Country Life: Intelligent stories for the curious mind
For more than 125 years, Country Life has celebrated modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures.


The first issue was published January 8, 1897 — Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee year — under the exacting eye of its founding editor, Edward Hudson. Advertisements cluttered the front page — they were not confined to the inside until 1941 — the Frontispiece was a middle-aged Earl of Suffolk and the articles covered a remarkably wide range of topics, from the rules of Association Football, to, rather more expectedly, the country house. Its success was instant.
And in February 2025, we expanded our online offering, reaching an ever-growing Country Life audience in the process.
As well as property, we cover the best bits of the British countryside, from country house hotels to dogs and the people who live and work in it, cultural events of interest — at home and abroad — interiors, gardens, cars and all things style. We move in time with the seasons — who isn’t buoyed by the ritual sight of snowdrops, signalling the first days of Spring — believe in having fun, and like to bring you stories you likely can’t find anywhere else, written by leading and emerging voices.
We are a guardian of the past and a blueprint for the future.
Welcome to Country Life.
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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.
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The National Gallery rehang: 'It is a remarkable feat to hang more with the feeling of less', but the male gaze is still dominant
Almost everything on display at the National Gallery has been moved — and paintings never previously seen brought out — in one of the the biggest curatorial changes in the Gallery's history.
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Lutyens's last masterpiece comes up for sale in Oxfordshire, with 27 bedrooms and a cricket pitch
Middleton Park in Middleton Stoney is a vast country home that must surely be among the nation's best