Country Life

Published by TI Media Limited Country Life, the quintessential English magazine, is undoubtedly one of the biggest and instantly recognisable brands in the UK today. It has a unique core mix of contemporary country-related editorial and top end property advertising. Editorially, the magazine comments in-depth on a wide variety of subjects, such as architecture, the arts, gardens and gardening, travel, the countryside, field-sports and wildlife. With renowned columnists and superb photography Country Life delivers the very best of British life every week.

Miss Lydia Rose Medcraft • Lydia is a visual display manager at Chanel, working with the Métiers d’Arts training atelier at The King’s Foundation at Highgrove, Gloucestershire. She is the daughter of John Armistead and Carolyn Medcraft of Crowborough, East Sussex.

Too clever by half

Country Life

Town & Country

Town & Country Notebook

Stuff & nonsense

Letters to the Editor

The diversion challenge

Athena • Cultural Crusader

My favourite painting José Pascual Marco

A castle reborn • In the first of two articles, John Goodall explores the development of this medieval castle and its spectacular transformation into one of the landmark buildings of Scottish architecture

Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone

Come shell or high water • Rugged coastlines, surging tides and deep, cold water put Scottish shellfish in a class of its own. Nick Hammond heads north to taste his way around some seafood hotspots

Wild at heart • He might be best known for his rollicking tales, but there was always more to John Buchan than derring-do. On the 150th anniversary of the author’s birth, Jack Watkins looks back at a remarkable writing life rooted in the countryside

Singing for England • A master of disguise, inexplicably shy and unpredictably wild, the increasingly rare ring ouzel warrants giving any blackbird a second glance, says Mark Cocker

Oh, honey honey • With oodles of vitamin C and potassium, honeyberries are being hailed as the new Scottish superfood, but can they find a place in our kitchens, asks Sarah Todd

Life is a Highland • Give a nod to the north with heritage prints and handcrafted homewares ideal for the changing season, says Amie Elizabeth White

The designer’s room • Hiding the conveniences of modern-day living lends a timeless feel to the kitchen of this 18th-century house

The art of the matter • Why contemporary art should become a feature of everyday life

Scotland’s bonnie banks and braes • Whether by the high road or the low road, there’s plenty awaiting buyers north of the Border, from a Baronial estate to a private island

Tales of the unexpected • Holly Kirkwood finds interesting places for sale in Scotland, from an old lifeboat station to a brand-new townhouse in the home of golf

Northern exposure • Innovative 21st-century composting and mulching techniques combined with a 19th-century shelterbelt ensure that these famous gardens continue to thrive, writes Caroline Donald

Seating plans

Kitchen garden cook Blackberries

In plaid view • Leo Webster may be a picture specialist at Bonhams, but he would choose the kilt he inherited from his paternal grandfather over any work of art, he tells Carla Passino

Telling it how it was • From the smoke-blackened ‘engine room of the Empire’ came a group of radical artists that stripped art of heroism and sentiment and took the world by storm. Mary Miers traces the history of The Glasgow Boys

A Herculean effort • Earlier in the summer, antiquity sales highlighted the many depictions of the classical world’s most popular hero, including a version with Byronic hair, as well as the extraordinary...