architectural merit; in front of it is an orchard, just as in the days of old, and it was in this orchard that Newton saw the historic apple fall. We should imagine that the house and surroundings generally, except possibly the ugly cart-shed at the back, are but little altered since the famous philosopher’s time. We at once set to work to make a sketch of the old house, reproduced herewith; in doing this we observed, just over the doorway, where one often finds a coat-of-arms, a stone carved with the representation of two “cross-bones” in a shield, and below this gruesome device we read the following inscription:—
In this Manor House
Sir Isaac Newton Knt
Was born 25th December
A.D. 1642.
After finishing our sketch, we ventured to knock at the front door and politely asked if it would be possible for a perfect stranger just to take a glance at the room in which Newton was born. A pleasant-faced woman opened it, presumably the lady of the house, and with a smile she said, “Certainly, if it would interest you to see it.” We replied, with many thanks for the unexpected courtesy, that it would very much interest us to see it, whereupon we were taken upstairs to a comfortable old-fashioned chamber, in no way remarkable for size or quaintness, unless a fireplace in the corner can be considered the latter. The position of this room is shown by the upper front mullioned window to the left of the house in the picture, the window to the side being built up. In a corner of this chamber is a small marble tablet let into the wall and inscribed:—
Sir Isaac Newton (Son of Isaac Newton
Lord of the Manor of Woolsthorpe) was born
in this room December 25th 1642.
Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night
God said, “Let Newton be” and all was light.
Pope.
Then we were taken to see Newton’s tiny study, situated upstairs and on the same floor. Here is hung a drawing of the very tree from which Newton saw the apple fall. It is a curious-looking old gnarled tree, and I have taken the artist’s license of introducing it in the foreground of my sketch, in place of a very ordinary tree of the same kind that really was growing on that spot. I seldom take such liberties, but in this exceptional case I thought a likeness of the famous old tree might be of interest, and, accompanied by an explanation, allowable. Though the original tree is dead, a graft, we were informed, was made from it, which is growing now in the orchard in the very spot that the old one grew; strangely enough it greatly resembles its historic predecessor.
Then we made our way back to Colsterworth, crossing the river Witham by a foot-bridge, the road traversing it by a ford. The bottom of the stream, we noticed, was paved with flat stones, so that the carts in driving through should not sink in the mud, an arrangement that I do not remember to have noted elsewhere. Before returning to our
WOOLSTHORPE MANOR-HOUSE: THE BIRTHPLACE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.