It’s Harry Potter and The Amazing Maize Maze
An aerial view of York Maze, the largest maize maze in Europe. Below: farmer Tom Pearcy
A YORKSHIRE farmer has created the world’s largest spot the difference competition as a tribute to Harry Potter.
Tom Pearcy has carefully cut out two portraits of the boy wizard in his crop of maize plants at his field near York.
With some subtle differences between the two images it creates the world’s largest spot the difference competition.
At over 50m in diameter each head is also believed to be the largest image of Daniel Radcliffe ever created.
The images have been painstakingly carved out of over one million living maize plants.
The 10km of pathways form an intricate maze for visitors to explore.
The York Maze is the largest maize maze in Europe and one of the largest in the world.
Mr Pearcy said: “I’m a big fan of Harry Potter and the release of the final film this summer marks the end of an era.
“I wanted to do something imaginative to say farewell to Harry, so creating the biggest image of him ever made and making it a spot the difference competition seemed like an interesting way to do that.”
Mr Pearcy’s previous maze designs have included a Spitfire which at 1,000 ft long was 30 times the size of the real thing.
It was created to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and to pay tribute to the brave airmen who kept this country safe.
Other designs include the Astronaut for which a 30-acre field of maize was cut out in the shape of an astronaut on the surface of the moon to mark the 40th anniversary of the first Apollo Moon landings.
On that occasion he used GPS satellite technology to plot out the maze shape and used 1.5 million maze plants in the field.
The Statue of Liberty, Spiders Web, Big Ben, Roger Moore as James Bond, The Starship Enterprise and the Flying Scotsman also became memorable ‘mazemarks’.
Mr Pearcy started York Maze seven years ago as a means of farm diversification following the foot and mouth crisis.
Since then it has grown to become one of York’s most popular summer attractions welcoming over 50,000 visitors in the short eight-week season.
It has also picked up a number of awards including best newcomer in the York Tourism Bureau awards and was runner-up in Yorkshire Tourist Board’s Tourism Experience of the Year category.
York Maze opens to visitors on Saturday, July 16 and will be open every day until Sunday, September 4.
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Saturday 25 May 2013
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