In the footsteps of giants

After decades of thoughtful restoration, the gardens at Folly Farm offer a masterclass in maintaining an historic garden and simultaneously celebrating the best in contemporary planting, finds Tiffany Daneff

Strawberries taste good

A Chardin still life makes a record price in a good week for French and Italian art

Tradition and modernity

The imaginative extension of a farmhouse in the spirit of Lutyens and the Arts-and-Crafts Movement has created a delightful and humane family home, Jeremy Musson reports

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Britain's greatest masterpieces

Do you believe in cod?

Greedy and gormless, this is no sexy fish, but, on the plate, perfectly pearlescent cod is easily the equal of halibut or Dover sole, believes Tom Parker Bowles

Loyal toasts

Friends of COUNTRY LIFE tell Katy Birchall why they enjoy the magazine, from the riddle to rare breeds, fine architecture to Tottering-by-Gently

Another brick in the wall

One brick might be a humble entity, but put many in the right hands and you have a work of art. Jack Watkins examines the history of this seemingly simple building material

A front-row seat

COUNTRY LIFE has been commenting on the state of the nation for 125 years. Sometimes, the past seems wholly removed, but there are moments when it all seems startlingly familiar

A mixture of expertise and clap trap

Our fishing correspondent considers how angling-from monkey climbers to how to tie a helicopter rig-has developed in the past 125 years

A castle and palace conjoined

One of the outstanding palaces of Baroque Europe was planned as both a residence and national monument. John Goodall revisits this extraordinary building

Interiors The designer's room

Dark-green cabinets, crisp white walls and wooden beams combine to create the ideal kitchen for a large family

Dyeing to help

IT often feels as if responsibility for saving the planet falls heavily on the shoulders of gardeners.

Gardening on the edge

The gardens of Mansard House, Bardwell, Suffolk The home of Tom and Mary Hoblyn Catharine Howard visits the garden of an award-winning Chelsea designer, who uses it as his plant laboratory

'How lovely are the things you help us to perceive'

Pictures should 'fill a man's soul with admiration and sheer joy, Sir Alfred Munnings famously said. Octavia Pollock charts his eventful life and argues that he perhaps does not receive the credit he deserves for the enjoyment his varied and vivid work has brought

364 vs Australia, The Oval, 1938

IN 1997, The Times listed the 100 Greatest Cricketers of All Time, chosen by the long-serving cricket correspondent and former Wisden editor John Woodcock.

A love letter to Norfolk

Dinky market towns and seal-strewn beaches? Local opinions, Sunday drives, Blackpool-of-the-East and early churches, this is novelist D. J. Taylor's Norfolk and he wouldn't want to live anywhere else

A plum role

Jonathan Spain considers the Cambridge gage, a variant of our old English greengage, the story of which ranges from the Caucasus Mountains to the Chivers jam factory in Histon Cambridgeshire

On the wings of a turtle dove

Dainty, smaller and darker than its collared cousin, the turtle dove is in danger of dying out, but not if a new Norfolk-based trust has anything to do with it

And they all lived together in a little crooked house

The Crooked House of nursery-rhyme fame has been through many incarnations in the past 600 years. Flora Watkins travels to the enchanting village of Lavenham, Suffolk, to meet its latest custodians

Birds in their little nests agree

As he repairs a fence that's gone floppy thanks to the cattle rubbing against it, John Lewis-Stempel pauses on a warm April morning to admire all the birds busily building and lining their nests with cow hair

Making spaces

There's an alchemy to creating houses that don't only function perfectly, but look beautiful, too

The serene interior

Longstowe Hall, Cambridgeshire The home of William and Mercedes Bevan | The remodeling of an Elizabethan house by an Edwardian industrialist created superb interiors in the aesthetic of 17th-century Dutch art

The best of the East

Four newly launched properties make East Anglia ever more alluring

Мар of heaven

A superb Chinese chart takes centre stage in New York and an artist shows that ‘melancholy is underrated'

There's pickle in the jar

Friend of the cheese sandwich and bastion of the ploughman's lunch, Branston Pickle has graced our cupboards for a century

THE GOLDEN MILE

A Government-backed scheme to pedestrianise parts of The Strand is throwing light on the road's gilded history

We are the champions

British eventing is on the crest of a wave, with titles and gold medals galore, and you can see those stars in action on home ground at Badminton Horse Trials this weekend, promises Kate Green

THE CAPITAL ACCORDING TO... Amy Corbin

The restaurateur talks to Flora Watkins about opening on the 'wrong' side of Peckham and prawn cocktails at The Wolseley

Wild about the garden

The garden of Ready Token House, Gloucestershire The home of Mark and Tabitha Mayall Retaining the Arts-and-Crafts elements of a 1920s garden, the owners have added a sympathetic new terrace, as well as returning the surrounding fields to meadow

Walk another day

Some of the James Bond franchise's most famous scenes have been captured around the capital, discovers Carla Passino