Country Life on the BBC

Watch Country Life feature in a BBC documentary airing on October 20 following the fascinating stories of six frontispieces, or ‘girls in pearls’

A new BBC documentary features Country Life's much-loved frontispiece page as a starting point for an exploration of what comes next for the ‘girls in pearls' after they get married.

On Wednesday October 20 on BBC2 at 9pm observational documentary series Wonderland continues, seeking out the people and places that offer a glimpse of today's Britain that is usually hidden from view.

Country Life's ‘girls in pearls' have long been a conversation piece, the iconic page famously providing a never-ending source of fascination and a social record for more than a century of the changing expectations of women through war and peace-time.

High Society Brides, will follow the lives of five Frontispiece subjects, including Henrietta Tiarks, who became the Duchess of Bedford, and Kate Sackville- West, to find out whether the expectations of married life they held on the day they were photographed came to fruition.

Expect both heartbreaking and heartwarming stories in the programme, which airs on BBC 2 at 9pm on Wednesday, October 20. Next week in COUNTRY LIFE (October 20), Features Editor Flora Howard interviews the producer Hannah Berryman about her conclusions.

Country Life

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.