Erasmus Darwin House
Erasmus Darwin House in Lichfield, Staffordshire is the former home of the English poet and physician Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of naturalist Charles Darwin. The house is a Grade I listed building, and is now a writer's house museum commemorating Erasmus Darwin's life. Erasmus Darwin was a physician, scientist, inventor, poet, and educationalist, and lived on Beacon Street from 1758 until 1781. A founding member of the Lunar Society, it was here that he received many notable 18th-century personalities, including Josiah Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, Benjamin Franklin and James Watt. History of the house Darwin purchased a medieval half-timbered building on the west side of the lower courtyard of the Vicars Choral in 1758. From 1758 to 1759 Darwin converted the building into a large Georgian town house of red brick with stucco dressings and Venetian windows. At this time the front of the house was separated from Beacon Street by a narrow deep ditch which once formed the moat of the Cathedral Close. Darwin built a bridge across the ditch descending from his hall door to the street. The ditch was overgrown with tangled bushes, which Darwin cleared and made a terrace on the bank. He planted the ditch with lilacs