Very few people who visited the gracious home of Sir Samuel and Lady Florence Baker in Sandford Orleigh, Devon, knew of their wild adventures and enduring love affair that began as they locked eyes at a slave auction in Vidin, Bulgaria, in 1859.
Florence was born in Transylvania and travelled with her soldier-father during the Hungarian revolution. After the defeat of his army, most of her family were murdered by Vlad peasants. She was sent to a refugee camp in Vidin where she was kidnapped and sold to Armenians to be raised in a harem. For the next few years, pampered, educated and treated kindly, she did not realise she was being groomed as a slave until auction day.