Country Life is moving. Next week, our shiny new office will be directly behind Tate Modern, merely a few hundred yards from our current home, the unloved King?s Reach Tower. In 1975, Country Life left its beloved town house designed by Lutyens in Tavistock Street. Nothing has been quite the same since.
Thirty-two years later, the editor?s office still holds the set of Lutyens chairs and the somewhat uncomfortable Sheraton chair that all the editors have sat on. There is also a grandfather clock that stands in the corner, but how these pieces of nostalgia and beauty will look in the new edifice of glass will be interesting. It has been fascinating packing up. Seemingly, out of every book falls a note of interest. The books themselves are remarkable in their variety and number. Packing has not been a quick process with so many distractions. But when has moving ever been easy?
When Country Life left its home in Tavistock Street, a poem of lament was written. There is no sadness in leaving our current tower block, only a gentle hope that nothing could be so bad ever again. Here?s to a bright (very bright) new home for Country Life. MH
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The Country Life guide to Somerset: What to do, where to stay and how to eatSomerset is rich in natural beauty and history, but it is its wealth of small-scale food and drink producers, farmers and makers that really set it apart from the competition. Find out how to make the most of it all with our indispensable guide.
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How to make a gloomy city garden into a haven of colour and natureTiffany Daneff discovers how to transform a typically dark London back garden into a light-filled green haven that is always in use. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
