When Boston College carpentry and joinery students were asked to knock together a few bird boxes for the Boston in Bloom team no one envisaged it would turn into a history and heritage project.
The accommodation for nesting birds has turned out to be the grandest Boston can offer – nest boxes modelled on some of the town’s most iconic buildings.
Boston Stump, the Masonic Hall, the Guildhall, Fydell House and the Maud Foster Mill have all been interpreted in wood to provide top-class accommodation for feathered friends.
And the students didn’t stop there. They also made a bug hotel featuring the Boston skyline, a stopover for hedgehogs and multiple side-by-side nesting for social sparrows under the reproduction roof of Willoughby Road almshouses.
The classy nest boxes will now go on display at the Stump when the East Midland in Bloom awards are held there in September, hosted by Boston in Bloom. They will then be available for next spring’s nesting birds, bugs and hedgehogs at the Willoughby Road allotments.
The bid box idea was hatched by Boston in Bloom member Bridget Sykes and in-bloomer Paul Collingwood took it to the college where lecturer Mike Pryjdun enthused his 16-year-old Level 1 students.
Paul said: “They really went for it and took photographs of the buildings and researched their history. Some went up the Stump who had never been up before and they learned lots about the town’s heritage. They were really keen that they presented these iconic buildings as accurately as possible, and learned a lot about them in the process.”
Paul thanked South Lincolnshire Scaffolding for supply of poles for the nesting box display planned for the Stump and Aston Robinson, from Pelo Hair and Eden Beauty Salon in Wormgate, for sponsoring the display area.
