Creating space to Connect with Nature
Wrenaissance CIC is a community-focused social enterprise creating opportunities for people to connect with nature, learn, move, and improve their wellbeing.
We believe that nature should be part of everyday community life — not something that people have to travel far to find or know how to access.
Wrenaissance CIC brings together people, practitioners, schools, community groups and organisations to create opportunities for everyone to benefit from spending time in and learning about the natural world.
Our work currently has three strands: Grow, Explore and Belong. Together, they reflect our belief that connection with nature can begin wherever you are, grow through experience, and ultimately become something we share with others.
Wrenaissance:
Grow. Explore. Belong
Garden Connections
Helping you rediscover the potential of your own outdoor space.
Emma provides practical advice, thoughtful design and hands-on learning that can help you get more from the garden you already have — whether you want to learn how to care for your plants, rethink your space or simply become more confident growing things.
The Rookery
Help us create a community home for nature, wellbeing and learning.
The Rookery is the long-term vision for Wrenaissance: a woodland space where local practitioners, schools, community groups and organisations can deliver activities that connect people with nature.
Before that can happen, the space needs some love.
Our Story
Wrenaissance CIC grew from a shared love of the woodlands around Shooters Hill.
Emma and Katie met through their volunteering with the Friends of Oxleas Woodlands. Both had lived locally for many years while working in London, and both had found respite, refuge and a sense of connection in the natural spaces on their doorstep. Volunteering began, in part, as a way of giving something back to the woodlands that had given them so much.
Their volunteering took them from woodland conservation to the restoration of the Jackwood House Wildlife Garden. Emma led the planting scheme, selecting plants that were appropriate for the site’s status as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), while also considering how changing climatic conditions might affect the garden in years to come. She continues to support volunteers during working sessions, helping them develop their knowledge and understanding of the different needs of the plants they care for.
Katie had previously led the restoration of the Castle Wood Rose Garden, a project that brought a much-loved local space back to life and continues to be enjoyed by residents.
When both Emma and Katie left their full-time careers, they began to think about how they could build on the satisfaction they found in working with nature and with their local community. From those conversations came the idea for Wrenaissance: a nature-based wellbeing collective, and ultimately a secure physical space dedicated to woodland wellbeing.
The Rookery is the next step towards that vision.
This small piece of woodland in the London Borough of Greenwich was once the grounds of a grand house of the same name and later became an outdoor education centre. Today it sits surrounded by residential neighbourhoods, offering an opportunity to bring a valuable natural space back into community use.
We are currently in advanced conversations with Greenwich Council, local councillors, the neighbouring college and local residents about the future of The Rookery. Our ambition is to create a welcoming community space where practitioners, schools, volunteers, community groups and local people can share their skills, ideas and experiences — and where more people can discover the benefits of connecting with nature.
Wrenaissance CIC has grown from our own experience of what these woodlands can give to people. Now we want to help create the spaces where others can find their own connection.
Wrenaissance CIC began with Emma and Katie, but our vision has always been bigger than the two of us.
We believe that people who help others connect with nature are stronger when they work together. Wrenaissance CIC is being created as a home for independent practitioners who share our belief in the value of nature and want to make their work more accessible within the community.
Growing the collective
We are looking for like-minded practitioners who would like to become part of the Wrenaissance community. You might work in nature-based wellbeing, outdoor learning, horticulture, creativity, conservation, physical activity or another field that helps people connect with nature.
Being part of Wrenaissance CIC means that independent practitioners can retain their own practice while benefiting from being part of something bigger. Your annual fee covers the costs of things like the website, email and digital services, booking platforms and other resources, while giving you access to shared policies and ways of working that make running a small nature-based practice easier.
Wrenaissance CIC also creates the potential to pursue funding collectively, opening up opportunities that may be difficult for an individual practitioner to access alone.
Practitioners remain responsible for their own professional practice, qualifications, insurance and safeguarding requirements, but together we can create a stronger, more visible and sustainable network of people helping their communities connect with nature.
Katie Smith
Katie is an experienced walk leader, and a trained Shinrin Yoku guide. She has a special interest in supporting people through bereavements.
Katie creates opportunities to explore nature through walking and nature-based wellbeing experiences. Whether discovering new places, building confidence outdoors, learning to navigate, or simply slowing down and noticing the natural world, her walks encourage people to connect with nature, others and themselves.
Emma Parkin
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean diam dolor, accumsan sed rutrum vel, dapibus et leo.
Contact Us
