Land of Hope and Glory: British Country Life

Filming in North Uist for Land of Hope and Glory

For almost 120 years, Country Life magazine has been the property bible for anyone looking to buy a grand country house. Jane Treays, (Inside Claridge's), spent a year visiting cottages, manor houses and castles through the eyes of the magazine - and seeing how people live in them - from a crumbling historic mansion in Oxfordshire and a glorious Scottish estate basking in it's £13 million refurbishment to the inherited turrets of Picton Castle in Wales, and the noisy environment of the huntsman's 18th century kennels and cottage.

Our obsession with the rural dream - if money were no object, what sort of house would we have ... However, only 18% of us live in the country and many of us are divorced from a rural way of life... What is the reality of the rural dream?

** Milton Manor, Oxon - Anthony Mockler Barratt and Gwenda, ancestral inheritors, John Goodall

** Nicky Haslam - renting the hunting lodge - Arabella Youens

** Kinross - Donald Fothergill, millionaire owner- Clive Aslet

** Nicky Philipps - Picton Castle, descendant and artist

** Chiddingfold, Leckonfield and Cowdray hunt - Sage Thompson, huntsman, Rupert Uloth

** Annie Tempest, cartoonist, Norfolk

** Wardington Manor, Molly Walters, amazing plasterwork, Mary Miers

** Sir Roy Strong

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.