Crocheted post box toppers celebrate Sir David Attenborough's 100th birthday

Regent’s Park and Richmond were among the first stops in a UK-wide crochet takeover that dressed red post boxes in bees, squirrels and woodland habitats for Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday. The toppers turned ordinary street furniture into bright little nature displays, with Hobbycraft placing the installations in locations tied to Attenborough’s life and work.

The campaign reached London, Cambridge, Leicester, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bournemouth and Glasgow, with toppers appearing throughout May. Cambridge marked the city where Attenborough studied, while Leicester reflected the place where he grew up. Hobbycraft said the project was designed as a yarn-bombing celebration of his legacy, bringing British wildlife themes into public view through handmade crochet.

Natalie Beard, Hobbycraft’s Knitcraft expert, created the installations. The pieces leaned into the details that make crochet public art so shareable: instantly recognisable animals, dense texture and a clear sense of place. In this case, the topper format worked as both tribute and street-level spectacle, giving each post box a small, self-contained scene that connected community making with a national milestone.

Hobbycraft also released free patterns to widen the celebration beyond the post box route. The downloads included an amigurumi David Attenborough crochet doll and nature-themed templates, giving makers a way to join in at home with their own centenary tributes. That move extended the campaign from local display to kitchen-table crochet, where a themed pattern can travel just as quickly as a finished topper once it starts being shared.

The birthday week was crowded with other tributes too. An early day motion in Parliament noted that the BBC commissioned a collection of 40 of Attenborough’s most-loved programmes for BBC iPlayer, while the Royal Albert Hall was scheduled to host a national celebration on the evening of 8 May. Together, the displays and the wider programming gave the centenary a strong public profile, but the crochet pieces stood out for making the tribute tactile, local and easy to spot on the high street.

From Regent’s Park to Richmond, the post boxes did more than mark a birthday. They showed how crochet can move beyond the craft table and into shared public space, turning a familiar red pillar into a small wildlife scene and a visible sign of community celebration.