Country Life November 26, 2025

Here’s a look at some of what you’ll find inside.

It’s crunch time

What’s the perfect cocktail to pair with pickled-onion Monster Munch? Susan Low quizzes Neil Ridley, the crisp sommelier

Tipple tattle

Dust off the Dubonnet and break open that Bénédictine — Will Hosie spies some gems at the back of the drinks cabinet


Spread from Country Life November 26, 2025

(Image credit: Future)

Christmas gifts

Presents for pets, luxuries for ladies and gifts for gardeners — Amie Elizabeth White shares 10 pages of exceptional ideas

Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.

Sarah Lamb’s favourite painting

The Royal Ballet dancer chooses a scene surging with movement

The legacy

Kate Green hails Carl Giles, who created the Express’s much-loved Giles cartoon for 48 years

Country-house treasures

John Goodall is intrigued by the surviving stringing rack for bows at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire


Spread from Country Life November 26, 2025

(Image credit: Future)

To Manderley again

Jeremy Musson investigates Daphne du Maurier’s love of the country house, with the help of illustrations by Matthew Rice

Sticking with it

Emma Hughes learns how our love of Christmas stamps has burgeoned since the 1960s

Where there’s a will, there’s a whey

It’s time to forget French fromage and focus on home terrior, argues Tom Parker Bowles, as he takes a tour of great British cheeses


Spread from Country Life November 26, 2025

(Image credit: Future)

Spread from Country Life November 26, 2025

Thoroughly cream crackered

Tom Howells pays tribute to one of Ireland’s greatest exports…the Jacob’s Cream Cracker

The royal treatment

The life of the Bohemian ‘good’ King Wenceslas ended in an act of treachery, reveals Ian Morton

Game on

Mary Miers meets the Highland woodworker crafting beautiful and bespoke board games


Spread from Country Life November 26, 2025

(Image credit: Future)

A lot of bottle

A renaissance in British perfume is being fuelled by a focus on Nature, finds Amie Elizabeth White

Luxury

Amie Elizabeth White’s luxuries large and small, plus a few of Manolo Blahnik’s favourite things

Interiors

Arabella Youens celebrates the revival of the guest bedroom as a relaxing escape for visitors

A brush with genius

Tiffany Daneff admires the 17th-century botanical drawings of the unsung Alexander Marshal


Spread from Country Life November 26, 2025

(Image credit: ©Royal Collection Trust)

A window in time

November tea-break musings see John Lewis-Stempel hurtle through 150 million years of life on Earth in the blink of an eye

Scale model

The voracious pike is the stuff of piscatorial legend. David Profumo profiles the ‘pirate of the lake’

Arts & antiques

Carla Passino selects five festive offerings from the art world depicting everything from wide-eyed wonder to Yuletide knees-up

The silver touch

The sheen of elegant silverware can elevate mere eating into the more refined sphere of fine dining, says Matthew Dennison

And much more