In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth is an elaborate, confusing structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos. Its function was to hold the Minotaur, the monster eventually killed by the hero Theseus. Daedalus had so cunningly made the Labyrinth that he could barely escape it after he built it.
Topiary is the horticultural practice of training perennial plants by clipping the foliage and twigs of trees, shrubs and subshrubs to develop and maintain clearly defined shapes, whether geometric or fanciful. The term also refers to plants which have been shaped in this way. As an art form it is a type of living sculpture. The word derives from the Latin word for an ornamental landscape gardener, topiarius, a creator of topia or "places", a Greek word that Romans also applied to fictive indoor landscapes executed in fresco.
Hampton Court Maze is a hedge maze at Hampton Court Palace and the oldest surviving hedge maze in Britain.
Longleat is a stately home about 4 miles (7 km) west of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan prodigy house, it is a Grade I listed building and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath.
A caerdroia is a Welsh turf maze, usually in the sevenfold Cretan labyrinth design. They were created by shepherds on hilltops and were apparently the setting for ritual dances, the nature of which has been lost. At the centre of each caerdroia was a small hillock—in Welsh, twmpath. A gathering for folk dancing in Wales is still called a twmpath dawns. It is a typical labyrinth of Welsh but there is a specimen in Italy to Petrella Tifernina discovered by the historian Mario Ziccardi. This specimen is the only known one in the Mediterranean area for now.
Adrian Fisher is a British pioneer, inventor, designer and creator of mazes, puzzles, public art, tessellations, tilings, patterns and networks of many kinds. He is responsible for more than 700 mazes in 42 countries since 1979.
Historically, a turf maze is a labyrinth made by cutting a convoluted path into a level area of short grass, turf or lawn. Some had names such as Mizmaze, Troy Town, The Walls of Troy, Julian's Bower, or Shepherd's Race. This is the type of maze referred to by William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night's Dream when Titania says:
Mizmaze is the name given to two of England's eight surviving historic turf mazes, and also to a third, presumably once similar site that is now merely a relic. Of the two which survive, one is at Breamore, in Hampshire; the other is on top of St Catherine's Hill, overlooking the city of Winchester, Hampshire.
A picture maze is a maze puzzle designed to resemble something visually, or one where the solution traces out a particular picture.
Egeskov Castle is located near Kværndrup, in the south of the island of Funen, Denmark. The castle is Europe's best preserved Renaissance water castle.
Gilbert Randoll Coate was a British diplomat, maze designer and "labyrinthologist".
A hedge maze is an outdoor garden maze or labyrinth in which the "walls" or dividers between passages are made of vertical hedges.
A corn maze or maize maze is a maze cut out of a corn field. Corn mazes have become popular agritourism attractions in North America, and are a way for farms to generate tourist income. Corn mazes appear in many different designs. Most have a path which goes all around the whole pattern, either to end in the middle or to come back out again, with various false trails diverging from the main path. In the United Kingdom, they are known as maize mazes, and are especially popular with farms in the east of England.
Finca Los Alamos is a historic Argentine estancia located in San Rafael, Mendoza. The estate was built in 1830 by the Bombal family, and originally served as a frontier fort. Domingo Bombal, who served eleven terms as Governor to the Mendoza Province, owned the estate until his death in 1908.
The Parc del Laberint d'Horta is a historical garden in the Horta-Guinardó district in Barcelona and the oldest of its kind in the city. Located on the former estate of the Desvalls family, next to the Collserola ridge, the park comprises an 18th-century neoclassical garden and a 19th-century romantic garden. On the lower terrace is the hedge maze that gives the park its name.
Dave Phillips is a maze and puzzle designer, and writer of The Zen Of The Labyrinth—Mazes For The Connoisseur. Phillips has provided puzzles for Reader's Digest, Highlights, National Geographic World, Die Zeit, Ranger Rick, Omni, Games, Scientific American, and United Features Syndicate. He has also created jigsaw puzzle mazes for Hallmark and die cut puzzle mazes for DaMert.
The labyrinth of Versailles was a hedge maze in the Gardens of Versailles with groups of fountains and sculptures depicting Aesop's Fables. André Le Nôtre initially planned a maze of unadorned paths in 1665, but in 1669, Charles Perrault advised Louis XIV to include thirty-nine fountains, each representing one of the fables of Aesop. Labyrinth The work was carried out between 1672 and 1677. Water jets spurting from the animals mouths were conceived to give the impression of speech between the creatures. There was a plaque with a caption and a quatrain written by the poet Isaac de Benserade next to each fountain. A detailed description of the labyrinth, its fables and sculptures is given in Perrault's Labyrinte de Versailles, illustrated with engravings by Sébastien Leclerc.
Bridge End Gardens is a group of linked ornamental gardens in Saffron Walden, Essex, England. The gardens are listed Grade II* on the Register of Parks and Gardens. They are located off Castle Street, close to the Fry Art Gallery. Features include a maze.
A formal garden is a garden with a clear structure, geometric shapes and in most cases a symmetrical layout. Its origin goes back to the gardens which are located in the desert areas of Western Asia and are protected by walls. The style of a formal garden is reflected in the Persian gardens of Iran, and the monastic gardens from the Late Middle Ages. It has found its continuation in the Italian Renaissance gardens and has culminated in the French formal gardens from the Baroque period. Through its design, the garden conveys a sense of established order and transparency to the observer.
In the Western history of gardening, from the 16th to early 19th centuries, a wilderness was a highly artificial and formalized type of woodland, forming a section of a large garden. Though examples varied greatly, a typical English style was a number of geometrically-arranged compartments closed round by hedges, each compartment planted inside with relatively small trees. Between the compartments there were wide walkways or "alleys", usually of grass, sometimes of gravel. The wilderness provided shade in hot weather, and relative privacy. Though often said by garden writers at the time to be intended for meditation and reading, the wilderness was much used for walking, and often flirtation. There were few if any flowers, but there might be statues, and some seating, especially in garden rooms or salle vertes, clearings left empty. Some had other features, such as a garden maze.
