BY TOBIAS GRUB ‘Reginald’ – Straw-Stuffed Independent Takes 63% of Vote on Anti-Pigeon, Anti-Party Ticket LITTLE PIDDLECOMBE, DEVON – In what is being described as the most shocking upset in Devon politics for years, a scarecrow erected outside Piddlecombe Village Hall has been elected to the parish council. “Reginald” – a burlap-headed figure dressed in a moth-eaten tweed waistcoat and one broken welly – stood as … Continue reading Scarecrow Wins Election
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN There is a particular species of academic for whom the English countryside exists only as a theoretical inconvenience. They view it through the steamed-up window of a train carriage hurtling from one metropolitan seminar to another, or perhaps through the carefully curated lens of a BBC costume drama they once dissected in a journal article. It is a landscape of the mind, … Continue reading The English Countryside Does Not Exist?
BY CHRISTIAN McKEEFE A recent investigation by the Guardian and its European partners has laid bare a uncomfortable truth about the British countryside: it is disappearing at an alarming rate, with the UK ranking fifth-worst in Europe for the loss of green space to development. For readers of Country Squire Magazine, who cherish the very landscapes now under threat, the findings of this cross-border journalism … Continue reading Britain’s Disappearing Countryside
Rural homes often include floor areas that remain bare and underused. Awkward alcoves, narrow hallways, and uneven corners can feel difficult to finish using standard carpet rolls. Carpet offcuts and remnants offer a practical way to bring warmth and comfort to these spaces without forcing unsuitable materials into challenging layouts. Country living often involves adapting older properties over time. Smaller carpet pieces allow homeowners to … Continue reading Breathing New Life into Forgotten Floor Spaces in Rural Homes
BY NICK PEARCE Farmers and landowners across the UK have been given a last-minute opportunity to take part in the national census of farmland birds, as the organisers extend the deadline due to adverse weather. The Big Farmland Bird Count (BFBC), an annual event coordinated by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), will now run until March 1st, 2026. The extension comes after the … Continue reading Big Farmland Bird Count
BY ALEXIA JAMES For decades, if you wanted to see the British countryside on screen, you had to sit through yet another dreary adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel, all doom and gloom and women in bonnets looking miserable in the rain. But something rather wonderful has happened. The boot is now on the other foot, and our green and pleasant land has become the … Continue reading Green and Pleasant Land
Dear Editor, Recent peer-reviewed research shared by the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust has cast new light on the mounting pressures facing some of the United Kingdom’s most cherished yet threatened ground-nesting birds. The study focuses particularly on lapwing and curlew, both of which now hold red-list status due to significant population declines that have alarmed conservationists across the country. The comprehensive investigation analysed camera-trap … Continue reading Predation, Evidence, Balance
BY PHILIP WALLING What the Lynx UK Trust couldn’t achieve by straightforward means it is now trying to get by lawfare. It is applying for judicial review of Natural England’s refusal to grant any licence, now or in the future, for the release of lynx into the wild in Britain. I’ve written about this organisation and its aims before under the heading ‘This insane move … Continue reading Lynx Fanatics Won’t Take No For An Answer
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN In the rolling paddocks of motoring, where sleek German thoroughbreds once pranced and pretentious 4x4s posed, there now stands a singular monument to humble triumph. It is not polished (except by downpours). It smells vaguely of hawk and less vaguely of fart. It is ex-gamekeeper turned falconer and CSM columnist, Gary Baxter’s Dacia Duster, which has just lolloped, unburdened by vanity, past … Continue reading The Hare and the Duster
BY JOHN MUSGRAVE The race is on to save our country. And it starts in the stables of possibility this Christmas. Boxing Day 2025 looks like becoming a mass demonstration. Families plan to mobilise in support of farming and hunting on the Feast of Stephen. Up and down the land Boxing Day meets are set to attract record crowds. It’s a picture to gladden the … Continue reading The Race of the Swift
