Location of Down House in London Borough of Bromley
Down House is the former home of the English naturalistCharles Darwin and his family. It was in this house and garden that Darwin worked on his theory of evolution by natural selection, which he had conceived in London before moving to Down.
The Grade I listed building stands in Luxted Road, one-quarter mile (400m) south of Downe, a village 14+1⁄4 miles (23km) south-east of London's Charing Cross. The village was known as Down when Darwin moved there in 1842. In his day, Downe was a parish in Kent. Since 1965, it has lain within the London Borough of Bromley.
The house, garden and grounds are in the guardianship of English Heritage. They have been restored and are open to the public.
History
1651–1842: early history
In 1651, Thomas Manning sold a parcel of land including most of the current property to John Know the elder, from a Kentish yeoman family, for £345 (equivalent to £61,602 today[1]). It has been debated whether this price is likely to have included a house, but, if not, it was Know who built the first farmhouse on the property: some surviving flint walls may date from this period. In 1653, John Know gave the house to his son Roger, probably as a wedding present; and in 1743, the marriage of Mary Know passed the property to the family of Bartholomew of West Peckham in the Weald. In 1751, Leonard Bartholomew sold the uninhabited house on to Charles Hayes of Hatton Garden.[2][3]
The property was acquired by the businessman and landowner George Butler in 1778, and it is thought that he rebuilt and enlarged the house: in 1781, he paid the highest window tax in the village. Around this time, it was apparently called the Great House. After Butler died in 1783, the property changed hands several times, then in 1819, it went to Lieut.-Col. John Johnson, C.B., colonel of engineers in the Hon. East India Company, Bombay establishment. In 1837, Johnson migrated to "Lake Erie near Dunville in Upper Canada", and passed what was now called Down House on to the incumbent parson of the parish, the Rev. James Drummond. The house was re-roofed and brought into good order under the supervision of Edward Cresy, an architect who lived nearby. Around 1840, Drummond left the property vacant and put it up for auction, but it was unsold and lay empty for two years.[2][3][4]
1842–1906: Darwin occupancy
The Darwin family in 1841 was finding their London house increasingly cramped: both Charles and his wife Emma preferred living in the countryside, as they were disturbed by the constant noise and severe coal smoke air pollution of central London, and they had two young children, William (b. 1839) and Anne (b. 1841). Darwin approached his father Robert Darwin for financing, and with the caution that he should try living in an area for some time before being committed to a move, was given approval to start house hunting.[5] Charles and Emma sought somewhere about 20 miles (32km) from London with railway access, such as Windsor, Berkshire,[6] and came close to buying one near Chobham, Surrey.[7]
On Friday 22 July 1842, Charles and Emma visited Down House. They slept at a little "pot-house" in the village, which was also "a grocers-shop & the land-lord is the carpenter", and returned to London on Saturday afternoon, then on the Sunday Darwin wrote to tell his sister of their first impressions. Though there were plenty of trains on the 10 miles (16km) line from London to the nearest station, from there it was a long, slow and hilly 8.5 miles (13.7km) drive to Downe. The small quiet village was away from main roads, and though local scenery was beautiful on a good day, the house "being situated on rather high table-land, has somewhat of desolate air... The charm of the place to me is that almost every field is intersected (as alas is our's) by one or more foot-paths— I never saw so many walks in any other country".[4]
The east side of the house is close to a narrow lane: the central block was the original house, the service wing to its left was extended with a schoolroom and bedrooms above the kitchen. The 1877 extension to the right included a new main entrance.
