TWISTING AND TURNING TO GO UNDERGROUND - THE MAZE & GROTTO
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Planted with 2,400 yew trees in 1988 and designed by architect Vernon Gibberd, in association with Minotaur Designs, the maze at Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, Kent, delights thousands of visitors each year attempting to reach the panoramic central viewing point.
The maze is designed as a topiary castle with castellated hedges forming towers and bastions. In addition, the visitor successfully reaching the centre, and ascending the spiralling path to the viewpoint, may notice that part of the maze’s plan mirrors a queen’s crown, echoing the notion of Leeds Castle as the queen’s castle.
The inspiration for the Leeds Castle maze – or labyrinth – is drawn from the earliest known example, an ancient Egyptian building near Lake Maeris, which contained twelve courts and 3,000 chambers. Featuring traditional gardening practice, the maze also depicts an age-old planting style.
To add to the maze’s mystery, the raised centre that overlooks the castle’s parkland and surrounding countryside is actually a hollow dome, which contains the entrance to a hidden underground grotto – the escape tunnel that prevents the necessity of unravelling a return journey.
In 1987, Vernon Gibberd, working with sculptor Simon Verity and shell artist Diana Reynell, designed the Leeds Castle grotto to represent The Underworld.
Descending coloured stone steps, visitors are led past the Guardians of the Sources of Water.
Crafted in the corners of the main chamber are carvings celebrating the four elements and mythical beasts. The domed ceiling is decorated with black and white swans - symbols of alchemy and Leeds Castle.
As the visitor proceeds, the designs become more macabre with bones emerging from the walls, fish flying on the ceiling, creatures walking upside down and encrusted on the walls, exotic minerals.
Behind bars, guarding the final chamber, is the squatting figure of a life-sized mythical green man - created to ward off evil spirits – holding a bronze key. Sculpted by Kent artist, Malcolm Murduck in 1999, the green man is thought to have pagan roots and symbolises the spirits of woodland and rebirth.
At the end of the tunnel the mood lightens with a shell phoenix – also a symbol of rebirth – in a guarded cave. Daylight greets the visitor, who emerges into a square hermitage formed by the retaining walls of the end steps and roofed by the bridge leading to the maze entrance above.
Leeds Castle is open to the public every day except Christmas Day and lies just four miles east of Maidstone at Junction 8 of the M20 from where it is clearly signposted.
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