Country Life 16 July 2025
Country Life 16 July 2025 is our sustainability special, looking at the animals who are saving our landscape, solar power, and the best of the Proms.


Here's a look at some of what you'll find inside.
Give us, this day, our sustainable daily bread
From eating better-quality meat to buying seasonal and local produce, Jane Wheatley suggests how we can shop smart to aid the environment
Solar, so good
Banks of solar panels covering farmland have sparked much opposition, but, with local input, could they be a force for good, wonders William Kendall
No job too big
Kate Green trumpets the native breeds best suited to grazing Britain’s green and pleasant land, as our farmers walk a fine line balancing food production and biodiversity recovery
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
‘It’s terrifying, but also an absolute dream’
Henrietta Bredin talks to Errollyn Wallen, Master of the King’s Music, about composing in a lighthouse and going on stage
Liz Fenwick’s favourite painting
The novelist picks a trailblazing nude by the first female RA
A passion for plasterwork
John Goodall discovers a neo-Classical delight when he takes a peek behind the unassuming frontage of a Swansea terrace
The legacy
Kate Green admires Rachel Carson’s seminal Silent Spring
A wing and a prayer
Hannah Bourne-Taylor extols the importance of feeding over the ‘hungry gap’ to help our beleaguered farmland birds
Country Life’s Little Green Book
We all want to shop well, but how to decipher the marketing? Madeleine Silver picks a handful of brands that do what they say
The good stuff
Let those bangles jangle, urges Hetty Lintell, with her bracelet pick
Interiors
Arabella Youens admires the rich refurbishment of a Scottish fishing lodge and laments the scarcity of trusty English oak
True grit
Gravel gardens are becoming ever more popular, but what are the secrets to making them a success, wonders Non Morris
Winging it
The ‘flying barn door’ that is the magnificent white-tailed eagle is returning to our shores. Mark Cocker, for one, is very glad
Arts & antiques
A lost technique is being revived by a Swiss sculptor, as pioneer-ing women of science are celebrated, reveals Carla Passino
War and peace
Tom Young’s intricate, powerful paintings capture the beauty and the heartbreak of Lebanon. Octavia Pollock meets him
All the world on one stage
Michael Billington finds Ralph Fiennes at his brooding best as Sir David Hare’s engrossing new play premieres in Bath
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by His Majesty 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 architect who created the MI6 building only designed a tiny handful of houses — and one of them is now up for sale in one of London's most bucolic spots
Sir Terry Farrell designed the beautiful, light-filled, T-shaped Drum House in Petersham, with gardens laid out by John Sallis Chandler, who has won multiple RHS Chelsea Flower Show gold medals.
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The teeny tiny car that you absolutely don’t need, but will absolutely want this summer — and it has an inbuilt shower
The Fiat Topolino has been reimagined by French swimwear brand Vilebrequin just in time for the summer holidays.