Charles Darwin’s village home is proving so popular with tourists that English Heritage is considering limiting the number of visitors allowed through the front door
English Heritage, which runs Down House near Orpington, said the surge of interest in the great naturalist sparked by the bicentenary celebrations of his birth meant limits had to be considered.
“It is purely because it is a family home and the quite intimate rooms are straining under the weight of interest due to the bicentenary,” said a spokesman for the organisation that protects and promotes the country’s historic environment.
“Our new exhibition, which reopened in February after it was closed for a short while, has generated all sorts of regional, national and international media coverage and people are rushing down to see it.
“We are looking at placing limits on numbers.”
He said an increase in tourists from America and Europe coming to the UK due to the weakened pound and more English people taking their summer holiday at home this year meant the situation could get worse.
“Yes visitors could continue to increase,” he said. “On Easter Monday over 800 people came, if that many people were visiting your own home you can imagine the pressure that can put on it.”
English Heritage spent £1million on revamping the house and many rare objects have been put on display for the first time.
The exhibition was opened to mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th year since the publication of On the Origin of Species, which was written at the house in Downe village.
KOS Media was given a preview of the exhibition at the site where so many important discoveries were made and which the Government has nominated as a World Heritage Site.
Newspapers and broadcasters from around the world also came to be shown round and gain insights into how Darwin’s theories of evolution were painstakingly researched and discovered.
There are notebooks and specimens from his epic voyage on HMS Beagle, the viewer is told how he was a great man of letters, writing to experts and fellow naturalists around the world about his discoveries and never afraid to ask their opinions.
Personal items including his wife Emma’s gold wedding ring and most poignantly a writing box that belonged to his daughter before she died of scarlet fever aged 10.
Down House is not the only historic British landmark straining under the pressure of too many visitors.
Highgate Cemetery in north London, which is burial ground of historic figures including Karl Marx and George Elliot, is also feeling the pressure after it was included in a list of the capital’s 100 top tourist attractions by the mayor Boris Johnson.
Tourists are already being turned away from burial ground.
English Heritage said it was not yet sure how visitor numbers to Darwin’s house would be restricted.
The spokesman added: “We are conscious that we want to keep an eye on the amount of visitors arriving at the house.
“We want people to enjoy it but we want to ensure people are not putting the house under too much pressure.
“At this stage we are just looking at placing limits.”
POSTED: 04/05/2009 08:30:00
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