Victorian Area Tour
- Kaeser Memorial Maze
- Piper Observatory
- Herb Garden
- Kresko Family Victorian Garden
- Mausoleum and Mausoleum Garden
Kaeser Memorial Maze
The entertaining and puzzling Kaeser Memorial Maze recreates a maze constructed by Henry Shaw in the 1800s. Visitors wind through a sunken labyrinth of yew hedges bordered with arborvitae. Yews alternate with paths leading to a vine-clad gazebo.
Piper Observatory
The Piper Observatory is a replica of one built by Henry Shaw in the 19th century in Tower Grove Park. Visitors may climb the steps inside the Observatory to watch people in the maze. There is also a viewing screen on the lower level for those who do not wish to climb the stairs.
Herb Garden
The Herb Garden may be found enclosed in an ornamental iron fence behind Tower Grove House. Inspired and tended by the St. Louis Herb Society, this quaint courtyard includes beds of culinary and medicinal herbs. Within the Herb Garden, a daydreaming child figure may be found playing with a sundial in a bed of creeping thyme, perhaps a gentle Herb-Garden pun. The sculpture was installed in 1965 with the sundial adjusted to show standard time in St. Louis.
Kresko Family Victorian Garden
The Kresko Family Victorian Garden is a majestic example of the height of fashion in England at the time Henry Shaw was planning his gardens in St. Louis. The Kresko Family Victorian Garden is reminiscent of an earlier garden that was built by Shaw on the present site of the lily pools in front of the Linnean House. Juno, a marble statue created in 1885 by Italian Carlo Nicoli, stands at the center of the Victorian Garden. Juno was donated to the Garden by Shaw and originally resided in his Victorian garden.
Mausoleum Garden and Mausoleum
The Mausoleum Garden is a step into the past. A wrought-iron fence encloses the area, which is sheltered by majestic, towering oaks and sassafras trees. The ground is blanketed by Baltic ivy, wintercreeper, and ferns. In spring, small blossoms of snowdrops peek through the groundcover, adjacent to drifts of blue and white woodland hyacinths. It is here that Garden founder Henry Shaw rests. The rose colored granite, octagonal mausoleum with the copper roof is his final resting place. He is laid to rest beneath a white marble sculpture sculpted from 1883 to 1885 by German Ferdinand von Miller II. Shaw posed for this likeness shortly before his death.