Country Life 10 July 2024

Country Life 10 July 2024 asks the country house experts who they turn to when they need to get things done to their own homes, and rejoices in the rise and rise of the Victoria sponge.

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Here's a look at some of what you'll find inside.

The experts’ experts

Giles Kime and Amelia Thorpe ask Britain’s leading lights in design to name the talented professionals who inspire and transform their own projects

The dog with the waggiest tail

Move over Crufts, the village pooch parade is the one they all want to win with local bragging rights hanging in the balance, as Madeleine Silver discovers

Rooting for the truth

Pilfering pest or beneficial ecosystem engineer? Vicky Liddell examines the often-controversial return of wild boar to Britain’s woodland

Oh, crumbs! Secrets of the sponge

How did the Victoria sponge rise to be fêted as the queen of all cakes? Flora Watkins indulges in the history of the nation’s favourite teatime treat

Philippa Thorp’s favourite painting

The interior designer chooses a powerful work that unlocks a whole range of emotions

The devil is in the detail

Minette Batters insists that the incoming Government must be held to account over the many lavish pre-election promises on food security and farming

Salvaging the vine

In the first of two articles, John Goodall charts the long, hard struggle to bring to fruition one Bishop of Lincoln’s dreams of establishing a college at Oxford

The legacy

Amie Elizabeth White brews up a tale of 18th-century success as she celebrates Thomas Twining’s role as a tea pioneer

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell earns her summer stripes with elegant blue-and-white pieces for home and away  

Ancient and modern

George Plumptre is heartened to witness a clever modern renovation of Nash’s Picturesque vision at Sandridge Park, Devon

If you’re lookin’, you ain’t cookin’

Tom Parker Bowles harnesses the flame’s fickle power as he shares a chef’s secrets of the perfect barbecue technique

In the dock

John Wright grasps the nettle in a hands-on investigation into the powers of the dock leaf—and, he says, it is your turn next

Word on the street

Smart Duke Street in London’s St James’s is the epicentre of British art. Carla Passino meets the larger-than-life characters who put the area on the map

Go tell the congregation

Matthew Dennison can’t help but sing the praises of Isaac Watts, that most prolific of hymn writers born 350 years ago

Goodbye, James Anderson

James Fisher pays tribute to English cricket’s legendary fast bowler ahead of his farewell Test match against the West Indies

And much more

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.