Country Life

The award-winning architect Richard Hawkes is no ordinary designer of buildings. He has made his name and forged a career by creating some of the most astonishing new homes build in Britain in the past two decades. He joins James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast to talk about the homes he designs, many of which are built under the Paragraph 84 rules, which allow the creation of new homes in...

Millie Pilkington is one of Britain's best-known portrait photographers, with her work regularly appearing in Country Life as well as dozens of other publications. We were truly delighted that she joined James Fisher on the Country Life podcast this week to talk about life behind the lens. She talks about how she turned a hobby in to a dream career, one in which she has dealt with everything from...

Country Life's Gardens Editor Tiffany Daneff is one of Britain's foremost gardening journalists, having worked at titles including The English Garden and The Daily Telegraph, where she launched the gardening supplement. But while she's spent years writing about other people's gardens, this time she talks about her own outside spaces in this very special episode of the Country Life Podcast. From th...

For the past eight years, the Country Life Top 100 has been the essential list when it comes to finding the best architects, builders, interior and garden designers in the UK. The list is the brainchild of our Interiors Editor Giles Kime, who has used his decades of experience to showcase two of our nation’s great talents — architecture and design. Giles joins James on the podcast for a second tim...

We tend to think of the British countryside as rural idyll, a patchwork of fields, farms and forests, rolling on through time until rudely interrupted by the building of a new housing estate, a dual-carriageway or some other man-man incursion. But the landscape around us is changing constantly, has always been doing so, and always will. Fiona Stafford, professor of English at Oxford University, jo...

Helen Rebanks went from farmer, wife and mother to publishing sensation last year when her first book, The Farmer's Wife , earned huge success and a legion of fans — not least the likes of bestselling author Raynor Winn and Times columnist Caitlin Moran. Her bestselling tale of everyday life on the Cumbrian farm which she runs alongside husband James is a wonderfully honest look at the ups an...

What is a stone circle? Who made them, and how? And just as importantly, why? This week's guest joining James Fisher on the Country Life podcast is one of Britain's foremost experts on stone circles and henges: Professor Vicki Cummings, the archaeologist who is head of the School of History, Archaeology and Religion at Cardiff University . Vicki explains all you could wish to know about the most e...

Clive Nichols is Britain's top garden photographer. After originally starting his career in travel photography, Clive switched his focus to gardens — despite, by his own admission, knowing almost nothing about them at the time. It proved a brilliant move, however: he has since photographed thousands of gardens for publications including Country Life and The Sunday Times, to institutions such...

Norman Foster is unarguably one of the greatest architects of the last half century. We're delighted that he joins Country Life magazine for a very special episode of the podcast. Speaking to Country Life's Carla Passino, Lord Foster describes how he left school in Manchester at 16 before eventually working his way through university in order to forge a career as an architect, a role in which he h...

Country Life magazine's Rosie Paterson has the enviable task of travelling the world in order to report on where to go, when and why. She's also — and she probably won't mind us saying this — developed something of a reputation for being incident prone. Rosie speaks to Country Life podcast host James Fisher to share her tips on everything from the world's greatest hotels and destinations...

Tom Kerridge is one of Britain's best-loved chefs. In 2005, after years spent working at some of finest restaurants in London and the Cotswolds under the likes of Gary Rhodes, he took over The Hand and Flowers pub in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He quickly earned a Michelin star, a glowing reputation and a high profile which opened up opportunities in television, where he's been a familiar sight for m...

'The ability to go in and specify everything for an interior might be within the powers of an interior designer,' says Giles Kime, Country Life's long-standing interiors guru. 'ButI think when we're doing on our own homes, it's really important to take your time and put a lot of thought and effort into it.' Giles has spent 35 years writing about interiors, the last seven of which have been with Co...

The journalist and author Patrick Galbraith spent a week on the uninhabited island of Scarba, a speck on the map in the Inner Hebrides. In the course of his adventure, Patrick fished and foraged, walked and wondered, and went from moments of joy and beauty to pure misery. He came to the Country Life Podcast to tell us all about it, share some of the highs and lows, and explain what motivated him t...

Rosamund Young, the best-selling author of The Secret Life of Cows , has been a farmer for almost half a century. She joined us at the Country Life podcast to talk about her animals, the farms she's known, how the Cotswolds has changed in the years she's called it home, and her beautiful new book, The Wisdom of Sheep . You can read an exclusive extract from The Wisdom of Sheep on the Country...

This week's podcast features Country Life's long-standing property correspondent Penny Churchill, who looks back on three decades of writing about Britain's finest houses. From the ups and of the market in the past three decades to the quirkiest agents and owners, Penny speaks to host James Fisher to share her insights on the country houses that have been at the heart of her career. Episode credit...

Britain's landscape is dotted with quite incredible castles, from towering and imposing masterpieces to crumbling, romantic ruins. In this week's podcast, we speak to Country Life magazine's Architectural Editor, John Goodall — the man who didn't so much write the book on castles as write a whole bookshelf's worth — to find out which five are his favourites. John picks out five wonderful...

Country Life's first ever podcast sees us speak to the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Mark Hedges. Mark has been in charge of the magazine for 17 years, presiding over circulation which has risen year after year, bucking the trend of the publishing industry, and winning every award possible in the process. He’s done everything from writing about fishing to hob-nobbing with members of the Royal Family...