasure Home
Harlaxton Manor has been home to a millionaire Victorian recluse, a face-cream tycoon and an American university