BY ALEXIA JAMES A revolution is unfolding across England’s cherished Green Belt, but not the one ministers promised. When the government introduced the concept of ‘grey belt’ land in late 2024, the public was assured it would target the unsightly and unused: disused petrol stations, abandoned car parks, and ‘poor-quality scrubland’ on town fringes. The reality, as stark new research from the countryside charity CPRE … Continue reading The Grey Belt Mirage: A Greenfield Free-For-All
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I found him on the third of December, on the jagged slate below the harbour wall. W12 – so-called for the zinc marked ring some do-gooding knave in sandals had clamped to his leg, turning a sovereign into a specimen. The tide had receded, leaving him arranged there with terrible finality: a crumpled monograph of salt and hunger, one wing extended in … Continue reading Conversation with a Seagull
BY BERT BURNETT A spectre is haunting the Highlands—and it is not the ghost of rebellions past. It is the sleek, corporate spectre of the ‘mega-laird’, armed not with claymores but with spreadsheets, investment portfolios, and a publicly-stated aim to “save the world”. As highlighted in a recent opinion piece by Dr. Josh Doble, these entities—billionaires, asset managers, and firms like Exeter-based Oxygen Conservation—are acquiring … Continue reading The Carbon Credit Con and Scotland’s New Mega-Lairds
BY PETER BROOK More than just a cooker, our Aga—known in the family as ‘Aggie’—is a cast-iron monument to the reliable comforts of home. It is the 90-year-old engine room of our kitchen, and the undisputed heavyweight champion of multi-tasking, often combining cooking with warming up young, wet lambs; drying anything from washing to damp hounds; keeping those same hounds warm and cosy at night; … Continue reading The Aga Can
BY BERT BURNETT The headlines are back, and so are the outstretched hands. Another rewilding charity, Trees for Life, has launched a campaign for £3.6 million of public and donor money to finance what can only be described as a series of vanity projects disguised as conservation. Their so-called ‘Missing Species Programme’ promises to restore lynx, beavers, red squirrels, and aurochs to the Scottish Highlands, … Continue reading The Great Rewilding Fraud – A Vanity Project Funded by You
BY ED ANDERSON Fiesta de la Transhumancia Madrid brings the countryside to the city One month ago, Madrid got to witness one of its most bizarre but beloved spectacles as hundreds of sheep and goats hurled themselves throughout the city to finish their long voyage of from the hinterlands of Spain to the heart of Madrid at Plaza Cibeles. There was something quite surreal about … Continue reading Fiesta de la Transhumancia
BY GARY BAXTER Right. Let’s talk about the great Highland heist. No, not the one with balaclavas and getaway cars – the one being carried out in broad daylight, dressed in the respectable suits of ‘investment managers’, ‘supply chain logistics’, and even the righteous robes of certain fucking charities. First up, we have the latest installment from our friends in the salmon farming industry, Bakkafrost … Continue reading Notes from the Actual Countryside
BY PETER BROOK A forgotten fruit of the country-house kitchen There are few fruits so old-fashioned, and so richly evocative of the English winter, as the medlar. Once found in every English rectory orchard and manor garden, its curious brown fruit was prized long after apples and pears had disappeared from the shelves. Today, the medlar is enjoying a quiet revival — a reward for … Continue reading The Medlar’s Reward
BY JAMIE FOSTER David Rivière’s “Dew Ponds” is an absolute gem of a book, a beautifully crafted exploration that transforms a seemingly simple feature of the landscape into a subject of wonder, history, and artistry. From the moment you pick up this compact yet richly detailed volume, it’s clear that this is a labour of love, offering a perfect blend of meticulous research and visual … Continue reading Dew Ponds
BY LIZ SMITH Let me be frank, Townies. I was one of you. For decades, I inhabited a world of comforting, soulless predictability. My existence was a symphony of beige: beige flats, beige meals from chain stores, beige conversations about the latest streaming service. My most significant interaction with nature was bravely rescuing a spider from the bath with a wine glass and a stiff … Continue reading In Praise of Mud
