[image error]Adrian Fisher, Randoll Coate and Graham Burgess

Sadly, the canal is long gone, though signs can still be found of its existence throughout the area, whilst Trent Vale itself is predominately made up of social housing from the local council and The Sutton Model Dwellings Trust, which helped to build a community in the post-war years. I’ve heard locals call this area ‘Trent Vegas’ due to the bright lights of numerous take-a-ways, and the Springfields Retail Park, built on the former site of Springfields Tile Works.

Trent Vale is a village in Stoke-on-Trent that has been developed over a number of years. Its origins are suspected to date back to the Iron Age, though a number of significant Roman artefacts were discovered in the 1920s and 1950s. During the 19th Century, the landscape was industrial with Brick and Tile yards on the Newcastle-under-Lyme Canal, and sporadic ”villa residences . . . snug, rural boxes’. St. John’s Church was built in 1843-44, one of a small number of 19th Century buildings still in use today.

Source: A Sociological History of Stoke-on-Trent – E.J.D. Warrillow 

Opposite the retail park is a Tesco supermarket, worthy of note due to the small selection of second-hand books on sale for local charities. It was here that my eye caught, among the beach reads and tatty copies of 50 Shades, a slim volume entitled A Celebration of Mazes – Adrian Fisher, Randoll Coate and Graham Burgess (1984) in its third edition from Minotaur Designs.

I dropped my 50p into the box and promptly pocketed this 40-page booklet, with its brief history of mazes, mazes the authors themselves have designed and plenty of B&W illustrations and images throughout. I have listed the full table of contents below, and have to admit to being a little curious to find out what effect the passage of time has brought to the world of mazes within these pages.

The Beatles Maze

[image error]International Garden Festival, 1984 – Liverpool

However, the main reason for writing this post was to let folks know that interesting books can be found in the most unusual of locations. I for one did not expect to find or even need a book about mazes when I entered this supermarket to pick up a medical prescription.

Table of Contents

“This is as strange a maze as e’er men trod; And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of…“

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

The History of Mazes:
The Cretan Maze
The Medieval Christian Maze
The Turf Maze
The Puzzle Hedge Maze
The Symbolic Maze
Mazes designed by Minotaur Designs
Lists and Map of British Mazes
Maze Reference Books, Organisations and Magazines
Glossary of Maze Terms
Profile of Minotaur Designs

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A gallery of mazes as featured in the booklet, A Celebration of Mazes.

This video includes footage of the Beatles Maze from The International Garden Festival, 1984 – Liverpool.