Country Life July 5 2017 is our brilliant best of Britain number. Highlights include Tom Parker Bowles on how to eat British for a year, what it’s like to run Wimbledon, the V&A and other great institutions of this sceptred isle, 50 things we gave the world, interviews with the last Dambuster and Edward Fox, Burghley’s Heaven Room and Carla Carlisle on the state of the nation, plus Scottish fashion and the most trousers ever seen on a Country Life Frontispiece. Find out more:
ARCHITECTURE: Jeremy Musson explores the Heaven Room at Burghley in Lincolnshire and how it reflects the ambitions of the Cecil family
GARDENS: The garden at Felley Priory in Nottinghamshire is thrilling once more, finds Non Morris
MY FAVOURITE PAINTING: The Duchess of Cornwall reveals which work can she ‘never pass without stopping to marvel’?
LAST MAN STANDING: The last surviving Dambuster talks to a 12-year-old admirer about the heroic raid. Jonathan Self listens in
BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE ESTABLISHMENT: What’s it like to edit Today or run the V&A? Emma Hughes talks to the people in charge of 12 of Britain’s greatest institutions
BRITAIN ON A PLATE: Back this country’s farmers and pro-ducers using Tom Parker Bowles’s guide to eating British for a year
50 THINGS BRITAIN GAVE THE WORLD: Kate Green and Giles Kime argue that Britain has, for centuries, led the world in all that is civilised
INTERIORS: Arabella Youens asks leading designers about the future of British craftsmanship
COOKING: Melanie Johnson cooks goose- berry-stuffed rolled pork belly
FASHION: Heritage fabrics make for classic clothing that can be worn come rain or come shine
THEATRE: Michael Billington reflects on how our theatre is the envy of other nations
CRICKET: Roderick Easdale argues that more punchy tactics are needed from England’s new captain
PROPERTY: Penny Churchill rounds up some country houses perfect for families and Annunciata Elwes investigates five classic village-property types
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