Q: Where would you find Darwin in a McDonalds?

A: In Darwin's hometown Shrewsbury, in the basement of the McDonald's in Pride Hill [postcode: SY1 1DQ ], where you can dine enclosed by ancient town walls! 

And this stained glass image provides another reason for religious bigots to hate McDonald's (on top of the chain's alleged promotion of homosexuality). It is a pity the likeness is so poor! 

You will have to buy a copy of the Rough Guide to Evolution to get the evolutionary tourist guide to Shrewsbury, but below are a few more pictures from my own visit to the town earlier this year. About Darwin also has some images from Shrewsbury.

St Chad's, where Darwin was baptised.

Darwin statue outside the building that once housed the Shrewsbury School.

Darwin's parents' grave in Montford

Church in Montford

Gardens now occupy the Dingle, formerly a quarry where the boy Darwin fished for newts.

Site of Darwin's first school

Darwin Gate: a modern public monument

Plaque outside the Unitarian chapel which the young Darwin attended with his mother.


Darwin is even memorialised in a Shrewsbury shopping mall!

The evolutionary tourist in Edinburgh

The Rough Guide to Evolution contains an evolutionary tourist guide, with guides to the places associated with Darwin in Shrewsbury, Cambridge and London. In an earlier draft, there was also a guide to Darwin's Edinburgh, but this was dropped by the time we got to the final draft, chiefly because the tangible links to Darwin in Edinburgh are rather scanty and it is probably not worth visiting the city just to see them. But for those of you who live near to Edinburgh or happen to be visiting the city anyway, here is the guide, complete with some hypertext links.

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Charles Darwin and his brother Erasmus took lodgings at 11 Lothian Street, but the house was knocked down to make way for the Royal Museum of Scotland. Nonetheless the museum is worth a visit for its geological and natural history collections, which include Dolly the sheep. A plaque has been installed over the rear entrance to the museum, commemorating the Darwin connection [BBC News link | Blog post from Kevin Williamson | Darwin's first letter home from 11 Lothian Street]

John Edmondstone, the former slave who taught Darwin taxidermy, lived at 37 Lothian Street—this building apparently survives. The medical school is located across the main road from Lothian Street.

The evolutionary tourist can re-live one of Darwin’s geology field trips by a visit to the Salisbury Crags, a series of 50-metre cliffs that rise in the centre of the city in Holyrood Park. Here, Professor Jameson bored Darwin with a lecture on the origins of the rock filing a local crevice. 

It is also possible to re-trace Darwin’s exploration of the local marine life by a walk along the rocky shore of the Firth of Forth at low tide at nearby Prestonpans, where Robert Grant had a winter residence at Walford House (post code EH32 9AZ,at the junction of the High Street and Ormiston Place). 

The first Charles Darwin (1758-78), uncle of the famous evolutionist, also studied in Edinburgh, where he died from meningococcal meningitis. He is buried in the Duncan family vault in th Chapel of Ease in St. Cuthbert’s Church, which is located in Lothian Road, at the eastern end of Princes Street.