Hall Place, Hampshire: The fabulous house where the Duchess of Cornwall spent her idyllic childhood summers
Hall Place in West Meon, Hampshire, is currently the home of Michael and Claudia Langdon. Yet for many years it was owned by the grandparents of HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, and was specially chosen by her for coverage in her guest-edited issue of Country Life.
Inside Kelmscott Manor, William Morris’s ‘heaven on earth’ in the Cotswolds
Jeremy Musson visited a house that was beloved of William Morris, the poet, designer and founding father of the conservation movement.
The best country house architects in Britain
Back in March we published our updated list of the finest architects in Britain — the people you need to go to for serious work on a country house.
Mapperton House: Still the nation’s finest manor house?
In June, Timothy Connor explained more about the home of the Viscount and Viscountess Hinchingbrooke, the Dorset home that is one of our most celebrated manor houses.
The Royal Yacht Britannia: How The Queen created a floating home and theatre of state
We don't have a yachts editor — perhaps next year — but architecture editor John Goodall was more than happy to go aboard HMY Britannia to tell its unique story.
Longstowe Hall: The superb country house that makes you feel like you’ve ‘stepped into a 17th-century Dutch painting’
Incredible stuff in the form of an Elizabethan house that was remodelled by an Edwardian industrialist who created superb interiors in the aesthetic of the Dutch Masters.
Beeleigh Abbey: An incredible medieval house that’s barely altered since Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the monasteries
Just last month we looked at the house — including the sumptuous library — of a building whose survival is an extraodrinary quirk of history when so many similar places were razed to the ground.
Fulbeck House: A wonderful home ‘that arrests the eye as an ideal of English country living’
Nowhere lost more great country houses that Lincolnshire during the 20th century — but this one remains, and is in splendid shape.
London’s lost masterpieces: The palaces and Georgian gems torn down in 30 years of 20th century madness
London would look very different had it not been for the widespread demolition of Georgian architecture in the 20th century. John Martin Robinson took a look back at what was lost and what was fortunately saved.
Balmoral: A Highland paradise, and the much-loved royal family summer escape since 1848
After Her Majesty passed away at Balmoral in September 2022, we revisited Mary Miers' fascinating piece from a decade previously about this true home-from-home for the royal family.
Blenheim Palace: The story of the English answer to Versailles
Quite simply one of the outstanding palaces of Baroque Europe, planned as both a residence and national monument, was the subject of John Goodall's piece in the summer.
See Country Life's top 10s of 2022
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This blissful converted mill has sweeping views, a breathtaking library and gardens by a Chelsea gold medallistPenny Churchill takes a look at Stanbridge Mill, one of the finest properties for sale today in the west country.
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The smooth collie: A working breed with beauty and brainsOnce the go-to Scottish herding dog, the smooth collie is as elegant as it is dependable — a working breed with beauty and brains.
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Allerton Castle: The great country house that blends Hampton Court, Highclere and the Palace of WestminsterA disastrous fire in 2005 prompted the rebirth of Allerton Castle, North Yorkshire, an outstanding Victorian house with a deep and remarkable history. Photographs by Paul Highnam.
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In our built heritage, is the truth stranger than fiction?Athena considers how our historic buildings are presented in an age of film and television.
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Art Deco: The striking design style that embraced it allArt Deco, with its exuberant passion for geometry, luxury and shiny chrome, cocooned troubled times in a layer of glitz. A century after the style gained its name, Gavin Plumley surveys one of the 20th century’s most all-encompassing movements.
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Nuthall Temple: The Palladian masterpiece that was blown up to make way for the M1Every Monday, Melanie Bryan, delves into the hidden depths of Country Life's extraordinary archive to bring you a long-forgotten story, photograph or advert.
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Everingham Park: The revival of a lost vision of Georgian gloryBuilt between 1758 and 1764, Everingham Park, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was brilliantly reinvented in the 1960s. It also possesses an opulent chapel, a triumphalist product of Catholic Emancipation. John Goodall reports on this Georgian house, home of Philip and Helen Guest. Photography by Paul Highnam for the Country Life Picture Library.
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Sir Denys Lasdun: The brains behind the building branded 'a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London’ by The KingJohn Betjeman admired Sir Denys Lasdun’s work, but The King disliked it, and opinion remains divided to this day. Either way, the man who viewed ‘buildings as landscape’ has left an indelible mark on London.
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Thomas Cook: The travel agent who changed the world, and the house his descendants live in to this daySennowe Park in Norfolk is the home of Charles and Virginia Temple-Richards, the descendants of trailblazing travel agent Thomas Cook. Oliver Gerrish looks at the travel business that funded and informed the renovation of this extraordinary Edwardian country house.
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Eight of the UK's most impressive private libraries, as seen in the pages of Country LifeEvery Monday, Melanie Bryan, delves into the hidden depths of Country Life's extraordinary archive to bring you a long-forgotten story, photograph or advert.
