This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of naturalist Charles Darwin who spent 40 years living and working at Down House, Kent.

Helen Geraghty saw the covers come off a new exhibition - now open to the public.

"What we had for dinner today would sound very odd in England - ostrich dumplings and armadillos," scribbled the young naturalist Charles Darwin in his notebook.

"The former would never be recognised as a bird, rather as beef. The armadillos, cooked without their cases, taste and look like duck."

The notes, hastily made in Argentina, in 1832, during Darwin’s epic five-year HMS Beagle voyage are part of a new exhibition just unveiled to the public at his home, Down House, near Orpington, 200 years after his birth.

The new permanent exhibition presents the scientist’s life, work and theories in a 21st century style.

These volumes of notes show to us - so used to TV nature documentaries and cheap flights - all of Darwin’s simple excitement at the extraordinary experiences he felt so privileged to see.

On show for the first time are two of the original handwritten pages of his explosive scientific theory, The Origin of Species, which was written by Darwin at Down House and published 150 years ago.

His view of evolution, that living things could change and give rise to forms different from themselves, flew in the face of established Christian doctrine that every species was created by God and could not change.

Much of Darwin’s ground-breaking work was done in the study at Down House, which is laid out exactly as it would have been, with microscopes, test tubes, globes and maps.

English Heritage senior curator Cathy Power said: "Modern scientists have hi-tech laboratories where they disappear to. Darwin did not have a laboratory, he went to this study."

Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.

~ Listen: Down House curator Annie Kim Curran-Smith speaks to kmfm about the exhibition >>>

• Down House is on Luxted Road, Downe, near Orpington, Kent BR6 7JT, off the A21.

Admission is £8.80 for adults, £7.50 for concessions, £4.40 for children and £22.00 for families, 2 adults and up to 3 children. Free for English Heritage members.

For more information contact 01689 859119, or go to English Heritage's website >>>