Richard Stone and Trevor James – The Maze is a cultural phenomenon enjoyed across civilisations over several millenia, and it has played a role in various forms of spirituality.
onnoisseurs of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889) will remember, and relish, theC delights of his comedic account of his travellers being lost in the Hampton Court Maze and the difficulties that ensued in trying to rescue them. Hampton Court Maze is a small component of the 60 acres of Wilderness Gardens laid out for William III in the 1690s. Itself covering about one-third of an acre, with about half a mile of footpaths, it is technically a multi- cursal hedge maze. Designed by George London and Henry Wise, it offers a challenge, or puzzle, to visitors because it offers them a baffling range of potential wrong turnings and alternative routes to the centre, thus demonstrating that contain the Minotaur within a complex they are several centuries old but precise it fully warrants its multi-cursal status. network of branches and blind alleys, dating has been difficult because they Tradition offers the possibility that it is what modern theorists would now have had continually to be recut. These actually replaced an older version laid define as a maze because it followed a surviving historic turf mazes are to be down for Cardinal Wolsey or Henry multi-cursal path. Ironically, by contrast found at: VIII. Its significance lies in the fact what we label the turf maze, however that it has been providing healthful convoluted, follows a single path. This • Julian’s Bower, Alkborough, entertainment for over 300 years from is how one would ordinarily define a Lincolnshire its late Stuart design; but this form of labyrinth. • City of Troy, Dalby-cum-Skewsby, entertainment could have been located In reality we only know what form North Yorkshire here for virtually 500 years. With social the Cretan Labyrinth took because of • Mizmaze, St Catherine’s Hill, and recreational traditions that endure the telling and retelling of the legend. By Winchester, Hampshire for such lengths of time, there are usually contrast Herodotus (484-424 BC) in his • Mizmaze, Breamore, Hampshire a number of factors which combine to Histories, reported visiting a labyrinth • Hilton Maze, Hilton, secure its longevity as part of popular in Ancient Egypt which he judged to be Cambridgeshire culture. more impressive than the pyramids but • Saffron Walden, Essex Alongside the existence of hedge he did not describe precisely what he • The ldO Maze, Wing, Rutland mazes, of which Hampton Court is saw. • Troy, Somerton, Oxfordshire probably the most famous, there is The fact that these two forms existed another parallel English phenomenon in parallel with each other can be traced The possibility that the origins of turf known as the ‘turf maze’. The body of back to the time of Pliny the Elder (died mazes may lie significantly in the past, evidence associated with these turf AD 49) who, in his Natural History, that is from the time of Herodotus, is mazes will help to inform the wider described observing classical labyrinths, suggested by the persistent association picture and further interpret what it is which he qualified by commenting with classical names – the turf maze at that has been inherited. that they should not be compared Somerton in Oxfordshire is known as Popular labelling has blurred the with mazes formed in the fields for the ‘Troy’, another at Dalton-cum-Skewsby difference between a maze and what we entertainment of children. in North Yorkshire is ‘City of Troy’. The understand to be a labyrinth, indeed the In England over 30 reliably- now vanished mazes at Dorchester, Bere confusion probably makes it imperative documented mazes have been recorded Regis and Edenbridge were all labelled that we consider both recreational forms but have been lost due to ploughing or ‘Troy Town’. The precise link with the as one large phenomenon! Basically neglect. For example a maze known eastern Mediterranean is not known but there are two parallel forms: the multi- as ‘Robin Hood’s Race’ at Sneinton in it is very consistent, thereby implying cursal, as at Hampton Court, and the Nottinghamshire was ploughed out in a link via the Roman settlement of turf maze which is generally unicursal. 1797. The neighbourhood name of Maze England with cultural practices much Somehow the labelling of the two forms Hill at Greenwich is another haunting further afield. has lost its accuracy. clue. Evidence of how they were used in To explain. Ancient Crete’s Labyrinth There are however eight surviving a recreational sense can be provided by of classical mythology, designed turf mazes for us to observe and enjoy. antiquarian John Aubrey [1626-1697] in according to legend by Daedalus to Documentary evidence confirms that his Monumenta Britannica. Describing
