You know those dreams about discovering new rooms in a familiar house? I’ve had one about almost every home I’ve ever known and the idea of those spaces never quite leaves. Imaginary they may be, but not consciously made-up, and so they persist as supernatural aspects of place that are particular and real to me. It’s with a similar thrill that I find myself eight miles from home staring at something I never knew was here. A labyrinth. Not a neopagan installation, but likely one of just a handful of turf mazes in Britain, and the smallest, possibly, in Europe, at under 6 metres across.
Having spotted it on Google Maps while looking for something else, I dropped everything to come, as if delay might show it to be another dream. On the drive, I pondered the unlikeliness of the location, an exceptionally quiet wayside in the middle of nowhere. But now I’m here it’s plain: this is emphatically not nowhere. Huge views unfurl: north to the moors, east to the Derwent and south across the great spill of the Vale of York to South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in the hazy distance.
This labyrinth is classical in both form and name: City of Troy, a reference to the famously complex design of the ancient city. But they likely came here via Scandinavia, where similar structures known as Trojaborg (Troy Town) are more common.
Similar etymology appears in records of Welsh examples known as Caerdroia (Castle of Troy). But the -by suffix of nearby settlements here puts us firmly in Viking territory, emphasised by the name of the road, Bonnygate Lane. Gat is Old Norse for “street”, and bon for “prayer”. The prayer road? A large burial mound nearby, long predating the Viking era, may well have provided a focus for the evolving spiritual life of a community. The adjacent field, where today tractors are collecting trailerloads of maize cut and shredded by a gigantic combine, is called Chapel Garth. There is no chapel here now, but they were often built on existing pagan sacred sites.
I walk the labyrinth’s seven rings, a journey of layers and shifting perspectives, where progress is contingent on occasionally turning your back on your goal. When I reach the centre, I stand a long time, wondering.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
