Down House was the family home of world-renowned scientist Charles Darwin. It is now run by English Heritage. The house is set within the English countryside, in the county of Kent.
Charles Darwin was an English naturalist and geologist, widely known for his contributions to the science of evolution. Here Darwin established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors. Aside from this work, Darwin was also a naturalist of distinction, collecting thousands of species, for orchids to birds.
The house has a unique place in the history of science and evolution. It was here that Darwin wrote his major work On the Origin of Species’, which presented the theory of evolution, which is part of scientific understanding today and pioneered modern genetics.
In 1838, Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood. The couple moved into Down House in 1842 to accommodate their growing family. Darwin made extensive alterations to the house and grounds.
And English Heritage have restored many original items of furniture, tracked down after the Darwin family moved to Cambridge after Charles Darwin’s death.
During his life, Darwin’s status shifted from celebrated naturalist, following his voyages around the world collecting valuable specimens…
To an anti-establishment figure who turned conventional scientific thinking on its head. In 1858, with Charles Lyell, Darwin submitted a very important paper on natural selection to the Linnaean Society (the group responsible for classifying life.)
A year later, in 1859, Darwin published ‘On the Origin of Species’, providing an explanation for the ‘preservation of favored races in the struggle for life’. Among the time of writing, the house remained very much a family home.
Between 1842 and 1846 Darwin began a series of garden experiments. These were designed to show how plants need to adapt to survive environmental conditions and competition from other plants. One such study is recreated in the gardens.
In his greenhouse (or ‘glasshouse’) and kitchen garden, during the 1850s, Darwin set up a series of ‘experimental beds’; here his investigations into plant evolution lead to many key discoveries.
During the 1860s, Darwin regularly suffered from poor health. During this decade he published ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication’, which uses the phrase “survival of the fittest”. In later years this phrase became one of the most misrepresented in human history. During the 1870s Darwin published his last major work – ‘The Descent of Man’, which outlined the theory of human evolution.
The grounds of Down House are very beautiful. Since 1996, English Heritage have being restoring the grounds to their original Victorian layout.
Many of the gardens had been developed by Darwin’s wife. Emma Darwin had, apparently, found the house to be a little ugly and sought to brighten it up. Here best medium do achieve this was through colorful flowers.
English Heritage have carefully reconstructed the gardens as they would have appeared during Darwin’s time. This includes the kitchen garden growing cultivars from the Victorian era, such as runner beans.
To recreating and orchard.
And having thriving wild meadows.
Towards the end of this life Darwin was continuing to study earthworms (something he had begun 27 years previously.) His later conclusions were that without earthworms there would be little archaeology since the worms were key to preserving things buried underground.
Darwin died in 1882 from an angina attack. All the naturalist was buried in Westminster Abbey in London, most of his immediate family are inturned in the local church in the village of Downe (the village has an “e” at the end, unlike the house.)
If you’re interested in science, history, or simply enjoy period homes and gardens, Down House and the sleepy village of Downe make for an enjoyable visit. They provide a relaxing may to revisit the life and work of Charles Darwin.
The house is a popular tourist spot. Looking at tweets from Joy 2016, One visitor, Skeptic Ka (@SkepticKa) tweeted simply: “Darwin’s beautiful garden.” Another, Fredric Windsor (@Fred_Windsor) messaged: “Great to see Darwin’s house and experiments.” A third, Hefin Jones (@THJ1961) posted: “As always, totally enthralled by a visit to Down House.”