Woolsthorpe Manor

This modest mansion would have been little more than another Lincolnshire farmhouse if it weren’t for the plague, which forced Isaac Newton to return from his university studies to the area where he was born in 1665. For 18 months, Newton laboured in solitary, feverishly testing and creating the groundwork for the science that we know today. Located on the grounds of Woolsthorpe Manor, this museum depicts the narrative of Newton’s life at Woolsthorpe, from his birth and infancy to his discoveries during his Year of Wonders. Within the 17th-century manor house, you can walk inside the chamber where he used a prism to split the sunlight into the rainbow’s colours, in order to better understand the nature of light and its properties. It is possible to see the apple tree inside the orchard from the window, which served as inspiration for Newton’s theory of gravitation.