IT'S hoped that a top Wye Valley tourist attraction will be reopened in time for its half century anniversary next year after being closed throughout 2025.

The aMazing Hedge Puzzle at Symonds Yat West had to be uprooted in 2025 after a root infection destroyed its bright green verdant vegetation.

And the owners, who first opened the attraction in 1977, say they are now hoping to replant it this coming spring (2026).

A sign erected last year at the now empty site says: "After 48 years of puzzling our guests, the hedge has lost its sparkle, succumbing to a root infection and no longer able to produce an acceptable visual experience, or safe environment, due to die back and browning of the trees.

"We hope you will return to visit us in the future, when the puzzle will reopen to the sound once more of laughter and triumph!"

The creation of brothers and owners Lindsay and Edward Heyes, who also operate the Wye Valley Butterfly Zoo, Wye Valley Miniature Golf, and Wye Valley Warfare Laser Ops, alongside the common amenities, it was first planted as the Jubilee Maze in 1977.

An episode of TV sword and sorcery fantasy Merlin featured the aMazing Hedge Puzzle in 2008, starring former Eastenders actress Michelle Ryan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ‘s Anthony Head and One Foot in the Grave's Richard Wilson.

It wasn’t the maze’s first starring role, having previously featured in a Scottish Widows advert and a pop video.

The word “maze” connoting its dead ends and many paths dates from the 13th century and comes from the Middle English word mæs, denoting delirium or delusion, although single path ‘labyrinths’ go back 3,000 years to Ancient Greece and even earlier in South America, where they had a spiritual purpose.