Refurbishment of OXF

The Fielding-Druce Herbarium (OXF) has occupied its present location in the Department of Plant Sciences for the last 50 years. As the second phase of a three-phrase programme to refurbish Oxford University Herbaria, refurbishment of the Fielding-Druce Herbarium has been completed. The aim has been to maintain an atmosphere in keeping with the age of the collections, significantly improve specimen housing, minimise exposure to toxic residues and increase useful research space.

One obvious solution was to use compactor units, as was undertaken in the Daubeny Herbarium refurbishment. However, this was rejected for OXF because of the structure of the building and the number of fixed units that would need to be included. The latter concern meant that there would have been no increase in the available research space. Therefore, we opted to use the existing cupboards, supplement them with new ones and redesign the existing space for research. In addition to the space issue, the use of the existing cupboards had two other advantages: (i) no need to dispose of large amounts of potentially contaminated wood; and (ii) most specimens could remain in place, so only about 80,000 specimens were removed. The fronts of all the existing cupboards were removed and replaced with new frames, to which new doors were hung and seals applied; the seals will minimise leakage of mercuric chloride vapour from the closed cupboards.

All of the new units are constructed with European oak frames and birch ply interiors. The existing units now have European oak fronts and the original cedar interiors. The doors, in order to ensure structural stability, comprise an oak border with a MDF core and oak veneer; in total, some 860 doors were replaced. All of the bays in the herbarium have matched veneer and a single sheet of veneer has been used from floor to ceiling through each set of cupboard doors; features enhance the overall appearance of the herbarium.

Concentrating existing workbenches into one area created research space, and the opportunity to network the entire herbarium. The installation of extractor fans and near-daylight quality lighting, plus decorating throughout, completed the transformation of OXF.

The refurbishment programme has been funded by a generous grant from HEFCE via the Science Research Investment Fund (SRIF), for which the Department of Plant Sciences is very grateful.

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