Down House

Down House was Charles Darwin's family home and it is located in the village of Downe, some 23 kilometres to the southeast of central London.

The famous naturalist lived here with his family for 40 years, until his death in 1882. The Darwins remodelled the house many times and Charles used parts of it as a scientific laboratory.

The history of Down House dates back to 1700s, when it was built on the model of an existing house of the 1600s. In 1778 George Butler, a landowner and a businessman, modernised the house. When Butler died, in 1783, Nathanial Godbold, a property speculator from Fulham, acquired the house and modernised it again.

In 1837, Rev. James Drummond, the priest of Downe, bought the house and commissioned the architect Edward Cresy to modernise it, building other spaces. Darwin purchased the house from him for the sum of £ 2,200.

Finally, on 24 September 1842, the Darwins moved to Down House from their first residence in central London to escape from the civil unrest and the increasing pollution that was affecting the city.

At the time when Darwin and his family moved here, Downe was a quiet village in the British countryside. Although Darwin considered the house “ugly”, looking “neither old nor new”, a larger house than the one in London was needed for the growing family, particularly for the children, with a nice spacious garden, in an isolated place, far from busy London.

So Down House was the right choice.

In 1857, Charles and Emma decided that their dining room was not large enough for their family and commissioned a new one with a large bedroom over it. This extension was built onto the north end of the house and projected into the garden. The ground-floor room was then used as a drawing room rather than a dining room.

The gardens

The gardens at Down House were central to Darwin’s work where he conducted his famous research.

Closest to the house there is a lawn where Darwin took various experiments, such as identifying species and observing the activities of ‘Wormstone’.

Beyond the lawn is the kitchen garden bordering the south to catch the sunshine. Many plants were born here in the years of Darwin's experiments. In the 1850s, for example, Darwin created ‘experimental beds’ for his investigation into plant evolution and some of these have been replicated in the present planting.

Along the north wall, Darwin’s greenhouses can be found, where the plants and flowers needed for experimentation were grown. Here Darwin made important discoveries about the reproductive behaviour of plants in the final years of his life. The people who work now at Down House and other scientists cultivate and make experiments on his favourite plants such as orchids, carnivorous plants, wild cucumber and passionflower.

Family life at Down House

Charles and Emma were open-minded people, brought up by open-minded parents. From an early age they were free to experience life and they both tried to raise their children using this "approach to life".

Emma and Charles brought up ten children, but three of them unfortunately died later. The loss of Annie, the eldest and Charles' favourite daughter, changed Darwin forever and he mourned her loss for the rest of his life.

In general, the Darwin family was very happy to stay at Down House and their children had a wonderful childhood there, playing games, climbing trees and walking with their father.

Experiments at Down House

When the Darwin family arrived at Down House, they modernised the house and created the greenhouse. First of all, there was a vegetable garden and a shed where Darwin could practice or keep the plants over winter. In front of the greenhouse, there was a large garden with strips of primroses and very special flowers which he looked after and did experiments on.

The construction of a greenhouse and a building of red bricks was crucial in order to have the necessary spaces and conditions for Darwin’s research. The greenhouse was used for tropical plants. From an early age, the naturalist and his brother had carried out experiments in their garden or in their house in Shrewsbury and at university, Darwin had been particularly fond of outdoors and gardens. This indicated his preference for nature.

Darwin took over a corner of the kitchen garden for his ‘experimental beds’. One of his greatest discoveries, of ‘heterostylous’ species, was very important for his experiments and discoveries. In later years, this formed the basis for his Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species, a book published in 1877.

Working and studying, Darwin published his most important book On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection. In the following years, Charles made some changes in his garden and improved it by carrying out new experiments collected in his Experiment Book centred mostly on the growth patterns and reproductive behaviour of plants.

One of the first of Darwin's botanical experiments consisted of cutting all the garden except a square and closing it with nails and a rope. He wanted to see which were the strongest plants, which of them would continue to grow and which would die, for example the grass resisted while the dandelion, the buttercup and the daisies did not.

In the greenhouse, Darwin experimented with carnivorous plants as he wanted to understand how these organisms fed. This is why he closed their tentacles, watching them through glass, he stimulated them with other material such as meat, milk and added oil.

The sandwalk

The sandwalk is a pathway that runs all around the property. Darwin's habit was to walk along the sandwalk thinking about his experiments, his life or family problems, speculating about his theory and stopping to look at flowers or plants. For that reason the path is also named the "thinking path".

Darwin used to place stones at the beginning of the path, kicking them to count the number of the laps. The more complex the problem was, the more laps were needed to solve it.

The Museum

In 1996 English Heritage bought Down House and recreated rooms and furniture. The charity added an exhibition recreating Darwin's thoughts on evolution and nature using Darwin's family photos and memories to expand the museum collection.

Everyone can now visit this stunning place following the great scientist's footsteps!

Home of Charles Darwin - Down House