Daily Mail

A GLORIOUS EVOLUTION

- DAVID ATKINSON

Charles Darwin was a shropshire lad at heart. he’s certainly shrewsbury’s most famous son — which is why the Darwin shrewsbury Festival is held annually to mark his birthday on February 12.

This year’s jolly, from February 9-17, will be a virtual affair but it should whet your appetite for visiting this fascinatin­g town with its half- timbered buildings, medieval city walls and Grade iilisted english Bridge, which spans the river severn.

Just in case you need reminding, Darwin’s 1859 book, On The Origin Of species, forms the basis of our understand­ing of evolution, and much of his inspiratio­n drew on his experience­s of the great outdoors as a boy.

Down house, Darwin’s Kent home, is well- known. But his lesser-visited childhood haunts reveal a human side to the man behind the stern black-and-white photograph­s. That’s what i glean from a Darwin walking tour. ‘Darwin attracted more criticism than any other scientist, but he simply saw life with more clarity than most of us,’ says festival organiser Jon King.

The tour starts at Morris hall, the public meeting space with the granite Bellstone (a glacial boulder) in its courtyard — a symbol of shropshire’s unique geology.

Darwin was born in 1809 at The Mount family home, on the fringe of the town’s Quarry Park, and explored the geological features in the fields behind his house.

We move onto st Chad’s Church, where Darwin was baptised, and stroll past the town’s historic Market hall, today the centre of shrewsbury’s independen­t food scene, to the Unitarian Church he attended with his mother (whose father was Josiah Wedgwood of the pottery empire fame).

Darwin boarded at shrewsbury school from 1818. The small square in front of the original school building is home to a statue of him — but he sits with his back to the entrance. he did not much care for his schooldays. indeed, his teachers branded him ‘ an average student’.

There’s nothing average about shrewsbury, however. Today, the medieval passageway­s (known locally as shuts) and cobbled streets of the town centre are home to intriguing independen­t boutiques and cosy coffee shops. We pass the shrewsbury Museum & art Gallery, which houses some of Darwin’s early geological finds, and the lion hotel, where the young Darwin took a stagecoach to london to plead for his place on expedition ship The Beagle in 1831.

Most intriguing of all is the story of the 13th-century Traitor’s Gate, in the walls on the eastern side of town. When Parliament­arian troops approached shrewsbury in 1645 during the english Civil War, seeking to put royalist enclaves to the torch, it is believed a spy in the camp deliberate­ly left the gate open for them. The town was taken without a shot being fired — bad news for Charles i, but a victory for historic building preservati­on. My guided tour ends under DarwinDarw­in’ss Gate, a public p art installati­on lation with three t seemingly free-standistan­ding columns symbolisin­g bolising the three key influences influen of his formative tive years: y the local geology, geolo his religious views view and his early study stu of scientific classifica­tion. claD Darwin went on to travel the world on study trips, but he h always cherished is his shrewsbury bu childhood. standing st in the park pa on a wintersun sun afternoon, it’s easy eas to see why. as Darwin Darw put it: ‘There is grgrandeur in this view oof life.’

 ??  ?? Origin of Darwin: Shrewsbury’s English Bridge and (right) the great naturalist
Origin of Darwin: Shrewsbury’s English Bridge and (right) the great naturalist
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom