CATEGORIES

Thinking big, thinking Wagnerian

With the summer country-house-opera season in full swing, delightful Longborough Festival Opera in the Cotswolds is distinguished for the ambition of its programming. Henrietta Bredin reports

Urban streams

The need for clean water in 19th-century Britain led to a new and magnificent genre of street furniture. Kathryn Ferry examines the drinking fountain

Oh , Mr Porter

WHAT I like about film work is that it is constructive. You're building up a character all the time,' Will W Hay once explained.

How to be more dog

The sports commentator and labrador owner on a startling rise to fame

Small by name, but not by nature

Five smallholders tell Julie Harding about their journey towards self-sufficiency

Rocks of ages: how Hadrian's legacy lives on

What once kept out hordes of bloodthirsty warriors is, nearly 2,000 years later, barely proof against the most timid of sheep. But if Hadrian's Wall is now low on stature, it remains high on atmosphere, finds Harry Pearson

In the book club

The Roxburghe Club is the oldest existing society of bibliophiles in the world and one of the most exclusive. Bronwen Riley finds out what it takes to be one of its mere 40-strong membership

How terribly English

New playwright Steven Moffat may be the natural successor to Alan Ayckbourn and Anupama Chandrasekhar's work sheds light on Gandhi's assassin

How green is their valley

The garden of Low Crag, Cumbria The home of Mr and Mrs Chris Dodd A thoughtful approach to gardening has brought about a great increase in the population of birds and animal life in this two-acre plot, discovers George Plumptre

Hedgerow Trees

BRITISH photography in the middle of the 19th century was headed by gentleman amateurs, inspired by the patenting in 1841 of William Fox Talbot’s calotype processing method to seek suitable subjects for picture-taking.

Homegrown heroes

Reports of the death of the British ceramics industry are premature

Come what blooms

The new head gardener at Knepp in West Sussex talks to Flora Watkins about a different direction for the rewilding pioneers-and why gardeners need to unclench

Head for the farm

More and more travellers are abandoning traditional holidays in favour of staying on a working farm. Rosie Paterson investigates why and where to find the best

Don't you forget about me

As blue as the eyes of the Virgin Mary, the unassuming forget-me-not stars in tales of romance, Remembrance and politics, finds Ian Morton

An Englishman's home is his castle

Two landmark properties, Gilling Castle in North Yorkshire and a Cotswold manor farmhouse where the remains of a Norman motte and bailey can still be seen, come to market

'A partly real, partly dream country'

Thomas Hardy's depictions of a fictional Wessex and his own dear Dorset are more accurate than they may at first appear, says Susan Owens

The brilliance of Thomas Telford

His legacy is the Shropshire Union Canal, a feat of engineering and a delight to walk beside

An ideal manor house

Mapperton House, Dorset The home of the Viscount and Viscountess Hinchingbrooke. Fresh research reveals more about the history of one of our most celebrated manor houses and its magnificent gardens, finds Timothy Conno

The slug of the Baskervilles

Prowl the wilds of Dartmoor at night and you just might stumble upon our largest land slug

With fairy shoes in every flower

It might be common and unremarkable, but the deadnettle has been a powerful and effective country remedy for centuries, discovers Ian Morton

Walk on the wild side

The garden at Kestle Barton Gallery, near Helford, Cornwall. Caroline Donald visits a garden that marries an award-winning art gallery with a landscape of creeks and fields

Furniture with a future

Antique shops, auctioneers houses are full of furniture that is hundreds of years old. Yet much of what is made today won't last for more than a decade or two. Arabella Youens asks five designers what they regard as the secret to creating designs that will last for generations and historic

To have and to hold

Finding himself at a loose end, woodsman John Williamson decided to revive the lost art of Devon stave-basket-making using old museum transcripts.

Fishing in troubled waters

Few of us give much thought to how our fish gets to the supermarket, but the life of a small-scale fisherman is becoming ever more unpredictable and dangerous

Et in Arcadia ego

Manors in and around 'the great paradise of England'-Somerset's Vale of Taunton Deane

'Just William' stories

William Brown is the boy who is forever 11 years old.

Rolls-Royce Phantom

BRITAIN'S GREATEST MASTERPIECES

The name of the rose

With Harkness launching a new rose named 'Queen Elizabeth II' in June, Steven Desmond looks back at the history of naming plants after monarchs

Transporting splendour

Royal Yacht Britannia, Leith, Edinburgh A property of the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust | The Queen is the best-travelled monarch in British history. John Goodall looks at the story of the yacht she helped furnish, both as her floating home and as a theatre of state

Where classic style reigns

Far from being a passive dresser, The Queen pays close attention to what she wears and what those clothes convey. She has left a lasting impression on the fashion industry, believes Justine Picardie