Kevin Duffy’s fairytale was born on a dumping ground. Nobody else could see it, but to him, the overgrown remains of a 1920s bowling green promised untold potential. It was there he spent the last decades of his life creating castles, characters, and crude Tudor facades from chicken wire, cement, and anything else he could salvage, across the land surrounding his Wigan bungalow, spilling over into the family garden centre.
Not many people have heard of Duffy – who died in September at 79 – or his work, all housed at his now-closed family business, Rectory Nurseries. But first reactions are often the same: bewilderment followed by unbound wonder and curiosity. After four decades, Duffy’s kingdom is full of nooks and pathways, chapels and dens, monsters and myths – each discovery promising another just around the corner. The Rectory features not just its own miniature pub, but a lion’s den as well as a stalactite-encrusted cave of sirens. One section hosts a small Tudor village, another a crowded antique shop where none of the items are for sale. It’s like wandering into a theme park.
