dotinthesky | A Maze South of London

Hampton Court's maze

After five years living in London, I've finally managed to drag Kevin to Hampton Court. We arrived just before noon, caught a few rainshowers, visited the formal gardens and took a few audio tours of the palace -- the kitchen & the rooms used by Henry VIII -- before a tea break and a dash home.

The garden's maze was the highlight. Just as the sun came out, we entered the corridors made of hedges and searched for the maze's centre. Little speakers placed in strategic locations broadcast birds chirping, gongs, chimes and sultry voices saying random things like "please take my hand" or "you must get down". Lost families happily shouted at each other how they couldn't find their way out, or that they should split up into teams. In the maze's centre, a spanish-looking male couple kissed while I ~~bored~~ talked to Kevin of medieval europe's fascination with the labyrinth as a way to meditate (the only "useful" thing I learned from Kate Mosse's trashy novel Labyrinth.)

I have always loved labyrinths and this is one of the reasons I wanted to visit Hampton Court. To be honest, I'm not even sure what's the difference between a maze and a labyrinth -- is a maze man-made and a labyrinth a mythological creation? According to Wikipedia's page, mazes and labyrinths are quite different: mazes are riddles challenging you to reach its centre, while labyrinths are not necessarily hard to navigate. However, wasn't the Minotaur's labyrinth as difficult to navigate as a maze? Maybe mazes are meant to be aesthetic puzzles for the average person while labyrinths are truly terrifying creations nobody knows who created, or what's inside.

One of the main attractions of Brasilian amusement parks are their mazes made of glass. These are quite easy to navigate as an adult but are terrible traps for children. I can still remember my brother, 7 or 8 years old, stuck in one of them, crying his eyes out and bumping into glass walls as he desperately tried to find the exit. Oh, how we laughed outside. I've never seen them anywhere else apart from Brasil, and I suppose other countries like England don't need them if their castles house mazes in their gardens.

There was something very calming about walking through Hampton Court's maze. It looked deceptively simple and small from the outside. I could imagine zen monks walking through something similar, emptying their minds as they tried to follow the different paths and reach the centre.

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Your Hampton Court sounds like a blast. I love things like that. Now as far as those mirror mazes (labyrinths, whichever), I do remember going into one for the county fair when I was little. It was fun to watch people try to navigate their way through, bumping their foreheads on the mirrors. More often than not, though, you'd see the mothers of the terrified children fixing their make-up in one of the mirrors, calm as could be. Very amusing.

OOOooh! That looks like such fun.

Unless you are inside and rain starts pouring down. Thankfully, that didn't happen to us.

Aw, but see, our mazes were not made of mirrors, but glasses. You could see through the whole thing, but what made it deceptive was that you sometimes thought you were stepping into a passage and ended up hitting your head against a see-through glass wall. You had to wander around with your hands sticking out.

Lucky gents.

wow! it looks so stunning.

I wouldn't be surprised if they had morris dance performances at Hampton Court. They have a whole programme throughout the day which includes plays, bands, talks, etc. Maybe one day we'll see you performing there? :-)

The rhyming slang term "Hampton" doesn't get used enough these days.

In Mexico we have glass/mirror mazes in the amusement parks as well. Once I burst my lip open on a dark maze, that was more like a huge hamster tube system.

A labyrinth is the complexity of the human mind.

Hampton Court Maze was a huge icon from my childhood!

Every school holiday my grandparents would take us to the museums; the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum; and then places like the Geology Museum or the V&A were occasionally tagged on if it was a particularly uneventful holiday season. The number 30 bus ran all the way there in those days.

However, Hampton Court Maze was exclusively reserved for a trip during the summer holiday only (I don't think it was open for more than just a few months during the summer every year in those days). We always took a picnic. And when we looked around Hampton Court beforehand (admission used to be free then, although they checked your bags for IRA bombs on the way in) my brother and me were in such a daze looking forward to the maze that we didn't take in a single moment of it.

I'm glad to hear that the magic is still there!

I imagine the panels of glass would get smudged from all the hand-prints, making it easier to navigate:-)

wow, that's beautiful. glad you had fun!

Sometimes yes, but you still ran the risk of running into a panel that was completely clean, which took you by surprise. As an eager little kid, rushing through the maze, you sometimes didn't have the time to stop and check before you smacked your head against it.

*Heh* I wonder how many injuries were sustained by maze wanderers!:-)

Ask my brother. ;-P

Nah, I won't ask him, I'll just marvel at the shape of his misshapen skull!:-)

I just wanted to drop a note to say I've added you as a Friend (we have some common interests).

Cool, I've added you back. Through which interest did you find me?

Egon Schiele!

I've made many good friends through that particular interest. :-)

A Maze South of London

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