The walls of Blenheim Palace are home to an extraordinary ecosystem, including a variety of lichen species both common and rare.
Blenheim Palace and researchers from the School of Geography and the Environment, at the University of Oxford, are currently developing innovative methods to investigate which lichen species are growing on the stone, why they grow in some places and not others, are they helping or hindering, and what stories they might tell. A rare British lichen has also recently been discovered on site; it is the first recorded for the whole county of Oxfordshire.
Work is now underway on our biggest restoration project to date.