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79-625: Down House is the former home of the English naturalist Charles 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 (400 m) south of Downe , a village 14 + 1 ⁄ 4 miles (23 km) south-east of London's Charing Cross . The village

158-519: 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 . 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. The house and garden undergoes routine conservation work during its closed periods. The house can be reached by public transport from central London, as it

237-567: 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. 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. 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, but they were saddened when baby Mary died on 16 October. Darwin made extensive alterations to

316-467: A convenient name for a second or further reception room, but no particular function is associated with the name. In 18th-century London, the royal morning receptions that the French called levées were called "drawing rooms", with the sense originally that the privileged members of court would gather in the drawing room outside the king's bedroom, where he would make his first formal public appearance of

395-525: A frequent visitor to Down House. In 1846, Darwin rented from Sir John William Lubbock a narrow strip of land of 1.5 acres (0.61 ha) adjoining the Down House grounds to the southwest, and had it planted. He named it the Sandwalk Wood. 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

474-653: 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. 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

553-453: 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

632-419: A hard tennis court and a new wall built. 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". From 1900 to 1906, George Darwin rented

711-428: A large new drawing room facing west which became a comfortable family room, and two bedrooms over. The former drawing room was converted into a new dining room , and the old dining room next to the kitchen became a billiard room. 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

790-578: 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. For his efforts in saving

869-476: A naturalist, studies the world by observing plants and animals directly. Because organisms are functionally inseparable from the environment in which they live and because their structure and function cannot be adequately interpreted without knowing some of their evolutionary history, the study of natural history embraces the study of fossils as well as physiographic and other aspects of the physical environment". A common thread in many definitions of natural history

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948-476: 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, and the old study where Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species was converted into a smoking room . In the same year, Darwin bought a strip of land to the north of the property, beyond his orchard, and had

1027-556: A part of science proper. In Victorian Scotland, the study of natural history was believed to contribute to good mental health. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds , butterflies, seashells ( malacology / conchology ), beetles, and wildflowers; meanwhile, scientists tried to define a unified discipline of biology (though with only partial success, at least until

1106-409: A playground for his children. A wooden summerhouse was built at the lower end of the sandwalk. In 1874, Darwin gave a piece of pasture land to Sir John Lubbock (the son) in exchange for ownership of the Sandwalk Wood. From 1849, Darwin used it to continue his walking exercise on return from Dr. Gully's hydrotherapy treatment. A new extension at the north end of the house was added in 1858, providing

1185-428: A private washroom . Although Amtrak has retired its sleeping cars that were built with drawing rooms, they are still used by Via Rail Canada . The traditional nomenclature is seen as archaic, hence they are marketed as "triple bedrooms". The drawing room, being a room in the house to entertain visitors, gave its name to drawing room plays , a genre of theatrical productions and motion pictures . Beginning with

1264-530: 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." 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

1343-473: A room in which to relax. Hence the drawing room is the smartest room in the house, usually used by the adults of the family when entertaining. This term is widely used in India and Pakistan , probably dating from the colonial days, in the larger urban houses of the cities where there are many rooms. The term parlour initially designated the more modest reception rooms of the middle classes, but usage changed in

1422-470: A type of observation and a subject of study, it can also be defined as a body of knowledge, and as a craft or a practice, in which the emphasis is placed more on the observer than on the observed. Definitions from biologists often focus on the scientific study of individual organisms in their environment, as seen in this definition by Marston Bates: "Natural history is the study of animals and Plants—of organisms. ... I like to think, then, of natural history as

1501-552: Is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature. The meaning of the English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin historia naturalis ) has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast, the meaning of the related term "nature" has widened (see also History below). In antiquity , "natural history" covered essentially anything connected with nature , or used materials drawn from nature, such as Pliny

1580-460: Is also echoed by H.W. Greene and J.B. Losos: "Natural history focuses on where organisms are and what they do in their environment, including interactions with other organisms. It encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do". Some definitions go further, focusing on direct observation of organisms in their environments, both past and present, such as this one by G.A. Bartholomew: "A student of natural history, or

1659-411: Is called a naturalist or natural historian . Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it. It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms, so while it dates from studies in the ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world , through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history

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1738-700: Is located within Transport for London travel Zone 6 . The 146 bus service from Bromley North railway station (daily) terminates nearby at Downe Village, and the R8 bus from Orpington railway station (excluding Sundays) stops on request outside Down House. The closest Tramlink station is New Addington . Natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms , including animals , fungi , and plants , in their natural environment , leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history

1817-413: Is owner of 3000 acres [12 km] here, & is building a grand house a mile off", but thought that he would be too reserved or proud to visit them. 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

