Country Life December 7 goes backstage at the Nativity; explores a deconstructed fairytale castle and offers up hampers of delight. Find out more here:
ARCHITECTURE: Evelyn Waugh’s vivid, wistful portraits of country houses foreshadowed their decline and fall, says Jeremy Musson
GARDENS: George Plumptre learns how the proximity of a motorway turned round the fortunes of the gardens around the historic hotel at Great Fosters in Egham, Surrey
WILDLIFE: The crafty cormorant, or ‘sea crow’, can dive to 30ft and swallow an entire eel, gulps David Profumo
SHEPHERDS: They may not receive angelic visits, but these shepherds feel blessed with their lot, says Adrian Dangar
THE NATIVITY: Rupert Uloth witnesses the delightful telling of the Christmas story that takes place every year in the Surrey Hills with a 100-strong cast, including donkeys and horses
BRITISH LETTERBOX: Andrew Martin hopes the jolly red British letterbox won’t be consigned to the same fate as the telephone box
COOKING: Melanie Johnson ensures we’ll eat our Brussels sprouts
HAMPERS: Jeremy Taylor unpacks the perennial excitement of the traditional Christmas hamper
INTERIORS: A dream dressing room and the joy of a second kitchen
PROPERTY: Penny Churchill on the Varsity Line and Annunciata Walton seeks the sun
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Caveat renovator: The TV star, the writer and the salvation of a crumbling farmhouseThe actor, writer and comedian Robert Webb and his comedy writer wife Abigail Burdess embarked on a renovation project in 2019 which became far more than they imagined — and just as the job is at last complete, they've decided that it's the right time to put house on the market.
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'People always think that, working on The Telegraph, I'll be told that things aren't right wing enough. But in 37 years, I've never, ever been told that’: The Telegraph’s cartoonist Matt on his consuming passionsThe Daily Telegraph cartoonist Matt — AKA Matthew Pritchett — talks to Lotte Brundle about his career as a cartoonist, his love of Snoopy and how he ‘stole’ his wife from Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen.
