Country Life Magazine (September 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Otterly Wonderful’ – How Otters reconquered our rivers…

Building blocks

A sensible framework on land use must be in place before we embark on a ‘build, build, build’ crusade, argues Fiona Reynolds

‘Neither fish nor flesh’

Laura Parker charts the lore and legends attached to Lutra lutra, that bewhiskered, bright-eyed beacon of conservation

Interiors

Amelia Thorpe luxuriates in an array of elegant tubs, tiles and accessories for the bathroom

London Life

• A fresh vision of the city’s future
• Tom Parker Bowles lauds the capital’s most fêted restaurateurs
• Jo Rodgers marvels at a pop-up stationery shop

Travel

News of islands and ice

Jane Wheatley cruises the waters of Indonesia and Australia

Rosie Paterson is on a slippery slope in St Moritz

Pamela Goodman relives the ups and downs of walking on Paxos

Talk of the ton

Susan Jenkins examines the high fashion of the Regency period, from low-cut necklines to trussed-up regal sausages

Claire Booth’s favourite painting

The soprano is moved by an emotional Expressionist work that hits you between the eyes

What’s next?

Carla Carlisle is growing weary of damaging family feuds as she charts a positive way forward

Building nationhood

The meticulous restoration of Villa Golescu in Romania is a tribute to the country’s Revival style, suggests Jeremy Musson

The legacy

Kate Green celebrates the 16th-century life of William Cecil, the man who left us Burghley House      

By the light of the harvest moon

How do onion skins reveal what the winter holds in store? Lia Leendertz explores the weather lore for September

The best seat in the house

Chairmaker Finn Koefoed-Nielsen tells Nick Hammond how he met his ‘national treasure’ mentor Jim Steele thanks to Country Life

Friends in low places

Mark Cocker gives us the low-down on the miracle of moss, a wonder of the natural world that lives right under our feet

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell selects elegant bags that are bound to work for you

It started with a blank canvas

A painterly eye has transformed the gardens at Patthana in Co Wicklow into an artistic delight, reveals Jane Powers

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson revels in the soft and squishy joy of figs

Foraging

Humans have been harvesting hazelnuts for millennia and long may it continue, says John Wright