CATEGORIES
New kids on the block
Exciting developments and new-builds shaking up the property world
High endeavours
Glorious houses high in the hills of Derbyshire and Staffordshire compete with a landmark Cornish property for the best view
Down the rabbit hole
Pie filling, pest or pet of underrated beauty, the rabbit is a mute and gregarious commoner that will nonetheless scream, fight and kill when warranted, says John Lewis-Stempel
The secret appeal of scurvy grass
A delicate brassica that even its mother would struggle to call pretty, the sea kale can compete with asparagus for the title of ‘taste of spring’, reveals Tom Parker Bowles
A land of milk and Cheddar
In their latest celebration of West Country people, places and produce, ‘Deepest’ book authors Fanny Charles and Gay Pirrie-Weir explore why Somerset is so different from its neighbouring counties
The Great Map of Scotland
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, in an essay written near the end of his life on the genesis of Treasure Island, expressed disbelief that there were people who did not care about maps. ‘The names, the shapes of the woodlands, the courses of the roads and rivers, the prehistoric footsteps of man still traceable up hill and down dale… Here is an inexhaustible fund of interest for any man with eyes to see or twopence-worth of imagination to understand with!’
Paradise in the Garden of England
The view has changed since Chaucer’s day, but the important things survive
Crusading spirit: Bunting War Memorial Chapel, Scotch Corner, North Yorkshire
A War Memorial Chapel in a remote, but magnificent spot stands as a monument to the sculptor who created it.
He was of his time
Vaughan Williams, who was born 150 years ago, is largely seen as a pastoral composer, but there was far more to him than that
A glad hand for gladioli
I LOVE gladioli, but I realise that many readers may not share my passion. Good taste has much to answer for. The corblimey gladioli you see in other people’s gardens are anathema to strict and peculiar plantsmen; so are dahlias and chrysanths. People like us don’t grow them. The only acceptable gladioli are the wild ones you see in Mediterranean pastures and olive groves.
A colour symphony
Flamingos may draw the crowds, but it is the brilliant flower borders that keep people coming back to this wonderful garden.
Take me home
Private members' club 5 Hertford Street has precipitated a quiet revolution in interior design through colour, comfort and decoration for decoration's sake. Now, its founder has launched a collection that embodies his approach to living
What Cath did next
Having turned her distinctive style into a much-loved business, Cath Kidston brought a beautiful 17th-century house in the Cotswolds back to life. Now, she's back at the drawing board
The future's bright
Colourful tables, selected
An absurd little bird
Parasitic creatures with murderous and greedy offspring they may be, yet the prospect of no annual competition to hear the cuckoo's first call is a bleak one
Small is beautiful
Many aspects of farming are expanding-and not always in a good way. Jason Goodwin argues that it needs re-balancing, with a return to multiple small family farms, neighbourly cooperation and a bolstering of the local community
The art of wallpaper
A new wallpaper company is unleashing the potential of digital technology to realise ranges of designs created by artists and designers
Cool as cucumbers
MY father was a meat-and-two-carbs kind of a guy, who was cursed in his rare liking of cucumbers, which reduced him to a chest bashing hiccuper.
Hooray for clay
The growing emphasis on handmade interiors is reviving interest in the tactile appeal of handmade ceramics
AHOY THERE CITY SAILOR
From Chelsea to the canals, Londoners are taking to the water in search of a more peaceful way of life. Jo Rodgers clambers aboard
A garden of the mind
Developed over 30 years by an art historian, this thought-provoking garden is filled with Classical references
The designer's room
A distinctive wallpaper was the foundation for this drawing room of a London townhouse
Something to crow about
Clever, companionable and mischievous, the crow or corvid family of birds has long loomed large in our lives and imaginations, as symbols of death and crop destroyers. But, contends Simon Lester, they’re not all black-hearted scoundrels
Peer review
Two lords and one lady share their most enjoyable experiences abroad with Eleanor Doughty
At home in the world
British artist Aimee del Valle reveals why she loves French village life
A right royal home
Royal connections shaped the history of two country houses that are now on the market
A hunting hall - Auckland Castle, Co Durham A property of The Auckland Project
After a major restoration programme and largescale archaeological investigation, this former palace of the Bishops of Durham has been re-opened to the public. John Goodall reports
The girl with the golden touch
Shunning the discrimination between canvas and textiles, painter and fabric designer Althea McNish was a onewoman colour explosion who made the impossible possible, finds Ian Collins
‘I have finally moved into song'
Best known as the creative force behind Dicky and Daffy, it was her son’s death that prompted Annie Tempest to learn ‘the grammar of the sculptor’s language’, discovers Ian Collins
Under the Italian sun
Mary Miers considers how the country that fascinated J. M. W. Turner from youth shaped his artistic vision