An inside look at Winton, the $27 billion British hedge fund that's decked out with fossils, statues of Paddington Bear, and a chart-filled room that's basically paradise for finance nerds

Data rules everything in financial markets.

While this view predominates in 2018, it isn't long since many in the financial industry would have sneered at the idea that computer models and data might be more efficient ways of making money than good old fashioned intuition.

Winton Group, the hedge fund founded in 1997 by David Harding, a British physicist turned investor, was one of the pioneers of data driven investing, basing its philosophy - in the company's words - on the belief that "the scientific method can be profitably applied to the field of investing."

Harding pioneered a system of investing known as trend following, whereby trends and patterns in markets are identified and used to inform a long term investing strategy.

Winton had assets of around $27 billion (£20.6 billion) at the end of 2017, putting it among the 10 largest hedge funds on the planet.

Business Insider was invited by Winton in September to get a glimpse of the fund's offices, as well as its recently completed chart room.

The chart room is a painstakingly curated tribute to financial history which also serves as a reference point for the fund's staff when looking at market trends. Charts are crucial to Winton's philosophy, with Harding calling graphical representations "the only sensible way to engage with economic history."

Take a look inside the room, which is like a statistical Garden of Eden, below: