‘The thinking path’
1842-1882: Down House
No more mountains, but Darwin still walked. One of the things that drew the family – he and Emma would have 10 children altogether – to the Kentish village of Downe in 1842 were the trails: ‘ The charm of the place to me is that almost every field is intersected... by one or more foot-paths – I never saw so many walks in any other country.’ And then he created his sandwalk. It was a loop of gravel track, a quarter of a mile long, with a dark side through woodland and a light side with open views across the gentle hills. Every day he would circuit his ‘thinking path’, kicking a pebble into a pile to tot up the loops and note how many it took to solve a conundrum.
Darwin’s most famous work, On the Origin of Species, was published in 1859 to fanfare and furore, with many appalled by the heretical idea that the world’s flora and fauna had evolved instead of being created perfectly by God – ironic really, when Darwin had trained for the clergy.
Natural selection was just one of Darwin’s interests. For years he was obsessed with his ‘ beloved barnacles’, and orchids and primroses. Sundews too, the carnivorous flowers you can see in bog and mountain. He would feed them meat, cheese, and tiny pebbles to see what they’d digest, concluding they’d only respond to substances containing nitrogen. He once said ‘I care more about drosera (sundews) than the origin of all the species in the world.’ His final book was all about earthworms, research for which included playing the bassoon to see how they responded to deep notes. He also noted how they shape the world around us: ‘ When we behold a wide, turfcovered expanse, we should remember that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms.’
Despite continuing bad health Darwin lived – and worked – to 73. He died at Down House on April 19th 1882 and was buried at Westminster Abbey. Over a century later, his legacy of looking, of walking, of thinking endures: ‘ There is grandeur in this view of life.’ WALK HERE: Stroll the hills around Downe with your free route guide from www.lfto.com/bonusroutes. Visit Down House and the Sandwalk ( www.englishheritage.org.uk, adult £12).