Plain Things Wonders Exhibition

Plain Things Wonders opens at the ST Lee Gallery, Weston Library, on 5 November 2026 and runs through to 29 August 2027. It's a long show, so there's plenty of time to get to it if you're not around for the opening. The whole thing marks 400 years since Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum came out, one of the most influential texts in the development of experimental science. Bacon's point was to turn natural history away from curiosities and marvellous beasts and towards the wonder of ordinary things, and the exhibition traces how that turn to the everyday has shaped scientific discovery, natural illustration and artists' books over the centuries.

There's a fair bit to see. You'll find work by artists including Tom Phillips, Helen Douglas, Daniel & Clara, Alice Oswald and Tessa Farmer, alongside some heavy hitters from the Bodleian's own collections: the manuscript of Gilbert White's The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789), etchings and drawings by Anna and Susanna Lister for Historiae Conchyliorum (1685-1692), and a first edition of Robert Hooke's Micrographia (1665). It's a mix of contemporary art and old manuscripts, all sitting under that same idea of looking closely at the world around us.

Beyond the main display, there's a history of popular science books for children, including the Ladybird What to Look For... series. And there's a long record of observing temperature, weather and seasonal change right here in Oxford, stretching from a fourteenth-century manuscript to the Radcliffe Observatory's records, and ending with a contemporary climate blanket crocheted to map high temperatures from the 1940s to the 2020s. It brings together nature, art, science and books in one room. The exhibition runs from 5 November 2026 to 29 August 2027 at the ST Lee Gallery in the Weston Library.