A 'heaven on earth in the Cotswolds' and the library of your dreams are among the best this year.
Hall Place, Hampshire: The fabulous house where the Duchess of Cornwall spent her idyllic childhood summers
Hall Place in West Meon, Hampshire, is currently the home of Michael and Claudia Langdon. Yet for many years it was owned by the grandparents of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, and was specially chosen by her for coverage in her guest-edited issue of Country Life.
Inside Kelmscott Manor, William Morris’s ‘heaven on earth’ in the Cotswolds
Jeremy Musson visited a house that was beloved of William Morris, the poet, designer and founding father of the conservation movement.
The best country house architects in Britain
Back in March we published our updated list of the finest architects in Britain — the people you need to go to for serious work on a country house.
Mapperton House: Still the nation’s finest manor house?
In June, Timothy Connor explained more about the home of the Viscount and Viscountess Hinchingbrooke, the Dorset home that is one of our most celebrated manor houses.
The Royal Yacht Britannia: How The Queen created a floating home and theatre of state
We don’t have a yachts editor — perhaps next year — but architecture editor John Goodall was more than happy to go aboard HMY Britannia to tell its unique story.
Longstowe Hall: The superb country house that makes you feel like you’ve ‘stepped into a 17th-century Dutch painting’
Incredible stuff in the form of an Elizabethan house that was remodelled by an Edwardian industrialist who created superb interiors in the aesthetic of the Dutch Masters.
Beeleigh Abbey: An incredible medieval house that’s barely altered since Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the monasteries
Just last month we looked at the house — including the sumptuous library — of a building whose survival is an extraodrinary quirk of history when so many similar places were razed to the ground.
Fulbeck House: A wonderful home ‘that arrests the eye as an ideal of English country living’
Nowhere lost more great country houses that Lincolnshire during the 20th century — but this one remains, and is in splendid shape.
London’s lost masterpieces: The palaces and Georgian gems torn down in 30 years of 20th century madness
London would look very different had it not been for the widespread demolition of Georgian architecture in the 20th century. John Martin Robinson took a look back at what was lost and what was fortunately saved.
Balmoral: A Highland paradise, and the much-loved royal family summer escape since 1848
After Her Majesty passed away at Balmoral in September 2022, we revisited Mary Miers’ fascinating piece from a decade previously about this true home-from-home for the royal family.
Blenheim Palace: The story of the English answer to Versailles
Quite simply one of the outstanding palaces of Baroque Europe, planned as both a residence and national monument, was the subject of John Goodall’s piece in the summer.
