CATEGORIES

Design brought to life
Country Life UK

Design brought to life

The 2024 WOW!house is a delightful parallel universe of creativity, finds Giles Kime

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1 min  |
June 19, 2024
Bend it like Beckham
Country Life UK

Bend it like Beckham

Chippendale, Scotland's only independent furniture school, bears a huge name to live up to, but with courses in wood-bending, marquetry, upholstery, restoration and more, it is flourishing under a new generation, finds Mary Miers

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5 mins  |
June 19, 2024
'Makes Buckingham Palace seem rather dull'
Country Life UK

'Makes Buckingham Palace seem rather dull'

The London homes of the British aristocracy were often grander than their country counterparts, palatial without ever being called palaces, says Lucien de Guise

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5 mins  |
June 19, 2024
Tripping the light fantastic
Country Life UK

Tripping the light fantastic

A lustrous play of colour alchemy, iridescence can intrigue, camouflage and incite desire. Laura Parker immerses herself in one of Nature's greatest special effects

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6 mins  |
June 19, 2024
Venus was her name
Country Life UK

Venus was her name

The goddess of love and beauty's naked form caused a stir in the 4th century BC, incensed Suffragettes in the 20th and ruled art history in between and beyond, as Michael Hall reveals

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7 mins  |
June 19, 2024
The legacy Douglas Bunn and the Hickstead Derby
Country Life UK

The legacy Douglas Bunn and the Hickstead Derby

IT is the stuff of sporting legend. Douglas Bunn flew to Germany on New Year's Eve of 1960, armed with a tape measure.

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1 min  |
June 19, 2024
Opening the shutters
Country Life UK

Opening the shutters

In the second of two articles, John Goodall looks at the way in which this major Georgian house was awakened from sleep as a modern home and place of entertainment

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8 mins  |
June 19, 2024
Don't rain on Venus's parade
Country Life UK

Don't rain on Venus's parade

TENNIS has never been sexier—at least, that is what multiple critics of the new film Challengers are saying.

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2 mins  |
June 05, 2024
A rural reason to cheer
Country Life UK

A rural reason to cheer

THERE was something particularly special for country people when one of the prestigious King’s Awards for Voluntary Service was presented last week.

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2 mins  |
June 05, 2024
My heart is in the Highlands
Country Life UK

My heart is in the Highlands

A LISTAIR MOFFAT’S many books on Scottish history are distinctive for the way he weaves poetry and literature, language and personal experience into broad-sweeping studies of particular regions or themes. In his latest— and among his most ambitious in scope—he juxtaposes a passage from MacMhaighstir Alasdair’s great sea poem Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill with his own account of filming a replica birlinn (Hebridean galley) as it glides into the Sound of Mull, ‘larch strakes swept up to a high prow’, saffron sail billowing, water sparkling as its oars dip and splash. Familiar from medieval tomb carvings, the birlinn is a potent symbol of the power of the Lords of the Isles.

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6 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Put it in print
Country Life UK

Put it in print

Three sales furnished with the ever-rarer paper catalogues featured intriguing lots, including a North Carolina map by John Ogilby and a wine glass gibbeting Admiral Byng, the unfortunate scapegoat for the British loss of Minorca

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4 mins  |
June 05, 2024
The rake's progress
Country Life UK

The rake's progress

Good looks, a flair for the theatrical and an excellent marriage made John Astley’s fortune, but also swayed ‘le Titien Anglois’ away from painting into a dissolute life of wine and women, with some collecting on the side

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4 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Charter me this
Country Life UK

Charter me this

There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored and one of the most exciting ways to see it is from the water, says Emma Love, who rounds up the best boat charters

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3 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to sow we go
Country Life UK

Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to sow we go

JUNE can be a tricky month for the gardener.

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3 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Floreat Etona
Country Life UK

Floreat Etona

The link with the school and horticulture goes back to its royal founder, finds George Plumptre on a visit to the recently restored gardens

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4 mins  |
June 05, 2024
All in good time
Country Life UK

All in good time

Two decades in the planning, The Emory, designed by Sir Richard Rogers, is open. Think of it as a sieve that retains the best of contemporary hotel-keeping and lets the empty banality flow away

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2 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Come on down, the water's fine
Country Life UK

Come on down, the water's fine

Ratty might have preferred a picnic, but canalside fine dining is proving the key to success for new restaurant openings in east London today, finds Gilly Hopper

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3 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Perfect manors
Country Life UK

Perfect manors

For the first time in a generation, two of England’s most pristine and private residential and sporting estates, Corby Castle in Cumbria and Wilsford Manor in Wiltshire, have come to the open market

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5 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Little gem
Country Life UK

Little gem

A humble lambing shed has been transformed into a tranquil home office using both antiques and pieces repurposed from past projects

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3 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Fresh as a summer breeze
Country Life UK

Fresh as a summer breeze

Once associated largely with gin, there is a host of easy-to-grow botanicals that will enliven both cocktail hour and mealtimes

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4 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Standing on ceremony
Country Life UK

Standing on ceremony

As the sound of music, majesty and military precision marks The King’s Birthday Parade, Simon Doughty considers the evolution of the ceremonial uniform

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6 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Her green and pleasant land
Country Life UK

Her green and pleasant land

Peggy Guggenheim, doyenne of avant-garde art, once lived at a Hampshire cottage in the woods. Mary Miers traces a rare domestic time in the American heiress’s life

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5 mins  |
June 05, 2024
Stuff and nonsense
Country Life UK

Stuff and nonsense

Five collectors of unusual things, from taxidermy to tanks, tulips to teddies, explain their passions to COUNTRY LIFE

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8 mins  |
June 05, 2024
The longest day and the shortest night
Country Life UK

The longest day and the shortest night

June brings with it the magic of Midsummer’s Day, as well as a prediction for the coming harvest, says

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1 min  |
June 05, 2024
My favourite painting Beccy Speight
Country Life UK

My favourite painting Beccy Speight

Charlotte Mullins comments on Rain

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1 min  |
June 05, 2024
A Georgian vision
Country Life UK

A Georgian vision

Gatewick, Steyning, West Sussex The former home of Charles, James and Primrose Yorke A combination of discerning architectural improvement and collecting in the 1950s created a modern country house in the 18th-century spirit.

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7 mins  |
June 05, 2024
A walk on the wild side
Country Life UK

A walk on the wild side

The word ‘safari’ may evoke lions and Land Cruisers, but you’ll never run out of wildlife-based thrills on these shores. From seabird skyscrapers to ostentatious otters and rutting red deer, Ben Lerwill discovers the best British Nature trips on offer

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7 mins  |
June 05, 2024
A tapestry of pinks
Country Life UK

A tapestry of pinks

THE garden is now entering its season of vigour and exuberance.

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3 mins  |
May 29, 2024
Bringing the past to life
Country Life UK

Bringing the past to life

An event hosted by COUNTRY LIFE at WOW!house is one of the highlights of a programme that features some of the biggest names in interior design

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1 min  |
May 29, 2024
This isle is full of wonder
Country Life UK

This isle is full of wonder

GEOLOGY? A bit like economics, the famously boring science? I confess I suffered the prejudice—agriculture and history being my thing, both of them vital in every sense— but Robert Muir-Wood’s voyage through the past 66 million years of the making of the British landscape has biblical-level drama on almost every other page. Flood, fire, ice… or, perhaps, the formation in rock, sand, mud and lava of these isles is best conceived of as fierce poetry.

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6 mins  |
May 29, 2024