Refreshed collections include original pages from On the Origin of Species (From News Shopper)

Refreshed collections include original pages from On the Origin of Species

4:32pm Tuesday 17th February 2009

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The new exhibition marking 200 years since Charles Darwin’s birth the perfect excuse to visit Down House for the first time, writes Kerry Ann Eustice.

There’s been unprecedented interest in the new exhibition at Down House. During my visit, the BBC is setting up its lamps downstairs in the study ready for filming, and as I leave an important-looking Press Association photographer scuttles by eagerly.

There are a few reasons for this media frenzy - quite at odds with Down Village’s sleepy, rural feel – the fact that the exhibition not only marks 200 years since naturist Charles Darwin was born, but it has also been 150 years since his seminal novel of evolution theories, On the Origins of Species, was written here – the home and base for many of his experiments.

In addition, it’s the first time collections at the house have been refreshed in around 11 years.

In the spirit of Darwin’s theories, the way the collections are to be presented has evolved too, and there is much emphasis on presenting his work in a modern, interactive and accessible style.

But before taking in these features, curator Annie Kemkaran-Smith gives me a tour of the house. Original items and painstaking research have come together to ensure the house looks now as it did when the Darwin family lived here and it retains the air of a beautiful and loving family home.

“This is the drawing room where Charles and wife Emma played their nightly backgammon game,” said Annie.

There’s something very romantic about the fact they kept a tally of the score for their entire marriage – Charles, if you’re interested, was winning when he died in 1882.

“That’s the blue chaise lounge where Darwin would sit and listen to Emma reading stories or playing piano. She was a very fine pianist,” added Annie.

One thing soon becomes very clear despite being renowned for his visionary theories, the family man within him was as strong as the scientist.

“They were a close family,” said Annie. “It was fairly unusual for a Victorian father.”

The study is equally as fascinating. Especially as you can see how all his furniture was customised; he was as tall as he was brilliant, it seems. This was where he wrote much of his acclaimed work and Annie says lots of people (science aficionados in particular) make the pilgrimage to the house to see this room alone.

Yet, it’s the dining room I find most captivating. Emma was a Wedgwood, and the family heritage is proudly displayed via a breathtakingly-beautiful Wedgwood Water Lily dinner service. It certainly would have impressed the friends and associated the couple so often entertained.

The kids probably won’t enjoy the subtleties of what Darwin had close to hand when working in his study or the design of the family’s fine china but they will certainly be entertained by the interactive toys upstairs in the exhibition rooms.

There’s a short film where Darwin admirers and science experts explain what Darwin means to them and among the talking heads here is David Attenborough.

It’s going to be tough tearing young visitors away from a life-size recreation of the cabin Darwin occupied during the famous Beagle voyage, which, if you catch it at the right time, also shows a ghostly hologram of the great man.

Diaries from the Beagle voyage feature too.

“These unique pieces make Darwin’s mind accessible to us,” said Annie, clearly passionate about these additions.

“We can see what he was thinking and the questions he was asking. This was what formed the basis of what he wrote many years later.”

These diaries along with many of Darwin’s notebooks, letters et al have been collated and transcribed by the Darwin Correspondence Project at Cambridge University Library. They feature here in an interactive database and are presented as turning pages, so not to do away with all the charm.

It’s the physical documents which are bound to be the big crowd pullers though. And this exhibition has some impressive entries.

There are two pages from the original Origins manuscript (important ones discussing extinction, Annie believes), a full, first edition of the book and a copy of Das Kapital sent to Darwin and inscribed by its author, sociologist Karl Marx.

As well as these professional highlights there are some sweet personal insights too. Emma’s thin-with-wear wedding ring and a memory box of trinkets collected after the death of the couple’s eldest daughter, Annie, which includes a rubbing of her grave stone.

Elsewhere there’s a wall tribute to all 10 of the Darwin children – all were gifted, and in the corner of the family room there’s a delightful family treasure – a wooden stair slide the children descended stairs on.

“Signs of personality and the family give this exhibition an extra edge,” agrees Annie.

“Science is obviously such an important thing here but part of my job was also showing him as a family man. That’s what I hope people will take away from here. It makes it so much more accessible.”

New permanent exhibition at Down House, Luxted Road, Downe. For opening times, call 01689 859119.

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