My name is Rowan Blaik,
professionally I've worked in horticulture now for 20 years,
8 years at Down House.
The Beagle Voyage was over 5 years
and it was to go and chart the coast of South America.
They needed a natural historian to go on the boat
and it was a significant thing that they got funding from Charles Darwin
and he saw the age of the Earth.
He saw all of these wonderful things, especially in the Galápagos.
So when he returned back to the UK,
he knew that he had to have the peace and quiet of the countryside
and he was looking for something that was and easy day trip away from central London.
Around the edge of the North Downs you've got the change from the London clay soils
into the chalk soils of the Downs.
The plants change when the soil changes.
He could work, he could be comfortable
but he could also see the natural landscape around
and answer those questions he'd formulated on The Beagle Voyage.
It is very unique in that it has a wealth of archive material that goes along side it.
So we have photographs, we have watercolours
and paintings to show the colour schemes.
We have thousands of letters describing what's going on in the garden,
we have the scientific notebooks.
I can't think of another site that has such a wealth of material
so when we recreate things, we know that we're being as honest as possible in the presentation of the site.
So you can see 40 years of his experiments in the garden
and you can see first experiments, what he called his little experiments
through to experiments towards the end of his time here that went on for 10 years plus.
We're constantly learning about the methods that he used.
The Darwin's were quite open in how the garden was maintained,
so they had two very good craft gardeners but they would be often very busy in the kitchen garden.
What we think of as the ornamental areas of the garden are actually quite relaxed in their presentation.
The flexibility of the garden really comes from Emma Darwin's choice in plants because
though Charles Darwin wanted particular things planted and he would have his experiments set out in the garden,
he didn't get involved practically in the ornamental areas.
Emma Darwin had this method, she would get a nursery catalogue
and she would just tick every box and say yes one of those, one of those, one of those.
That's the kind of palette of plants.
So we can change things year on year and kind of play around with those things.
An aunt lived quite close by and whenever the aunt came round to visit,
the whole family would be rushing around tidying up the place.
The way we want to present the site is that you're that special visitor.
You come to the site, you see it and it's just at that nice level
where it's not overly manicured, not too far away from how the Darwin's kept it
but it's just a kind of special visit.