The three-storey house itself stood "very badly close to a tiny lane & near another man's field", and was "ugly, looks neither old nor new" but on the ground floor it had a "Capital study" and a dining room facing east, and a large drawing room facing west, with plenty of bedrooms upstairs. Darwin believed that the price was about £2,200 (equivalent to £261,593 in present-day terms) and he could lease it for one year to try it out.[4]
That Friday was cold and gloomy, and Emma was at first disappointed with the "desolate" scenery as well as being "dreadfully bad with toothache, headache", that evening, but liked the house and grounds better than Charles, finding it "not too near or too far from other houses". On the Saturday the weather changed, and "she was so delighted with the scenery for the first few miles from Down, that it has worked great change in her".[4][8]
Charles Darwin's study at Down House, restored with original furniture including his wheeled armchair and writing board. On the right, two (shuttered) windows look east, and Darwin had an angled mirror fixed outside to see who was coming up the drive to the entrance.
The house had obvious faults, but they were both weary of house-hunting,[10] and it was cheap. Emma preferred a more expensive house in Surrey, and may have hoped that Darwin's father would increase the loan, but life in crowded dirty London was becoming more unpleasant and she was pregnant so unable to continue the search that year.
With advice from the architect and surveyor Edward Cresy, Darwin opened negotiations, but the Rev. James Drummond refused to lease the property and wanted £2,500 to pay off his mortgage on it. Cresy suggested a bid of £2,100, but Darwin remembered an unsuccessful earlier attempt at purchase, and made an offer of about £2,200 which was accepted.[11][12] At the end of August they were almost ready to move, and Emma moved in on 14 September 1842, followed by Charles three days later.[13] Emma gave birth to Mary Eleanor on 23 September, and they were all getting on well – even Darwin's brother Erasmus who had said the place should be called "Down-in-the-Mouth" had altered his opinion,[14] but they were saddened when baby Mary died on 16 October.[15]
The west front of Down House looks out onto its gardens, and the main block is dominated by the angled walls of the bay extension Darwin had built in 1843. The kitchen wing to the right has a classroom on the upper floor, and the block to the left, added in 1858, has a drawing room behind the glazed roofed verandah.
Darwin made extensive alterations to the house and grounds. An angled bay forming a large bow front extending up through all three storeys at the west elevation of the house extended the drawing room and rooms over it, giving improved views and lighting: Darwin wrote telling his cousin that the first brick was laid on 27 March 1843. By 27 April, work was in hand to lower the lane by as much as 2 feet (0.61m) and build new flint boundary walls, which together with earth mounds and shrubbery made the east garden more private. A strip of the field was made into a kitchen garden including the experimental plot of ground, and later the greenhouses.[16][17]
In September 1843, the Darwin family increased with the birth of "Etty" in the house, where all their remaining children were born: George in 1845, "Bessy" in 1847, Francis in 1848, Leonard in 1850, Horace in 1851, and their 10th child Charles Waring Darwin who was born in 1856, but died in 1858.
Between 1845 and 1846, Darwin altered the service wing to the south of the main block, getting the kitchen area rebuilt with the addition of a butler's pantry, and a schoolroom and two small bedrooms on upper floors. The outhouses were rebuilt, and a mound to the west side was removed with a new mound being added to the east to give protection from the wind.[18]
On their first visit, Darwin had noted that "The great Astronomer Sir J. Lubbock is owner of 3000 acres [12 km2] here, & is building a grand house a mile off", but thought that he would be too reserved or proud to visit them.[4] In fact, Sir John William Lubbock had brought home a "great piece of news", and while his son was initially disappointed that the news was just that Darwin was coming to Down House and not a new pony, young John Lubbock soon became close friends with Darwin and a frequent visitor to Down House.[19]
The sandwalk, Darwin's thinking path.
In 1846, Darwin rented from Sir John William Lubbock a narrow strip of land of 1.5 acres (0.61ha) adjoining the Down House grounds to the southwest, and had it planted. He named it the Sandwalk Wood.[18] One side was shaded by an old shaw with oak trees, and the other looked over a hedge to a charming valley. Darwin had a variety of trees planted, and ordered a gravel path known as the "sandwalk" to be created around the perimeter. Darwin's daily walk of several circuits of this path served both for exercise and for uninterrupted thinking. He set up a number of small stones at one point on the walk so that he could kick a stone to the side each time he passed, so that he did not have to interrupt his thoughts by consciously counting the number of circuits he had made that day. The sandwalk also served as a playground for his children.[20][21] A wooden summerhouse was built at the lower end of the sandwalk.[9] In 1874, Darwin gave a piece of pasture land to Sir John Lubbock (the son) in exchange for ownership of the Sandwalk Wood.[18] From 1849, Darwin used it to continue his walking exercise on return from Dr. Gully'shydrotherapy treatment.
