Sun Appears, Nation Collapses
BY ANONYMOUS The UK has got to be the only country on planet Earth where the sun comes out for three bastard days and the whole place starts acting like civilisation has officially collapsed. Thirty degrees. That’s it. Not fifty. Not people frying eggs on the pavement in the Australian outback. Not Dubai at midday. Not some desert village where the goats are wearing factor … Continue reading Sun Appears, Nation Collapses
Ethel
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a certain species of political creature that haunts the Westminster warren, a beast that is best understood not through the lens of constitutional theory or fiscal policy, but through the dusty, half-lit prism of an Irish builder’s breast pocket. I once knew such a builder. A tragic figure, in the end—murdered, as it happens, which is a rather definitive way … Continue reading Ethel
The Burning Question
BY BERT BURNETT Why Gamekeepers Are Refusing to Endorse the New Muirburn Code Scotland’s gamekeepers have issued a stark warning: they will not endorse the Scottish Government’s new Muirburn Code, a decision they claim is born not of defiance, but of a desperate need to prevent catastrophic wildfires. They argue that the new regulations, designed to protect peatlands, will ironically create a tinderbox, stripping them … Continue reading The Burning Question
On Niceness Versus Kindness
BY SEAN WALSH If only… I don’t know if you’re into the football? I’m not particularly, not since the politicians decided to pretend that they really cared about the “beautiful game” on the assumption that the rest of us did as well. But I was hoping that this year’s World Cup could be used to start waving the flag again, and especially in the face … Continue reading On Niceness Versus Kindness
Britain Burning
CSM EDITORIAL So Andy Burnham is coming for Number 10. The Manchester mayor—who has spent the last decade cosplaying as a northern everyman while racking up spending pledges like a teenager with a stolen credit card—is about to knife Sir Keir Starmer and claim the crown. And make no mistake: he will call an early election. Not because he wants to. Because he’ll have to. … Continue reading Britain Burning
Rewilders’ Wolf Howlers
BY CALUM CAMPBELL & NICK PEARCE The prospect of reintroducing wolves (Canis lupus) to the Scottish Highlands has become a recurring topic in environmental discourse, frequently accompanied by claims that this measure would naturally resolve Scotland’s deer management challenges, restore ecological equilibrium, and even contribute substantively to climate change mitigation. While these arguments possess considerable intuitive appeal and have garnered significant public support, a rigorous … Continue reading Rewilders’ Wolf Howlers
A Prayer for Fathers on Their Day
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, today brings us Father’s Day, and I find myself thinking of fathers not as they appear in greeting cards or sentimental verse, but as they are in the real, unvarnished life of the British countryside. The father who rises before dawn to check the livestock. The father who mends the same gate for the third time and does … Continue reading A Prayer for Fathers on Their Day
BZy Shepherd
BY ALLISON LEE Putting respite at the heart of UK Farming At its core, BZy Shepherd is more than just a livestock contracting and farm-sitting service—it is a movement dedicated to restoring balance to the lives of British farmers. Co-founded by young duo Holly Zeidler and Adam Broomhead, alongside their six-year-old collie, Tweed, the enterprise provides trusted, fully comprehensive cover across sheep, beef, dairy, and … Continue reading BZy Shepherd
Not Again!
BY CHARLES FARROW A Country Squire’s Guide to the Incomprehensible Stupidity of the Incomer Let me get this straight. They move out from London—Islington, usually, or that bit of Clapham where the sourdough costs more than a good collie—and within a fortnight they’ve got the RSPCA on speed dial and a Facebook post accusing us landowners of “livestock negligence.” The cheek. The absolute bleeding cheek. … Continue reading Not Again!
The Patience of the Apple
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a moment, in the deep June of the West Country, when the sun ceases to be a mere astronomical body and becomes a benediction. It slants through the leaves of the apple trees, dappling the long grass with pennies of light, and warms the stone of old farm walls with a patience that cities have long forgotten. It is in … Continue reading The Patience of the Apple
What?! Civil War?
