Irreplaceable: A History of England in 100 Places - Science & Discovery

Bletchley Park is celebrated for its contribution to the Allied victory in the Second World War and for its contribution to the development of information technology. In 1939 Bletchley Park, a large Victorian house and its grounds, became a home to the Foreign Office's Government Code and Cipher School. It was the focal point of inter-service intelligence activities, and the place where Axis codes (notably those encrypted using the Enigma machine) were deciphered and assessed. It was here that the world's first electronic computer, 'Colossus', was developed.

This rustic hut is situated in the garden of The Chantry, the home and death-place of Dr Edward Jenner (1749-1823), discoverer of vaccination. It was here that Jenner conducted his first vaccination against smallpox in 1796. The disease was devastating. In Jenner's time it was responsible for around ten to twenty per cent of all deaths, killing around thirty per cent of those who contracted it. Following eradication campaigns in the 20th century, the World Health Assembly officially declared the world free of smallpox on 8 May 1980.

The Royal Observatory was Britain's first state-funded scientific institution. Established in 1675, it set out to gather information to aid navigation, timekeeping, cartography and to measure longitude. It was here that the first two Astronomers Royal plotted all the stars visible in the northern and southern hemispheres, where in 1833 the first public time signal was made, and where the Prime Meridian of the world is set.

This apple tree sits in the orchard of Woolsthorpe Manor House in Lincolnshire. It is believed that it was at this tree that mathematician and natural philosopher Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) observed the fall of an apple, leading to his discovery of the laws of gravity, changing the way we understand the universe. 

Named in honour of the mathematician and scientist Mary Somerville (1780-1872), Somerville Hall (later College) was founded in 1879. It accepted women at a time when they were barred from Oxford University. One Somerville alumna was Dorothy Hodgkin (née Crowfoot, 1910-1994), Britain's only female scientist to receive the Nobel Prize. Reading chemistry, Hodgkin researched X-ray crystallography, going on to Cambridge to gain a PhD, before returning to Somerville in 1934 as a research fellow. Through X-ray techniques she was able to determine the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin.

Down House was the home and place of death of naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882). 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection' (1859), his major work on the scientific theory of evolution by natural selection, was written here. Darwin and his wife Emma moved to Down House in 1842. They made many changes to the house to improve and increase the accommodation, including the addition of a new study and a large bay at the rear of the house. The gardens were also improved, with Darwin constructing experimental beds and a hothouse for his botanical experiments.