The tree, which inspired Newton's theory of gravity, stood alongside his mother's home.
Archaeologists in the U.K. have uncovered a miscellany of everyday objects from the site of a house that was built for the mother of Isaac Newton in the 1650s. The house, which was demolished 200 years ago following a fire, once stood beside the field where the apple tree that inspired the scientist's theory of gravity grew.
The site in Lincolnshire, central England, was next door to Woolsthorpe Manor, where Newton was born and raised by his grandparents after his mother, Hannah Ayscough, left him when he was three years old. Ayscough married a vicar, Barnabas Smith, but when he died seven years later, she returned to Woolsthorpe with her three children by Smith in toe. Newton continued to live with his grandparents and was eventually steered into higher education by a watchful uncle.
The primary goal of the excavation was to confirm the location of Ayscough's house. Five years ago, the National Trust acquired the plot on the basis of encouraging archaeological surveys, test pits, a late 18th-century sketch by the artist Joseph Charles Barrow that showed the house. The evidence is now conclusive.
Over the course of a 10-day excavation, archaeologists from the National Trust and York Archaeology opened up two excavation trenches where they found slip tableware, a fragment of a 17th-century stoneware jug with the face of a bearded man, a jetton gaming token, three thimbles (two adult-sized and one child-sized), part of a needle, buttons, and animal bones that evidence the family butchering and preparing meat on site.
"The artifacts are just what we were hoping for," Rosalind Buck, a National Trust archaeologist, said over email. "Collectively they evoke a relatable and tangible image of the domestic life of the Newton family. He would have spent a lot of time going in and out of his mother's house touching objects, sharing meals, and just interacting with the space."
After being cleaned and prepared, some of the finds will go on display at Woolsthorpe Manor in 2026 in a display focused on Ayscough's house.
The "proper dig," as the National Trust called it, was open to the general public with families invited to learn about digging and cleaning artifacts from experts as part of the Festival of Archaeology in July. Jennie Johns, Woolsthorpe Manor's collection manager, said the initiative aimed to inspire the next generation of archaeologists and to connect people with the lost history of Woolsthorpe.
The manor was the site of some of Newton's greatest discoveries. With the outbreak of the plague in 1665, Newton was sent home from Cambridge University and over the ensuing 18 months, the young 20-something would lay the foundations of modern science. During this period Newton described the mathematical theory of calculus, the laws of motion and gravitation, and the nature of light and color.