Tag Archives: Country Life Magazine

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Culture: Country Life Magazine – July 5, 2023

July 5, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – July 5, 2023 issue: The seashore as artistic inspiration, from Constable’s wild skies to Gormley’s lonely figures; Puffins -the parrots of the sea; A history of mermaids, and more…

A shore thing – Michael Prodger examines the seashore as artistic inspiration, from Constable’s wild skies to Gormley’s lonely figures

Meet the parrots of the sea – The colourful puffin inspires amused adoration in everyone, but the big-beaked birds have a tough side, finds Ian Morton

Tripping the light fintastic – Sinister sirens who lure sailors to their deaths or beautiful beings who drag men from watery graves? Carla Passino combs history for mention of mermaids

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Culture: Country Life Magazine – June 21, 2023

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Country Life Magazine – June 21, 2023 issue:

From field to dinner-party fork

Feeding friends with food grown in your own garden is a delight, finds Natasha Goodfellow.

Why treasure is a universal word

London’s new Treasure House Fair deserves to be a triumph, believes Huon Mallalieu.

Skye Gyngell’s favourite painting

The culinary director chooses a graphic work full of energy.

Ode to June

Jamie Blackett swelters on the farm, where greenfinches fly and the meadow shimmers.

Native breeds

Kate Green falls for the teddy-bear Greyface Dartmoor sheep.

Life, the universe and everything

Does cave art hold the answer, asks Robin Hanbury-Tenison.

Architecture, Gardens, Historical, Home Design, Homes, Views

Watercolor Views: British Painter Annie Tempest’s “Mediterranean Cruise”

June 10, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine (June 10 , 2023) – Annie Tempest, the brains and hands behind Country Life’s beloved Tottering-by-Gently cartoon, shares her pictorial diary of a recent Empires of the Mediterranean cruise, aboard Viking’s ‘Sky’ ship, with us.

Piraeus 1.0 – We boarded Viking Sky at Piraeus port in Athens, so were in harbour over night. I began to notice the blueness and the ‘dome-i-ness’ of my surroundings. Acclimatising my eyes to the change in architecture from North Norfolk.

Still painting late into the night watching the the buildings turn into silhouettes and the blue mountains in the distance fade to smudges.

Koper, Slovenia – Tito Square in Koper has a strong Italian influence and even the language spoken here is part Italian and part Slovene. It was a capital city under the Venetian Republic. I couldn’t paint this journey without including a tourist photographing the magnificent architecture.

This was the sight that greeted us as we approached the Greek island of Santorini. Beautiful coloured buildings above what looked like cave entrances. The town sits on the top of what appears to be a giant rock and is reached by cable car, or donkey for the more intrepid.

Lifestyle: Country Life Magazine – March 22, 2023

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Country Life Magazine (March 22, 2023) – Verdi’s land of opera and glory, Picasso in Spain’s cradle of the Arts, where leading writers find their inspiration, French breeds to provoke English envy and the best in luxury overseas property

A spectacularly converted 15th century watermill with original beams, glorious surroundings and a minstrels’ gallery

Once derelict, Gurney Manor Mill was rescued in the early 1990s and transformed into a lovely family home.

Any property that is surrounded by water is guaranteed to be impressive. It’s sort of an unwritten rule. Naturally, as a former watermill, Gurney Manor Mill falls into this category: the mill and its 1.2 acres of gardens are surrounded by the historicwater system, creating a bucolic setting.

Thirsty work

Amelia Thorpe selects watering cans for the home and garden

Food stuff: a simple guide to nutrients and fertilisers

Don’t know your potassium from your phosphorus? Fear not, as Steven Desmond explains what to feed your plants and when

Blossoming ideas

There’s more to ornamental apple trees than merely fruit, reveals Charles Quest-Ritson

Holey moley!

