CATEGORIES
Back to business
Brits still do it best when it comes to a proper read: boozy) business lunch, says William Sitwell, who lifts the white tablecloth on where to dine and deal in London
London Life
Your indispensable guide to the capital
Sun in the sky
With Easter behind us, thoughts turn to the summer months and a clutch of attractive waterside houses come to the market this week
Footloose and fancy free
Historic houses that are unfettered by a listing
A natural choice
Green is the perfect colour for a kitchen, says Amelia Thorpe
The designer's room
Plain English worked with antique dealer Robert Young to create a serene, yet hardworking kitchen with views over beautiful gardens
Prepare to be a-maze-d
Named for the old English meaning delirium or delusion, mazes were conceived to boggle the mind. Deborah Nicholls-Lee meets the man behind Saltburn's chilling climax
Spring fever
Nature's ebullient reawakening, whether celebrated through allegory or minutiously painted in all its blossom-laden glory, has captured the imagination of painters from Botticelli to Hockney. Michael Prodger revels in the season's artistic beauty.
Little April showers
Thunder and lightning may be very frightening, but they also point to a good growing season, assures Lia Leendertz
Leading by example
Lancing College, West Sussex, part II In the second of two articles, John Goodall examines the outstanding school buildings of Lancing College, an institution celebrating its 175th anniversary
Time for a soil resurrection
SHORTLY before Easter, we saw the countryside in all its complexities.
Where birds and a wild Englishman roamed
THE world’s first nature reserve, Waterton Park in West Yorkshire, has been granted protection by Historic England with a Grade II listing.
Buzzing off
FIVE swarms of 50,000 rare Welsh black honeybees—previously thought to have died out in all but the most remote parts of northern Britain—have had temporarily to move house, while repair work at their home in Gwynedd, North Wales, is underway.
Love and logic
Two lovers who endured adversity and separation in life would become united in Paris after death, discovers Eileen Reid
Don't mock them
Plant a philadelphus, or mock orange, now for improbably lovely scent and cascades of sparkling blossom this summer, says John Hoyland
Home is where the art is
No trouble is too much for the Marquess of Cholmondeley to display to best effect Sir Antony Gormley's sculptures against the magnificent backdrop of Houghton Hall, even if it means cutting a hole in the floor, as Charlotte Mullins discovers
Bold and beautiful
The gardens at Broughton Grange, Oxfordshire The home of Sir Stephen and Lady Hester An arboretum, woodland garden, stumpery and heather garden all planted for artistic effect are among the many features that mark out this exciting garden, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Land of liquid gold
Greek cuisine-from delicious mezes to shellfish-might be 'tightly bound to the sparse soil and the blue sea', but it is sorely underrated, laments Tom Parker Bowles
An old way of life in rural France
Arcadian tranquillity, a wealth of cultural richness and a slow pace of life enchant John Lewis-Stempel as he reflects on his existence in France profonde
Deep in Hardy country
Hardy's beguilingly pretty Wessex is the setting for three houses with links to people and places that fuelled the writer's imagination
The benefit of foresight
The ability to anticipate the future is the secret of a successful building project
Nature's rarest gems
G. Collins & Sons specialises in the sourcing and setting of the finest natural fancy coloured diamonds the world has to offer
A prickly subject
Resembling a jumbo jacket potato on surprisingly long, scurrying legs, the hedgehog is Britain’s favourite mammal. Marianne Taylor takes a closer look beneath its spines
Once more into the abyss
Having volunteered to look after his neighbour's herd of Limousin cattle, John Lewis-Stempel is dismayed to find himself having to haul an elm-flowerloving heifer out of a ditch on a dramatic March afternoon Illustration by Michael Frith
Room with a pew
Bought, sold and inherited, parish seating not only confirmed social status, but came with its own temptations, discovers Andrew Green
A real nest egg
Despite their apparent delicacy, some eggs –when placed on end–can withstand the weight of a human, says John Lewis-Stempel, as he marvels at one of Nature’s smallest, yet mightiest miracles
A silent witness
In the first of two articles, John Goodall looks at the recent completion of the chapel of Lancing College, one of the great landmarks of the Sussex coast
Why we must settle for knowing only in part
On the eve of Easter, the Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy considers how asking ourselves a question to which we already know the answer, but which we may have forgotten, echoes the message of the Resurrection
The art of the bath
A collaboration between Victoria Albert Baths and sculptor Sophie-Elizabeth Thompson is an exciting new departure in the history of bathroom design
Sixty years a gardener
IN the summer of 1964, a 15-year-old lad with one O level in Art asked his parents if he could leave school a year early and go to work as a gardener in a local nursery.