1896-399: Is the inclusion of a descriptive component, as seen in a recent definition by H.W. Greene: "Descriptive ecology and ethology". Several authors have argued for a more expansive view of natural history, including S. Herman, who defines the field as "the scientific study of plants and animals in their natural environments. It is concerned with levels of organization from the individual organism to

1975-550: The American Society of Naturalists and Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists . Professional societies have recognized the importance of natural history and have initiated new sections in their journals specifically for natural history observations to support the discipline. These include "Natural History Field Notes" of Biotropica , "The Scientific Naturalist" of Ecology , "From the Field" of Waterbirds , and

2054-625: 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

2133-477: The Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits. Modern definitions of natural history come from a variety of fields and sources, and many of the modern definitions emphasize a particular aspect of the field, creating a plurality of definitions with a number of common themes among them. For example, while natural history is most often defined as

2212-486: The Natural History Society of Northumbria founded in 1829, London Natural History Society (1858), Birmingham Natural History Society (1859), British Entomological and Natural History Society founded in 1872, Glasgow Natural History Society, Manchester Microscopical and Natural History Society established in 1880, Whitby Naturalists' Club founded in 1913, Scarborough Field Naturalists' Society and

2291-465: The Renaissance , and quickly became a third branch of academic knowledge, itself divided into descriptive natural history and natural philosophy , the analytical study of nature. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry , while natural history included the biological and geological sciences. The two were strongly associated. During the heyday of

2370-472: The Renaissance , making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history books. From the ancient Greeks until the work of Carl Linnaeus and other 18th-century naturalists, a major concept of natural history was the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being , an arrangement of minerals, vegetables, more primitive forms of animals, and more complex life forms on a linear scale of supposedly increasing perfection, culminating in our species. Natural history

2449-708: The Southern United States . In 1865, an architectural manual in England defined "drawing room" in this way: This is the Lady's Apartment, essentially, being the modern form of the Lady's Withdrawing-room , otherwise the Parlour , or perfected Chamber of mediaeval plan. If a Morning-room be not provided, it is properly the only Sitting-room of the family. In it in any case the ladies receive calls throughout

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2528-528: The gentleman scientists , many people contributed to both fields, and early papers in both were commonly read at professional science society meetings such as the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences —both founded during the 17th century. Natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus' aspiration to improve the economic condition of Sweden. Similarly,

2607-642: The modern evolutionary synthesis ). Still, the traditions of natural history continue to play a part in the study of biology, especially ecology (the study of natural systems involving living organisms and the inorganic components of the Earth's biosphere that support them), ethology (the scientific study of animal behavior), and evolutionary biology (the study of the relationships between life forms over very long periods of time), and re-emerges today as integrative organismal biology. Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building

2686-591: The "Natural History Miscellany section" of the American Naturalist . Natural history observations have contributed to scientific questioning and theory formation. In recent times such observations contribute to how conservation priorities are determined. Mental health benefits can ensue, as well, from regular and active observation of chosen components of nature, and these reach beyond the benefits derived from passively walking through natural areas. Drawing room In modern houses, it may be used as

2765-499: 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". The house had obvious faults, but they were both weary of house-hunting, and it

2844-537: The Elder 's encyclopedia of this title , published c.  77 to 79 AD , which covers astronomy , geography , humans and their technology , medicine , and superstition , as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two main divisions: the humanities (primarily what is now known as classics ) and divinity , with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. The study of nature revived in

2923-670: The Natural History Institute (Prescott, Arizona): Natural history – a practice of intentional focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy – is the oldest continuous human endeavor. In the evolutionary past of our species, the practice of natural history was essential for our survival, imparting critical information on habits and chronologies of plants and animals that we could eat or that could eat us. Natural history continues to be critical to human survival and thriving. It contributes to our fundamental understanding of how

3002-627: The Pages software and put online. 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

3081-452: 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. The Darwin family in 1841 was finding their London house increasingly cramped: both Charles and his wife Emma preferred living in

3160-556: The Sorby Natural History Society, Sheffield , founded in 1918. The growth of natural history societies was also spurred due to the growth of British colonies in tropical regions with numerous new species to be discovered. Many civil servants took an interest in their new surroundings, sending specimens back to museums in the Britain . (See also: Indian natural history ) Societies in other countries include

3239-488: The UK as homeowners sought to identify with the grander homes of the wealthy. Parlor remained the common usage in North America into the early 20th century. In French usage the word salon , previously designating a state room , began to be used for a drawing room in the early part of the 19th century, reflecting the salon social gatherings that had become popular in the preceding decades. The term drawing room

