CATEGORIES

Away with the fairies

One hundred years ago, two girls convinced the world they had photographed fairies at the bottom of their garden. However did they get away with it, asks Richard Sugg

Let's Drink To The Château D'yquem Of Apples

A Visit to a well-organised apple store in November is always a wonderful experience. The early eaters that, although lovely, will not keep, are a distant memory. We now see before us those sterling kinds that ripen on the tree in October, but whose flavour and texture will improve with proper storage—cool, dark, frost-free— and will keep in good order until at least the following March.

Pilgrims' progress

Taking a break from work on his Herefordshire farm, John Lewis-Stempel and his son, Tristram, tackle the historic Camino Francés pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain

Once lost, now found

Featured in Vogue and modelled for Princess Margaret, a haute-couture Dior dress then vanished for 50 years. V&A curator Claire Wilcox describes a fashion mystery

Quintessential Georgian

Three glorious Georgian properties come to the market, in Wiltshire, Cheshire and Co Durham

The forgotten works of Fabergé

When Geoffrey Munn saw a flash of purple and gold in a crowded cabinet, he instinctively knew he had stumbled upon a lost cache of pieces by the imperial Russian jeweller–but who were the regal-looking women pictured in the enamel frames?

Centuries in the making

As Partagás celebrates 175 years, our correspondent reflects on his epiphany and subsequent conversion to the brand

The stuff of fairy tales

Gingerbread will forever be associated with that little house in the woods, but it was also a firm favourite with Elizabeth I. Inspired by a collection of extravagant moulds, Rosie Goodwin of the Ryedale Folk Museum explores the origins of a festive favourite

Holmes, sweet Holmes

Sherlock Holmes had an eye for architectural detail, an interest derived from his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. Jeremy Musson looks at how it emerges in the books, with the help of specially commissioned drawings

A prince's passion

Michael Prodger is fascinated by a pioneering royal project devoted to the collecting and reproducing of the Renaissance Master’s works

When Geography Matters

When is a Cornish pasty not a Cornish pasty?

You've been framed

Want to cultivate serious specs appeal? Emma Hughes gathers advice from those in the know

The secret's in the soil

The houses of the Garden of England are as impressive and storied as the landscape

The good doctor

The banishment of Sir Hans Sloane to a back-room glass case is unjustified and ignorant. This generous, kindly medical pioneer deserves better

‘When I swear, people know I mean it'

Michel Roux Jnr, the Michelin-starred member of a French cooking dynasty, talks to Christopher Jackson about the new normal, dressing up, the dangers of drinking and the importance of respect

Hickory dickory dock

The soporific tick-tock of seconds passing, the hypnotic swing of the pendulum, the commanding chiming of the hour: every house deserves a longcase clock, concludes Matthew Dennison

HALLS OF LEARNING

From private to public ones, the capital is home to some of the finest libraries in the world. London Library member Harry Mount extols the virtues of some of his favourites

I like the way you move

The manner in which you enter a room can change everything that happens next. Daniel Pembrey reveals how you could become the next Sean Connery

Have I got moos for you

Far from being ‘stupid’ or ‘silly cows’, cattle are ungainsayably clever and emotionally intelligent, with bags of personality, too, contends John Lewis-Stempel

First impressions

With this year’s GENTLEMAN’S LIFE supplement in mind, we pick five homes perfect for the young gent in the city

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