CATEGORIES

A mile of shopping

To coincide with the publication of a definitive new study of Britain’s most famous retail destination, Andrew Saint looks at the history of London’s Oxford Street

When the curtain comes down

Theatre has been forced offstage before now, whether for disease or war, but it has always managed to survive and reinvent itself

A life in design

Sixty years after Jacqueline Duncan founded the Inchbald School of Interior Design, she continues to champion the profession she helped to create

I wake up every morning thinking of gin

With a 200-year family history of distilling, Natalie Wallis can concoct a gin to suit any list of demands–even one that reflects the seaside, Japanese tourists and The Rolling Stones in one, says Rupert Ponsonby

Bewitching, bucolic and brilliant Upton Wold, Gloucestershire

This magical Cotswolds garden has been thoughtfully created over almost half a century–with one eye always on the mesmerising view, says Tilly Ware

How To Choose The Right Greenhouse

With so many of us at home with more time to garden than usual, this is the perfect time to invest in a glasshouse, but which is right for you? John Hoyland offers some pointers

The tide waits for no man

Ancient waterways, massive skies, and a new company charting old maps. Nick Hammond sails Norfolk’s fabled coastline using the timeless power of wind and tide

The secret life of the page-turner

Pippa Cuckson turns a spotlight onto the discreet world of this rarely noticed musician, whose quick thinking can save a concert

The joker in the pack

Played with friends, family or in solitude, there are few things as familiar as a pack of cards. Yasha Beresiner explores this form of entertainment, propaganda tool and, sometimes, work of art

On Galloway shores

A childhood spent in the company of curlews and cattle is one of magic. In an extract from his new book, Native, Patrick Laurie recounts his return to a vanishing way of life

Meadows make livestock

It’s more a case of April flowers, rather than showers, as John Lewis-Stempel gets down on his knees in an attempt to add floral richness to a rough-grazed field

Long live the May Queen

A mainstay of the hedgerow, a wildlife haven, the queen of the woods: this is the hawthorn’s moment, eulogises Matthew Rice

Building on history: The gardens at Benington Lordship, Stevenage, Hertfordshire

Kathryn Bradley-Hole describes how to take on a renowned garden and make it work for a new generation

Character, history and style

Columbine Hall, Suffolk The home of Hew Stevenson and Leslie Geddes-Brown A medieval moated manor house has been lovingly re-imagined as the beau idéal of an English country home. Jeremy Musson reports on this remarkable achievement

Back to Black Beauty

A hymn to the horse, a comment on slavery, an ode to rural Norfolk: Anna Sewell’s enduringly popular novel is all this and more 200 years after its author’s birth, explains James Clarke

How Do You Like Your Eggs In The Morning?

How do you achieve the perfect scramble or poach? How can you tell if an egg is addled? And is that double-yolker lucky or a harbinger of death? Claire Jackson divulges all

London In lockdown

In all of its 2,000-year history, it seems unlikely that the City of London has ever stood so silent as it does presently. Can we learn from the quiet, asks Architectural Editor John Goodall

Waving the virtual paddle

Online auctions prove successful across the country, from a French nobleman to English watercolours and a stuffed Adélie penguin from Capt Scott’s fatal expedition.

Prints charming

Why textiles block printed by hand are all the rage

Imagining antiquity

In the 300th anniversary year of Piranesi’s birth, Huon Mallalieu considers the architectural fantasies of one of the most widely recognised names in 18th-century Italian art

He's a blooming talent

A rising star of the gardening world on chicken-friendly gardening and admirable women

For peat's sake

A bog can store 10 times more carbon than a forest; calling a halt to the use of peat-based products in horticulture is long overdue

Coming home to roost

The chickens are reprieved and it’s keep calm and carry on with the calving

A sonnet to spring

Once believed to be summoned from slumber by birdsong, spring–from gambolling lambs to pale wood anemones and the rabbity-nosed velvet of ash buds– is a season of timeless joy for John Lewis-Stempel

A play on contrasts

The Old Rectory, Litton Cheney, Dorset With the help of Arne Maynard, the many and varying elements of this four-acre garden, once the home of engraver Reynolds Stone, have been beautifully drawn together.

Isolation – How To Do It

With humour, impressive variety and a pertinent portrait of a doctor in plague-ridden 17th-century Italy, galleries are coming up trumps online

Seeing the woods for the trees

The Government has promised to plant 60 million trees by 2024. It’s a laudable aim, but there are taxing questions to answer about practicalities, such as funding, work force, which species, where to get them from and where to plant them, observes John Grimshaw

Lustrous lives

Caroline Bugler is mesmerised by the work of a husband and wife who were among the most inventive artists of their generation

Somewhere, over the rainbow

Things were going so well–but the health of the housing market before the coronavirus crisis hit indicates that it can and will recover

For love or money

They have evolved from knapsacks to coin purses and to today’s card holders, but does the wallet have a future in our increasingly cashless society, asks Roderick Easdale