Meet the ‘gentleman in velvet’—Harry Pearson unearths the underground world of the mole

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Culture: Country Life Magazine – Feb 22, 2023

February 22, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – February 22, 2023 issue:

Notes from an old master

Charlotte Mullins talks to Dutch Old Masters dealer Johnny van Haeften about Brexit, biscuits and the state of the art market

Beauty is in the eye of the brush holder

Michael Prodger explores the ugly face of art, complete with jutting jawlines, rubbery lips and potato-shaped noses

Go ahead, jump!

Traditionally a symbol of fertility and a fairy-tale prince, our frogs are facing an uncertain future, discovers Ian Morton

A cut above

A trio of British growers offers advice to Tiffany Daneff on how to start a cutting garden

The ‘firework’ master

The multitalented John Piper should be celebrated as one of the great polymaths of the 20th century, argues Peyton Skipwith

Culture, Homes, Lifestyle, Magazines, Previews, Reviews, Travel

Lifestyle: Country Life Magazine- February 1, 2023

February 1, 2023 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – February 1, 2023 –

Travel — Let Country Life guide you along the paths less travelled

The snapshot

Giardino dell’Iris, Florence, Italy

Keeping up with the dames

Jo Rodgers feels right at home in glamorous Paris, and we pick our favourite European hotels

Sleep like a champion

Here’s where to bed down after watching the Olympics in 2024

The magnificent seven

Seven spectacular islands—from Menorca to Manhattan

The Atlantic’s green lung

Rosalyn Wikeley gets away from it all in the ‘Hawaii of Europe’

Historical, Home Design, Homes, Magazines, Profiles

Historic English Homes: Writer Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Piers Court’, Gloucester

December 18, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Piers Court, the house where Evelyn Waugh wrote his nostalgic masterpiece Brideshead Revisited, was used as a safe house for Royalists during the Civil War. He lived there from 1937 to 1956 – apart from during the war years when it was taken over by nuns.

December 16, 2022

It seems a sad state of affairs for a famed house whose previous owners — who bought Piers Court in 2010 — had done much to enhance a place described by Pevsner as ‘dignified and elegant’, which, behind its classical 18th-century façade, caters for both formal entertaining and informal family living. The standard of fixtures and fittings is really something – as this picture of one of the bathrooms demonstrates.

Nature: 2022 UK Landscape Photographer Of The Year

November 19, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year winners:

The overall winner, by William Davies: ‘Brecon in Winter’, Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales. Dawn sunlight warms up a winter’s morning in the Brecon Beacons.

‘Rough and Tumble’ Photo by Lloyd Lane Photography (www.lloydlane.uk), runner-up in the 2022 Landscape Photographer of the Year.

Tryfan by Aled Lewis. A photo of the iconic Tryfan in Snowdonia National Park.

‘Sycamore Gap Sun and Moon’, by Brian Eyler. Sycamore Gap Sun and Moon. Northumberland, England.

Culture, Homes, Lifestyle, Magazines, Photography, Travel

Lifestyle: Country Life Magazine – Nov 16, 2022

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Country Life Magazine – November 16, 2022 issue:

SURVIVING WINTER: Joe Gibbs summons the fortitude of our forebears in a bid to survive the cold season in an old house with rattling windows, draughty chimneys and a leaky roof.

NEWS: What impact will inflation and the cost-of-living crisis have on our historic houses and churches?

MASTERPIECE: The Forstye Saga‘s enduring appeal.

ARCHITECTURE: Drapers’ Hall: An enduring force for good.

FURNITURE: The joys of gilded furniture.

INTERIORS: Fat, often glistening metallic tassels, fringes, cords and braids—known as passementerie—have been beautifying interiors for centuries, reveals an admiring Matthew Dennison.

Culture, Homes, Lifestyle, Magazines, Previews, Stories, Travel

Covers: Country Life Magazine – Nov 2, 2022

November 3, 2022 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – The November 2022 issue looks at what London would look like if the wrecking ball hadn’t held sway in the 20th century, the pros and cons of an open fire versus a wood-burning stove, and follows in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg — plus, it includes our annual Gentleman’s Life supplement.