When In Doubt, Take A Bath

The market in Somerset’s largest city is heating up. Now is the time to dip a toe in

The magic touch

The carving of root vegetables into grotesque faces is only one of many attempts to ward off the advances of evil through the centuries, discovers Ian Morton

The art of transgression

Laura Gascoigne finds more feminism than sex or yoga in the British Museum’s interpretation of Tantra

On England's pleasant pastures seen

With frost-edged air embued by decaying leaves, bonfires and gunpowder, for John Lewis-Stempel, our landscape of field, hedge and brook is the only place to be in October

The North Pennines

THE second largest of the AONBs, at 766 square miles, this landscape of gorges, waterfalls and moorland is awash with natural importance.

Sign language

The Pope’s Head, The Naked Boy, The Leg & Star: illustrated signs have been swinging tipsily outside Britain’s pubs for centuries, wooing customers, annoying Parliament and occasionally landing on pedestrians, says Felicity Day

Light the touch paper

Tiffany Daneff visits a garden that comes alive as others begin to fade, where inspired plantings heighten autumn’s natural brilliance

My favourite painting Cressida Cowell: St George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello

John McEwen comments on St George

An ode to ancient customs

The genre of country-house poetry in the 17th century is preoccupied by the ideas of hospitality and retirement. Clive Aslet considers the significance of these themes

From the jaws of hell

Be it Greek mythology’s Cerberus, Churchill’s ‘black dog’ of depression or the Hound of the Baskervilles, hell hounds have haunted us for generations, says Jeremy Hobson

Know Your Onions And Your Leeks

Once worn atop Welsh army helmets, this most elegant and subtle of alliums is as happy served alongside smart truffles as it is in the simplest of soups, says Tom Parker Bowles

These sacred places

The humble architecture and rich antiquity of the ancient churches of Wales are as captivating as their settings, reveals Caroline Welch of the National Churches Trust

Their stars still shine brightly

Last month, the stage lost three greats, but at least there are tentative green shoots of revival for their profession at some theatres

The Straw Ride by Lucy Kemp-Welch

John McEwen comments on The Straw Ride

Seizing the moment

Auctions and galleries open as long as they can, with international curiosities and thought-provoking artworks on display

Midlife crisis

Spencer’s love life was complicated and ultimately doomed, but it produced some remarkable paintings, reveals Tim Richardson

In search of the bony horseman

Herring-like in appearance, the shad was once one of our favourite fish, feasted on by the royal household. Now, it is one of our rarest, discovers Catriona Gray

Hot stuff

DO you think Roald Dahl was the only person in the land to pronounce the flower’s name correctly? Dahlias were not named after him, but after Anders Dahl, one of Linnaeus’s Swedish pupils in the late 18th century. Not a bad accolade, I reckon. Young Dahl must have been pretty hot stuff to deserve such an honour.

Design in a virtual world

The rise of the design webinar is spreading interiors knowledge far and wide

Antrim Coast and Glens

NORTHERN IRELAND still enjoys a largely undeveloped coastline, and the combined counties of Antrim and Derry include no fewer than three almost contiguous coastal AONBs. The most celebrated, perhaps, is that associated with the Giant’s Causeway, but there is also the spectacular cliff-lined headland of Binevenagh and, the largest of the three, Antrim Coast and Glens, between Larne and Ballycastle.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy

A suspected spy, Harold Godwinson, William Gladstone and a British Army colonel all have ties to these two Wiltshire homes

Survivors from another age

Two National Trust properties bask in a glorious Indian summer’s day

‘Access to green space should be a right'

The Nature writer on a lost civilisation, HS2 and the stress of having an opinion

Walk on Wye

Eulogised by Gilpin, Wordsworth and Coleridge and immortalised on canvas by Turner, the sylvan charm of the River Wye Valley is one of Herefordshire’s best kept secrets, says John Lewis-Stempel

My favourite painting Simon Gillespie - David with the Head of Goliath by Artemisia Gentileschi

John McEwen comments on David with the Head of Goliath

The last royal hall

Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, part I In the care of Historic Royal Palaces In the first of two articles illustrated with specially commissioned photographs of the interior taken at the end of lockdown, John Goodall looks at the remarkable history of Henry VIII’s celebrated great hall at Hampton Court

A road to remember

London’s premier design district is home to some of the world’s leading interior-design and furnishing shops, but its refined façades belie a bohemian past, finds Carla Passino

An empire of concrete

The National Trust is getting hung up about the presentation of houses and the British Empire. The real challenge of the moment, argues Simon Jenkins, is the future of our countryside and the assault on the planning system

Beautiful Britain Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty

Llyn Peninsula

A RIGHT ROYAL TRAGEDY

Charles I met a sticky end, but his taste for the finer things in life left a lasting impression on London, finds Jack Watkins