Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Danson House
April-Oct Mon-Thurs & Sun noon-5pm • £7 •
T
020 8303 6699,
W
bexleyheritagetrust.org.uk • Bexleyheath train station from Victoria,
Charing Cross or London Bridge
Danson House
is a modest little Palladian villa, built in the 1760s as a country retreat
for John Boyd, who'd made a fortune from the slave trade, and had a new 19-year-old
bride to impress. The highlights of the
piano nobile
are the paintings telling the love
story of Vertumnus and Pomona in the Dining Room, the Chinoiserie wallpaper in the
octagonal Salon, and the built-in organ in the library, which is still used for recitals. It's
also worth climbing up to inspect the trompe-l'oeil paintings of Jupiter's thunderbolts
in the oval dome. There's a
tearoom
on the ground floor and a
pub-restaurant
in the
old stables at the eastern edge of the park.
21
Red House
Red House Lane • March-Oct Wed-Sun 11am-5pm; Nov & Dec Fri-Sun 11am-5pm; pre-booked tours before 1.30pm • NT • £7.20;
garden £2 •
T
020 8304 9878,
W
nationaltrust.org.uk • Bexleyheath train station from Victoria, Charing Cross or London Bridge
Hidden among the surrounding suburbia lies
Red House
, a wonderful red-brick
country house
designed by Philip Webb in 1859 for his friend
William Morris
, following
Morris's marriage to Pre-Raphaelite heart-throb Jane Burden. The mock-medieval
exterior features pointed brick arches, steep gables, an oriel window and even a turreted
well in the garden, and the whole enterprise stands as the embodiment of the Arts and
Crafts movement. Sadly, after just five years, with “Janey” conducting an affair with
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the couple were forced to leave their dream home due to
financial di
culties and move to Kelmscott in Oxfordshire. It has to be said the
interior is a bit gloomy, half-finished even in Morris's time, still in need of restoration
and not at all cosy, with only a few of the larger interior furnishings still in place. The
tours are excellent at bringing the place to life, though, thanks to the various anecdotes
about Morris and his entourage, about how they used to eat in the hallway, indulge in
apple fights and wear medieval clothes at the weekend.
Hall Place
Bourne Rd
House
Mon-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 11am-4.30pm; Nov-March closes 4pm • £3
Gardens
daily 9am-dusk • Free •
T
01322 526574,
W
bexleyheritagetrust.org.uk• Bexley train station from Charing Cross or London Bridge
Hall Place
is a mishmash of a place, but its Tudor half sports a wonderful chequerboard
flintwork exterior and gardens full of top-class topiary, including an entire set of the
Queen's Beasts wrought in yew. The house itself has a municipal feel (it's used by the
local council), but there's an introductory gallery on the ground floor which gives you
the background to the place. Downstairs, the wood-panelled Great Hall survives with
its coved ceiling and carved bosses; upstairs, head for the principal bedroom which
boasts an ornate Jacobean plasterwork ceiling featuring grotesques.
Down House
Luxted Rd, Downe • March-June, Sept & Oct Wed-Sun 10am-5pm; July & Aug daily 10am-5pm; Nov-Feb Sat & Sun 10am-4pm • EH •
£10 •
T
01689 859119,
W
english-heriage.org.uk • Bus #146 from Bromley South train station or #R8 from Orpington
Down House
was the home of the scientist
Charles Darwin
(1809-82). Born in
Shrewsbury, Darwin showed little academic promise at Cambridge. It was only after
returning from his five-year tour of South America aboard HMS
Beagle
- when he
visited the Galapagos Islands - that he began work on the theory he would publish in
1859 as
On the Origin of Species
. Darwin moved to Down House in 1842, shortly after
marrying his cousin Emma Wedgwood, who nursed the valetudinarian scientist here
until his death. The house itself is set in lovely grounds, and is stuffed with Darwin
memorabilia, though there's no sign (or smell) of the barnacles which he spent eight
years dissecting - he later moved on to the study of orchids (to the relief, no doubt,
of his wife and children), several examples of which you can find in the glasshouse.
