VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I have been thinking, this week, about the harvest. Not just the harvest of the fields—the wheat and the barley, the oats and the rye—but the harvest of our lives. The seeds we have sown in spring, the labour we have offered through the long days of summer, now coming to fruition in the golden weeks of autumn. There … Continue reading A Prayer for Harvest
BY SEAN WALSH The London nightclub Fabric (which temporarily closed in 2016 after just a handful of drug-related deaths) has agreed a four-year contract with St Paul’s Cathedral (consecrated to the worship of God in 604 AD). Why? This is how the club’s owner sees things: Over the next four years, we’ll present a broad range of artists from across the contemporary music landscape, with … Continue reading Raving in the Nave
BY ALLISON LEE When an invitation arrived in my inbox to attend the Sakura Spa Launch at Gisborough Hall, I was happy to accept. It had been many years since I last visited the Hall, and I was intrigued to see how things had changed. Gisborough Hall is a country house retreat set a short distance from the coast and tucked away in the beautiful … Continue reading Sakura
CITY GRUMP How many times over the last thirty or so years have you read an interview with some public figure who, when asked what they do with their money, happily replies with, “Well, my best investment has always been in my house”? Not anymore. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, domestic property is Donald Ducked. Indeed, in real terms, … Continue reading In Equities We Should Trust
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The British establishment’s resistance to artificial intelligence in governance masquerades, at best, as principled conservatism, a defence of the constituency surgery, the ministerial red box, the human touch. It is, in truth, a defence of administrative fiefdoms. The civil service, the silent colossus of Whitehall, has become the obstacle to the democratic will it was designed to serve. The answer is not … Continue reading Digital Magna Carta
BY ED ANDERSON If you were to step off at Manuela Malasaña metro in Móstoles in July, you´d be greeted by a typical Madrid satellite town. A Basic Fit here, a baking Plaza del Sol there and a smattering of bars that thankfully won´t be changing you 5 euros a caña. Mercifully, there is not an instagrammer in sight. However, hidden away here and in … Continue reading Have Spain´s Wildfire Communities Already Been Forgotten?
BY SEAN WALSH Traditions exist for the preservation of the truths, practices, and things which comfort us, so that we can pass these gifts on to people not yet alive. Modernism exists to disrupt all this via energetic historical revisionism and a continuous recreation of Year Zero. To the modernist, the inheritance rights of future generations are no more than useful fictions intended to serve … Continue reading Norcross Knows Cricket’s Soul
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust that you are well and healthy. I have been thinking, this week, about the particular gift of this land we call home. Not a grand, boastful land, but a quiet one—a land of hedgerows and footpaths, of dry-stone walls and winding lanes, of village churches and market towns that have stood for a thousand years. It is … Continue reading A Prayer for the British Countryside
BY ALLISON LEE Whilst we are all well aware of the rapid damage our planet is suffering, not everyone knows how they can help minimise environmental harm and social exploitation. Yet each of us can make a significant difference simply by considering where we buy our clothing. Fast fashion brands enable rapid production and target fashion-conscious consumers seeking trendy, low-cost clothes. This inherently drives environmental … Continue reading Aspiga
BY NICHOLAS ENGERT There is a theory that coat hangers, when left alone in a wardrobe, multiply and, before you can blink, two have multiplied to ten or more. Worse, they will all be of different types, sizes and materials. Using this as a general principle, so it is with all the other stuff we collect throughout our lives. Those who move house every five … Continue reading The Things We Keep
BY NIALL McRAE The 1960s moderniser tried to improve Britain’s transport (unlike current policies) Six decades have passed since the last train left West Bexhill. The ornate Edwardian building has survived, now used for auctions, with a café in the former ladies’ waiting room. The spur of the London to Hastings line closed in the Sixties by the ‘Beeching cuts’, the town being served by … Continue reading In Defence of Doctor Beeching
BY NIGEL MANN Reform UK is making a determined pitch to rural Britain, positioning itself as the champion of a countryside it claims has been neglected and “scapegoated” by Westminster elites. Its platform, focused on backing farmers, cutting red tape, and scrapping “net zero” targets, directly targets a constituency that feels increasingly invisible. However, this strategy is fraught with internal contradictions, exemplified by the recent … Continue reading Reform UK’s Countryside Dilemma
BY ALEX STORY The August Bank Holiday weekend fills the good people of Notting Hill with dread. Those who can flee do; those who can’t board themselves up inside their houses. Their front gardens, if they have one, front doors and outside walls will be used by the throngs as municipal facilities. A couple of years ago, after two fatalities, eight stabbings and over sixty … Continue reading The Carnival
VICAR Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, as the Editor wrote this week, the countryside does not rush. It has its rhythms, its seasons, its own unhurried pace. The oak tree does not try to grow faster than the oak tree next to it. The river does not hurry to reach the sea. They simply are, and in their being, they teach us to be still, … Continue reading A Prayer for the Turning Seasons
BY ALLISON LEE Organised by the International Sheep Dog Society (ISDS), the International Supreme Sheepdog Trial is a prestigious annual event that brings together top handlers and their dogs from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland to compete for the title of Supreme Champion. The competition showcases the dogs’ natural instincts and abilities, as well as the strength of their partnership with their handlers. Using only … Continue reading The International Supreme Sheepdog Trial 2026
BY NICHOLAS ENGERT In a world of over abundance and hence over consumption, we increasingly fail to discern between what is truly beautiful and yet functional and the cheap or vulgar alternative. Consider three simple objects we use around our homes, namely a pencil, a flower pot and a tea towel. So pedestrian and mundane are these articles we fail to appreciate that their elegance … Continue reading Simple, Elegant & Functional
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The English countryside does not shout. It simply is. Consider the hedge. Not the clipped suburban thing, but the ancient wall of hawthorn and bramble, wild rose and blackthorn, woven against wind and time. The hedge-layer knows what we have forgotten. He bends the long whips nearly to the ground, wounds them so they send up thicker shoots. Strength lies not in … Continue reading The Wisdom of Entanglement
BY ALEC SWAN There comes a time, usually when the first frost bites hard and the last curlew’s call fades across a barren moor, when one must ask serious questions of those entrusted with the guardianship of our natural world. Are they merely incompetent, or have they, in the words of a more cynical age, simply come to see the public as an endless cash … Continue reading Hoarding, Hypocrisy, Hollow Promises
BY ROGER WATSON One of the joys and privileges of private club membership is that most clubs have reciprocal arrangements with other clubs around the world. My club in the UK is The Royals Scots Club in Edinburgh (Country Squire Magazine passim) which has reciprocal arrangements with a wide variety of clubs in the UK and on every continent. I rarely have time to explore … Continue reading The Brisbane Club
BY JACK WATSON Getting a part-time job at Dunkin’—the American fast-food chain famous for its donuts and coffee—was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Instead of spending my summer holidays as a nocturnal teenager glued to video games or parties, I took advice from my grandma and the editor of this magazine to create a CV and apply online (everything’s digital these days). … Continue reading One Application Changed Everything