BY STEPHEN PAX LEONARD Chewing the cud about something or other, Reggie peered out of the sash window, arousing the curiosity of the last of the ewes. He was breakfasting late. The Biedermeier wall clock reminded him of as much. Reggie was feeling idle, and had no intention of dispensing with the dressing gown just yet. The art of life was to be fancy-free after … Continue reading What?! Civil War?
A Fresh and a Ripe Pair
BY ALEX STORY Standing at the top of Salzburg’s thousand‑year‑old fortress on a sunny day, facing south into the heart of the Alps, one sees the Nonntal below, nearly at one’s feet. In spring, it is lusciously green. There, in fact, sang the nuns of The Sound of Music, their chanting still echoing enchantingly across the landscape. The Nonntal is split in two by the AlmKanal, a … Continue reading A Fresh and a Ripe Pair
How Norfolk’s Sheep Are Saving the Heather
BY ALEC SWAN There is a peculiar frustration known only to those who love the British countryside: the sight of three different conservationists offering three contradictory solutions to the same patch of land. You see it everywhere, from the Peaks to the Broads. But here, in a quiet corner of Norfolk, drawn from the pragmatic wisdom of a wildlife conservation trust, I have found a … Continue reading How Norfolk’s Sheep Are Saving the Heather
A Prayer for a June Sunday
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, by the time you read this, it will be June the fourteenth. The year is well into its stride, and the countryside knows it. The roses are in their first full flush, heavy and sweet, spilling over garden walls and along cottage porches. The meadows that were cut early for hay are showing a fresh green fuzz of … Continue reading A Prayer for a June Sunday
From Chalk Streams to Chichester
BY ALLISON LEE Lewis Clark first started fishing with his grandfather. While fly fishing for trout, he was introduced to the countryside, and his grandfather taught him about the life cycles of various insects and the different species of birds that fed on them. Lewis’s passion for fly fishing continued while he worked in London, and he spent many weekends fishing the chalk streams of … Continue reading From Chalk Streams to Chichester
Postmodern Politics
BY SEAN WALSH “Sound out 30 Manchester adjacent constituencies! There must be at least one with a humiliation fetish!” The “leadership contest” in the Labour Party is like the “war in Iran” in that neither is actually a real thing. Unless you can have a war without any warring or a competition for a job which doesn’t exist. It’s all very “postmodern”, as if things … Continue reading Postmodern Politics
The Colour of Conflict
BY NICHOLAS ENGERT To be born in the 1950s and spend one’s childhood in the 60s was to enjoy a good fortune denied to the previous generation. Whilst I wish in many ways that I had witnessed the 1930s and 40s, to be born in a time when the horrors of the Second World War were but a memory felt like a privilege. Even though … Continue reading The Colour of Conflict
My Neighbour’s Bush
Dear Sir, I have a problem. Her name is Margaret. Margaret lives next door. She is a widow, a retired yoga instructor, and the proud owner of a bush that has become the talk of the close. I should be clear. It is a Forsythia. Or it was, twenty years ago. Today it resembles something last seen in a documentary about the Amazon. It hangs … Continue reading My Neighbour’s Bush
The Trail Hunting Ban
BY ALEXIA JAMES A Masterclass in Urban Ignorance, Donor Servitude, and Moral Inversion There is a special kind of foolishness that can only be achieved when metropolitan prejudice marries political cowardice. The Labour government’s proposed ban on trail hunting is that rare policy that manages to be simultaneously cruel, stupid, and dishonest. It punishes no one who harms animals. It harms no one who protects … Continue reading The Trail Hunting Ban
Regnavit a Ligno
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I used to attend a friary chapel. Not out of piety, you understand—more out of a grim sense of obligation, and because the coffee afterwards was surprisingly tolerable. But I sat there, Sunday after Sunday, while the priest carped on about the environment as though the Holy Spirit had retired and been replaced by a Greta TED Talk. And then, just when … Continue reading Regnavit a Ligno