Country Life is marking a very special milestone in 2022: it’s 125 years since the first magazine was published.
While much has changed in the 6,500+ issues published since 1897, the magazine still celebrates all that’s best about Britain exactly as it has always done.
Our 125th anniversary special — which is on sale from Wednesday 11 May — looks back at some incredible highlights of those twelve and a half decades. Below is a selection of what you’ll find inside.
You can buy from Wednesday 11 May at newsagents, supermarkets, village shops and the other usual outlets. Should you have trouble finding a copy you can order a single issue of Country Life online — postage is free if you’re in the UK.
125 glorious years
We look back over the highlights of more than 6,500 editions, the houses, the gardens, the people and, of course, the animals that have made Country Life an enduring and eclectic joy, as friends of the magazine reveal why it means so much to them
An ebodiment of England
Fiona Reynolds follows a poetic trail amid Gloucestershire daffodils
Blenheim Castle: England’s answer to Versailles
The building of the astonishing Baroque edifice of Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, is a stirring tale, relates John Goodall
In the footsteps of giants
A masterpiece by Lutyens and Jekyll is thriving at Folly Farm, Berkshire, reveals Tiffany Daneff
The birth of the modern garden
George Plumptre discovers how Country Life changed the look of the British garden forever
The Queen Mother’s garden
Our 125th retrospective includes amazing images of Birkhall
Masterpiece
Jack Watkins is chilled by the ever-young Count Dracula
Mark Hedges’s favourite painting
The Editor chooses a still life that made him pause
A countrywoman’s notes
Carla Carlisle on tough hope
Raise a glass
Introducing The Hudson, a new cocktail created for Country Life
Generation game
Saluting the famous Frontispiece
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell falls in love with florals
Do you believe in cod?
The simple white fish deserves our care, says Tom Parker Bowles
A mixture of expertise and claptrap
David Profumo looks at changes in angling over 125 years
The cow that went global
Jamie Blackett on the welcome return of the gentle shorthorn
Pure singing
Henrietta Bredin on oratorios
Interiors
Palettes and patterns and paints
Another brick in the wall
Humble bricks can create true works of art, finds Jack Watkins
Property
Beautiful homes that share their birthday with Country Life
In the garden
Charles Quest-Ritson on climate change
Artist of the week
Walter Sickert under the microscope
Books, Art market, bridge and crossword and much more — not least Tottering-by-Gently
