How Darwin’s view from his bedroom window ushered in a scientific revolution
The room that Charles Darwin used to monitor his revolutionary biological experiments has been recreated more than 100 years after it was closed and its contents were dispersed. Visitors to Down House, the great scientist's home in Kent, will now be able to sit in the great bedroom where Darwin once monitored the research that helped him to develop his theory of natural selection.
Curators from English Heritage have used decorators' inventories, family photographs and paint analysis to recreate the likely wallpaper, carpets, chintz curtains and giant four-poster bed that would have adorned Down House's great bedroom. There is also a sofa based on the one that Darwin used while listening to his wife, Emma, reading extracts from popular novels, as well as a bookcase that includes a volume of Darwin's favourite book, Mark Twain's The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
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