"On the Road..." - A tree and some fish in Cambridge

"On the road..." is a series of posts about our Discovery of Britain's highways and byways.  Whether it be some family fun, a surprising connection or just a beautiful spot we want to share our love for this country with you.  

Today we visit Cambridge

Outside of Trinity College at Cambridge University is this rather special tree.  

Isaac Newton was a fellow at Trinity College and his lodgings were in the oriel window you can see immediately behind the tree to the left.  A statue to him can be found at the back of Trinity’s chapel – the building to the right of the tree (not visible in this photo). 

Isaac Newton was born in 1642 at Woolsthorpe Manor, near Grantham, Lincolnshire .   When he was 24 years old he was in the Manor’s gardens and pondered why apples fell to the ground and his first musings on gravity began to form.   The apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor soon became and continues to be a tourist attraction.  The ‘gravity tree’ was blown over in a storm in 1816, but it re-rooted and continues to flower each year.  Cuttings from the ancient apple tree have been sent worldwide and various places have a tree which claims descent from the one tree – including this one outside of Trinity College.   From what I can deduce this Cambridge tree would be the grandchild of the original – although I suspect Find My Past and Ancestry.com will have a bias against non human research so I'm not sure how to check my assumption (have I discovered the next big family history breakthrough – a family tree for trees).     

You will also find some of the tree’s children and grandchildren planted at The Physics Department at the University of York, the King’s School in Grantham, the Cambridge University Botanic Garden and even afar afield as the University of Nebraska and the Balseiro Institute in Argentina.   

In 2010 a piece of the original tree was taken as a guest on the space shuttle, and in 2015 the astronaut Tim Peake took some of its seeds with him to the International Space Station.  When he returns those seeds will be planted at Woolsthorpe – so the gravity tree having experienced zero gravity will become a gravity tree once again!  Or will it?  Will those apples fall towards space?  Will gravity start to unravel?   This is sounding like the plot of a bad science fiction movie.

You can even buy (for £29.99) a direct descendant of the tree to plant in your own garden.  You can soon be enjoying some of the most famous apple pies in the world!  Buy your own tree here   

  One tree to rule them all, One Tree to find them,
One Tree to bring them all and in the pie bind them.

The simple event of an apple falling from a tree triggered a chain of thought about motion and resulted in the publication of Newton's thoughts in Principia - one of the most important science books ever written. 

So...what does all this have to do with fish?

Edmond Halley (1656-1742) - the same Halley for whom Halley's Comet is named - was responsible for getting Isaac Newton to publish his findings on gravity and the laws of motion.  The Royal Society, who would normally support such a work, had spent their budget on publishing “The History of Fish” which was selling really badly so they were unable to provide funds for Newton.  Halley stepped in and paid for Newton’s book with the assurance by the Society he would be paid back.  They never could afford to pay him in money, but he did become the lucky owner of the unsold copies of The History of Fish as recompense.

This tree and story will be included in an upcoming self guided tour we are currently researching which will explore the streets of Cambridge.  We have already created self guided tours for London, Oxford, Liverpool, Preston, Gloucester and Ledbury and have plenty more brewing.  Take a peek at www.obelisktours.com