Troy Town Maze Pre-Restoration in the mid 1980s

Beth, Ed and Emily at Troy Town Maze, photographed by David Buxton.

Following on from our Changing Form of Troy Town Maze blog post, we received this photograph from dear family friend Louise Buxton, clearly showing the layout of that labyrinth in the mid 1980s. We were amazed to see how different the maze looks from the older images of this site, and how deeply the paths have been cut into the earth by the process of people walking the maze.

Jeff Saward’s diagram of Troy Town Maze from 1983.

This new image of the maze - which is a true “maze” here, no longer a unicursal (one path) “labyrinth” - corresponds very well to Jeff Sawards diagram of the site from 1983.

The maze here does look more organic than the labyrinth that the dowsers restored some years later, and it does definitely still appear to have a very magical quality, created communally by all those who have walked it over time. After understanding how important it was for us - when restoring Giant’s Castle Maze - to honour the organic form that the paths had taken over years of being walked by ordinary people, I can understand why some islanders were attached to the shape that Troy Town Maze had become, and felt so upset at the later restoration back to its original, unicursal classical labyrinth form.

Thank-you to Louise for sharing this image (taken by her utterly wonderful dad) with us.