Carole Annett Introduces Country & Town Interiors 2025

Carole Annett introduces this year’s Country & Town Interiors and the 50 Finest Interior Designers.

Editor’s Letter: Country & Town Interiors 2025

I’m delighted to share this year’s Country & Town Interiors and our ‘ta-da’ moment announcing this year’s UK-based 50 Finest Interior Designers. It’s always a pleasure to showcase the industry’s rich array of talent and there was plenty of choice as always. In addition, we are celebrating ten trailblazers, those instantly recognisable names, such as Katharine Pooley and Nina Campbell, OBE, whose work is consistently referred to and who inspire so many.

Interior design is influenced by personal feeling, taste and opinion, which is why at C&TH we feel it is so important to have voices on our judging panel who are not in the profession but who have a passion for home and an eye for design. Our judges this year are actor and presenter Richard E Grant, Henrietta Rix, co-founder of Rixo, and Sarah Laming whose instagram @ahometomakeyousmile has been showcasing her home and love of interior styling for six years, amassing over a million followers. We are indebted to them for their time and enthusiasm for what was, I hope, an enjoyable project. Tessa Dunthorne and Emma Love have done an immaculate job of sifting through the scoring sheets and writing up the winning entries, which I am sure you will agree is a fantastic showcase of beautifully crafted spaces.

Our features include a look at apprenticeships in the furniture and craft industry, which – hurrah – are on the rise. We sent Claudia Baillie to Castle Howard to preview the extensive restoration of the 300-year-old stately home (open until October if you want to see for yourself). We’ve put together pages of design ideas and for a finale, Eva Sonaike, the visionary whose eponymous African interiors brand celebrates vibrancy and pattern, compiles a list of her favourite things.

As ever, huge thanks to Cole & Son for supporting us and allowing us to take a snippet of its new Couture Carousel wallpaper design (a collaboration with Harrods) for the cover – I hope you love it as much as we do. And congratulations to this year’s Country & Town Interiors 50 Finest. You make the book what it is.

A version of this article appeared in the 2025 issue of ‘Country & Town Interiors’. Subscribe today to join the C&TH world in balance.