The Forgotten Labyrinths of the English Countryside

You might recognise this ancient design. It's been found across the world from French cathedrals to Greek coins and here in this quaint English village it's all over the place. Inside the entrance of the local church, embedded into a nearby gravestone and mysteriously cut into turf hundreds of years ago at a place known as Julian's Bower. So what is it and why is it here? Well we're about to head over there on foot to investigate. We'll take a look at it up close to to try and unpack its strange history. Maybe solve a few mysteries and see how well it survived all these hundreds of years since it was first created. So let's see if we can find it. Now today's adventure brings us to North Lincolnshire, just south of the River Humber and we're heading towards the village of Alkborough, a place that's caked in symbolism. But our main destination is called Julian's Bower. This is something that's most commonly referred to as a turf maze and it's believed that there were once over a hundred of them in England but today in 2026 only eight have been known to survive. And for most people from England when you hear the word maze you probably picture yourself walking into maybe a hedge maze. One entrance, many different paths and routes that will eventually take you either to the centre or to an exit on the opposite side. These mazes are what we call multi-cursal. They have multiple paths or multiple routes. Julian's Bower is a bit different though. It's unicursal. One single path to one single destination. And for many people, you wouldn't call that a maze, you'd call it a labyrinth. And it's that word that's one of our first clues that's going to help us to unpack all of this mystery. Labyrinths play a long and significant part in human history, spanning thousands of years. They appear on Greek coins from well over 2000 years ago, and I'm sure that some of you at least, when you hear the word labyrinth, will be thinking of the legend of the Minotaur. This is a tale of a beast so dangerous that a labyrinth was created underground to keep it contained. But is there really a common thread from the legend of the Minotaur in ancient Greece to rural England? Well if we fast forward in time a little bit the labyrinth has spread and evolved in some cases. We see it cropping up in cathedrals throughout medieval Europe. The Chartres Cathedral, probably the most well-known example, its floor features an enormous labyrinth. And in these religious examples it's believed to have been used for ritualistic purposes, probably as a way for atoning for one's sins. You would walk the labyrinth either on foot or on your hands and knees, winding around the twists and turns in a process intended to seek forgiveness for your wrongdoings. In other parts of the world we see variations of this design, used for slightly different things. Some labyrinths have been found carved into rock and even made in the landscape with stones and boulders. And in some instances they're believed to have been used for seeking good fortune. If we go to coastal regions for example, we've got folklore tales. Where's this footpath? It's definitely on the map. OS Maps says to pretty much just go straight forward over this field, which seems a bit odd, but OS Maps doesn't lie, right? These are the examples though, in the coastal regions especially, according to folklore at least, used by fishermen. They would similarly trace the path on foot in the hopes of seeking good fortune, good weather and a good catch. So different uses, different designs that have evolved over time. But how about this one in Oakborough? Well interestingly, this one matches the exact design that we see in the Chartres Cathedral and the earliest surviving record of it is from the 1690s. So a lot of experts seem to agree that it was probably made in the 16th century, but some believe it was made hundreds of years before that by monks from the local priory. Either way, it's been here for a long time, at least 300 years, and in more recent decades and centuries hasn't been used so much for religious reasons, but like many turf mazes throughout England, for more playful purposes. In village events and celebrations where children would play games on them. So we do have quite a lot of information about the history of these labyrinths but it spans a big window of time and there are enough missing pieces to leave quite a few questions unanswered. I'm hoping that you can help us to figure out the answer and it should be pretty close to here, just over those trees in the distance I think. We'll see if we can spot any clues in person and also got a real whiff of manure, definitely in farm territory. I'm also going to be doing a treasure hunt later on in this video. I'm going to be hiding a book in the local area for one viewer of this video to come and find. So let's get into Oakborough and see what's happening. Here we go, Julian's Bower. The thing that gets me straight away about this place is that I might be talking a bit quieter than I was and this is why there are houses right here. This is literally on some people's doorstep. So you can still see pretty clearly all the outlines. The turf section is what we would walk winding all the way through. Bringing us to that central point. I'm not sure if it's okay to walk on or not so I'm going to stay off it just because I would feel a bit bad. But we can see straight away just how much it's sunk down from the surrounding earth. Apparently, or at least on the record I found, it was at maximum about half a meter below the rest of the earth. But it may be more recently because it's much bigger of a gap than I was expecting to see. But it's all still pretty well defined. It has been preserved and looked after over the years by plenty of locals. I haven't seen anything like this where I live but maybe you live close to one of the eight remaining turf mazes in England or maybe there are other labyrinths near you in different countries. There is a sign over here as well, it looks like quite a wordy one but it says Julian's Bower. Mazes are associated with the legend of Theseus threading the Cretan labyrinth to slay the Minotaur, a common theme in ancient life. Turf mazes often bore the name of Julian's Bower or Walls of Troy. It is supposed that these names record the belief that Julius, son of Aeneas, legendary founder of Rome, brought maze games to Italy from Troy after its sacking by the Greeks. Maze patterns were adopted by the early church as a symbol of the Christian path to salvation, and may have been used for penitential purposes. Because of its likeness to a maze pattern in medieval French churches, it has been suggested that Julian's bower was first cut by monks from Walcott. In Elizabethan and Stuart times, turf mazes were used for sport on the village green, and hedge mazes were a common feature in gardens. Julian's Bower, which is one of the few remaining turf mazes in Britain, was first recorded in 1697, but it was thought to be Roman, but its real age and origin still remain unproven. So we do have a lot of information, but still some