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Athena: Perhaps the time has come to be more honest about the importance of beauty
When it comes to buildings of historical and architectural note, we don't love them simply because they are old, but because they are beautiful and engage our attention.
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Minette Batters: 'I naively believed we could help teach our fellow African farmers how to farm. How wrong I’ve been; we have so much to learn from them'
A rewarding trip to Kenya, planning a maiden speech in the Lords and hope for farming’s roadmap in 2025 and beyond.
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Patrick Galbraith: Lisbon, Voices of the Old Sea and some dodgy oysters
On a recent trip to Portugal, Patrick Galbraith was laid up with food poisoning. It allowed him time to reflect on tourism, tradition and the great travel writer Norman Lewis.
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Carla Carlisle: 'Writing a weekly column is like being married to a nymphomaniac'
In her last column for Country Life, our longest serving columnist reflects on what it means to write about herself and the world each week, and why she's decided to stop.
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Farmer's Life: Supermarket eggs can be several weeks old. The ones I sell are usually six hours old — but I still get customers who worry because they don't have best-before dates stamped on them
Farmers need to convince consumers that the choices they make are integral to preserving the British environment, says Douglas Chalmers
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The Country Life Christmas message by Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy: ‘The most powerful person in the world’ is not an emperor, high priest or CEO, but a helpless baby in the arms of a loving mother
Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy on how Christmas shows us that ‘the most powerful person in the world’ is not an emperor, or a high priest or the CEO of a tech company, but a helpless baby in the arms of a loving mother.
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'Conflict, back-stabbing, vendettas, false promises and the taking of malicious glee in others’ misfortune': Why Risk is exactly what Christmas is all about
Taking over the world might not seem the most festive of activities, but a game of Risk will see you through from First Night to the last of the leftovers.
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Jason Goodwin: 'When I was 18, I tried playing it cool. I believed next to nothing. I rolled my eyes at solemnity and ceremony. The business of shedding my cool has been years in the making'
Jason Goodwin on how seeing the world through the eyes of others makes him wonder why he spent years pretending not to be impressed.
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Curious Questions: What is a tin tabernacle?
Martin Fone looks at the history of the tin tabernacle, and discovers a tale about the origins of corrugated iron, the history of the church in Britain and how Queen Victoria's ballroom at Balmoral got turned in to a joiner's workshop.
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Minette Batters: 'I don’t believe this Government set out to wipe out the family farm. Yet it will be the consequence'
Minette Batters — a farmer, former NFU President and a Baroness sitting in the House of Lords — has a harsh warning for Keir Starmer's government.
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A spot of Bovaer: The dairy cow additive that's set tongues wagging isn't bad for anyone — and it's just what we need if we want both milk and clean air
Country Life's rural columnist Agromenes looks at the huge improvements being made to the air that we breathe, through the unlikeliest of ways.
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Curious Questions: Did the Victorians pave the way for the first ULEZ cameras in the world?
Martin Fone takes a look at the history of London's coalgates, and finds that the idea of taxing things as they enter the City of London is centuries old.
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Carla Carlisle: We've diversified, modernised and compromise — but now we're farming at a loss again for the first time since the 'Great Betrayal'
Carla Carlisle laments what has become of Wyken Farm — and worries how much worse it may yet get.
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Less packaging please, we're British: Why it's only fair for producers to pay for their own recycling
Ignored by the media and largely unknown to the general public, the 300-odd pages of this Statutory Instrument may fundamentally change all our lives.
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Jonathan Self: November used to be a month of bleak fields and naked trees; this year we had summer flowers in bloom and ate lunch on the terrace
Jonathan Self discovers a name for his sense of unease caused by life being out of balance.
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‘You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life’: The unforgettable life, times and pithy quotations of Winston Churchill, 150 years on from his birth
On the 150th anniversary of the great man’s birth, we pay tribute to Sir Winston Churchill using his own words, as compiled by Amie Elizabeth White and Octavia Pollock.
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The home is more than just 'a machine for living in': how architects, interior designers and builders respect the past, embrace the present and define the future
Restoration is more than just a plaything for historians — it's the foundations on which styles, taste and form evolve.
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The end of deference: Why using the right title matters
It might be an 'old-world problem', but using incorrect form when addressing someone is a symptom of laziness and inaccuracy that we should all worry about.
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Minette Batters: 'There are serious questions to be asked as to whether the advice given to ministers is correct'
The former NFU President and crossbench peer worries about the effects of the latest budget, and asks why we can't test whether farmers are actually farming.
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Agromenes: A budget of betrayal
Labour has turned it's back on the farming community with its latest plans on Agricultural Property Relief.
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The law of unintended consequences is teaming up with Britain's latest tax rises — and it'll hit our historic houses hard
Country Life's cultural commentator Athena takes a closer look at last week's budget and foresees trouble ahead.