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3318-679: 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. Charles and Emma sought somewhere about 20 miles (32 km) from London with railway access, such as Windsor, Berkshire , and came close to buying one near Chobham, Surrey . On Friday 22 July 1842, Charles and Emma visited Down House. They slept at "a little pot-house" in

3397-415: The current property to John Know the elder, from a Kentish yeoman family, for £345 (equivalent to £61,602 today). 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,

3476-403: The day, and the family and their guests assemble before dinner. After dinner the ladies withdraw to it, and are joined by the gentlemen for the evening. It is also the reception room for evening parties. There is only one kind of drawing room as regards purpose: there is little difference, except in size and evidence of opulence, between that of the duchess and that of the simplest gentlewoman in

3555-657: The day. During the American Civil War , in the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia , the drawing room was off the parlor where CSA President Jefferson Davis greeted his guests. At the conclusion of these greetings, the men remained in the parlor to talk politics and the women withdrew to the drawing room for their own conversation. This was common practice in the affluent circles of

3634-403: The diversity of the natural world. Natural history was understood by Pliny the Elder to cover anything that could be found in the world, including living things, geology, astronomy, technology, art, and humanity. De Materia Medica was written between 50 and 70 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides , a Roman physician of Greek origin. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted in

3713-536: The early forms of drama, the drawing room play has evolved to encompass comedy as well as to include the forms of the dramatic monologue. The play format itself has also grown out of the traditional drawing room performance and back into main street theater and film. While the drawing room itself has fallen out of favor, the play format has continued to provide a source of entertainment. Drawing room comedy typically features wit and verbal banter among wealthy, leisured, genteel, upper class characters. Drawing room comedy

3792-481: 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. 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

3871-410: The ecosystem, and stresses identification, life history, distribution, abundance, and inter-relationships. It often and appropriately includes an esthetic component", and T. Fleischner, who defines the field even more broadly, as "A practice of intentional, focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy". These definitions explicitly include the arts in

3950-710: The emergence of professional biological disciplines and research programs. Particularly in the 19th century, scientists began to use their natural history collections as teaching tools for advanced students and the basis for their own morphological research. The term "natural history" alone, or sometimes together with archaeology, forms the name of many national, regional, and local natural history societies that maintain records for animals (including birds (ornithology), insects ( entomology ) and mammals (mammalogy)), fungi ( mycology ), plants (botany), and other organisms. They may also have geological and microscopical sections. Examples of these societies in Britain include

4029-411: The field of botany, be it as authors, collectors, or illustrators. In modern Europe, professional disciplines such as botany, geology, mycology , palaeontology , physiology , and zoology were formed. Natural history , formerly the main subject taught by college science professors, was increasingly scorned by scientists of a more specialized manner and relegated to an "amateur" activity, rather than

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4108-638: The field of natural history, and are aligned with the broad definition outlined by B. Lopez, who defines the field as the "Patient interrogation of a landscape" while referring to the natural history knowledge of the Eskimo ( Inuit ). A slightly different framework for natural history, covering a similar range of themes, is also implied in the scope of work encompassed by many leading natural history museums , which often include elements of anthropology, geology, paleontology, and astronomy along with botany and zoology, or include both cultural and natural components of

4187-399: The gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing room. The term drawing room is not used as widely as it once was, and tends to be used in Britain only by those who also have other reception rooms, such as a morning room, a 19th-century designation for a sitting room , often with east-facing exposure, suited for daytime calls, or the middle-class lounge , a late-19th-century designation for

4266-527: 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

4345-468: 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 (0.61 m) and build new flint boundary walls, which together with earth mounds and shrubbery made

4424-401: The house at this time, to serve as the school's chapel, gymnasium, music-rooms and lavatories: these were later removed. The school occupied the house until 1 April 1922, when it moved to larger premises at Hermitage Rd, Cold Ash, Newbury , where it remains. The present school is still named Downe House School , and one of its houses is still named Darwin. The novelist Elizabeth Bowen , who was

4503-519: The house out to a Mr. Whitehead, who was the first owner of a motor car in Downe. 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. Various corrugated iron outbuildings were erected around

4582-475: 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 . 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

4661-474: The neighborhood. ... In size , a small drawing room will be about 16 feet wide by from 18 to 20 feet long: 18 by 24 feet is a good size: 20 by 30 to 26 by 40 is enough for a very superior apartment. Until the mid-twentieth century, after a dinner the ladies of a dinner party withdrew to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen at table, where the tablecloth was removed. After an interval of conversation, often accompanied by brandy or port and sometimes cigars,

4740-662: 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. 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

