Close to the heart of Norwich, adjacent to the Catholic Cathedral, lies a hidden garden tumbling into a former chalk quarry. The Plantation Garden was a labour of love for one Henry Trevor, a prosperous Victorian cabinet maker. For forty years, eccentric Henry lavished time, effort and considerable money on his enchanted folly. But by the Second World War, it had been abandoned and almost forgotten. That was until a dedicated group of volunteers rolled up their sleeves, hacked away the weeds and restored the garden to its former ornamental glory. Today, the lush shrubbery plays host to jazz picnics, open air film screenings and vintage fairs. But most days, it’s a tranquil haven from the city that surrounds it. Henry may have been bonkers but his legacy is rather magical.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as a publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

11 thoughts on “The Plantation Garden”

  1. This is similar to the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. The gardeners never came back from WW1. Tim Smit found and restored the gardens. Magical, like your Plantation Garden. But no spaghetti trees in the Italian Garden.

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  6. Pingback: I Believe in Fairies | perking the Pansies

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