CATEGORIES

In the dead of the nightshade

Employed by Roman archers to poison arrows, by emperors' wives to achieve widowhood and by Cleopatra to enhance her beauty, folklore has not exaggerated the fatal tendencies of belladonna

The secret to growing coriander

CORIANDER might be the most global of herbs, bold enough to combine with flavours from lemongrass to chilli in food cultures as diverse as Indian and Mexican.

Field trials

The Prairie at The Barn, Serge Hill, Hertfordshire The home of Mr and Mrs Tom Stuart-Smith

Family affairs

Past grandeurs flourish again at two elegant country houses, one overlooking Blenheim Palace and the other rolling Hampshire parkland

The 21st-century country house

At this month's Focus/22, COUNTRY LIFE will host an event at which interior designer Emma Sims-Hilditch will discuss the changing face of the English country house

Playing with history

A post-Modern livery hall that is a striking home for an ancient company can teach us something about sensitive development in London.

Confessions of a lifetime

The author on the painful memories evoked in his new memoir

The Great Tower, Dover Castle

WHETHER the Norman Conquest of England was, as maintained by those notable authorities W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman in 1066 And All That, ‘a good thing’ has been much debated by scholars.

Lily of the Valley by Charlotte Verity

My favourite painting Shane Connolly

Old in name, but not in nature

Six years ago, the Government sold the War Office– Sir Winston Churchill’s former haunt and the heart of First and Second World War logistics–on a 250-year lease. On the eve of its rebirth as a luxury hotel, Clive Aslet looks back its extraordinary history

Go with the flow

The banks of the River Thames are littered with historical houses and royal residences, says Carla Passino, who advocates experiencing them all on a walk upstream

‘I gave up my career for the Sealyham’

A lot of vulnerable native breeds have their fans, but not all have someone as determined to save them as Harry Parsons. Julie Harding travels to Sealyham HQ to meet his latest litter of puppies

Read in order to live

Fewer students are taking up A-level English Literature and some universities are dropping it. Jonathan Self explains why this is short sighted

Cross-country collaboration

For watercolourists of many nationalities, Italy was inspirational. Work by the country's leading light, Lusieri, proves covetable, as Meissen birds fly high

Heavenly places

BOOKS

Far away and long ago

On the centenary of W. H. Hudson's death, John Lewis-Stempel wonders how the celebrated writer and founder member of the RSPB came to be forgotten

Heatwave raves

New and glorious hybrids keep appearing

Halls of fame

Three country houses with notable histories offer the best of family living

A shared vision

A harmonious relationship between architect and interior designer is the secret to every successful project

Wild riding

This is how riding holidays should be, says Octavia Pollock, as she crosses Dartmoor in the company of an Olympian

House of dreams

Ardfin estate, Isle of Jura, Argyll and Bute, part II In the second of two articles, Clive Aslet examines how a Victorian shooting lodge on the southern tip of Jura has been reimagined as a modern country house

Now that's what I call country music

Be it bees buzzing around pollen, a breeze through a field of wheat or the barking of deer, there are certain sounds that will forever evoke our British countryside, wherever you might find yourself

The Pantheon

So much were his senses captivated, he could scarcely persuade himself but that he trod on fairy ground

Charlotte Mullins comments on Two Plants

My favourite painting Christopher Woodward

‘We are still a nation of horse lovers’

The Master of the Horse on the lot of equines in different cultures

Heavenly hydrangeas

EVERYTHING in the garden year is subject to the lengthening and shortening of the day. After the peak in late June, the early starters fade away into the background and we find ourselves thinking, well, that’s it for another year.

Stick it to me

Now brushed aside as a weed with an irritating propensity for attaching itself to clothing, goosegrass was once welcomed with open arms, thanks to its medicinal properties, finds Ian Morton

Natural magic - The private garden at Bonnington House, near Edinburgh The home of Mr and Mrs Wilson

Arabella Lennox-Boyd has designed a garden of underlying structure overlaid with colour and charm creating many different areas, each with its own personality, discovers Caroline Donald

A load of old cobbles

Sweetly evocative of a past we never knew, but a nightmare for cyclists, cobbled streets were once a lifesaver for our working horses, explains Harry Pearson

Pride of Scotland

Lochs, burns, wild mountains, cattle, fishing, shooting and grouse moors: Scotland has it all in spades, as these properties show