THEY began life deep in the rainforests of West Africa.

But this week 10 huge tree stumps were hoisted onto the lawn of Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History.

Ghost Forest is an open-air exhibition by Oxford artist Angela Palmer and serves to highlight the destruction of rainforests worldwide.

The acclaimed work, that has previously been installed in Trafalgar Square and in Copenhagen, will be on display in the city for the next 12 months.

Ms Palmer said: “It looks so different everywhere it’s been, and it looks magnificent against the facade of the museum.

“It looks kind of prehistoric.”

She said it had been an incredible journey, which had taken the trees from Ghana to Oxford, via exhibitions in London and Copenhagen. The last part of the journey was from the abnormal loads depot in Hull – where they had been stored since returning from Denmark – down to Oxford under special escort.

The stumps, some weighing up to 15 tonnes, rolled into Oxford on Tuesday evening and part of Parks Road was closed as one by one they were lifted onto plinths on the museum’s lawn.

Tom Walker, a headteacher from Oxford, was cycling past when the largest stump was lowered into position.

He said: “I cycle past everyday and I was intrigued by the plinths. But this is not at all what I expected.

“I am not sure what I expected, but it was not this.”

The tree stumps are from the Suhuma forest in western Ghana, a country which over the past 50 years has lost 90 per cent of its primary rainforests.

Three of the trees were felled as part of a selective logging operation and seven had toppled over during storms.

The government in Ghana is working to preserve what is left and is at the vanguard of responsible and sustainable forestry.

Its remaining forestry concessions are selectively logged under strict regulations, ensuring the retention of the forest canopy, the natural regeneration of the forest, and a viable and sustainable timber industry for local people.

During its 12 months in Oxford, Ghost Forest will become an open-air performance hub for music, dance, theatre and story-telling, as well as a ‘field laboratory’ for academic research by Oxford professors and students in several departments.

On Saturday, the Curious Company will re-enact The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party around the trees during Oxford’s Alice in Wonderland Day.