Top, the house where Isaac Newton was born, Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire; centre, a letter written by Isaac Newton from Trinity College Cambridge, 20 June 1682; bottom, interior of the observatory in Newton's house on St. Martin's Street, London. Etching by C.J. Smith, 1836.

"The most famous resident, Sir Isaac Newton, occupied the house from 1711 until 1727, the year of his death. During this time he was chiefly engaged on revising the Principia. He was still active enough to make use of a small observatory which he had built at the top of the house and to attend meetings of the Royal Society, though his period of greatest productivity was at an end. A tablet recording was erected on No. 35 by the Society of Arts in 1881. Dr. Burney took the house in 1774 and the greater part of his History of music was written there. Madame D'Arblay (Fanny Burney) in her diary has the entry for 18th October, 1774; "We came immediately to this house, which we propose calling Newton House, or The Observatory, or something that sounds grand. By the way, Sir Isaac's identical observatory is still subsisting, and we show it, to all our visitors, as our principal Lyon. I am very much pleased with the mansion.""—Survey of London, loc. cit.