The devil’s porridge

Gin, witches, regicide, boats, nudists, an Egyptian curse, Spitfires, the invention of windsurfing and more writers and vineyards than you can shake a fishing rod at: this beloved English county has it all. Here are 13 stories you may never have heard about Hampshire

I’D seen an advertisement in my father’s newspaper for women to work on the canal boats. It said applicants should be of a robust constitution. I’m quite robust, so why not? I’d give it a go. “Look, D

BACK in 1606, Lord North was unwell. His “lingering consumptive disorder” baffled his doctors. A stay in a remote hunting lodge cadged from a friend hadn’t helped, but on a country ride he came across

Quaint relic or symbol of bad taste, garden gnomes have gone in and out of fashion. They are generally thought to have originated in Switzerland and Germany in the late 18th century. Then, in 1841, a

Eleven friends of COUNTRY LIFE pen a love letter to their small, yet oh so distinctive patches of the British Isles, from the big skies of the north Norfolk coast to the street art of Belfast, from the glens of Perthshire to the Exe estuary in Devon via the apple orchards of Herefordshire

This trip is confusing me. One moment I feel like I’m in New Zealand, surrounded by dense tree ferns in a damp and mossy glade above a waterfall. A couple of hours later I’m bombarded by ker-chings of