Country Life 30 October 2024

Country Life 30 October 2024 takes you behind the scenes of Alan Titchmarsh's Hampshire garden, how Britain bought the world's best art and the secret to hunting ghost orchids.

Zandra Rhodes’s favourite painting

The fashion designer chooses a colourful, cheering scene.

A home reborn

Magnificent Knowsley Hall, Lancashire, has been rescued from institutional use through an admirable restoration project and is once again a home, discovers John Martin Robinson.

The Legacy

Amie Elizabeth White dons a Blue Peter badge to salute the show’s creator, John Hunter Blair.

Heal the land, heal the waters

Our precious rivers hold myriad life forms, yet have been sullied by the hands of humans. John Lewis-Stempel urges us to take care of them.

You’ve got peemail

Dogs, bats and other creatures keep up with the news through sniffing and sensing. Laura Parker reports on the animal kingdom’s telegraph system.

The ghost hunters

Deep in a glad or underwater, our rarest plants defy discovery. Peter Marren joins the quest.

Let Nature never be forgot

A cornucopia of delights awaits Tiffany Daneff in Alan Titchmarsh’s Hampshire garden, with secluded seats, ponds and plenty of space for wildlife.

The Renaissance men

Well-educated and curious, the British tourists with an eye for art laid the foundations of our great collections, finds Michael Hall.

Return to the steppe

Teresa Levonian-Cole boards the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express to traverse Uzbekistan, a land brimming with art, history and caviar.

And, as always, much much more, including luxury, recipes, interior inspiration and gardens.