Fields of Goldfinger (From York Press)

Fields of Goldfinger

3:24pm Thursday 26th July 2007 in News By Press reporter

BOND fever is about to hit York - as the world's biggest maze gets ready to open for the summer season.

The 32-acre maize puzzle celebrates the re-release of the favourite all-time Bond film Goldfinger, but it takes the form of the wrong 007.

The York Maze, in Hull Road, takes the shape of Roger Moore, despite the MI6 agent being played by rugged Scot, Sean Connery in the 1964 classic.

But maze owner, Tom Pearcy, denied making a Bond blunder and said he wanted to model the annual maze, which is the size of 15 football pitches, on his own favourite spy.

He said: "This year also marks the 30th anniversary of my favourite Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, which does in fact star Roger Moore. We also thought Sean Connery may be a lot harder to create."

The York Maze opens to the public on Saturday and will remain open until the end of September, when the crops will be harvested and fed to Mr Pearcy's cattle.

Mr Pearcy said: "We planted about one-and-a-half million crops initially, and once they were tall enough, a GPS navigation system was used to plot the Roger Moore design into the field before it was cut into the crops and allowed to grow into the correct pattern."

The maze is now expected to grow at a rate of a foot-and-a-half a week.

Sir Roger Moore said he was delighted to have been depicted in one of his favourite foods - sweetcorn.

He said: "It's amazing to hear that I'm in a maize maze in York. I'm amazed, as amazed as you may be too. I adore sweetcorn and would happily chomp my way through that amount of it, but you've saved me the job - quite amazing. Now get lost."

York boasts a number of Bond links. Not only did the city witness the births of Bond composer John Barry and Oscar-winning actress Dame Judy Dench, who plays the role of M, but former 007 agent Pierce Brosnan starred in his very first stage performance at York Theatre Royal.