In praise of Cliveden’s reopened maze
Seekers after gentle pleasure can take themselves to the Thamesside gardens at Cliveden this weekend, and become the first people to get lost in its maze for more than 60 years. The restoration of Lord Astor’s Edwardian labyrinth by the National Trust cost a lot of money, took two years and a thousand trees, and is a thoroughly lovesome achievement, because people adore mazes.
They like the gardenness of them, the greenery and smell, the shaping of nature by intricate design that mazes represent. As early as 1563 Thomas Hill, the Tudor Titchmarsh, in his book A Moste Briefe and Pleasaunt Treatyse described mazes as “proper adornments upon pleasure to a Garden”.
But the pleasing psychology of the maze goes well beyond promenading in the well-pruned outdoors. There is the mystery — the more complex enjoyment involved in the thrill of helplessness when, for a moment, you are lost inside the verdant walls. There is the puzzle, sometimes set by a master (the maze of myth was built for King Minos of Crete by Icarus’ father, Daedalus), that must be solved.
And then there is the eroticism (or “naughtiness” as we call it in England), hinted at by Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream when she refers to “the quaint mazes in the wanton green”. The maze is a place of dark nooks, unexpected privacy and uncovered secrets. The Caroline playwright James Shirley wrote of “pretty mazes, labyrinths of love . . . In whose inclosures Ladies that are willing may lose themselves.” And gentlemen, presumably, would manage to find them.
These are more decorous times, and the greatest hazard that maze wanderers will face this weekend is sunburn. It will be worth it.
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