Longleat House is an Elizabethan stately home in the south of England, owned by the Marquess of Bath, which hosts the world's longest hedge maze. This maze features seven bridges, which create a three dimensional puzzle. Spiral junctions are intended to add confusion by repetition, and elongated fork junctions are cunningly used since visitors are thought to prefer to conserve their momentum rather than make U-turns. The whirling lines and lack of any rectangular grid structure add further disorientation.
A frustrating part of the design is that at the start, if the right hand turn is taken, one finds oneself only one hedge width away from the goal, which is the centre, where there is a two story viewing tower.
The maze was started in 1975 and opened in 1978. It is 1.69 miles long, covers 1.48 acres and consists of 16,000 English yew trees.
Originally designed by Greg Bright with six bridges, once the centre was reached, the visitor still had to find their way out, which was almost as difficult as getting to the centre. The bridges were also designed with covered walkways so that visitor could not see out to plan their routes. A years later the bridge covers were removed, and a seventh bridge was added which allowed the user to gain immediate access to the exit from the centre.
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