Balmoral

Mary Miers (Author) Mary Miers is a freelance journalist/editor, architectural historian and arts writer, who started her career in the field of heritage and conservation. After working for the Victorian Society, English Heritage and SAVE Britain’s Heritage, she joined the Scottish Civic Trust in 1990 and set up the Buildings at Risk Register, which she ran until 1999. She then joined the editorial team at Country Life, where she worked until 2020, first as Architectural Writer and then as Fine Arts and Books Editor. Mary has published seven books, the most recent being Highland Retreats: The Architecture and Interiors of Scotland’s Romantic North. She does lectures and broadcasts and sits on the committees of various building preservation trusts. Based in the Highlands, she is the president of the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland and an honorary fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.Christopher Simon Sykes (Photographs by) Christopher Simon Sykes grew up at Sledmere, and went on to become a journalist, photographer and writer. His work has appeared in Vogue, House & Garden, the Sunday Telegraph magazine and Architectural Digest among others, and he wrote and presented Upper Crust, a six-part series on country-house cookery for BBC Two. He has written seven books and photographed for fourteen, including The National Trust Country House Album, The Rolling Stones on Tour and The Garden at Buckingham Palace. He is married with two children and lives in North London.