BIDDULPH GRANGE

This view of the entrance to the Egyptian grotto at Biddulph Grange is famous: its clipped yew pyramid and sphinxes appear in every history of English gardening, a perfectly composed, neat image of classical simplicity. It gives no clue to how bizarre the whole place really is: the sphinxes, for example, seen up close, look as if they were carved by a local mason after an engraving in a Victorian bible. The garden was made by James and Maria Bateman from 1840, when they bought the place, to 1861, when he had to sell, having spent every penny he had on his horticultural obsessions (he was, among other things, an orchidomaniac.) The huge mansion overlooking the Dahlia Walk was built in 1896 after the old house burnt down.

You enter an Egyptian crypt between the sphinxes, meeting the god Thoth in a red-glass-skylit chamber; but find yourself emerging, instead, from a mock-Tudor cottage dated 1856 with the Batemans' monogram. 

Areas of the garden are very formal, Italianate set-pieces, but then there are meandering paths with mossy boulders and ferns...

An enchanting Chinese miniature lake with brightly-painted bridge and pavilion with a bell-hung arcade leads (of course) from a small Indian garden through the arch, top right, in a whirlwind tour of the Victorian 'world'. A great variety of short tunnels with rough or smooth stone walls lead to the primal Stumpery, full of massive tree-roots, moss, ferns and rocks.