Identifier: mazeslabyrinthsg1922matt (find matches)
Title: Mazes and labyrinths; a general account of their history and developments
Year: 1922 (1920s)
Authors: Matthews, William Henry, 1882-
Subjects: Labyrinths
Publisher: London, New York, etc. Longmans, Green
Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
aints Abbey.It is situated in the garden of a farm-house, named after itTroy, and is surrounded by beautiful trees and shrubs.Our drawing is made from a sketch kindly supplied by thebrother of the present occupier, Mr. J. F. Godwin. Itsdimensions are 57 ft. by 50 ft., and the turf path, one footin width, has a total length of 400 yards. Near Piddington, on the border of the same county,rises to a height of nearly 400 ft. above the village theeminence known as Muswell Hill. Close to the summit ofthe hill is an earthwork having the form of a square turfedlevel surrounded by a low bank and bearing the traditionalname of The Wilderness. It is often spoken of locallyas a Roman camp, but there is nothing in its structure88 to suggest such an origin: no satisfactory explanation ofits origin or purpose has, in fact, been hitherto forth-coming. Now the word wilderness, as we shall see ina subsequent chapter, was employed during a certainperiod to denote a maze of the horticultural type, and it
Text Appearing After Image:
UiKM Fig. 69.— Troy-town, Somerton, Oxon. (From sketch byO. W. Godwin.) is not improbable that it was used in connection withmazes in general. May we not, therefore, allow it tobe within the realms of legitimate surmise that thismysterious work constitutes the remains of a square turfmaze, perhaps of a design similar to that of the Cliftonmaze mentionedabove? The situation, the enclosing bank,and the regular outline of the latter accord well with thissupposition, though the dimensions—250 ft. square—are 89 rather excessive unless we allow for a considerable marginbetween the bank and the maze itself. Another Oxfordshire locality, Tadmarton Heath, ismentioned as a turf-maze site in a manuscript by theRev. T. Leman, quoted in a county history published in1861, but if such a work ever existed there all traces of ithave now disappeared; the same is true with regard toanother reputed maze site to which reference is madein the manuscript, namely, the Herefordshire Beacon, inthe Malver

Note About Images