After early profligate years in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, Francis Grant traded sporting scenes for portraits and climbed the ladder to become president of the Royal Academy. A forthcoming exhibition at Dickinson does justice to his drawing

Capturing the immediacy of fighting and the writhing bodies of soldiers, as well as keeping narrative clarity, proved enormously difficult for painters depicting battles before the advent of photography. Michael Hall reveals how they rose to the challenge

In the latest of his occasional series on greatest huntsmen he knew personally, Alastair Jackson recounts the life of the popular Sidney Bailey, who hunted the VWH for four decades

Farleys House in East Sussex, former home of surrealists Lee Miller and Roland Penrose, rivals Charleston for artistic inspiration, with rooms filled with photography, paintings and colourful murals, and a guest book signed by some of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century

Q My great uncle, James Athey Hunt (here seated on the left), was from Stocktonon-Tees and would have been 18 in February 1916. He was at Salisbury Plain during the First World War, but I have no idea

From landing hulking catfish on the Zambezi to talking tackle with Ted Hughes, COUNTRY LIFE’s fishing correspondent looks back on seven colourful decades