About the magazine
A closer look at country life
The Hawker Country Edit
The Hawker Country Edit began with a habit of wanting to know more.
I have always been curious about how things work and the history behind them. How a great estate is run, how a farm works, who is behind it all and what we miss when we simply admire the view.
When I visit an old estate, I want to understand more than its beauty. Who has cared for it? What has it taken to keep it standing through generations? What goes on long before anyone arrives to enjoy it?
That curiosity takes me in all sorts of directions: local history, gardens, food, traditional crafts and herbalism. A plant growing beside a path can easily send me off reading about its history, its uses and the people who once knew it well.
When something catches my interest, I tend to become quite absorbed in it. I read, ask questions and keep going until I’m dangerously close to starting a podcast about it, usually talking Gabriel’s ear off in the process. After enough of this, my husband, and I decided we might as well turn all that curiosity into something useful.
The Hawker Country Edit became a place for us to learn more about the countryside together, to understand the life we are building here and, in some small way, prepare ourselves for the future.
Returning to England has made that curiosity more personal. I grew up in Costa Rica with an English father, so England was part of my life long before I came to live here. Now I am getting to know it for myself, often wondering what he would have shown me, what he would have told me and which places he would have loved.
This magazine is our way of getting to know English country life properly: its roots, customs and traditions and the people whose work keeps it going.
Through visits, conversations and a great deal of reading, we hope to look a little closer and share what we find.
Manuela Hawker
Founder & Editor