Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and DevelopmentMatthews, W. H.
History
Mazes and Labyrinths: A General Account of Their History and Development
Matthews, W. H.
Labyrinths; Maze gardens
There used to be, until a generation ago, a turf maze at Leigh, in the
north-west of Dorset. A writer in _Notes and Queries_ in 1868 describes
it as being slightly hollow, circular, thirty-three paces in diameter,
and enclosed by a bank three feet high. He adds: "I am sorry to say the
turf has grown over the little trenches and that it is now impossible
to trace the pattern of the maze." Sir Frederick Treves, in his
"Highways and Byways in Dorset," 1906, speaks of this maze as having
consisted of "low banks and trenches arranged in an intricate figure,
which the youths of the village, accompanied no doubt by the maidens,
were wont to thread at certain seasons of the year." He states that it
is on high ground in an open field and that of the winding passages no
trace now survives. Only the low bank and ditch surrounding the maze
remain visible.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--"Troy-town," Pimperne, Dorset. (Hutchins.)]
At Pimperne, not far from Blandford, there was formerly a maze of a
unique design (Fig. 63). John Aubrey, writing in 1686, says it was
"much used by the young people on Holydaies and by ye School-boies."
The path was bounded by ridges about a foot in height. The maze was
destroyed by the plough in 1730. The memory of another turf maze in
the same country is preserved in the name of Troy-town, applied to a
locality about three miles north-east of Dorchester. One is also said
to have existed near Bere Regis. Aubrey goes on to refer to another at
West Ashton, near Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and one "on the Cotteswold
Downes, where Mr. Dover's Games were celebrated." He mentions them also
in his "Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey," and concludes his
reference by quoting what he calls a "Poetical Description" of them, by
Thomas Randolph, a poet and dramatist of the seventeenth century, the
so-called description being nothing more than an indictment of the lazy
shepherd swain, who prefers to spend his leisure in sleeping under a
bush when, according to the poet, he ought
"... to tune his Reed and chant his layes
Or nimbly run the windings of the Maze."
This is from Thomas Randolph's (or Randall's) "Eglogue on the Palilia
and Noble Assemblies revived on Cotswold Hills by Mr. Robert Dover,"
one of a collection of eulogies--the _Annalia Dubrensia_--by various
poets of the day of the then famous annual sports organised by Captain
Dover on the hills near Chipping Campden. Mazes, or "laborinths,"
are referred to in the contributions of several of the other poets
concerned, of whom we may mention Francis Izod, Nicholas Wallington,
William Bellas and William Denny. A figure in the crude frontispiece
conveys a similar allusion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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