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Leeds Castle News08 August 2018

Leeds Castle Maze Turns 30

It’s a landmark year for Leeds Castle’s yew-tree maze, as this month we are celebrating its 30th birthday!

Created in 1988 by the world’s leading maze designer Adrian Fisher, the Leeds Castle maze is made up of over 2,400 yew trees. It is also the only one to have even baffled its creator – upon opening it to the public in 1988, even he couldn’t find his way out. Adrian described the maze afterwards as “so difficult a puzzle that even a maze designer could get lost!

Today, the attraction is still one of the country’s most popular and complicated mazes, and when viewed from the centre, the shape mirrors a Queen’s crown. Despite being set in a square shape, the pattern within the maze is circular, which adds to the difficulty of solving it. To exit, you venture through a mysterious underground shell grotto, twisting and turning through a unique combination of tunnels.

In this milestone year for the maze, Leeds Castle’s Head Gardener Andrew McCoryn and his team have discovered a new method of keeping the maze hedges trimmed and looking their best… stilts! The process of trimming its hedges would usually take the Leeds Castle Gardening team around five weeks to complete, but with the new addition of spring-loaded plasterer stilts to walk on, the job can now be completed in just five days.

Also to celebrate the maze’s 30th birthday, Leeds Castle invites all visitors during the entire month of August to take part in ‘The Maze Challenge’.