Bench Chat: Layers of Nature – A Conversation with Holly from the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust
The Centre of the Earth is the Wildlife Trust’s purpose built environmental centre in Winson Green – just 1.5 km from Birmingham City Centre. Here they specialise in teaching and learning about wildlife, the environment and sustainable development, and the facilitation of urban eco-therapy and the promotion of well-being in nature.
Although the site isn’t generally open to the public they do arrange activities and events for the public and groups to join, please contact them or check out their website: https://www.bbcwildlife.org.uk/wilder-schools/visit-our-centres
My name is Debbie, I’m a Green Champion volunteer for involvement and I’d like to welcome you to this month’s Bench Chat, where we slow down, sit awhile, and listen — to each other, to the landscape, and to the quiet wisdom nature offers when we make time to notice.
This conversation was recorded on a gently breezy summer’s day, under dappled sunlight and a sky that held a few thoughtful clouds. Our bench for this chat was in a beautifully crafted, self-supporting wooden structure tucked within the grounds of The Centre of the Earth, the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust’s urban oasis in the heart of the city.
As we sat, the air hummed with gentle activity: birds called from nearby trees, and delicate common damselflies flickered like living blue sparks through the air around us — the sort of details that only seem to appear once you’ve been still long enough to see them. It felt like the perfect place for a conversation about belonging, about noticing, and about the layers of meaning that nature can hold.
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/invertebrates/damselflies/common-blue-damselfly
Our guest was the warm and insightful Holly, Senior Community Engagement Officer for the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust. Holly works across the region, helping people build deeper connections with nature — and with one another. She recently delivered a session called Rooted in Nature, designed to support individuals who themselves help others to connect with the natural world. In our chat, she shares reflections on how these experiences ripple outward, with small acts of connection making a wider difference than we might imagine.
Holly brings a gentle strength and thoughtfulness to her work, and during our conversation, she chose the word “layers” to guide her thoughts. Layers in nature. Layers in people. Layers in community. She speaks beautifully about how we can notice and honour those layers — not just the surface-level beauty of a tree or a landscape, but the deeper ecological, emotional, and even historical stories held in place. It’s this kind of layered thinking that makes her approach to community engagement so powerful — recognising that nature connection isn’t just about getting people outdoors, but about helping them feel a sense of place, purpose, and possibility when they’re there.
This episode is about pausing. About really hearing what’s around you — whether it’s birdsong in a city garden, the buzz of a damselfly wing, or someone else’s story of how they came to care for the wild.
So pour yourself a cuppa, or better yet, take us with you on a walk or find a bench of your own. Join us as we chat with Holly, and let yourself sink into the soft, layered fabric of nature in the city — and the people who nurture it every day.
You’ll come away, we hope, with a new way of seeing — and a reminder that connection often begins with simply sitting still and sharing a moment.
Listen to our Bench Chat Podcast here to find out more:
Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project 