As King Charles once said: ‘There’s nothing more enjoyable than getting lost in a maze.’
Now his dream of restoring the magnificent garden labyrinth which he enjoyed wandering around as a small boy on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, has finally been realised.
Last week the King’s vision for an intricate new square maze ‘celebrating formal geometry and cosmological symbolism’ opened to the public.
Work started last year to transform the former West Lawn into the elaborate ‘Lower Maze Garden’ – a topiary garden and yew tree maze inspired by Charles’s childhood memories.
Sandringham’s head gardener Jack Lindfield said: ‘It’s not every day you get the opportunity to build a maze in an already historic garden.
The magnificent garden labyrinth King Charles enjoyed wandering around as a small boy on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk during the restoration process
As King Charles once said: ‘There’s nothing more enjoyable than getting lost in a maze’
The main influence of this garden was looking at history and having that new vision from the King as to what that garden could be today if it was rebuilt – the Lower Maze Garden was always part of the bigger plan.
‘You walk out of the topiary garden and into a very traditional lower maze. It’s very exciting.’
Mr Lindfield said that building the new maze had been a ‘whole new horticultural discipline’ and that making sure the stone terracing was ‘sympathetic’ to the rest of the garden was key.
The new labyrinth will be the perfect place for the King to play with his grandchildren and is expected to be as entertaining for them as it once was for him. As a child, Charles spent hours hiding and playing in a maze on the stunning 20,000-acre estate, but it was removed many decades ago.
King Charles pictured as a young boy in Windsor’s Great Park to watch his father play polo on Smith’s Lawn
The new one at Sandringham is the third Royal maze in 300 years – with the other two both built by Charles in the past decade: the first at Dumfries House; the second, in the shape of a giant thistle, at Balmoral.
Speaking at the opening of the one at Dumfries House in 2016, Charles said: ‘I’m afraid to say I’m rather indulging in my childhood fantasy of mazes. There’s nothing more enjoyable than getting lost in a maze.’
Sandringham is also undergoing roof restoration to replace tiles, joinery and chimney stacks – the first extensive work on the roof since 1870.