34 The Historian – Spring 2017 a turf maze at Pimperne, near Blandford White’s Directory for Leicestershire and at locations such as Alkborough, Wing in Dorset, known as ‘Troy Town’, he says Rutland in 1846 notes an ‘ancient’ maze and Hilton mirror the Chartres pattern, it was ‘much used by the young people at Wing, known as the ‘Old Maze’, in it is quite reasonable to assert that part of on holidays and by schoolboys’. Aubrey which ‘the rustics run at the parish the impetus behind the existence of the also mentioned a maze on Dover’s Hill, feast’, confirming this communal usage. 40 or more English mazes that we can Chipping Campden, where Captain Such recreational activities within identify may well have been inspired by Robert Dover initiated his ‘Olympick the community historically were a Christian reflective practice. Games’ with royal approval in 1612. The mechanism for social cohesion. Popular culture is what people existence of this maze is confirmed in A turf maze at Julian’s Bower generally experience and enjoy. a compilation of poems and drawings, at Alkborough in Lincolnshire was Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s ‘The Annals of Dover’ (Annalia recorded as being connected with May Dream [Act 2, Scene 2] reveals his Dubrensis), which celebrated the games, Day celebrations in the nineteenth awareness of the maze in the culture of gathered together by Dr Robert Burns in century. This location is particularly everyday Tudor life when he has Titania 1636. This contains several references to significant because the site overlooks the bemoan ‘the quaint mazes in the wanton a maze, although none say whether the confluence of the Rivers Trent, Ouse and green for lack of tread’. It was something maze was used as part of the games, or Humber. Its name is also derived from that this most observant of men had indeed how. a Trojan allusion: according to Homer, noticed. John Aubrey also identified a maze Ascanius Julius was the son of the Popular culture is what people at Tothill Fields in Westminster which Trojan hero, Aeneas, and some legends experience and enjoy but there will be he described as being ‘much frequented maintain that the walls surrounding deeper reasons why such phenomena as in summertime on fair afternoons’, Troy were complex, thereby associating labyrinths or mazes occurred originally. more than a hint that it was a scene him with complex patterns. Given the The strong presence of the use of this of entertainment and diversion. The tidal vulnerability of the riverside areas form of expression within the spirituality Tothill maze is referenced earlier in a below this location, this may well have of pilgrimage may be a strong indicator play of 1614 by John Cooke – Greene’s been a place of spiritual significance. that this was a spiritual expression Tu Quoque or The City Gallant – and Community events were often drawn to initially and that it became a vehicle in the churchwarden’s accounts for St such locations. for social and community pleasure, Margaret’s, Westminster in 1672 there The maze, whether multicursal or much as May Day began with spiritual is reference to payment to ‘Mr Brewer unicursal, has undoubted longevity in overtones and became an opportunity for making a maze in Tuttlefields – being utilised by people for well over for community exuberance over the £2’. Presumably this payment was for 2,000 years but this last English example centuries. maintaining rather than cutting, given provides the context for a much wider The creation of mazes is not an the evidence from the earlier literary interpretation. The medieval church activity only fossilised in the past. source. Mazes in that proximity are adopted the maze as an allegory of Amongst various contemporary also mentioned in the diaries of Samuel the search for truth or to represent a examples, a turf maze has been Pepys and John Evelyn, suggesting that symbolic pilgrimage. The best-known cut within the cloisters of Norwich they were tea garden attractions. example in a Christian building is on Cathedral; and hedge mazes are being An unusual square turf maze on the floor of Chartres Cathedral, which developed at Mary Arden’s House at the summit of St Catherine’s Hill, was built in c. 1235. It is designed in Stratford-upon-Avon and at Trentham Winchester, known as ‘Mizmaze’ is set 11 concentric circles in symmetrical Gardens in Staffordshire. within the ramparts of an Iron Age quadrants. Penitent pilgrims, many of hillfort. This implies some continuity them English pilgrims on their way to Richard Stone and Trevor James have from an earlier period. Certainly it was the Shrine of St James at Santiago de been leading Local History Saturday part of the traditions of Winchester Compostela, would follow the maze on Schools at Burton-upon-Trent for College where ‘treading the maze’ at St their knees. Pilgrims still follow this almost twenty years Catherine’s Hill was one of the pursuits ancient discipline in their meditations of their pupils in the eighteenth century. within the cathedral. As the turf mazes An inscribed stone at the centre of a turf maze on the village green at Hilton in Cambridgeshire commemorates its creation by William Sparrow in 1660. With communal revelry being discouraged while Puritans were in the ascendant during the Interregnum, this could easily mark the reinstatement of an earlier maze. Certainly Robert Dover’s Olympick Games at Chipping Campden were halted in 1643 and then reinstated after the Restoration, so the Hilton example would match this pattern. The location of the turf maze at Hilton and also one at Saffron Walden in Essex – the largest surviving turf maze at 43 metres diameter and recorded as being recut in 1699 – on their respective village greens, in other words common land, suggests a communal purpose.
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