Country Life

The bushmaster snake is on the one hand, very polite: it announces its presence with a two-tone whistle. On the other hand, however, it's utterly merciless: a creature which will chase humans through the jungle, attack aggressively, and should it miss with its fangs will leap on to its intended prey and attempt to whip them in to submission. Listen to Country Life podcast on Apple Podcasts Listen...

We were thrilled to discover that Charlie Bigham is a real person. It's a bit like meeting Aunt Bessie, and asking how she does her Yorkshire Puddings, or running swapping tips with Ronald McDonald about how to get your fries crispy. But real person he is, and he's a man with a fascinating story to tell, from ditching a hugely promising career in order to drive a campervan to India, then to return...

Here at the Country Life Podcast, we like to think we deliver a useful and necessary service. We want to discuss the important issues. We want to talk to Norman Foster about why architecture matters. We want to speak to farmers about how they can help tackle the climate crisis. We strive to compress the beauty of nature into an audio format so we can learn to cherish and appreciate the world aroun...

If it wasn’t for The Stage, there’s every chance that Britain and, indeed, the world may have been deprived of such great names as Kenneth Brannagh, Harold Pinter, Michael Caine, Sharon D Clarke, Idris Elba, The Spice Girls and Steps. Listen to Country Life podcast on Apple Podcasts Listen to Country Life podcast on Spotify Listen to Country Life podcast on Audible It goes to show the importance o...

It’s important to think about the past. I think about it often. Usually when I’m lying in bed and my brain decides that’s the best time to think of mistakes I’ve made, loves that have been lost, and, of course, the Roman Empire. A lot of history is about kings, queens and battles. Which is very interesting in its own way. But is it real history? After all, most of history doesn’t involve kings or...

When it comes to the world of British art, few names are more widely recognised than David Messum. From extolling the virtues of the English Impressionists to resurrecting interest in the Newlyn School, David has spent more than 60 years reminding us all that English art is as good as any across the world. Listen to Country Life podcast on Apple Podcasts Listen to Country Life podcast on Spotify L...

This week on the Country Life Podcast, Matt Thompson — Curatorial Director of English Heritage — joins our host James Fisher to talk history. ·       Listen to Country Life podcast on Apple Podcasts ·       Listen to Country Life podcast on Spotify ·       Listen to Country Life podcast on Audible Recent rese...

The thing about good ideas is that they sound incredibly obvious only after they’ve been invented. Take Deliveroo, for example. Looking back, of course it makes sense to get restaurants to deliver food, above and beyond the old-fashioned takeaway. Of course being able to summon a cab using an app will be a successful business, considering we tell everyone where we are all the time. Why didn’t I th...

The award-winning journalist Chris Haslam doesn't just like beaches; he loves them. Chris, chief travel writer for the Sunday Times, recently returned from spending seven weeks touring the coastline of Britain to produce his list of the very best beaches in Britain. It's a mammoth undertaking, in which he and his dog — a Jack Russell called Dave — drove over 5,500 miles to inspect beache...

Buckingham Palace’s East Wing has opened up to visitors for the first time in 2024. St James’s Palace did so at the tail end of 2023. Even Balmoral — a royal residence privately owned by the Windsors, rather than part of the holdings of the Crown — has opened up its doors, something which would have been unimaginable during the lifetime of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Why has it happened, and...

Look around you. You might be reading this in your home. Or perhaps someone else’s home. The point is we spend a lot of time in our homes, more so now than ever before (apart from that year we don’t talk about). Listen to Country Life podcast on Apple Podcasts Listen to Country Life podcast on Spotify Listen to Country Life podcast on Audible They are our own private spaces — reflections on oursel...

The landscape photographer Charlie Waite is a true national treasure. A fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, he has published dozens of photography books and founded the Landscape Photographer of the Year awards back in 2006. We're absolutely delighted that he joined us on the Country Life Podcast, telling host James Fisher about his life in photography, how he was shaped by his early years i...

