CATEGORIES

The times they are a-changin'

Through busy centuries and multiple owners, these Cotswold estates have been loved and enhanced

Dante's blessed damozels

He may not have been the most talented member of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but Dante Gabriel Rossetti was easily the biggest romantic, says Michael Prodger

Cloche encounters

Good news for gardeners: the traditional cast-iron cloche is being made again by an enterprising young British couple near Bath, finds Tiffany Daneff

On reflection

Hidden by gentle neglect and revealed by research, the remarkably intact 18th-century garden of Chettle House, Dorset, has been brilliantly reinterpreted by landscape designer Pip Morrison, reveals Christopher Stocks

Apples and bears

Cider will be forever associated with the Cotswolds thanks to Rosie. Jane Wheatley meets the makers keeping the tradition alive

Back to the musical

Three new big-budget, spectacular musicals are rejuvenating the West End

A Cotswold dream

A medieval house, developed in the 18th century and again by Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1930s answers the popular ideal of a Cotswold home. Jeremy Musson reports

How To Avoid A Chainsaw Massacre

Why foresters have to be a hardy breed

Growing for gold

It is the designer who gets the applause, but behind every successful Chelsea show garden is a nursery that supplies the plants. Val Bourne meets the busy Mark Straver of Hortus Loci

‘Through dead men's eyes'

The tradition of ‘eerie’ literature and art, invoking fear, unease and dread, has flourished in the shadows of British landscape culture for centuries, says Robert Macfarlane

‘She can always paint more pictures'

The vigorous creativity of Vanessa Bell and her lover Duncan Grant’s work owes much to the countryside surrounding their farmhouse in the Sussex Downs, says Matthew Dennison

Natural splendour

Val Bourne finds out the secrets behind the astonishing swathes of naturalised bulbs grown at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire

Once bitten, twice shy

Whether they bite, suck or sting, some insects are a downright pain in the arm, says Simon Lester, as he identifies the most troublesome little nippers

Flowers for Christmas

In the garden

Chelsea as we have never seen it before

Kathryn Bradley-Hole presents our guide to the highlights of the most eagerly anticipated Chelsea Flower Show in decades

Blenheim Palace

Britain’s greatest masterpieces

A Baroque banquet

The Archer Pavilion, Wrest Park, Bedfordshire, In the care of English Heritage One of the most spectacular garden buildings of the English Baroque–as well as the architect that designed it– is ripe for reappraisal, says Helen Lawrence-Beaton

The Gate of Heaven

Bevis Marks, London EC3 Britain’s oldest operating synagogue has remained in continuous use in the heart of the City since 1701, as Jeremy Musson reveals. Its interior has been specially photographed for COUNTRY LIFE by candlelight

Something old, something new

After years of nurturing a great garden, passing on the responsibility to younger custodians is easier if it’s kept in the family, finds Catherine Larner

The drama of Arts and Crafts

Two superb small estates in Surrey and Hampshire are as desirable for modern owners as they were in their illustrious beginnings

In search of an earthly paradise

Famous for urging us to have nothing in our homes that is not useful or beautiful, William Morris’s masterful command of pattern and Arts-and-Crafts design masked a deeply unhappy marriage, says Michael Montagu

The Yellow Room

NANCY LANCASTER and John Fowler were a fractious pairing, ‘the most unhappy unmarried couple in England,’ as Lancaster’s aunt Nancy Astor put it, but their imaginative dynamic brought spectacular results.

The colour purple

With gleaming skin and a plump, elongated shape, the versatile aubergine offers subtle, yet luscious succour to countless dishes, says Tom Parker Bowles

Overflowing with good ideas

The garden at Balcombe Mill House, East Sussex Island beds brimming with naturalistic plantings of perennials and grasses have brought the once-renowned garden at the Mill House, Balcombe, West Sussex, back from the brink, reveals John Hoyland

A strange fish

With a bite like a vampire, the lamprey is a sinister-looking fish with a shady past, says Aeneas Dennison

All about Eve

Dismissed as a crank in the late 1930s for her progressive views on farming, Lady Eve Balfour went on to co-found the Soil Association, says Sarah Langford

Why We Should All Be Growing Plectranthus

The Victorian favorite is finding justly deserved favour again, reveals John Hoyland

Escape to the farm

Never has it been more important for children to learn about food production or responsibility for animals. Tessa Waugh reports on the schools taking a lead in agricultural education

The History Boys

AS a Leeds grammar-school boy pre-paring to take a scholarship exam for Oxford, Alan Bennett worked out a clever system of reducing ‘everything I knew to a set of notes with answers to possible questions and odd, eye-catching quotations all written out on a series of forty or fifty correspondence cards, a handful of which I carried in my pocket wherever I went.

The girls are running away with the ball

Sally Jones celebrates the schools that have broken with tradition to promote girls playing formerly male-dominated sports