This year Country Life has been nominated for the prestigious PPA Cover of the Year Award, and you can help us win by voting online.
The cover which has been nominated was from May 2015, when Country Life was exclusively able to reveal the true face of Shakespeare. Found in a botanical book 400 years ago, this contemporary portrait was a revelation, and we put it on the cover.
** Watch the video of our story here
Here is an exract: 'Until now, the only authentic likenesses of William Shakespeare were found in the First Folio and his monument at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford, both created posthumously. The new image shows Shakespeare with a film star’s good looks, in the company of Lord Burghley, the most powerful man in the land.
Botanist and historian Mark Griffiths reveals in this week’s issue of Country Life magazine, out today (May 20), how he cracked a many-layered Tudor code and revealed the living face of Shakespeare for the first time, on the title page of The Herball by John Gerard, a 16th century book on plants, 400 years after it was first published.'
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‘Once upon a time they covered an area the size of Ireland’: The restoration of Britain’s native oyster reefs is shaping future marine projects around the worldJane Wheatley reports on an innovative project to restore Britain’s once plentiful native oyster reefs in Tyne & Wear.
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What connects Brutalism and fancy pink diamonds? The Country Life Quiz of the Day, October 17, 2025Featuring more questions on collective nouns. The perfect way to start a weekend.
