Notes and Queries
Our regular round up of things labyrinthine brings together those odd items in our archives that need further research, or simply need a chance to be recorded, however insignificant they may seem to be. Similar notes, and queries, are welcomed for future editions, as are requests for help and information from any of our readers.

Labyrinth grating, Ascona, Switzerland.
Our thanks go to Silvia Regiolati for details and photographs of a new labyrinth, installed during 1992, in the church of Santa Maria Della Misericordia in Ascona. The church dates to 1442 and is currently part of a private school managed by Benedictine monks. The labyrinth, 1.15 metres square, has 13 circuits and is of an unusual Reims/Roman-type. Cast in concrete, it was designed by architects Franco Pessina and Mario Campi of Lugano, Switzerland and is situated on the floor behind an alter. As well as its symbolic purpose it also serves as a grate covering heating controls for the building.
 Labyrinth grating, Ascona, Switzerland

Dunbrody Abbey Maze, Eire.
Dunbrody Abbey Visitors Centre, eight miles from Waterford, Co.Wexford, Eire, has just opened a new hedge maze - only the second full size maze in Eire - in the garden of Dunbrody Castle, adjacent to the Abbey. 142x183 ft. the maze is planted in yew with gravel paths. The design echos the shape of the early Christian stone crosses for which this part of Ireland is justly famous. Dunbrody Abbey Visitors Centre is open daily 10.00 to 18.00 (20.00 weekends and bank holidays) April to September.
 plan of Dunbrody Abbey Maze, Eire

Visions & Journeys Gallery.
Gabrielle Hawkes of Visions & Journeys Gallery in St. Just, Cornwall, England, produces a number of charming paintings, prints and cards featuring labyrinths, including the beautiful screen print of the Rocky Valley labyrinth carving depicted here. The gallery is well worth a visit if you are in Cornwall, see small ads. below for further details.
 screen print of Rocky Valley labyrinth

Pavement labyrinth, Arbury Court.
Arbury Court, a housing development on the edge of Cambridge, England, has a simple Roman-type pavement labyrinth, laid in russet and cream bricks in a pedestrian area at the centre of the courtyard during 1991, to celebrate the Year of the Maze. Opened by the Mayor of Cambridge, and reported to Caerdroia by Nigel Pennick, the labyrinth incorporates a removable central slab, which allows a communal Christmas tree to be erected for the festive season, brightening up the area during the winter months. Raised flower beds and benches at the four corners completes an attractive labyrinth, designed by the local community group after an appeal for ideas to improve the courtyard.
 Pavement labyrinth, Arbury Court

The National Garden Festival 1992.
Held every other year here in the UK since 1984, always manages to include a maze or two (cf.Caerdroia passim). The 1992 Festival was held in Ebbw Vale, Wales, and our thanks go to Dr. John Wall for the following note:
En route to a holiday in the Gower peninsular near Swansea, we spent a day at the Festival at Ebbw Vale. The maze theme was taken up in a building called The Electric Maze, in the British Steel Tinplate Giant Maze, and in a combination of open-air plots on two levels, the design based on a microchip, called The Electronic Maze. None of these was a true maze in our sense, but one plot in the Electronic Maze was occupied by a very pleasing wooden Labyrinth created by Denys Short, which has a Japanese feel to it.
 Wooden labyrinth, National Garden Festival 1992

Railing post maze, Dock Park, Dumfries.
Thanks also to Dr. John Wall for this photograph of an unusual maze at Dock Park alongside the River Nith in Dumfries, Scotland. An octagonal maze, c.35 feet in diameter, constructed of cast iron railings topped with ornamental thistle flowers (a traditional Scottish national symbol), the whole painted in rainbow colours. The maze was laid out a few years ago giving a new lease of life to the railings which were salvaged from a development site. Any further information on this, a plan perhaps, from our readers in Scotland?
 Railing post maze, Dock Park, Dumfries

Hay on Wye Fire Festival Labyrinth.
A spectacular, albeit temporary, labyrinth existed briefly in Hay-on Wye, Herefordshire, England, for the occasion of Hallowe'en, 31st October 1992. 70 feet in diameter and built of small flares in the pattern of the Rad turf labyrinth at Hannover, Germany, the entire labyrinth was lit for a torch light procession as the finale of a pyrotechnic display - fireworks, fire jugglers and lasers! - entitled Hay on Fire.
Project director David Eveleigh tells us that the 1992 event raised £582 for the Red Cross, and plans are in hand for a repeat performance in 1993. Further details from: Dept. of Enjoyment, 32 Lion Street, Hay on Wye, Hereford HR3 5AB, England. Enquiries and offers to build further labyrinths out of fire, earth or water are welcome!
 Hay on Wye Fire Festival labyrinth

