Down House 1

Following the intention trailed at reference 1, we have now made it to Darwin's Down House. A visit with no cost at the point of consumption, following appropriate membership acquired on the occasion noticed at reference 2. I am pleased to be able to record that we are now well on our way to recovering the cost of that membership from visits to otherwise paying places.

On the way we came across a fascinating bit of church history. Once upon a time in Peckham, in fact at the very end of the 19th century, a church was built in the style of the end of the 13th century. A church which survived the war unscathed, unlike some others in that area, but which became surplus to Peckham requirements shortly thereafter. At this point the energetic perpetual curate (the first time I have come across one such, a real one, since first reading about them in Trollope, many years ago) of Biggin Hill, stepped in and obtained permission to dismantle the place for the materials, which he would then use to build a new church to replace the tin church of which he had charge in Biggin Hill. It seems that the shortage of building materials was such that, in the middle of the 20th century, this was a good option. He went on to put up an interesting looking church, the tower of which we mistook for the hose drying tower of a fire station, which was probably open, but which we, getting near Down House at that point, did not visit - which was odd for us. See reference 3.

But we did visit the adjacent memorial library and swimming pool, a thriving & cheerful place, complete with a cheerful & helpful librarian who, while not knowing too much about what was known as the moving church, was happy to dig out three books which filled the gap.

Shortly after that, we made it to Down House, the place which saw the origin of the origin of species, as it were. A large family house rather than a stately home, very much in the same vein as Hardy's house at Dorchester, albeit rather bigger and grander. See reference 5.

The top floor was laid out for educational purposes, with various displays about Darwin's life and work, complete with various objects from the time. And with a school party from a nearby primary school, a secular primary school which, as it happened, Darwin had helped to fund, thus heading off a church school. A well behaved bunch, but a bunch which made the place a little crowded. The upstairs trusty told us that it was all a matter of luck, with many week days being very quiet indeed - a trusty who was a volunteer rather than an employee, thus answering the wonder from Walmer. One of the objects on display was a copy of one of the volumes about barnacles, the volumes which established Darwin's credentials as a naturalist, gentleman amateur no longer, for holding forth on the origin of life. The book was open in the middle of a catalog of some part of the barnacle world, and I was interested to see that it was entirely in Latin - although I presume that the body of the book was in English.

The ground floor was laid out as a house, recreating what the place would have been like in Darwin's time, or at least shortly thereafter, to which end they had managed to recover quite a lot of original furniture and fittings. We were rather put off some of the rooms by the lines of grey hairs plugged into and absorbed by their audio guides, for all the world like iPhones or something of that sort, and with a gentle burbling coming out of each. To think that we might be like that in a few years' time. But we managed to catch the dining room illustrated when it was empty - not even a trusty to ask whether the service on display came from the family Wedgwood. Pleased to see that the service ran to no less than two large soup tureens, so they clearly had a proper notion of the importance of soup in a healthy diet.

Small but decent café which served for both elevenses and lunch, this last consisting in my case of a large slice of pork pie with a large dollop of some kind of brown pickle (not something which I usually eat) and a larger dollop of salad. Portions and presentation good, pork pie not so good, and I was reduced to smears of pickle by the time I got to the end.

Handsome and interesting gardens outside, including another vegetable garden, gardens which are clearly all the rage just presently. But they were rather late with their broad beans, which appeared to have only just come up; not up to HCP standards at all. They also had a large bed given over to hollyhocks, which I have never seem grown in that way before, being more used to them just popping up in odd places, typically along the edges of something else. The gardener was moaning about their not doing very well, something about the soil, but I should think that they will be looking well enough later in the summer for all that.

Passed an interesting looking lorry from Brink's on the way home. A middle sized box lorry, the sort of thing that might deliver bread to our local Costcutter, but rather lower and somehow rather heavy and solid looking. Inspecting their website this morning, presumably some kind of hardened lorry, hard to steal and hard to break into. See reference 6.

PS: quite forgot to ask in the Down House shop about a jigsaw. See reference 4.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/a-darwinian-fest.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/walmer.html.

Reference 3: http://www.movingchurch.org/about-us/history.htm.

Reference 4: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=jigsaw+19+series+2.

Reference 5: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/matters-hardy.html.

Reference 6: http://www.brinks.com/.