The Story Museum

Year of Project: 2023

Location: Story Museum, Central Oxford

Collaborators: The Story Museum Staff

Stream: NatureScape

The Story

With not a bird, tiny insect, or green leaf on-site, the fabulous Story Museum was in need of a bit of ‘wilding’. At NaturEscape, our brief was to install planters with underplanting to create a pocket-sized whispering wood as the first stage of the greening-up project. With no vegetation between Christchurch Meadow and the Castle, the hope was that this mini wood would become a stop-off point for bugs, bees, and butterflies, bringing nature into the urban space.

We looked back in time to previous uses of the building, which at various points since the 17th century has functioned as a sorting office, telephone exchange, pub, and college dwellings, before becoming the award-winning Story Museum. Inspired by this history, we designed three large movable planters using sustainable UK Larch, each with brightly painted handles. With a nod to the building’s past as a sorting office, one planter was built with a pallet dolly as its base.

Impact

Each planter creates a mini-ecosystem, bringing layers of planting, seasonal interest, and opportunities for wildlife into the heart of the city. One planter houses a Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) underplanted with wild strawberries and native ferns, providing evergreen interest and foraging potential. Another features a contorted hazel with twisty branches and hazelnuts, alongside early pollinator-friendly planting including Pulmonaria, Helleborus, hart’s tongue fern, and Sweet Woodruff. The third includes a spring-blossoming tree and autumn-fruiting crab apple, with grasses, Verbena ‘Bampton’, and Erigeron providing long-lasting flowers for pollinators.

The addition of the planters has created a noticeable increase in biodiversity and the space is loved by staff, children, and adult visitors alike. As well as bringing nature into the museum, this tiny green corridor supports wildlife and encourages storytelling, curiosity, and playful imagination.

A plant with red berries and green leaves amidst purple flowers against a blue sky background.
Close-up of a strawberry plant with green leaves, small white flowers, and developing green strawberries. The plant is supported by a trellis on a balcony with wooden and metal railings.
A large rectangular black planter box on wheels holding a small tree with green leaves, with a wooden handrail and a metal staircase in the background, and a blue patio umbrella on a wet outdoor surface.
Outdoor patio with wooden tables, green and metal chairs, blue umbrellas, and a planter with a flowering tree.