The Superbloom
Wildflowers in the heart of the city
A couple of weeks ago, I took a trip into the city to spend the morning at the Tower of London.
If you haven’t been, it’s well worth a visit. The White Tower was built by William the Conqueror after the Norman invasion in the 1070s, and has been the home of kings and queens until about the 17th century when the royal families moved on to other residences. Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey were all executed there, putting the tower at the epicentre of English history.
The moat has been an important part of the Tower ever since it was built, first serving as a line of defence against potential invaders, then hosting unique ecosystems - it used to be full of fish in medieval times, then after it was drained due to the stink of sewage in the 19th century it was used as an allotment. For most the time I’ve known it, it’s just been a lawn.
In 2014, artists Paul Cummins and Tom Piper filled the moat with 888,246 handmade ceramic poppies to mark the centenary of the First World War, with each poppy representing a British soldier who died in the conflict.
For a while the moat sat empty again, a plain stretch of barren and featureless grass.
Then in 2022, for my favourite - and thankfully now permanent - exhibition, the moat was filled with 20 million wildflower seeds to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.
The Tower called it Superbloom, and erected signage informing visitors of the vital role that pollinators play on our planet.
Over the next few years, the Tower Moat will evolve into a permanent biodiverse landscape with different habitats providing different species with a home. We’ll make this change slowly to create a beautiful echo of Superbloom in the most sustainable way possible.
Having worked right next door to the Tower for five years, I spent a lot of time thinking about the wasteful land surrounding the building. Often a lone robotic lawnmower would wander for hours in circles, pointlessly keeping the lifeless grass trimmed.
For such a major tourist attraction to embrace the mess of wildflowers and shine a spotlight on our biodiversity crisis is really exciting. Just imagine what we could do if we flooded all of our unused verges with pollinator-friendly flowers.
It seems to have been met with approval by the local pollinators, too. Taking a slow walk through the moat I was met with the gentle background hum not of traffic but of bumblebees, cracking on with what they do best.
The next time you’re in London between spring and summer, go and check it out. If walking through a moat of vibrant wildflowers surrounding a thousand-year-old piece of world history doesn’t stir at least something inside you, then I’m not sure what will.
Amazing wildflowers bringing back true color and life!
That looks wonderful. Leeds Council did some wildflower verges down the middle of dual carriageways a few years ago, I don’t know if they’re still there. I noticed yesterday on a train journey that the wildflowers alongside the track into Leeds looked amazing.