WHO knew there was a dovecote hidden in the heart of Hurworth almost opposite the Spar shop? Dorothy Nattrass did, because it overlooks the walled garden which is now the home of Flowers by Nattrass.
Dorothy and her late husband, Ronald, came to the village in the late 1950s when Ronald got a job as gardener for Mr Parsons, a Stockton sweet factory owner, who lived in the Old House in Hurworth, and kept white fantail doves in the square cote.
“My husband used to go into the dovecote to check to see if any rogue pigeons had got in,” says Dorothy. “If they had, he would give them to Mr Parsons who would release them on his way to the sweet factory.”