Straw Weaving - Thursday 16th July, 2026
Celebrate the harvest of our heritage wheat at Oxford Botanic Gardens. Visitors will have the chance to learn some straw skills and create their own harvest trophy. These ‘harvest trophies’ or ‘corn dollies’ would be made to celebrate the harvest. Traditionally, harvest trophies would have been taken to the harvest home supper or back to the farm for display. It would likely have been kept until Christmas or Plough Monday when it would be burned, scattered or ploughed back into the land, fulfilling the ancient belief of ‘what comes from the land must be returned to the land’. As well as being an endangered craft, working with straw is a very mindful activity and crafts such as this have been shown to be beneficial to general wellbeing and mental health.
