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Down House
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Down House
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 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.
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 £56,052 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, 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 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.
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. 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 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 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 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 £215,090 in present-day terms) and he could lease it for one year to try it out.
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Down House
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 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.
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 £56,052 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, 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 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.
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. 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 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 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 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 £215,090 in present-day terms) and he could lease it for one year to try it out.
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