A new extension at the north end of the house was added in 1858, providing a large new drawing room facing west which became a comfortable family room, and two bedrooms over.[18] The former drawing room was converted into a new dining room, and the old dining room next to the kitchen became a billiard room.[9]
Darwin's greenhouse at Down House where he conducted many experiments
Darwin's interest in the fertilisation of orchids led him to get a new heated greenhouse constructed under the supervision of John Horwood, the gardener of Mr Turnbull at The Rookery: this was completed in February 1863. It includes a tunnel passageway that allows bees to fly in and out.[22] Darwin spent 16 years growing sundews and other carnivorous plants in his greenhouse, feeding them proteins like roast beef and boiled egg. This research became the basis for his pioneering book Insectivorous Plants (1875).[23]
In 1872, a verandah was added to the west side of the new drawing room, and in 1877, a new billiard room was added to the east of this block, with the hallway being extended to form a new entrance hall and Georgian-style porch facing east. The new billiard room was converted to a new study in 1881,[18] and the old study where Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species was converted into a smoking room.[9] In the same year, Darwin bought a strip of land to the north of the property, beyond his orchard, and had a hard tennis court and a new wall built.[18]
After the death of Frank's first wife Amy, their son Bernard Darwin was brought up by Charles and Emma at Down. Charles Darwin died at the house on 19 April 1882, aged 73. Emma also died there in 1896.
In February 1897, the house was advertised to be let, furnished, at a rent of "12 guineas per week, including gardeners".[24] From 1900 to 1906, George Darwin rented the house out to a Mr. Whitehead, who was the first owner of a motor car in Downe.[25]
A girls' boarding school was established at the house in February 1907, co-founded by the headmistress Olive Willis (1877–1964) with her friend Alice Carver. The school began with five mistresses and one girl, but was soon successful and grew to around 60 pupils.[26] Various corrugated iron outbuildings were erected around the house at this time, to serve as the school's chapel, gymnasium, music-rooms and lavatories: these were later removed.[27] The school occupied the house until 1 April 1922, when it moved to larger premises at Hermitage Rd, Cold Ash, Newbury, where it remains.[28] The present school is still named Downe House School, and one of its houses is still named Darwin. The novelist Elizabeth Bowen, who was a pupil at the school during the First World War, wrote after revisiting Down House in the 1930s: "I have never liked scientific people very much, and it mortifies me to think of them trampling reverently around there on visiting days, thinking of Charles Darwin and ignorant of my own youth."[29]
1927–1996: Darwin Museum
Down House today as a museum.
From 1924, another girls' school was run in the house by a Miss Rain, but this was unsuccessful and closed in 1927. Following an appeal at that year's Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science by its president Sir Arthur Keith, the surgeon Sir George Buckston Browne (1850–1945) bought Down from the Darwin heirs for £4,250 in 1927 (equivalent to £320,432 in present-day terms). He spent about £10,000 on repairs and on 7 January 1929 presented it to the British Association together with an endowment of £20,000 to ensure its preservation in perpetuity as a memorial to Darwin, to be used for the benefit of science and open to visitors free of charge. Down House was formally opened to the public as a museum at a tea on 7 June 1929. In 1931, Buckston Browne gave the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) an endowment fund and land adjacent to the Down House property to establish the Buckston Browne Research Farm, a surgical research station.[30][25] For his efforts in saving the historic house, Buckston Browne received a knighthood in the 1932 New Year Honours.
