Page 31 - apr2023

April 2023 April 2023

BERE REGIS HISTORY SOCIETY

A Maze at Bere Regis

In his book, Mazes And Labyrinths, of 1922, W.H. Matthews
documents a huge amount of research on mazes in
Britain. He researched many previous works over the
previous two and a half centuries when most of these still
survived. Most of the oldest ones were called "turf-mazes"
and were not the kind of mazes that we might remember
from our youth when we visited Hampton Court for
instance. The ancient mazes were, instead, routes for entertaining walks in low
banks of earth perhaps only one or two feet high. The passage through them was
still complicated and a wonderful game at weekends or holidays.
His earliest reference is John
Aubrey's "Dorset" where he
mentions the maze at Pimperne in
Dorset, whilst his survey spread
much wider in the country. The
Pimperne maze was described in his
1686 book to be shallow, but had
disappeared in 1730 through
ploughing. It was in a field not far
from the village. Matthews goes on
to describe a maze at Leigh, not far
from Sherborne, which existed until
about 1597, which was about 33
yards wide. The surrounding bank
still remained in 1906 when
Frederick Treves, in his book 'The
Highways & Byways of Dorset' was
published. This was, of course, the
The Maze at Pimperne Dorchester doctor for the "Elephant
Man" as well.
Almost as a by-the-way, Matthews mentions that other Dorset mazes existed at
both Troy Town, in the parish of Puddletown, and also at Bere Regis. If this is
correct then it was probably also ploughed out in the 19th century, or destroyed
in some other way. Can any of us imagine where it might have been? Does
anyone have child-hood stories of where it was?
John Pitfield, Projects Secretary

30 67