missing, like exactly how old this is. So let me know what you think. Now we've got one thing left to do, which is this treasure hunt. We need to hide this book somewhere in the local area for one viewer of this video to find, one of you to find, and while we're looking for a hiding spot we might as well check out some of the other instances of this labyrinth. So let's pay a quick visit to the church and the cemetery and hopefully along the way we'll find a good hiding spot. So we're looking for a big stone cross, the grave of a man named James Goulton Constable, and there are quite a few stone crosses here, unsurprisingly. I was immediately drawn to this one, but that doesn't look to be correct. So what we're going to see on there is a labyrinth. Now James died 104 years ago now, and I believe the reason that the labyrinth is on his gravestone is because, well, he did many things in his life within the local community, but he was also very key in the preservation of Julian's Bower. Where is it? Aha, here we go, right at the back, so we can see here. Made out of metal. Sorry Sorry if this is terrible lighting. That might be a bit better. So it's a perfect reproduction of Julian's Bower turf maze, and we can see here James Goulton Constable, born March, I think that says 21st 1850, died December 1st 1922. I don't think this is the best place to hide the book and do the treasure hunt, but I really wanted to see that before we left. And as I mentioned earlier, that design is really prevalent around the village. It's here, it's at the turf maze itself, It's on the sign as you drive in to Ogborough, it's hanging from the sign of the local clubhouse. So if you came here and you had no idea about the story or the history, you could start thinking that there was something spooky going on, something unusual. Let's go check out the other labyrinth in the church then, and if I don't spot anywhere on the way to hide the book, I'll just do some editing, cut out the the long search, and I'll show you where to find it. So this is the exact same design as the turf maze, and it's been recreated here and in the stained glass window inside, either one or both, to preserve the design, in case it ever gets destroyed at the turf maze. And it's a bit easier to see here how it kind of winds its way around, without ever branching off into separate paths, eventually ending in this central circle that's right at the top, in the centre, you might see a disc there, you would definitely miss that if you didn't know it was here. Pretty amazing church as well. I really struggled to find a spot for this one but I don't think anyone's going to find this by accident. Please be careful when you come to get it. I'll put the the What Three Words location on screen so you can find the exact place to go to. It should be accurate but it's down this path behind Julian's Bower and just up here behind this tree. If you do come and collect it please make sure to let us know either in the comments or send me a DM and I'll update the pinned comment so that everybody else knows that it's gone. Now I was going to end the video here but I bumped into a friendly local on my way in and he's invited me to go knock on his door and share his history with us. He's been in the area with his family and his ancestors for a very long time. So now's a good time to grab yourself a brew and a biscuit, get yourself subscribed to the channel if you're not already so you don't miss out on any future treasure hunts and adventures and let's embark on a bit of a bonus chapter of local history. We've been in this village oh well over 200 years my relatives and my father was born one of 13 at Tower House that's just on the back street in Hartborough from the maze. I was born on 20th February 1945 just before the war finished. My mum and dad was married in 1942 in the church in Hartborough But they couldn't finish. The photographs because the German bombers was coming over. So they had to come and hide under stairs here. Oh right. That used to be their bomb shelter under the stairs. Oh really? Wow. It was a lovely place to grow up with my mates in the village. And as lads there was so much to do. Did people used to play on the turf maze? Was it like a site for games? Well, as we grew up, as you got, you know, six or seven, eight, you used to go on the turf maze and play on that. I never really knew the full history, what they used to say, it was a game played by the Romans, it was earlier than that, it was a penance, they used to put peas in your shoes to go around it. All right. But I never knew the full history of it. Yeah. There's a board on the maze with pictures. Yeah. Well, one of them pictures on there, a man holding an horse from the 1920s, that's my grandad. Is it? Yeah. Wow. Oh, I've seen a bit of action here because I was with my mum once down the Houston Lane where you was walking this morning where I met you. Oh, yeah. And was there one day. I must have been eight or nine, something like that. And all of a sudden, this is a big noise coming off this aircraft. And it was an RAF fighter. And it's coming down and down, making a noise, and it crash-landed in the field. All right. Smoke coming out it, and one of the old farmers says, oh, because there's no mobile phones then, he run into the village to the telephone box to ring, you know, for police and emergency, and he says, don't go near it, it's going to set fire. But my mum said, I'm going to get the pilot. No, really, don't go. Nobody went but my mum couldn't stand by. She went and jumped on the wing and the pilot She pulled his cabin back and the pilot was bleeding bad and critically injured, very badly injured Ribs and all that. My mum couldn't pull him out, but she she took her underskirt off Ripped it up. She knew a bit about first aid so she wrapped all that up Did all that, but she daren't move him. It didn't fire, but she wouldn't leave him. Yeah. She stopped on the wing with him. Wow. Talking to him. And then, of course, ambulance come. I remember it was an old, one of them old bedfords. It came and sorted him out, carefully got him out, took him away. Wow. You walked past the site this morning down that lane. Was he on there on the road that I came in on? He was in the field. Oh, right. If he was going back down there, it's the field on your left. Okay. Roughly where I talked to you. Oh, right. Yeah. Interesting. Well there we go, what an adventure. Lots to unpack there and I think this is the field where Don was describing the plane crash because I bumped into him just where these hay bales are. So this was the crash site somewhere not too far from us. Hopefully you enjoyed that. If you've got any ideas, theories or questions, as always, let us know in the comments. There are plenty more exciting things coming on the channel very soon. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any of the treasure hunts, and if you want to get hold of any juicy extras, hear about what happens off camera, make sure to take a look at what's on offer over on Patreon. Thanks so much for watching, supporting this episode, and fingers crossed I'll see you on the next one.