This is the oldest topiary in the world. Wandering into this garden of sculpted delights, I feel like a character from a children’s tale, shrunk down to a fraction of my normal size. In fact, there’s something of the magical illustrated storybook about this place, the abstract shapes towering above visitors more like something out of an artist’s imagination than the work of a gardener. They’re huge – some as tall as houses – and they play with perspective as much as they do with the rules of gravity.

The garden at Levens Hall was laid out in the 1690s, with precision and formality – much in keeping with the style of the day. But over the years, these rather proper, strict, courtly forms have given way to fantastical creations, sheared and chopped each year by expert trimmers.