Where traffic stops for sacred cows

A visit to Rajasthan highlights a different attitude to cattle

How to revive a classic

Ibsen and Chekhov both receive excellent re-workings, two plays about the NHS are well acted and a pair of Shakespeares is worth seeing

Depth in Venice

The sale of furnishings from the Italian city’s Palazzo Volpi yielded many treasures that trashed their estimates

It's a kind of dark magic

Immersed in myths of monkey puzzle trees and sorcery, blackly beautiful Whitby jet deserves to shake off its mournful, if illustrious past, says Harry Pearson

A breath of fresh air

Wherever possible, kitchen doors should be wide open into the garden, as these houses allow

"The field with the best view'

From an impeccably renovated terrace of farmworkers’ cottages to a grand old hall, Cornwall's character and beauty are unparalleled

The very nature of Middle-earth

A Nature writer at heart, J. R. R. Tolkien drew on his love of the Malvern Hills and the surrounding countryside to paint his fantasy realm, says James Clarke

'After everything they do, we owe them'

It is no exaggeration to say that dogs and horses risk life and limb to keep us safe. As search-andrescue dog Vesper wins the Hero Dog Award at Crufts, Katy Birchall finds out more about the charity supporting our retired service animals

Grandeur in granite

Cluny Castle, Aberdeenshire The home of Cosmo and Bronya Linzee Gordon

Spring

In the second part of our series, flower grower Anna Brown prepares her nursery for the busiest time of the year

Riding to the rescue

The gardens at Dowdeswell Court, Gloucestershire The home of Julian Dunkerton and Jade Holland Cooper

The brush of an angel

Although Angelica Kauffman painted royalty, became a founding member of the Royal Academy and gained recognition from Dublin to St Petersburg, she still had to contend with bias even long after her death, as Matthew Dennison discovers

I left my soul there, down by the sea

On a dull February morning, John Lewis-Stempel is consumed by childhood memories of the allure of the seashore, from the rhythmic, cresting waves and slippery seaweed of all shapes and hues to the shell-studded sand Illustration by Michael Frith

New for old

The gardens of Pembury Hall, near Tunbridge Wells, Kent The home of Mr and Mrs Paul Hilgers

A new vision

Conversions and new-builds of every shape and hue

End of an era

After more than a century in one family, the sale of a great Suffolk estate reveals a history that runs from a 17th-century MP via a Repton Red Book to a 'Galloping Major'

Character building

How do you make a newly built space look like an old one? The transformation of a house on the Cornish coast, by HÁM interiors, may provide the answer, believes Arabella Youens

Rascals and rusticants

Pet bears and lobsters on chains, horses in the bedroom and firearms at the window: British universities have long tolerated outlandish behaviour. But when is enough enough, asks Harry Pearson

Hitting the sweet spot

Barley sugars, pink shrimps and flying saucers: more than merely a sugar high, 'sweets were like currency at school', discovers Madeleine Silver as she gets stuck into tuck shops

How does your garden village grow?

A garden city planned by Sir Edwin Lutyens was never brought to completion. Plans to redevelop it today, however, threaten to destroy the character of what was created. Clive Aslet reports

Here's rooking at you

Rooks may be fond of gathering in sociable eyries high in the treetops, but it would be unwise to take them for granted, cautions Mark Cocker, for they are one of the most complex and consistently misrepresented birds in this country

And they called it puppy love

Partial to a poodle? Loopy about labradors? Cuckoo for cocker spaniels? You are not alone, says Victoria Marston, as she discovers the nation’s favourite dog breeds, decade by decade

Hedge of eternity

As old as husbandry hedges may be, but that doesn't mean they cannot be beautiful, too. Charles Quest-Ritson considers the many options,

A seed of an idea

There is a lot more to successful wildflower propagation than scattering a packet and hoping for the best, discovers Tilly Ware, as she visits the UK’s biggest wild-seed producer

A tower of thorns

Made with wind, sea and thorns on the wild west coast of Scotland, Blackthorn Salt brings surprising health benefits, as well as being a unique example of sustainable craftsmanship, says Ben Lerwill

Love and marriage

Marital relations are the central theme in these three plays. A real-life couple put on bravura performances, but an Austen adaptation misses

When West met East

The Arts flourished in the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century and their influence reached across space and time to Tudor and Victorian England

All in a life's work

Shropshire lads supreme and joined-up thinking in Oxfordshire

Where be dragons?

Lucien de Guise finds the answer in the original source of Hic sunt dracones ('Here be dragons'): a small copper globe of about 1510. The location is East Asia, where the dragon is still most active... as it is, of course, in Wales

On a wig and a prayer

Like marmalade on toast, saying sorry and the Shipping Forecast, there are few things more typically British than the courtroom wig, says Agnes Stamp