Grace Cathedral Labyrinth, San Francisco
Following an initial encounter with the labyrinth at a Mystery School, the Rev. Lauren Artress, canon pastor of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco and director of Quest, the cathedral's Centre for Spiritual Wholeness, introduced a temporary labyrinth to Grace Cathedral over the New Year 1992 period. Her 35 foot replica of the Chartres pavement labyrinth, painted on canvas and stretched across the floor of the cathedral sanctuary, was installed on December 30th 1991. During New Years Eve close  to 3000 people gathered at the cathedral to pray for renewal - both for themselves and for the city of San Francisco - a city faced with the crisis of AIDS, unemployment, recession and more. Nearly 1000 visitors also walked the labyrinth during the event. Meanwhile plans are afoot to raise money to install a semi-permanent labyrinth in the cathedral. We hope that they will add the correct number of cusps around the outer circumference - compare the photograph with the illustration on p.1!
 Grace Cathedral labyrinth, San Fransisco. Photo by Scott Campbell

See-Thru Maze Mandala #1
Details of this labyrinth print and other labyrinthine paintings, prints and cards from CaroleAnn Lovin of Envisions Limited from: PO Box 14755, Clearwater, FL 34629, USA.
 See-thru Maze Mandala print

Labyrinths in Electronics
The Electronic Maze is a term occasionally used by the media in connection with the ever-increasing advances made with computer technology and other 'high-tech.' applications. Caerdroia has shown a few labyrinthine circuit boards in the past, but a number of recent examples forwarded to us are worthy of reproduction and comment. An extensive range of modern electronic labyrinths are produced by Minco Products of Minneapolis, USA, in the form of their Thermofoil heating elements, designed to provide precision heating for aerospace, medical, commercial and industrial equipment. The heaters are thin and  flexible, consisting of an etched-foil resistive element laminated between layers of flexible insulation materials - plastics, silicone rubber, etc. The selection of elements below (kindly provided by Brian Jones of Minco) show some remarkable labyrinthine designs - all are basically unicursal and bear likeness in part to various historic examples, particularly the meandering roman labyrinths. But there is a prosaic explanation for the maze-like patterns on Thermofoil heating elements. They are designed to be non-inductive, that is not to generate electromagnetic fields at the same time as they heat, thus every strand has a parallel strand carrying current in the opposite direction, which tends to cancel the inductance. An identical process of parallel, but opposite pathways exists in the design of the classical and medieval labyrinths, the two most widespread forms among the early forms. This mathematical symmetry and balanced flow of energy is clearly as important in these modern labyrinths as it was for the original examples, where the tracing fingertip or passage of feet was the current flowing through.
 plans of two labyrinthine Thermofoil heaters
 labyrinthine Thermofoil heater
Despite the considerable complexity of some of the heating elements shown here, the labyrinth tamed for technology is just as likely to revert to its original form as it is in nature. Consider for instance the classical labyrinths still being constructed today of stones in Denmark and Scandinavia (see p.26), alongside the complex puzzle mazes, now designed to be ever more tortuous and tricky. The original concept of the basic labyrinth is inherent in all subsequent mazes and labyrinths as a consequence of their evolutionary relationship. So it should come as no surprise that at a conference staged during late 1991 by DuPont Polymers of Delaware, USA, a presentation on injection moulding design technology presented us with an excellent example of this process at work. A design for a cooling circuit used to cool the moulds forming the blanks for optical lenses was in the exact pattern of the classical labyrinth! The explanation offered for this curious coincidence was that the labyrinth design provided the best flow pattern and dispersion of heat across the mould, allowing even cooling of the glass within. Whether the DuPont CAD design computer systems independently arrived at the labyrinth symbol as the solution to the cooling technique or whether some later-day descendant of Daedalus has infected their computer with the labyrinth bug is unfortunately unrecorded. Either way the labyrinth once again comes full circle - from the Bronze Age to the Computer Age. Our thanks go to H.Peter Aleff for putting us on the track and the folks at Minco for providing the information and illustrations.