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The delight of working in Darwin's House has also become an inspiration for Feretia designs - and workshops - with discoveries to share with you - and to offer unique historic links to the past.
Find stories behind
A majestic Downy oak and a garden primrose; one of Darwin's famous finches from the Galapagos; Darwin's exotic Madagascan orchid and it's relationship with a hawk moth; a species of coral.........and new this Spring, a focus on an original planting in Darwin's childhood landscape and still glorious - a cucumber tree!
Designed and created in studio for you choose and to wear - or - to come and experience a Darwin related workshop in precious metal clay, add a wonderful experience in this historic house to your story!
Magnolia Acuminata.
The Blue Magnolia or Cucumber Tree is an original planting in the courtyard of Charles Darwin's birthplace home. Very large and with abundant velvet foliage and stunning blue flowers. Glorious in Spring when in prolific flower, but beautiful year round. Feretia's new collection inspired right here. Tiny petals, leaf textures, stem and seed pods are all cast and take their place in the evolving story of this collection.
The Blue Magnolia from above, finishing to hover outside Feretia's studio windows.
Filmed by a talented professional and expert drone pilot within Darwin House.
With thanks to: Emily Jones.
Feretia's Darwin Downy Oak Collection
An ancient Downy oak still graces the front lawn of Charles Darwin's birthplace.
This tree, listed in the National Tree Registry as the most magnificent example of the species in the British Isles, is the inspiration for this special collection.
Leaves from the tree are transformed into fine silver, bark is cast and curled into rings, acorn cups carefully cast and worked into contemporary classic pieces to enjoy.
Feretia's
Mangrove finch
Camarhynchus heliobates.
This little mangrove finch, endemic to the Galápagos Islands, lives on Isabela island in the pristine mangrove forests.
One of 'Darwin's finches', it is critically endangered and one of the rarest birds in the world today.
Worth giving lots of attention to, given its role in Darwin's theory of evolution in understanding natural selection, and in celebrating this great man's legacy.
Darwin's Orchid and giant Hawk moth.
Angraecum Sesquipedale and Xanthopan morgani praedicta.
A botanist at heart?
Darwin predicted in his book on orchids in 1862, that a moth with a proboscis long enough - 13 inches - to reach the nectar in the bottom of the orchid's spur would be found and prove to be the orchids' pollinator. Decades later, it was found in Madagascar, and named in honour of his prediction!
A perfect example of co-evolution.
Drawn in 1837 Darwin's sketch of an evolutionary tree or coral was possibly modelled on Corallium rubrum.
Feretia's Coral
As a naturalist on board the Beagle, during his voyage around the world from 1831 - 1836
Charles Darwin mapped the coral reefs and their distribution along with collecting many
specimens of coral, and was fascinated by atolls, proposing a theory that coral grew on it's own skeleton foundations, originally growing around extinct volcanoes in order to stay in shallow light flooded waters. A theory vindicated in the early 1950s
Close-up of the Porites coral, off the Indian Ocean shores, from which Feretia pieces are cast; showing the hexagonal structures where tube-like animals (polyps) lived.
One of the corals in the specimens collected by Darwin - and also known as the jewel coral is very appropriate for Feretia to discover!
