If you think that is surprising you should take a peek through that little window at the top...

Yorkshire is often referenced as being ‘God’s Country’. I know I deliberately make a point of saying those two words in a deep Yorkshire accent every time I reach the peak of the M62. Still, Aa’m allow’d t’say it, cos I y’am a bloody Yerksherman! But there is one burrow, just outside Middleham in North Yorkshire, called The Forbidden Corner and that isn’t God’s Country at all. It’s the Devils…or Lewis Carroll’s, but that is almost too easy of a comparison to make for it to be valid.

You see, The Forbidden Corner is an adventure park of sorts, in which are hidden hundreds of carvings, statues, works of art, snickets, ginnels, alleys, hidey-holes, passages, posters, sounds and smells. It was designed as a private garden by Mr. Colin R. Armstrong O.B.E, spread over four acres of land right next door to Tupgill Park. Due to popular demand it was opened to the public and since then it sees thousands of visitors each year.

When you arrive you are thrust into this little world with nothing but a map, which serves no real purpose other than to show you what you might have missed. In many ways its like being born all over again, such is the mystery and reality of everything there-in. In front of you lies many different paths, you choose one and you are presented with even more little paths. Some lead back to whence you came, others take you off on a wonderful journey. You go over and underground, into castles, through bushes and around fountains. You reach the bowels of Hell and you climb back out through a series of dark paths with whispering chasing you through corridors and thunderous knocks on doors as you reach them. The whole time you have this sneaking suspicion that the eyes in those paintings are following you…and that ‘cobweb’ really was somebody tapping you on the shoulder.

The Forbidden Corner has this amazing ability to turn you into a child. All those warnings from your mother that you finally heeded with age and wisdom go flying straight out of the window as you sprint and dart from room-to-room quickly forgetting that it isn’t real. Unlike a theme park, nothing is sold or presented to you. You aren’t suckered in by shiny lights and big-tops. Instead, you have chanced upon this garden. You have sat under the moonlight and waited for the bell to toll midnight and you are stolen away down the rabbit hole and through the back of the cuboard into a very real, made-up world. And the whole time you are bliss-fully unaware of the fact that at some point you are going to have to go home and pretend to be a grown up again.

The Forbidden Corner is proud to call itself ‘The Strangest Place in the World’. Now, that isn’t strictly true. Stratford-upon-Avon will always the strangest just because the geese fly backwards and all the people are made of cress. But perhaps that isn’t what the slogan means. Perhaps it is the strangest place because of its magic ability to make you believe again all of those things you spent so much time un-believing from your childhood. I certainly know its made me believe again because every night since I got back and I have cracked my head on the back of the wardrobe expecting that I can pass through it.

If you would like to book tickets to visit ‘The Forbidden Corner’ you can find their website here.