Stratford Butterfly Farm (Rainforest Flight Area)

Stratford Butterfly Farm owes its existence to Clive Farrell, whom the official site presents as an internationally renowned lepidopterist and the originator of the idea. It was officially opened on 24 July 1985 by the botanist and naturalist David Bellamy, and marked its 25th anniversary in 2010. Links with the tropics lie at the heart of the project: in 1991 Farrell and a business partner created the Fallen Stones Butterfly Farm in southern Belize, which supplies butterflies to Stratford.

The site has had several turning points. On the night of 3 June 2002 a rocket from a Golden Jubilee firework display landed in an empty plastic flowerpot next to a greenhouse and destroyed part of a glass breeding greenhouse. According to the BBC, the public area was untouched and most of the roughly 90 butterflies inside were saved, but the special plants imported from tropical forests burned; a director of the farm reckoned that, once the greenhouse was rebuilt, it would take eight to ten weeks to regrow them.

For the farm's 30th anniversary a Maya-themed refurbishment was announced in 2015; work began in early January 2016 and the farm reopened on 22 July 2016 in the presence of Belize's High Commissioner. In December 2017 new rainforest-style pathways were laid through the flight area. During the 2020 lockdowns the team replanted it, added wooden pergolas and built a replica Maya temple. A 'cenote' project launched in 2022 led to the Rainforest Realm, which opened on 31 March 2023.

The official site calls the Rainforest Flight Area a 'landscaped tropical greenhouse', and Wikipedia refers to large greenhouses simulating a leafy tropical environment. A photograph of the exterior on Wikimedia Commons shows a row of greenhouses with glazed roofs and arched gable ends.

What is well documented is the interior, laid out like a garden. A 2004 BBC feature describes a route that passes hibiscus and citrus plants on its way to a waterfall and a small pond of koi carp. In December 2017 a contractor laid about 200 m² of pathways on a concrete base, topped with an 18 mm coloured surface bearing imprints of leaves and animal tracks. Wooden pergolas followed in 2020.

The heat is that of a tropical house: the BBC recorded close to 33 degrees Celsius inside on one of the hottest days of the year, with humidity it called tropical. Breeding takes place in separate premises: the 2002 fire hit a glass breeding greenhouse distinct from the public area, while the Discovery Zone shows pupae glued to wooden rods in an emerging case.

According to the official site, the flight area holds more than 200 species of tropical butterfly over the course of the year and about 2,000 free-flying individuals. Pupae arrive every week from tropical farmers (Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Kenya, Malaysia and the Philippines, per the site), and some species are bred on the premises.

The butterflies feed on a carpet of tropical plants in which the site names lantana first, followed by Mexican sunflower, Combretum indicum, Vanda orchids donated by Kew and a Monstera deliciosa as old as the farm. Twenty-two phantasmal poison frogs were released there in May 2022, and two green iguanas live in the space.

Elsewhere on the site, the Discovery Zone shows the stages of the life cycle, Minibeast Metropolis houses what the farm describes as one of the largest invertebrate collections in the country, and the Rainforest Realm includes a spectacled caiman in a recreated cenote.

The farm stands on Swan's Nest Lane; in 2004 the BBC placed it five minutes' walk from the centre of Stratford, opposite the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Visitors who have written up their trips allow about an hour and a half to see everything, longer for nature enthusiasts. Paths are described as flat and accessible, though narrow and slippery in places, and the route is covered in any weather, which makes it a good rainy-day stop. From June to September the entrance garden, planted with perennials, draws pollinators too. The stop combines easily with a day among the town's Shakespeare sights.