From Shakespeare to treasured stalking trophies and scientific study, antlers in all their aspects never fail to impress and inspire, says Charles Harris

● A couple of weeks back, I overheard ...

Britain is a country mercifully bereft of threatening fauna–or so you might believe. John Lewis-Stempel provides a miscellany of our otherwise benign land’s more fearsome critters

On an open and windswept tract of land in Oxfordshire, where once stood some derelict barns and a lone maple tree, our guest editor has created a haven for his family and his honeybees, discovers Alan Titchmarsh

Above: Fast food: lunch only briefly interrupts driven ...

From a milliner inspired by topiary to a model-turned-ecological gardener and a couple who swapped jobs in telecommunications for growing vegetables, Sir David Beckham’s rural heroes tell Julie Harding why craft and the countryside are key