Prepare to be a-maze-d

Named for the old English meaning delirium or delusion, mazes were conceived to boggle the mind. Deborah Nicholls-Lee meets the man behind Saltburn's chilling climax

IT'S the film everyone's talking about― a sinister story that both disturbs and delights. Saltburn, filmed at Drayton House in Northampton shire, features a climactic scene in an elaborate garden maze. As Drayton has no maze, director and co-producer Emerald Fennell enlisted the help of Adrian Fisher, the world's leading maze architect, to design one for the film.

❝ Adrian Fisher's fastmoving mind is as twisting and turning as his creations'

Masterminding more than 700 hedge, water, mirror and mosaic mazes around the world, as well as the first 'maize maze', chopped into a Pennsylvania cornfield, requires a busy brain. The day before our planned interview, Mr Fisher telephones me to share the concept he has for COUNTRY LIFE's own maze, the ideas spilling over, unable to wait. His fast-moving mind is as twisting and turning as his creations. Without warning, the conversation takes another path, switching to the awe-inspiring aerial photographs he takes with his drone ('I can deploy it in 90 seconds-and then whoosh'). Then, we're onto follies. 'I'm nuts about towers,' he says, describing them as 'the aerial camera points of the past'. 

Adrian Fisher's Blenheim Palace maze that enjoyed a starring role in Inspector Morse

There's no doubt that Mr Fisher's designs are also meant to be enjoyed from a height, where the hedging reveals hidden graphics. One vivid example is the Alice in Wonderland maze created at Dorset's Merritown Farm, which features many familiar characters, including a grinning Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter and Alice herself (see 'How to commission a maze' box). At its centre is a pocket watch fixed at four o'clock, indicating a perpetual tea time.