Britains 'A' Maze 'ing' Attractions
30 November -0001
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In grand gardens of stately homes and castles around the UK you can find some of the world’s oldest and largest hedge mazes. These horticultural labyrinths have had visitors baffled for hundreds of years.
This particularly British fascination has more recently been hit by a boom in creating new mazes. Britain now has mazes of turf, water, brick, stone, wood, coloured paving tiles, mirrors and glass.
The grand Hedge Maze at Longleat
The classic maze at Hampton Court Royal Palace by the Thames in West London was planted more than 300 years ago during the reign of King William III. He dug up an old orchard planted by Henry VIII and redesigned the garden in the formal style of the time.
The 1702 maze is the only remaining part of William’s garden. It’s Britain’s oldest hedge maze with winding paths amounting to nearly half a mile and covering a third of an acre. The Hampton Court maze still swallows 300,000 people a year. The grounds also contain some of the most beautiful riverside gardens as well as the Tudor palace.
Another great estate Longleat in Wiltshire includes the ancestral stately home of Lord Bath, landscaped gardens, and a drive-through animal safari park plus no fewer than six mazes. Longleat mazes include the indoor King Arthur’s Mirror Maze, the rose-covered Love Labyrinth, the intertwining Sun Maze and Lunar box hedge labyrinths, as well as the grand Hedge Maze the world’s longest total path length at 1.69 miles. The hedges are made from 16,180 yew trees and are laid out in curves to disorient the walker. It is so complex that special ‘lift if lost’ direction panels are incorporated to help you escape.
If you get the taste for delightful disorientation, the third must-see site is the eccentric Jubilee Park near Symonds Yat in Herefordshire. Maze-mad brothers Lindsay and Edward Heyes planted The Amazing Hedge Puzzle Maze to commemorate the Queens Silver Jubilee in 1977. It is now Herefordshire’s most popular private visitor attraction. The octagonal cypress maze has a pagoda at the centre if you can find it. You don’t have to be crazy about mazes to enjoy the spectacular Hever Castle in Kent. From the outside the 13th-century double-moated fortress has changed little since Henry VIII’s second wife Anne Boleyn spent her childhood here. A century ago the wealthy Astor family lived here and planted a yew maze which visitors can still explore. A recent addition is the highly-acclaimed Water Maze on a shallow lake with an island at the centre. The walkways are made up of curved paths supported above the water on stilts. To make getting to the island even more difficult, some slabs, when stepped on, trigger a spray of water, the challenge is to find your way to the island and stay dry.
The Forbidden Corner is a modern maze designed for maximum fun. An award-winning labryrinth near Leyburn in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, visitors follow meandering paths through tunnels, underground chambers and crenellated follies. Your ticket contains clues which you use to find your way round a huge pyramid made of translucent glass, paths and passages that lead nowhere, extraordinary statues and a network of underground paths, including very narrow passageways and a revolving room. The brainchild of eccentric local millionaire Colin Armstrong it was originally built as a private family folly but due to public demand was opened to the public. The major problem is finding your way out of the maze to the toilet – visitors are warned to go before setting off.
The maze trail continues north of the border in Scotland. A giant new hedge maze is to be planted in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden in 2005 in honour of the late Queen Mother. Farther north, near Inverness, you can visit Cawdor Castle, which is mentioned in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Lord Cawdor planted a holly hedge maze in 1981 in the historic walled garden. He copied a design set in the mosaic floor of a ruined Roman villa in Portugal. A long-standing labyrinth on Scotland’s East Coast is renowned for being difficult. The Hazelhead Park Maze in Aberdeen is a large privet hedge maze planted in a public park by Sir Henry Alexander in 1935.
