Randoll Coate

Gilbert Randoll Coate (born October 8, 1909 in Lausanne , † December 2, 2005 in Le Rouret , France) was a British intelligence officer, diplomat, amateur designer and occasional author . He designed numerous hedge mazes , lawn and paving labyrinths for private and public clients.

Youth and Military Service

After finishing school, Coate studied French and German at Oriel College , Oxford. He graduated in 1931. Because of his language skills, he was used by the British government to interrogate prisoners of war during World War II . In 1941 he took part in an extensive military operation in Norway that caused great losses to the German troops. Further missions followed in southern France and, in 1944, in Greece.

Diplomatic career

Coate's work for the British Foreign Office began in March 1946. With his appointment as Vice Consul in Léopoldville in 1949, the foundation stone was laid for his further diplomatic career. It took him to Rome in 1951 and to The Hague in 1952 . In 1955 he married Pamela Dugdale Moore, an unknown painter. After a promotion in the same year, Coate was transferred to Buenos Aires in 1956 , to Stockholm in 1959 and, after another promotion, to Brussels in 1962 . He retired in 1967.

Artistic activity

Coates' artistic career began in 1975 with a maze in Lechlade Mill (Great Britain) formed from yew hedges and shaped like a footprint over sixty meters long. Until then, there had been no mazes in symbolic form. An egg-shaped system followed in 1978 in Värmlands Säby (Sweden), which alluded to the client's name and represented a falcon's egg. Together with Adrian Fisher , he founded a company that devoted itself to the design, sale and construction of mazes around the world. One of his greatest designs is the Marlborough Maze in Blenheim Palace . Coate also planned lawn and paving mazes. One of his latest designs was a hedge maze in Buenos Aires for Jorge Luis Borges , with whom he was friends. The system in the form of an open book was created in 2001.

Coate designed about fifty mazes and labyrinths in different countries; many have remained unknown because they were created for private clients. His symbolic designs, which are often composed of parts of stylized depictions of animals, are often linked with esoteric meanings. Coate died on December 2, 2005 at the age of 96 in Le Rouret. He left behind his wife and two daughters.

Horticultural work (selection)

• Imprint , Lechlade Mill, Gloucestershire (UK), yew hedge maze, 1975.
• Skapelse , Värmlands Säby herrgård, Nybble, Värmlands län (Sweden), hedge maze from Ehriger rock pear, 1979.
• Beazer Maze , Bath, Somerset (Great Britain), Mosaic Lawn Maze , 1984.
• Sun Maze , Longleat House, Warminster, Wiltshire, maze with low boxwood hedges, 1996.
• El laberinto de Borges , San Rafael, Mendoza (Argentina), boxwood hedge maze, 2001.

Publications

• Mont Athos, la sainte montagne. Grenoble 1948 (together with Simonne Jourdan-Laforte).
• Mazes, past, recent and presently. In: Lustgården, Arsskrift för Föreningen för Dendrologi och Parkvård, Vol. 59, 1978, pp. 60-67.
• A celebration of mazes. Saint Alban's 1986 (together with Adrian Fisher and Graham Burgess).

literature

• Graham Burgess: Randoll Coate. A designer of mazes whose creations were made for both public and private enjoyment. In: The Guardian, international edition, Feb. 28, 2006, p. 28.
• Randoll Coate, cosmopolitan soldier and diplomat who in retirement designed many remarkable and elaborate mazes. In: The Times, Jan 18, 2006, No. 68600, p. 65.
• The Foreign Office list and diplomatic and consular year book , vol. 137, 1965, p. 164.