Walk to St Catherine's Hill this evening .......
Just walked 2 miles along the river to get this far just having a rest before the dreaded steps to the top ......
Wait for me Jim ............
Looking over Winchester...the sky looks a bit ominous .......
YAY........ completed the Miz Maze......phew now we have to walk back home tooo....
Sky now looking like there will be a storm .........( Actually it did p### down while we walked home along the river )
Bit of a potted history of St Catherine's Hill and the Miz Maze....
The top of the hill is ringed by the ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort, which is a scheduled ancient monument. In the centre a copse of beech trees contains the site of the 12th Century chapel of St. Catherine. There is also a mizmaze, probably cut between 1647 and 1710.[2]
Mizmaze (or Miz-Maze) is the name given to two of England's eight surviving historic turf mazes. One is at Breamore,the other is on top of St Catherine's Hill, overlooking the city of Winchester, Hampshire. A mizmaze forms a pattern unlike conventional mazes and is classed as a labyrinth because the path has no stems. The pattern appears more like a very long rope, neatly arranged to fill the area. The Winchester mizmaze is most unusual, being roughly square, although its paths curve gently and it has rounded corners. It is also one of only two surviving historic English turf mazes where the path is a narrow groove in the turf (the other is at Saffron Walden, Essex).
thought I would add this tragic story about the origin of the Miz Maze.......
Wheeler's Hampshire Magazine for 1828 states the maze is 'famous in Wiccamical history', and that it was cut 'by a College boy'. This marks the first phase in the growth of the local legend, which goes something like this.
A certain boy was condemned for some unspecified misdemeanour to be kept behind in College during the Whitsuntide holidays. As part of his punishment, he was chained to a tree near the riverbank below Blackbridge. He is also said to have roamed on the Hill, presumably during intervals in his bondage, where he devised and cut the Mizmaze. It is also said that he would forlornly sit on the northern ramparts of the Iron Age fort, hence the area is now called 'Misery Corner'. Pining away, he died on the day his schoolfellows returned to College, some saying that he drowned himself in the river. So much for happy schooldays.
I have just completed the Miz Maze.........YAY !!!.........x
Jim an I went to Brighton today to have a look and talk to the tattoo artists about our tattoos.....more on this later .......Brighton is so lively and arty ..........great graffiti and the pier is the best .......... Lovely Sitar music outside the Pavilion
