The Groundskeepers' Cottage
A little while after the Tea House had moved to Oxton-On-The-Wold's Normanston Castle, April Jill was sharing a picnic in the garden one sunny afternoon with a family of talking hedgehogs when she found herself being invited to their home - which was an old wardrobe half buried in some of the thick undergrowth which covered the castle grounds.
Inside that wooden box was a whole world of people and animals ruled by a wise old king and his much loved queen - both approaching the end of their peaceful reign over that land.
King Tom and Queen Ruth were out riding their horses through their vast kingdom on the day April walked into their world and was able to show them the way through to our world and the castle. It turned out this wardrobe was a long foretold missing artefact that would someday be found in a new and distant land at the time of their retirement - and in a place where, it was foretold, they would build their new home and tend the ravaged gardens that would be so much in need of restoration back to their true magical form.
It was a task that took several years of hard dedicated work with the help of many people and animal folk from their own world - challenging and conquering the detrimental effects of ghosts and otherworldly beasts that had taken up residence in these grounds. At times those challenges were almost a war, with fleeing demons, collapsing catacombs and lots of explosions that regularly startled the peaceful comings and goings of the local townsfolk.
With the extra support of one of the castle's oldest occupants, Ox Stan - and his new friends April and the rest of the Merry Mad Wirral Bohemian tenants, the harmony and co-existence of species was eventually restored to the grounds.
Also the unique transcendental properties emanating from within the Tea House have enabled the many fluctuating realities of the grounds to finally co-exist in a state of semi stable equilibrium.
Nicely settled in at last, King Tom and Queen Ruth often entertain visiting family and friends from their own world and regularly open up the grounds to local visitors on special days like the annual Secret Gardens of Oxton-on-The-Wold event.