CATEGORIES

Portrait of a young man

A child prodigy who sold his first sketch aged five, the great portraitist met his match in royal women, says Matthew Dennison

Interiors: The Designer's Room

Architect John Comparelli has created a contemporary garden room to make the most of its pleasing outlook

Not so prim at all

Primroses naturally produce tantalising variations that have been avidly collected since Elizabethan times. Val Bourne looks at how modern breeding has increased the arresting forms and sumptuous colours of this much-loved spring woodlander

My own private Idaho

Originally conceived as peaceful retreats in which their owners could escape from the world, many of our surviving hermitages are located in some of the most enchanting spots in the country, observes Bronwen Riley

Keeping it in the family

The Apter- Fredericks sale sent out the encouraging signal that 18thand 19th-century furniture is in demand again

Just pottering about

Inspired by wedding bouquets, native breeds and countryside walks, it is imaginative reinterpretations of past designs that give today’s regional potteries their distinctive identities, says Matthew Dennison

In The Right Frame Of Mind

Designed to protect and enhance a picture, an elaborate frame is often a work of art in its own right. Catriona Gray discovers how red-coloured clay makes gold leaf glow and why mounts are not always needed

The Man Who Loved Drawing, Dogs And Dragons

Best known for designing the First World War ‘Your country needs you’ recruitment poster, Alfred Leete was also adept at capturing canines– as well as Bertie Wooster–in pen and ink.

Medieval magnificence

The historic Dower House Garden at Morville Hall, Shropshire, has been sensitively re-created by its painstaking owner, finds Non Morris

See the blackthorn swim in snow

Bedecked with thorns so spiky it’s known as Nature’s barbed wire, the blackthorn’s delicate, starry-white flowers are also an often unreliable harbinger of spring, observes Jack Watkins

Where angels tread

A Rembrandt enchants, yet, strangely, a Botticelli fails to move; and Old Master drawings invite us to ‘compare and contrast’

The immortal journey of Dürer

Forget Leonardo: there is a case to be made for the German artist being the true Renaissance great, argues Michael Prodger

Education and inspiration

Haileybury, Hertfordshire -In 1862, the empty buildings of an Imperial training college were occupied by one of a new generation of public schools. John Goodall looks at the story and development of the site

Forces of nature

Proper boarding, gleaming pastoral care and the kind of leadership admired in a gentleman officer are top of the agenda for many prospective military families. Madeleine Silver reports

History in the making

This small slice of Hertfordshire is almost bursting with heritage, history and idyllic country homes

Beyond the Zoom boom

Many schools have adapted admirably to the challenges of delivering virtual learning, but when life returns to some sort of normality, might online elements still have a place in the classroom, asks Flora Watkins

Put Your Hands Together

There’s plenty to celebrate in leafy Clapham, including its historical links to the abolitionist movement

When Gorse Is Out Of Bloom, Kissing Is Out Of Season

Prickly enough to make a pony grow a moustache and with the ability to rise from the ashes, Nature’s vibrant carpet of ‘Dartmoor custard’ is sure to brighten the gloomiest of winter’s days.

‘A picture of magic beauty'

A Georgian house remodelled in the Gothic style became a seat of the Gillow family, famous for their furniture-making business, in 1824. John Martin Robinson looks at the remarkable story of the house and its collections Photographs by Paul Highnam

‘Thou wast not born for death'

Dismissed as ‘the Cockney Homer’ and a fey lovelorn dreamer, John Keats was actually a robust and spirited man with medical training and a penchant for fisticuffs, says Jack Watkins, on the 200th anniversary of the poet’s premature demise

The empire strikes back

With the Australians vanquished, India turn their sights on England. Can Joe Root and his men halt the juggernaut.

Taking the waters

Grand Tourists collected Canaletto’s paintings of Venice as we might postcards, but his later British scenes didn’t have quite the same pull.

A MARATHON EFFORT

The idea for the first London Marathon was born in a pub in Petersham. On the eve of its 40th anniversary, Jeremy Taylor looks back at the famous event that has raised more than £1 billion for charity

Beneath The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea

Fashioned from driftwood, barbed wire, sea urchins and barnacle-encrusted plastic mannequins, Earl Granville’s eclectic sculptures are inspired by the Hebridean island of North Uist’s wild weather and terrain, discovers David Profumo

Plant Some Colour This Year

Brighten up the kitchen garden by sowing seeds of crimson-flowered broad beans, purple cabbages and lime-green Romanesco cauliflower, suggests Steven Desmond

Farming's Brave New World

Five leaders in the field give their visions for reinventing British agriculture, from capitalising on Brexit and feeding a pandemic-hit nation to rewilding the soil, mob-grazing and facing up to lab-grown meat

Nothing here but a bothy

Once frequented by farm labourers and shepherds, lone bothies–often located amid some of Scotland’s most remote countryside –offer a welcome (and sometimes secret) refuge for wanderers, reveals Freda Lewis-Stempel

‘This enchanting spot'

Sheringham Hall, Norfolk, part I The home of Paul Doyle and Gergely Battha-Pajor In the first of two articles, Jeremy Musson looks at a house and landscape that constitutes one of the most important expressions of Regency Picturesque theory to survive in England

Life after the deal

IT has been almost two weeks since the UK began its new relationship with the EU and two weeks since the trade deal was signed into law.

When it comes to the crunch

Our fondness for celery has endured, but how can something composed almost entirely of water be quite so delicious? Ian Morton explores its virtues