Newton's Apple Tree, Trinity College

A grafted descendant of the Woolsthorpe Manor apple tree under which Isaac Newton allegedly conceived the theory of gravity grows in the Fellows' Garden of Trinity College. Newton spent much of his early adult life at Trinity, returning to Woolsthorpe during the plague years of 1665–1666, when Cambridge was closed — the period in which his great discoveries were made. The variety is Flower of Kent, a cooking apple, not the polished red fruit of popular imagination.

The tree is in the Fellows' Garden, which is not regularly open to the public. It can sometimes be glimpsed from the Backs through gaps in the hedge. Trinity's main courts are open to visitors for a fee during regular hours; ask the porters about access to the garden when you arrive.

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A story
The story of the apple falling and inspiring Newton's theory of gravity is probably apocryphal — Newton mentioned it himself late in life, possibly to make the discovery seem more dramatic than the years of painstaking mathematics it actually required. But the tree at Woolsthorpe in Lincolnshire, from which cuttings were taken, is real. The one in Trinity's Fellows' Garden is a direct descendant. Whether Newton ever sat under it is entirely another matter.

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