The cutting of mazes into the turf of village greens and hilltops has gone on for more than 2,000 years in Hartmoor, a fictional county of chalk hills and open heathland. Local records list 47 turf mazes across the county, and the great majority of them lie on the sandy heaths along its eastern border.

The best known of them is perhaps also the most puzzling: the Marrowby Maze, in the north of the county. The maze has recently been re-dated and found to be far older than the medieval date that had long been accepted for it.

Making a turf maze involved nothing more than cutting a pattern of narrow trenches through the turf, so that a winding path of bare earth was left between low ridges of grass.