The thing about good ideas is that they sound incredibly obvious only after they’ve been invented. Take Deliveroo, for example. Looking back, of course it makes sense to get restaurants to deliver food, above and beyond the old-fashioned takeaway. Of course being able to summon a cab using an app will be a successful business, considering we tell everyone where we are all the time. Why didn’t I think of that?

Violet Manners has had an idea. In her own words, she was quite surprised that nobody else had thought of it first. How do we take privately owned country homes, castles and gardens, and create a simple way of allowing people to look at them, understand them, and then visit them? By creating a site where you can look at them, understand them, and then book a visit. It’s called HeritageXplore.

She joined the Country Life podcast this week to talk about HeritageXplore, what it offers, why it’s important and what it means for our, well, heritage. We expanded into conversations about how stately homes and gardens, often considered something ‘old’, are becoming something new, through tv shows such as Bridgerton and Downton Abbey, and how it’s important for privately owned country houses to take advantage of the wave of interest in these buildings and their stories.

And Violet is the perfect person to bridge the gap between heritage and the digital space. She tells us about growing up in Belvoir Castle and why her and her sister were entrusted with fishing pigeons out of the pipes. Listen to the full episode above, or wherever you get your podcasts. HeritageXplore is found at heritagexplore.com, and you can listen to Violet's own podcast, Hidden Heritage, wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode credits

• Host: James Fisher
• Guest: Lady Violet Manners
• Editor and producer: Toby Keel
• Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
• Special Thanks: Adam Wilbourn

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The award-winning journalist Chris Haslam doesn't just like beaches; he loves them.

Chris, chief travel writer for the Sunday Times, recently returned from spending seven weeks touring the coastline of Britain to produce his list of the very best beaches in Britain.

It's a mammoth undertaking, in which he and his dog — a Jack Russell called Dave — drove over 5,500 miles to inspect beaches from the tip of the Highlands to the Kent coast, and from the furthest tip of Cornwall to the broad sands of East Anglia and Lincolnshire.

He found beauty, joy, and plentiful fish and chip shops — but also came into contact with once-beautiful coastal spots that were clean and beautiful a decade ago, but are now tarnished by pollution.

For all that, though, Chris remains a huge fan and advocate of British beaches: 'Nowhere I've been in the world has the variety and raw natural beauty of the British coastline.'

He spoke to Country Life's James Fisher for this wonderful episode. You can read Chris's full list of beaches here.

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• Host: James Fisher
• Guest: Chris Haslam
• Editor and producer: Toby Keel
• Music: JuliusH via Pixabay and the Fly Guy Five via Epidemic Sound
• Special Thanks: Adam Wilbourn

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Buckingham Palace’s East Wing has opened up to visitors for the first time in 2024. St James’s Palace did so at the tail end of 2023. Even Balmoral — a royal residence privately owned by the Windsors, rather than part of the holdings of the Crown — has opened up its doors, something which would have been unimaginable during the lifetime of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Why has it happened, and what can it tell us about the Monarcy today? Country Life’s Architectural Editor John Goodall joins host James Fisher in this episode of the Country Life Podcast to talk about this, and much more.

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Some of the topics are very much in John’s ballpark: how to get your house featured in the pages of Country Life, and what you can expect once it happens, for example. But, never a man afraid to stray out of his lane, John also delves into the wonderful world of Taylor Swift concerts, how to build 1.5 million homes, and why sequin-covered books on architecture might one day be best-sellers. He even squeezes in a bit about how Oxford University ought to do a better job of keeping track of their own buildings. Enjoy.

Host: James Fisher

Guest: John Goodall

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay and the Fly Guy Five via Epidemic Sound

Special Thanks: Adam Wilbourn

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.