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A new exhibition at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library will give an insight into travel around Great Britain between the 16th and 20th centuries.

A major highlight will be a rarely exhibited set of field notes from 22-year-old Charles Darwin's geological tour through North Wales in 1831 after he graduated from Cambridge, illustrating the importance of travel in the development of his scientific thought.

‘Through the Whole Island: Excursions in Great Britain' will shed light on the motives for travel over the past 400 years and give a fascinating insight into the experiences of travellers in past ages, including scientists such as Darwin and Joseph Banks, and leisured gentlemen such as John Byng (Viscount Torrington) and 18th century playwright James Plumptre.

̽��ֱ��exhibition takes its title from Daniel Defoe's classic travel book A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724), the first edition of which is on display.

Chosen as BBC History Magazine's pick of the month for July 2007, the exhibition will include highly visual rare maps, guidebooks and art work inspired by travel around Great Britain.

Some of the other highlights include a 17th century engraved map of Wales with a triangular distance table showing the mileage between major towns, and an exquisite manuscript road book drawn by George Taylor in Scotland in 1785.

̽��ֱ��exhibition will also feature fictional and poetic accounts of travel. These include William Combe's character Dr Syntax setting out on a tour in search of a wife, with coloured illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson (1821), a copy of William Cowper's famous poem ‘John Gilpin,' written in 1782, and William Wordsworth's ‘Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey' from the Lyrical Ballads, 1798.

“ ̽��ֱ��purpose of the journeys made by these early travel writers was to gain a better understanding of the country they lived in,” said Peter Fox, Librarian at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library. “Before the age of mass travel, public perceptions of the landscape and nature of Britain were drawn largely from these printed accounts.”

“Whilst people today have a much greater capacity to travel, they share the same curiosity that the early explorers of Great Britain had in the years gone by.”

Other exhibits will include printed books by politically and socially motivated writers Voltaire (1733), Henry Mayhew (1851) and George Orwell (1937), and accounts of artistic tours around Britain by J. M. W. Turner and pioneer of the one-man show, the celebrated songwriter Charles Dibdin.

There are also exhibits illustrating the changes in technology and society which enabled an ever-increasing proportion of the British public to explore their island for themselves.

Examples include an early railway map of the west of England (1845), an illustrated Wolseley motorcar catalogue from 1910, and the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park's plan for dealing with caravans (1977).

Opening on 17 July, the exhibition will run until 22 December at the Exhibition Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� Library, West Road (closed 27 August and 16-23 September), and admission is free.

Opening times are Monday-Friday 09.00-18.00, Saturday 09.00-16.30; Closed Sundays.