Darwin Week


I spent last week running a course on Darwin to celebrate his 200th anniversay. It was really very enjoyable - I took three groups around Downe House darwinatdowne.co.uk

It was here that he did most of his work - they are applying for World Heritage Status as this area is essentially his outdoor laboratory. Its amazing that it is but 16 miles from London and yet so utterly rural. This is the reason Darwin stayed there. The house is well interpreted - using a pda system which is useful for the garden in particular. But I also organised a guided walk around the fields - really enjoyed it although would have been better if my natural history were up to my history.

I managed a one point to mention newton, darwin and dickens in one sentence and it made sense! I feel if my own education has been finished off as I can now include darwin in my world view while before he was in a separate scientific sphere.

I organised a tour to Oxford University Museum where we were given special entry to the Library where the Oxford debate took place between Huxley and Soapy Sam Wilberforce.


I also organised a Darwin in London tour and a tour of Darwin in Cambridge. I went around Darwin's rooms in Christ Church which were big!

Darwin is I must say very inspiring.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How London is Divided Up

Image
The LDA - London Development Agency divides London up as follows: I have no idea who made these decisions but clearly some are not so obvious. For example, Southwark is in the Central Region but the City is in the Eastern Region given that all the bridges across the Thames in Southwark join up with the City this seems crazy! A report which discusses the issue of dividing up London can be seen here. Central sub-region Camden Islington Kensington & Chelsea Lambeth Southwark Wandsworth Westminster North sub-region Barnet Enfield Haringey Waltham Forest East sub-region Barking & Dagenham Bexley Corporation of London Greenwich Hackney Havering Lewisham Newham Redbridge Tower Hamlets South sub-region Bromley Croydon Kingston Merton Richmond Sutton West sub-region Brent Ealing Harrow Hammersmith and Fulham Hillingdon Hounslow
Read more

Updated Lincoln's Inn Fields Wikipedia page

I quite often revise wikipedia pages if I feel I have a moment. This one I did because the London Archaeologist had an article by Barbora Brederova about an excavation in the Fields, and it gave information not clearly listed on Wikipedia. If you want to read it here it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%27s_Inn_Fields#History I included a reference to the discovery of a fragment of a fudding cup.
Read more

New Web site and Blog

Finally, I have moved myself onto wordpress.org. Slightly afraid of the extra fiddle-faddling capability I now have at my finger tips...... So this blog will slowly fade into the dusk The new blog is here: http://www.chr.org.uk/anddidthosefeet/?page_id=11. Go on have a look.
Read more