PREPARE to be ‘a-mazed’ when a hugely popular and unique festival descends on the town for the second time.

The Saffron Walden Maze Festival is back this summer after organisers declared the inaugral event in 2011 as “hugely successful and superb for the town”.

It will be held from August 16-19 and everybody has been encouraged to get involved with the festival.

The celebration will include the old favourites – from historic maze racing in the turf maze, to maze games and puzzles for all in the town hall and stories in the library.

And new this year, the keynote speaker will be an international maze maker, while an artist in residence will be making mazes all over Saffron Walden.

Tourist Information Centre duty manager Mark Starte said: “It was a superb event for the town in so many ways and attracted visitors from far and wide, raising our profile nationally.”

But excited festival goers don’t have to wait till August to join in the fun. Writers, young and old, novices and experienced, have been asked to send in scripts to be turned into 10-minute plays to be performed in Bridge End Garden druing the festival.

Artists of all ages have been called on to send work based on the theme of mazes and labyrinths to Saffron Walden Library so the best can be exhibited during the festival, while the Saffron Walden Initiative is looking for clubs, societies, shops, businesses, families and friends to design their own temporary mazes on the Common. It is hopeed there will be a Maze Festival every three years, alternating with the Saffron Walden Carnival and the Arts Festival.