Country Life August 31 2016 is our beautiful classic cars issue, featuring vintage vehicles, rallying, restoration and Beaulieu. Find out more:
EMMA BRIDGEWATER: The pottery maker chooses her favourite painting for us and explains why Samuel Palmer’s representation of the natural world is ‘like a prayer’
GARDENS: Buckland Abbey, the former Devon home of Sir Francis Drake, is surrounded by charming gardens that complement the aged building’s stonework, finds Tim Longville
ROYAL BEAULIEU: A monastic gatehouse became the heart of this great Hampshire country house, now the home of the National Motor Museum, reports Bruce Bailey
VINTAGE CARS: Charles Rangeley-Wilson talks to five vintage-car owners about why their cars mean the world to them
RALLYING: Classic-car rallies are opening up a whole new world of adventure motoring, as participant Paddy Walker reveals
COOKING: Melanie Johnson stirs up a sweetcorn-and-seafood chowder
HEDGEROW FEASTS: Our native nuts and berries are everything they’re cracked up to be, says forager John Wright, if you know where to look and what to do with them
WINE: Harry Eyres explains the attraction—and risks—of buying wine before it’s bottled
LUXURY: Hetty Chidwick discovers what Ben Miller and Gabriella Wilde couldn’t live without, how Herring shoes went worldwide and the latest news in the world of luxury
PROPERTY: Opposites attract Scottish house buyers, says Penny Churchill and Carla Passino finds Lewes in East Sussex is small but perfectly formed
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'Just look at those stairs. Just as an art form, they are bewitching, like the shell of a nautilus': The lure of buying a stairway to heavenIt seems like madness to buy a house purely because you fall in love with the staircase — but sometimes, they are simply so beautiful that it's impossible to resist. Toby Keel takes a look at some glorious examples of staircases we've seen in Country Life in the last couple of years.
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'I found myself in a magical world of a sun-dappled forest, speckled with wild flowers of kaleidoscopic colours and brilliant mosses': Solo walking in the PyreneesThe Pyrenees reserves its best treasures for walkers prepared to venture off the well-beaten trail, says Teresa Levonian Cole, on a solo holiday in Ribes de Freser.
