🏠 Indoor & outdoorEducationalGardens
What’s there
- Café on site
Only facilities we’ve confirmed are listed — anything missing here we simply haven’t checked, rather than know to be absent.
Down House was home to Charles Darwin and his family for around forty years, and it is where he worked out many of his ideas and wrote On the Origin of Species. Visitors walk through the rooms where the Darwins lived, including the study where he wrote, and see an exhibition of his work and personal belongings. A handheld tour with commentary, animations and film footage helps younger visitors follow the story at their own pace. The extensive gardens, which Darwin called his outdoor laboratory, have interactive panels that show the experiments he carried out, and a walk along the Sandwalk takes in the path he used for daily thinking walks. There is a café in the old kitchen where the family's meals were once prepared. The site suits families with older children who are curious about science and history, and it is run as an English Heritage property with school visit and family guide material available.
Stuff to take with you
The things people wish they’d packed for a day out like this one.
- Refillable water bottleMost places will fill it for free.
- Snacks that survive a rucksackCheaper than the café, and buys you twenty minutes.
- Wet wipes
- Small first aid kitPlasters solve more days out than anything else here.
- Colouring book and pencils
- Kids' headphones
- Sick bagsYou only forget these once.
- Rucksack
- A penForms, competitions, name badges.
- Extra jumper
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