Tales from the echoing green

A short while after we married, Tom and I made the decision to leave behind our hectic London lives and relocate to the tranquillity of rural living. We wanted a slower pace of life where the countrys

Discover how the UK’s country houses defied the odds to survive as historic monuments and cultural centres

This year marks the 625th anniversary of The Canterbury Tales author – and “father of English literature” – Geoffrey Chaucer’s death. He penned this classic, about a merry band of medieval pilgrims te

There is perhaps no author quite so connected to their home county as Hardy is to Dorset. A tour of Hardy Country must start at the quintessentially perfect thatched cottage where he was born in 1840,

The village shop that sold pick ‘n’ mix sweets. A cowpat-strewn country lane with occasional glimpses of Glastonbury Tor. Leaping the wooden stile into Butterfly Wood. It’s over 30 years since I last

IT was a fine, windy day in September, and Rosalind Aston had an odd feeling that she was in love. The emotion was new, and she could not be sure, but she luxuriated in it as she walked towards the ha