As broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough celebrates his 100th birthday, Amy Matthews explores how Britain learned to observe, record and make sense of the living world and why those early questions about nature still matter today.

Beginning at Down House, the family home of Charles Darwin, this episode explores how natural history was shaped not just by Darwin’s famous ideas, but by generations of collectors, classifiers and curious observers. From ancient thinking to early citizen science and the origins of modern-day questions, history-of-science expert Dr Edwin Rose from the University of Leeds and English Heritage’s Sabrina Villani explore how this became both a science and a national pastime.

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A history of natural history