Country mouse - Mark Hedges
As Country Life moves office, Sheraton chair and all, Mark finds some fascinating bits and bobs whilst packing up


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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Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
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