In the rabbit hole

Pitching the idea of an overnight excursion to see some -themed installations to four-year-old Gloria is easier than expected. A trip to Cornwall with her mother is an exciting prospect and she wonders whether we will be taking our pyjamas. But I am at sea when it comes to explaining what exactly we will be doing in the garden of Antony House, where scenes from Tim Burton's film were shot and where the National Trust has just embarked on a season of Alice-themed entertainment.

I'm unsure whether the Mad Hatter's tea party booked for Saturday morning will meet my daughter's expectations of a "show", and my attempt at a lively gloss of the term "exhibition" falls flat. I have no answer to the crucial question, "Will Alice talk to us?" In fact, since I am expecting the installations (built by Newcastle theatre company Dodgy Clutch) to be stationary models, I fear that Alice might not speak at all.

The age guide for the tea party is five-plus but any doubts that Gloria might be a bit young for this outing, and for Lewis Carroll, are dashed by a chance discovery before we set out: in the window of my local bookshop is , a shorter, simpler version of the classic story, written by Carroll himself. Out of print for years, it has been reprinted recently.

On the train to Plymouth we read about the White Rabbit, the bottle and cake labelled "drink me" and "eat me", the smoking caterpillar and the crazy Caucus-Race. At bedtime in our holiday flat we meet the Duchess and her monstrous pig-baby, the Cheshire Cat, the March Hare, the Mad Hatter and the red-faced Queen of Hearts. I had forgotten how much bad temper there is in Wonderland but Gloria is primed and I am reminded that an aristocratic garden is the perfect setting for our Alice adventure.

It is drizzling when we make the short ferry trip across the River Tamar from Plymouth in Devon to Torpoint in Cornwall. At Antony House, just north of the town, our first glimpse of Wonderland is the caterpillar, a model about 180 centimetres high, gaudily resplendent on his mushroom on the lawn and with the blank grey face of the 18th-century square stone house behind him.

More impressive in Gloria's eyes, once we pass through a door in the wall and enter the landscaped gardens, are the pink, blue and yellow fabric butterflies that cling to every available surface. Gloria races along, shrieking every time she spots one, the many hours of anticipation finally finding an outlet.

In a field of daffodils we find a model Alice and take photographs. There are chess pieces that will, when the grass grows long enough, have their own carefully mown chessboard. On the main lawn is a giant mechanical clock with white rabbits that run around on the hour, though sadly the damp weather means they aren't working today. The rabbit hole is a slide, entered through a dark corridor and emerging into a garden of model mushrooms. Since this is where Alice's adventures begin, the ideal visit would start here. But best by far is the Cheshire Cat, hidden in the branches of a hollow yew, who appears on a timer to chant riddles in a musical drawl.

On dry days the Mad Hatter's tea party is a promenade performance, an anarchic, roving children's party that moves around the grounds. In the wet, we are inside a tent, where the children are asked to keep lookout for Alice, the White Rabbit, the Dormouse and the hatter as they arrive one by one.

The five girls at our party barely outnumber the actors but for Gloria this new combination of party and show is pure delight. Ingenious games include inventing rhymes, putting up paper roses and matching missing gloves. In the land of the Jabberwocky, Gloria's nonsense rhyme of hedgehog with bedgehog is just right. (A bedgehog, says Alice, must be a hedgehog who stays in bed.)