Charles Darwin was a towering genius of the nineteenth century and is still regarded world-wide as of exceptional importance for his scientific work. His work place and home from 1842 until his death in 1882 was Down House in Kent. During these 40 years he developed the gardens and its small estate. It was not just a haven of family life but was an inspiration for his studies of nature and used as a laboratory for his experiments along with the surrounding countryside. Here he studied, thought and wrote his great influential works including The Origin of Species, much of which was based on his observations in the Galapagos Islands, themselves a World Heritage Site.
The estate includes the Sand Walk, Darwin's 'A thinking path', a circular route around a slip of woodland where daily he perambulated considering his theories and studying nature along the way, and the kitchen garden and glasshouses he used for his plant experiments. It was therefore an integral part of his work and is of outstanding universal importance for this reason. There is a case for drawing the boundaries sufficiently wide to include the surrounding and largely unchanged countryside which was also vital to his work.