IT was two days until Christmas and the afternoon sky was blue and crisp as Lydia’s car pulled up in front of the magnificent Bristol Hotel. Why was it called the Bristol? she wondered. It was nowhere

When fashion designer Louise Markey and her husband, former BBC Radio 6 Music DJ, Tom Ravenscroft, first set foot in their eight-bedroom house in the Cotswolds, they were met with moth-eaten carpets,

Austenland – is there such a place? If so, it’s to be found in drawing rooms and parlours, not in sweeping vistas. So it’s appropriate that the Hampshire village of Chawton, Jane Austen’s home for the

Lee Miller’s artistic and historical sensibility

Penny Lancaster is the undisputed queen of reinvention. She began her career as a model in the 90s, later trained as a photographer and, after finding love with rock icon Rod Stewart, embraced her mos

The search for still-life subjects led the artist Kate Friend to some of the greatest gardens and gardeners in the country, discovers Tiffany Daneff