The outdoor Bog House would have been used by generations of gardeners working at Lamport Hall, near Northampton.

BBC: Northampton Lamport Hall three-seater 'Bog House' on show

The first known gnome figure in Britain was bought in Germany by Sir Charles Isham, a rich eccentric, and installed at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire in the 1860s.

ECONOMIST: Free that gnome

Who brought the first gnome to England will probably never be proven, but the first to record using the figures in his garden was Charles Isham at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire who by the 1870s had a series of gnome tableaux in among his giant rock garden.

BBC: From the section Magazine