A haunted country house complete with ghost has a certain allure, whether you believe in the paranormal or not. But whatever your stance, there are often very real – and…
Rory Knight Bruce

The Exmoor Forest Inn and Duredon Farm review
WHILE many of us make the late summer caravanserai to Scotland, there is another destination for discerning sportsmen and naturalists which is the wide open moorland of Exmoor. Here, stags…
Why moorland is a matter for us all
Beneath a cloudless azure sky on the Lancashire moorland, not far from an abandoned stone barn, a diurnal short-eared or ‘bog’ owl is clapping its wings 50 feet above the…
The Inn at Whitewell review
In John Martin Robinson’s magnificent book A Guide to the Country Houses of the North West (1991), there are many examples of the private mansions of Lancashire that no longer…
The Sealyham terrier
On a slight bend in the road to the ferry ports for Ireland in Pembrokeshire, a small sign indicates a village destination a few miles distant. It may mean nothing…
The landscapes of Britain that inspired the literary greats
One of the conundrums of the great and varied landscapes of Britain is whether or not the land is more important than the literature it inspired. Or is the literature…
Field Interview Captain Ian Farquhar
In the welcoming front room of Captain Ian Farquhar’s Gloucestershire home, a lit wood burner casts a mellow patina of light over a lifetime of memorabilia: paintings, silver foxes, photographs,…
Parlour Games For Christmas
On one cerebral festive occasion in an Irish castle I was invited to join in an incomprehensible word-play game with two Oxford undergraduates, then in full command of their intellectual…
Pub signs: a journey through history
There is more to pub signs than you might first think, says Rory Knight Bruce as he takes us on a tour of some of the most interesting around the…
The joy and exhilaration of a point-to-point
Rory Knight Bruce celebrates the joy of a point-to-point, with its amateur spirit and ability to pull together all parts of rural life. (Find point-to-point fixtures for 2023 here.) Be…