Down House. View of Down House and part of its garden, home to the English biologist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) for the last 40 years of his life. It is located at Down, in Kent, England. It was here that Darwin wrote his most famous and revolutionary work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). The house contains preserved specimens collected from his travels on the HMS Beagle (1831-1836). The study where Darwin did most of his thinking and writing still contains his notes, journals and countless mementos from his journeys. Down House is now open to the public.