Castle maze trim 'not for the faint hearted'

The Yew Maze at Hever Castle is 6,400 sq ft (595 sqm) with three-quarters of a mile of hedging

Busy gardeners have finished the trimming a 6,400 sq ft (595 sq m) yew maze at Hever Castle in Kent.

The team say the work which is needed every autumn is a job "not for the faint-hearted".

Gardeners trim 3.1 miles (5km) of hedging every year, including three-quarters of a mile (1.2km) of yew which forms the 120-year-old maze at Anne Boleyn's childhood home near Sevenoaks.

Neil Miller, head gardener, said: "We wait for the schools to go back before we tackle the yew maze."

The gardeners at Hever Castle said the task was "not for the faint hearted"

Mr Miller explained birds typically nest between March and August, so they hold off the trimming until they knew there were no nests before beginning the mammoth task.

"There's great art involved in the creation of topiary. It is a technique dating back more than 2,000 years to the Romans," Mr Miller said.

"Topiary shapes can be intricate or simple, abstract or life-like."

The castle was a medieval defensive castle built in 1383 before becoming the Boleyn family's home.

It gradually fell into disrepair before American billionaire William Waldorf Astor began an extraordinary transformation of Hever Castle and grounds.

Between 1904 and 1908, he employed more than 1,000 men to create the gardens.

A spokesperson for the castle says next year marks the 120th anniversary of the planting of the Yew Maze, which is created from 1,000 yew trees imported as 6ft tall (1.8m) specimens from the Netherlands in 1906.

They added the three-quarters of a mile of hedges now stand at 8ft (2.4m) tall with the maze measuring 80ft by 80ft (24.4m by 24.4m).