Source/Archive record SCH993 - Country Life

Country Life is a British weekly quality magazine. It covers the pleasures and joys of rural life, as well as the concerns of rural people. It is primarily concerned with the lifestyle and concerns of landowners and other rich country dwellers, but it has many readers who do not belong to those categories. Much of its success has historically been built on its coverage of country houses. The first several dozen pages of each issue are devoted to colour advertisements for upmarket residential property, which are one of the best known attractions of the magazine, popular with many people who have little prospect of ever living in one of the lavish homes featured. Country Life was launched in 1897, incorporating Racing Illustrated. At this time it was owned by Edward Hudson, the owner of Lindisfarne Castle and various Lutyens-designed houses including The Deanery in Sonning. At that time golf and racing served as its main content, as well as the property coverage, initially of manorial estates, that has become its mainstay. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the late Queen Mother, used to appear frequently on its front cover. The frontispiece is very well known and is called popularly "Girls in Pearls", showing upper-class British rural life in its most ideal light.