Buckston Browne's endowment for the house proved insufficient and the expense of maintenance led to the British Association in turn donating the house to the RCS England in October 1953. In 1962, Sir Hedley Atkins (1905–1983), later President of the RCS England, moved into the house together with his wife and assumed the role of honorary curator.
Down House was acquired in 1996 by English Heritage, with a grant from the Wellcome Trust. It was restored with funds raised by the Natural History Museum from many trusts, and from a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and reopened to the public in April 1998. In 2009, the Darwin Bicentenary Project created a new exhibition on the first floor of the house, telling the story of Darwin's life and work.[31] A video guide outside focuses on how Darwin used his garden as an outdoor laboratory and features clips from David Attenborough, Professor Steve Jones and Melvyn Bragg. Darwin's notebooks were digitised using Turning the Pages software and put online.[32]
Down House and the surrounding area has been nominated by the UK government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to become a World Heritage Site. It originally went through public consultation in 2006 and a decision had been expected in the last three days of June 2007. However, ICOMOS warned the DCMS that the House might not meet the criteria for scientific sites on the register, and so in May 2007, the DCMS announced that it was withdrawing the bid with the intention of resubmitting it later. The bid was resubmitted unsuccessfully in January 2009.[33][34]
The master bedroom was restored, and opened to the public for the first time in June 2016. The restoration included a reconstruction of the Darwins' collection of fine art prints, with Biblical scenes by Raphael, Titian, and Sebastiano del Piombo, as well as a Raphael self-portrait in the bedroom, and a self-portrait by Leonardo da Vinci in Darwin's study together with portraits of Charles Lyell and Erasmus Darwin.[35]
Visiting
Down House, its garden and grounds are open to the public daily from April to October; from November through to March, it opens on weekends.[36] The house and garden undergoes routine conservation work during its closed periods.
↑ British Association for the Advancement of Science: Historical and descriptive catalogue of the Darwin Memorial at Down House (35 pp.) (c. 1946?) pp. 5–8
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet,, known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet, from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his family company as a banker but made significant contributions in archaeology, ethnography, and several branches of biology. He coined the terms "Palaeolithic" and "Neolithic" to denote the Old and New Stone Ages, respectively. He helped establish archaeology as a scientific discipline, and was influential in debates concerning evolutionary theory. He introduced the first law for the protection of the UK's archaeological and architectural heritage. He promoted the establishment of public libraries and was also a founding member of the X Club.
Sir John William Lubbock, 3rd Baronet, FRS, was an English banker, barrister, mathematician and astronomer.
Emma Darwin was an English woman who was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin. They were married on 29 January 1839 and were the parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.
Sir Francis Darwin was a British botanist. He was the third son of the naturalist and scientist Charles Darwin.
Charles Darwin's views on religion have been the subject of much interest and dispute. His pivotal work in the development of modern biology and evolution theory played a prominent part in debates about religion and science at the time. In the early 20th century, his contributions became a focus of the creation–evolution controversy in the United States.
Downe, formerly Down, is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley, which formed part of the historical county of Kent until 1965, and is beyond London's contiguous urban area. Charles Darwin lived in Down House for forty years until his death in 1882.
Following the inception of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection in 1838, the development of Darwin's theory to explain the "mystery of mysteries" of how new species originated was his "prime hobby" in the background to his main occupation of publishing the scientific results of the Beagle voyage. He was settling into married life, but suffered from bouts of illness and after his first child was born the family moved to rural Down House as a family home away from the pressures of London.
The inception of Darwin's theory occurred during an intensively busy period which began when Charles Darwin returned from the survey voyage of the Beagle, with his reputation as a fossil collector and geologist already established. He was given an allowance from his father to become a gentleman naturalist rather than a clergyman, and his first tasks were to find suitable experts to describe his collections, write out his Journal and Remarks, and present papers on his findings to the Geological Society of London.
