The biodiversity we appreciate in Bromley inspired Charles Darwin, who lived and worked in Downe for forty years (1842 - 1882), to uncover the mystery behind the variety of life.  He studied the orchids thriving on chalk grasslands and the bees visiting the grounds of his house, climbing plants growing on hedgerows and much more! He resolved that plants and animals well adapted to their environment survive to adulthood and are able to breed and pass on whatever characteristics make them successful to their offspring.  Over a long period of time a great diversity of species therefore evolves.   Darwin's insights have global significance.

Darwin recognised the importance of relationships between species.  He helped explain to us that no species – including humans – can exist in isolation from other living things.  Each organism relies on natural processes to survive and contributes to the balance of nature and ultimately, the very survival of our planet.

‘It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with plants of many kinds,
with birds singing in the bushes,
with various insects flitting about,
and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms,
so different from each other,
and so dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us.’

Many of the plant, insect and animal species Darwin observed and studied can still be seen today in ‘Darwin’s Landscape Laboratory’.  Randal Keynes, great great grandson of Charles Darwin, says:

“It could be said that biodiversity began in Bromley.  It was in and around Downe, Keston, Cudham and High Elms that Charles Darwin developed his ideas about the richness and variety of natural life. At Down House, he wrote the books which gave mankind our present understanding on how species of all kinds depend on one another.

The study of nature, for Darwin, was always a shared venture in which it was essential to pool knowledge and work together.  Although there have been many changes in Bromley since Darwin’s time and there are new pressures, the habitats and species are still remarkably rich and diverse. In working to conserve the range of habitats and species in the Borough we are giving special recognition to biodiversity as a vital principle of the world we live in.”

For more information about Charles Darwin’s scientific work, management of ‘Darwin’s Landscape Laboratory’ and local activities, visit  www.darwinslandscape.co.uk.