Giant’s Castle Labyrinth Banners

Musicians Gwena Harman and Sony Brazil of Goblin Band stand with the Giant’s Castle banners during the maze reopening celebration.

As a symbolic focal point for the Giant’s Castle Maze reopening celebration, we created two banners using both wood and natural dye from Scillonian elm. Scilly is on of the country’s last remaining strongholds of healthy elm trees - and luckily, elm is by far the most abundant native tree we have on the islands. So it felt right to construct our ceremonial banners using this iconically Scillonian material.

Layan Harman and Sony Brazil carry the banners along Old Town Bank.

Procession participants gather under the Giant’s Castle banners.

Layan made the poles for carrying the banners from two elm saplings, felled on Teän’s family’s farmland in Old Town on St Mary’s (close to the Giant’s Castle Maze site), where they grow in abundance. He stripped the bark but left the branching shoots at the top to celebrate the organic shape of the tree, which provided a natural hanging point for the banners.

The banners lead the procession out to Giant’s Castle - carried by Layan Harman and dowser Michael Stockbridge. The trees in front of them are not elms, but Scilly’s other most common tree - pittosporum. A native tree to New Zealand, this species was introduced to the islands’ flower farms to create hedges to protect the cultivated narcissi from Scilly’s high winds and it now grows veraciously - as Scilly rarely ever has frosts.

A note on the banner exchanging ceremony from the programme of the day.

The designs on the Banners represent the shape of the paths of Giant’s Castle Maze before and after our June 2025 Restoration of the site. We wanted something to visually represent the changes that we made, and honour both of the iterations of the labyrinth, pre- and post- restoration. The designs of the maze are depicted in silk, to elevate the status of this site, which - while not an ancient site - we believe represents an important part of Scilly’s folk-heritage. After the Banners were held aloft, leading the procession out to Giant’s Castle, we held a small ceremony to ritually exchange the designs, thanking the old paths and welcoming in the new.

The “Old Maze Banner” depicting the shape of Giant’s Castle Maze before the June 2025 restoration.

Layla and Layan carry the “New Maze Banner” into the centre of the labyrinth, where it will meet the “Old Maze Banner” and be exchanged.

Both Banners are ritually acknowledged and exchanged at the centre of Giant’s Castle Maze.

Layan carries the “Old Maze Banner” to the centre of the labyrinth, helped by Layla from the Five Islands Academy.

The “New Maze Banner” depicting the shape of Giant’s Castle Maze after the June 2025 restoration.

The “Old Maze Banner” is walked out of the labyrinth to symbolise the handing over of the path shape to the new design.

To create the Banners we used natural dye techniques and materials collected from the islands. We have done a lot of natural dying in this project, as a way of centring place more fully in the artworks. We dyed the fabric for the banners using elm bark collected from a fallen limb of a tree that had come down in a storm some months before. This represents a rare opportunity to use materials from a healthy, mature elm from the south of the country for dye, as elsewhere elm trees rarely reach maturity due to the devastating fungal disease Ophiostoma novo-ulmi (DED). The colours created were rich and warm: pinks, oranges and golds. To create some variation in the colours we added iron to some of the fabric, which acts as a dye modifier, creating the grey/brown tones.

Silk (sourced from the St Mary’s Church Charity Shop) dyed with Scillonian elm bark.

Layan Harman gathers elm bark from the branch of a tree that fell in a storm.

The foraged elm bark - high in tannins - seeps its colour into the dye pot.

Large panels of elm bark dyed silk and cotton dry on the washing line.

Adding iron to the dye bath “saddens” the colour and creates the darker grey tones.

Creating the banner designs...

…using appliqué techniques…

…to combine different dyed pieces of silk and cotton.

The final design of the “Old Maze Banner” showing the pre-restoration pattern of the labyrinth’s paths, edged with stitched silk thread.

The final design of the “New Maze Banner” showing the post-restoration pattern of the labyrinth’s paths, edged with stitched silk thread.

By adopting an artistic approach, and responsibly sourcing natural materials that are so associated with the islands, we hope that we have created a beautiful and lasting record of the changing shape of Giant’s Castle Maze in these Banners. We also hope that we will be able to display them in future exhibitions on the mainland, which is an aim of ours, as a way to bring the project to a wider audience in the months to come.

Thanks to all who was involved in the event, to Inga Drazniece and Anaïs Serres for photography, and to Layla and Michael for helping to carry our banners.