Unesco want to celebrate science by awarding World Heritage Site status to places of scientific merit.

Few, if any, scientific achievements are in the same league as Darwin’s The Origin of Species.

Yet the house in London where the great work was largely written, where Darwin lived for many years, and which contains his experimental garden, has been dismissed by Unesco advisors as lacking “significance as a site for the heritage of science”.

Down House in Bromley was nominated for World Heritage status last year. Following advice from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos), the government has now withdrawn that bid. The BBC quote culture minister David Lammy as ‘surprised and disappointed’ that the nomination was shot down by Icomos.

Specific reasons have not been revealed. However, the Government remains ‘fully committed’ to the site and will submit a revised nomination in 2009. This will coincide with the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth.

Image from Badly Drawn Dad’s Flickr photostream.