Britain has been home to science innovation since at least Newton's day. Here are several places associated with cutting edge discoveries in physics and astronomy.
Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire houses the remarkable Lovell Radio Telescope that was completed in 1957, as the largest steerable dish telescope in the world. It was awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2019. Although the centre still operates as a working science site under the University of Manchester, visitors are encouraged, and there has even been an annual science & music festival held there.
Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth is a village in a quiet corner of Lincolnshire, near Grantham. It contains Woolsthorpe Manor, the family home of Isaac Newton, who realised the nature of gravity here, when he saw an apple fall from an apple tree in the orchard.
The array of satellite dishes at Goonhilly in southern Cornwall has been at the forefront of telecommunications history since it was built in the 1960s. It played a key role in the first transatlantic live TV transmission, conveyed telephone calls across the Atlantic, and is now an integral part of the space exploration programme.
One of the most famous places in the world of science is the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge - which, since its opening in 1874, has had an extraordinary history of discovery and innovation in Physics.
Now known as the Observatory Science Centre, the array of telescopes in the countryside near Herstmonceux, East Sussex, was for several decades the home of the Royal Greenwich Observatory - when it moved out of central London to escape light pollution.
Calder Hall at Sellafield, Cumbria, was the world's first and longest-serving nuclear power plant used for commercial electricity generation. Opened in 1956 and designed to last 20 years, it was operational for 47 years before closing in 2003.