The Carbuncle Cup — the award given to the worst new building in Britain — has returned after a six-year hiatus. Competition judge and magazine editor Charlie Baker spoke to James Fisher about why pointing out bad architecture matters. You can see pictures of all the buildings Charlie and James discuss in our show notes . Listen to Country Life podcast on Apple Podcasts Listen to Country...

From the rollercoaster of mortgage rates to the calling of a surprise election, the economic landscape of Britain never seems to sit still these days. Thankfully, award-winning property journalist Annabel Dixon writes regularly for Country Life to help us make sense of what's going on and we're delighted that this week she joins James Fisher on the Country Life podcast. Annabel talks about whether...

We lead busy lives these days — which might be all well and good for getting things done, but is the last thing you want on holiday. That's the central idea behind a new book by the travel writer Liz Schaffer, Slow Travel Britain, in which Liz travelled to 22 off-the-track parts of Britain to really take them in. From walking Hadrian's Wall to exploring the unspoilt corners of the Pembrokeshi...

Some time between the formation of the earth, and now, some human beings decided to draw some lines on the sand somewhere to define ‘our bit’ of the earth and ‘their bit’ of the earth. We now refer to these lines as borders.   Journalist and author Jonn Elledge has always been fascinated by why and how this happens, and in this episode he joins the Country Life Podcast to talk about borders a...

On May 10, 1824, Britain's National Gallery opened its doors for the first time. This year, to celebrate its bicentenary, the gallery is hosting a whole string of events and celebrations to market the occasion . Of all these, perhaps the boldest and most eye-catching is National Treasures, a selection of just 12 from among the thousands of masterpieces in the National Gallery's collection. The 12...

James Alexander-Sinclair is one of Britain's foremost garden designers and writers. He's a regular contributor to Country Life magazine and many other titles, and a regular presence on television screens talking about gardening. He is also one of the top judges at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show — and we're absolutely delighted that he joins us to give a full behind-the-scenes account of the enti...

At the turn of the millennium, Isabella Tree and her husband Charlie Burrell faced a crisis. They were £1.5 million in debt after spending 17 years trying to run a farm that simply wouldn't grow the crops they needed for it to be sustainable. With all their efforts to effect change and introduce diversification failing, they took a drastic decision: to return the farm to Nature — a decision w...

Paula Lester has been running the features desk at Country Life magazine for over a decade. So when His Majesty The King — Prince Charles, as he was at the time — agreed to guest edit the magazine, she was the obvious choice to guide him and his team through the process. The result, as Paula tells James Fisher on this week's Country Life Podcast, could never have been foreseen: after mon...

The housing crisis in Britain has gone on for decades almost unchecked — but it's only thanks to voices such as Nicholas Boys Smith that we can use the word 'almost' in that sentence. Nicholas is the founder of Create Streets, a think tank and consultancy which looks at property development and town planning across Britain. He joins host James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast to explain wha...

Beyond the Monarchy and the Church, there is only one building in Britain which is designated with word 'palace': Blenheim Palace. This UNESCO World Heritage Site is beyond any doubt one of the world's greatest, and most famous buildings. It was built to commemorate a famous battle 320 years ago: the victory in the Battle of Blenheim led by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, in which the army of...

How important an interior designer is Emma Sims-Hilditch? 'In my view, she has almost completely turned the country house aesthetic on its head, and reinvented it for the 21st century,' says Giles Kime, Country Life's Executive Editor and our resident interiors guru.   'She's a great believer in creating houses which are not just elegant, but also function brilliantly and are perfectly config...

Kate Green isn't just the Deputy Editor of Country Life magazine. She's also one of the country's foremost equestrian journalists, having worked at four Olympic Games as well as countless other top events around the world. With her book on the 75th anniversary of the Badminton Horse Trials just launched, Kate tells the tale of how the crushing disappointment of the 1948 Olympics paved the way for...

What is it all about? It's the question that Man has been struggling to answer since the dawn if human consciousness. And while we all have to figure out our own answer, it's never less than fascinating to hear of others who've found theirs. And in that light, this week's guest on the Country Life podcast is Colin Heber-Percy, a successful screenwriter for film and TV who, in his 40s, stepped away...