Woolsthorpe Manor - Birthplace and Home of Sir Isaac Newton

In April Sue and I accompanied her Sister and Brother-in-law to Manchester. We stayed overnight. Our reason to be there was to see Muse, an English Rock Band, at the Manchester Arena.

An excellent show BUT I have to say I have never ever been subjected the the loudness of the performance, it was u n b e l i e v a b l e .....

We travelled back the next day and decided to stop off at a National Trust Property, We chose Woolsthorpe Manor near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

This is the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton (1642). It was here in 1666 when he returned from Cambridge for abut two years due to the plague that much of his work on optics, mathematics and gravity started.

You can read more about this on the National Trust Site

There is also a good write-up on Wikipedia

In the garden there is 'THE APPLE TREE' where the famous apple fell. We were lucky enough to be there while there was a talk on his life there and the story of the apple. The tree is the right age and Newton relayed to story to his two biographers in later years.

The Tree was storm damaged in 1820 but although blow down it remained rooted. The Tree Council has certified it as one of 50 Great British Trees. The variety is a 'Flower of Kent' cooking apple. What I did not realise is that the only way to get an exact copy is to take a graft. Taking the pip of an fruit 'mixes' it with the pollination of the flower and so is not a true copy. There is now a direct copy here in Cambridge at Trinity and a few other grafts have been taken I believe.

I became fascinated with Newton while I was studying HNC in Applied Physics, which featured a lot of Optics and Mathematics. So to visit this place and stand near 'The Tree' and Near the Window where he split white light into a spectrum was an amazing experience for me.

The Apple Tree

You can read about the Apple Tree HERE

'Sleep Tight' comes from the tightness of the ropes on the beds of the day. A tight Bed was a good nights sleep.