4819-697: The role of honorary curator. In May 1954, Down House itself was designated as a Grade I listed building , and in September 1988 the garden and Sandwalk were added to the Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England at Grade II. 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

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4898-451: The study of life at the level of the individual—of what plants and animals do, how they react to each other and their environment, how they are organized into larger groupings like populations and communities" and this more recent definition by D.S. Wilcove and T. Eisner: "The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior, and their relationships with other species". This focus on organisms in their environment

4977-524: The system of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus . The British historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham calls Li Shizhen "the 'uncrowned king' of Chinese naturalists", and his Bencao gangmu "undoubtedly the greatest scientific achievement of the Ming". His works translated to many languages direct or influence many scholars and researchers. A significant contribution to English natural history

5056-481: 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 (16 km) line from London to the nearest station, from there it was a long, slow and hilly 8.5 miles (13.7 km) drive to Downe. The small quiet village

5135-475: The world works by providing the empirical foundation of natural sciences, and it contributes directly and indirectly to human emotional and physical health, thereby fostering healthier human communities. It also serves as the basis for all conservation efforts, with natural history both informing the science and inspiring the values that drive these. As a precursor to Western science , natural history began with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who analyzed

5214-613: The world's large natural history collections, such as the Natural History Museum, London , and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Three of the greatest English naturalists of the 19th century, Henry Walter Bates , Charles Darwin , and Alfred Russel Wallace —who knew each other—each made natural history travels that took years, collected thousands of specimens, many of them new to science, and by their writings both advanced knowledge of "remote" parts of

5293-564: The world. The plurality of definitions for this field has been recognized as both a weakness and a strength, and a range of definitions has recently been offered by practitioners in a recent collection of views on natural history. Prior to the advent of Western science humans were engaged and highly competent in indigenous ways of understanding the more-than-human world that are now referred to as traditional ecological knowledge . 21st century definitions of natural history are inclusive of this understanding, such as this by Thomas Fleischner of

5372-799: The world—the Amazon basin , the Galápagos Islands , and the Indonesian Archipelago , among others—and in so doing helped to transform biology from a descriptive to a theory-based science. The understanding of "Nature" as "an organism and not as a mechanism" can be traced to the writings of Alexander von Humboldt (Prussia, 1769–1859). Humboldt's copious writings and research were seminal influences for Charles Darwin, Simón Bolívar , Henry David Thoreau , Ernst Haeckel , and John Muir . Natural history museums , which evolved from cabinets of curiosities , played an important role in

5451-412: 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. That Friday was cold and gloomy, and Emma was at first disappointed with

5530-575: 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,

5609-444: 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". The three-storey house itself stood "very badly close to a tiny lane & near another man's field", and

5688-801: Was basically static through the Middle Ages in Europe—although in the Arabic and Oriental world, it proceeded at a much brisker pace. From the 13th century, the work of Aristotle was adapted rather rigidly into Christian philosophy , particularly by Thomas Aquinas , forming the basis for natural theology . During the Renaissance, scholars (herbalists and humanists, particularly) returned to direct observation of plants and animals for natural history, and many began to accumulate large collections of exotic specimens and unusual monsters . Leonhart Fuchs

5767-481: 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. On their first visit, Darwin had noted that "The great Astronomer Sir J. Lubbock

5846-517: 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

5925-421: Was completed in February 1863. It includes a tunnel passageway that allows bees to fly in and out. 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). In 1872, a verandah was added to the west side of the new drawing room, and in 1877,

6004-433: Was historically also applied to certain passenger train accommodations, designating some of the most spacious and expensive private accommodations available on board a sleeping car or private railroad car . An example, named as such, was a Midland Railway "Drawing Room Car" in 1874 that was made by Pullman and imported from the United States. In North America , it meant a room which slept three or more persons, with

6083-402: Was made by parson-naturalists such as Gilbert White , William Kirby , John George Wood , and John Ray , who wrote about plants, animals, and other aspects of nature. Many of these men wrote about nature to make the natural theology argument for the existence or goodness of God. Since early modern times, however, a great number of women made contributions to natural history, particularly in

6162-405: Was one of the three founding fathers of botany, along with Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock . Other important contributors to the field were Valerius Cordus , Konrad Gesner ( Historiae animalium ), Frederik Ruysch , and Gaspard Bauhin . The rapid increase in the number of known organisms prompted many attempts at classifying and organizing species into taxonomic groups , culminating in

6241-529: Was still known as Down when Darwin moved there in 1842. In his day, Downe was a parish in Kent , but it subsequently came under Bromley Rural District . 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. In 1651, Thomas Manning sold a parcel of land including most of

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