Rewilding London: The Tower of London's Moat
Rewilding London: The Tower of London's Moat
Hidden in one of London's most popular attractions - a historic royal prison is transformed into a rewilding paradise.
London's Tower was once the most intimidating building in the ancient capital of the British Kingdom. Now it's a popular tourist trap, offering a view into England's once cruel punishments. Perhaps though it has transcended its ignominious history - over the last two years it has become a symbol of London's rewilding future. We visited it to understand how the Tower of London's team have created an expansive rewilded garden out of a moat.
Beginning in 2022 - to mark the late Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee - the Tower of London's moat began a project to produce a superbloom! The project aimed in the long term to create a biodiverse habitat, but in the short term they wanted to create a blanket of colourful flowers.
They planted over 20 million wildflower seeds to create the SuperBloom in the summer of 2022. And a wild space in the middle of the city came to life. Pollinators like bees and butterflies were welcomed to the new home as the project successfully attracted migrating Mediterranean and North African butterflies like the Peacock and Red Admiral butterflies.
The superbloom was a new focus for London - with a wild and nature-first vision. Helping us to start thinking differently about historic places. When you visit you can't help being taken aback by the sheer volume of flowers, colour and biodiversity. The symphony of blooms builds essential habitats for pollinators that attract a cacophony of diverse insect life. Ladybirds, hoverflies and aphids are all now core features of the Tower's moat.
The insect's arrival means the soil will regenerate - a key step in any rewilding project. The first important phase for a rewilding project is to find a way to naturally improve the quality of the soil. Soil quality improves by restoring insect and animal life. They can recycle the soil, repopulate it with natural fertiliser, and restore its role as an effective carbon sink.
As can be seen in the above video, the Tower of London gardening team is happy to perfectly manicure some of its garden space. However, the superbloom space in the moat has been left to die back after the bloom, as well as reseed. A natural process that ensures the annual wildflowers can regrow year after year and spread across the moat.
This creates a year round constant habitat that animals and insects can survive in, rather than a temporary colourful space that offers no protection to its wildlife when it is cut back in the winter. This is an important part of any rewilding project, but especially impressive given the rewilded moat's simultaneous dedication to being a human space as well.
The nature restoration work within the Tower of London moat aims to marry natural space with human activity. A major wicker sculpture (pictured above) towers in the corner of the moat, and reminds the visitor that this remains a human space.
While many rewilding projects work to separate man from the new natural rebirth, the Tower of London Moat has adopted a different approach. It's an approach we have advocated for many years and is what visitors experience at LettsSafari's Capability Brown gardens in Exeter.
Environmental issues are intended to be the centre of change in London, and as such, it needs to be centred in the minds of the public as well. Dedicated pathways run through the moat, tours are taken through it, seating and sculptures offer places of rest for people wandering through. It makes the rewilding of the moat a dedicated part of London's tourism project. Much like the work in Exeter's Capability Brown Gardens, the Moat offers an opportunity to inform the public of the importance of rewilding.
Overall, the work done at the Tower of London's Moat has turned one of Britain's historic jewels into a climate attraction. An opportunity to explore London's past has now also offered a chance to understand London's potential future. And doing so by offering the public a front row seat to the rewilding journey is even more important.
At LettsSafari we also work to communicate the importance of rewilding action. It is truly a joy to visit a place that is so successfully practicing the principles we have been sharing. If you enjoyed a visit to the moat, and a tour through it's wildlife path - we know you'd enjoy a visit to LettsSafari's parks in Mamhead Park South.
What makes the Tower of London's Moat special is precisely that dedicated involvement of man. It's not unusual to see spaces built around human interaction. However, the Tower of London's moat is built for human engagement. It is both an essential project for further greening our urban jungle, but also communicating to the world that we need to green those spaces, and that greening them is good. Great even.
Get more LettsSafari updates and wildlife photos from our twitter. And read the latest posts at the LettsSafari + website.