HE was a naturalist who changed the world's thinking with his theory on evolution after voyaging for five years across the globe aboard HMS Beagle.

But once Charles Darwin returned to England, he eventually settled with his wife at Down House in Kent.

And, every day, his family would hear the familiar click-clicking of his walking stick as he took a daily constitutional stride along a path known as the Sand-walk in the secluded grounds of his house.

Today that walk by the great 19th century thinker has inspired an artist, Shirley Chubb, whose exhibition, called Thinking Path, is coming to the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum at the end of September.

She walked and photographed the path to create - with the help of a Poole company - four sets of 400 digital images themed around four key dates in Darwin's life - his birth in 1809, the return of the Beagle, the publication of The Origin of Species and his death in 1882. The exhibition, opening in Bournemouth on September 29, will also feature an edited moving-image record of her walks as well as four museum objects that relate to the subject.

Chubb's images, incidentally, are seen in optical lenses specially created by the Poole specialist company Crystan, based at Broom Road Business Park.

"Each one measures something like 40mm by 50mm with 20 to a panel," said the company's technical marketing manager Keith Matthews. "And we made 3,600 of them for Shirley Chubb to form a series of panels.

"They should look like a fish eye on the wall."

The Thinking Path exhibition will have already been on display at places such as Plymouth and Shrewsbury where Darwin was born.

And on Saturday November 20 Lady Edna Healey, wife of former Chancellor of the Exchequer Dennis Healey, will be giving a talk at the Russell-Cotes on Emma and Charles Darwin. The naturalist's great great grandson will also be talking, with Shirley Chubb, on the visit to Bournemouth.

The Bournemouth exhibition will mark a meeting not only of art and technology in the area but also, of course, of history for Darwin himself has a link with Bournemouth. On September 1, 1862 Darwin brought his family to the resort to help his son, Leonard, recuperate from a bout of scarlet fever.

On the way down from their Kent home, Mrs Darwin too contracted the disease, so Darwin found himself staying with his family at two cottages in Bournemouth, one of which was Cliff Cottage on the West Cliff, where the BIC now stands.

The day after arriving in Bournemouth he wrote to his friend John Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury), saying: "My poor patients got here yesterday and are doing well. We have a second house for the well ones."

Bournemouth, unfortunately,