More Letters of Charles Darwin, a sequel to The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin of 1887, was a book in two volumes, published in 1903, edited by Francis Darwin and Albert Seward, containing as the title implies, additional publications of 782 letters from the correspondence of Charles Darwin.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals is Charles Darwin's third major work of evolutionary theory, following On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Initially intended as a chapter in Descent of Man, Expression grew in length and was published separately in 1872. Darwin explores the biological aspects of emotional behaviour and the animal origins of human characteristics like smiling and frowning, shrugging shoulders, lifting eyebrows in surprise, and baring teeth in an angry sneer.
Between 1873 and 1882, the life and work of Charles Darwin from Insectivorous Plants to Worms continued with investigations into carnivorous and climbing plants that had begun with his previous work. Worries about family illnesses contributed to his interest in Galton's ideas of "hereditary improvement". He continued to help with the work of Downe parish church and associated village amenities, despite problems with control being seized by a new High Church vicar, and he remained on good terms with the Church's patron, the Revd. John Brodie Innes. There was continuing interest in Charles Darwin's views on religion, but he remained reticent.
Erasmus Alvey Darwin, nicknamed Eras or Ras, was the older brother of Charles Darwin, born five years earlier. They were brought up at the family home, The Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He was the only other son besides Charles, the fourth of six children of Susannah and Robert Darwin, and the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and of Josiah Wedgwood, a family of the Unitarian church. He was a member of the semi-secretive Cambridge Apostles society, a debating club largely reserved for the brightest students.
Sir George Buckston Browne FRCS was a British surgeon and pioneer urologist.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
Fertilisation of Orchids is a book by English naturalist Charles Darwin published on 15 May 1862 under the full explanatory title On the Various Contrivances by Which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects, and On the Good Effects of Intercrossing. Darwin's previous book, On the Origin of Species, had briefly mentioned evolutionary interactions between insects and the plants they fertilised, and this new idea was explored in detail. Field studies and practical scientific investigations that were initially a recreation for Darwin—a relief from the drudgery of writing—developed into enjoyable and challenging experiments. Aided in his work by his family, friends, and a wide circle of correspondents across Britain and worldwide, Darwin tapped into the contemporary vogue for growing exotic orchids.
The Reverend John Brodie Innes, John Innes before 1862, was a clergyman who became a close friend of Charles Darwin at Downe in Kent, and remained a friendly correspondent for the rest of Darwin's life.
High Elms Country Park is an extensive 250-acre (100 ha) public park on the North Downs in Farnborough in the London Borough of Bromley. It is a Local Nature Reserve, and together with the neighbouring Downe Bank, a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The park surrounds High Elms Golf Course, and has extensive woodland, chiefly oak and beech, chalk meadows and formal gardens. It also has a cafe, a visitor centre, nature and history trails and car parks.
Downe Bank is a nature reserve owned and managed by the Kent Wildlife Trust in the North Downs, close to Downe in the London Borough of Bromley. It is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) together with the neighbouring High Elms Country Park. Located close to Charles Darwin's home, Down House, it was one of his favourite places and helped to inspire his work.
St Mary's Church in the village of Downe, Bromley is the Church of England Parish Church for the parish of Downe. It is a Grade II* listed building, which dates from the 13th century. The church is dedicated to either St Mary the Virgin or St Mary Magdalene. The west window is the oldest stained glass, depicting Christ as the Good Shepherd, by Daniel Bell (1840-1915).
Caroline Sarah Wedgwood was an English botanist. She was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family and the elder sister of English naturalist Charles Darwin. In the 1850s she planted the Leith Hill Rhododendron Wood, which in 1944 was bequeathed to the National Trust by her grandson, composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.
References
Atkins, Hedley (1976). Down: the Home of the Darwins: the story of a house and the people who lived there (2nded.). [Chichester]: Phillimore. ISBN0-85033-231-1.
Bowen, Elizabeth (1950). "The Mulberry Tree". Collected Impressions. London: Longmans Green and Co. pp.185–194. (Describes life at Downe House school during World War I)
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