Day Seven

Saturday 2 October – Newmarket to Cambridge

To reach open country, I needed to spend half an hour in the company of the Newmarket-Cambridge Road. There was a pavement, so at least I could ignore the traffic and daydream. Every few hundred yards, there was a crossing point for horses – the various rides which comprise Newmarket Racecourse were on either side of the road, jumps to the left and flat to the right.

And down the middle of the road, cones, hundreds of them, evenly spaced at about ten-yard intervals. It was bizarre. There were no roadworks or other obvious reason for them. My theory? - they were there to stop the silly beggars trying to overtake each other on this invitingly-straight road, to the detriment of the horses.

After a mile and a half, I turned right, heading roughly North West on a footpath between the main part of the racecourse and the National Stud. Not just a footpath – this was the Devil's Ditch (as marked on the map) or Dyke (on the information board I passed). This is thought to have been an Anglo-Saxon earthwork, built in the 6^th or 7^th Centuries. The massive bank and ditch ran (and mostly still run) for about 7½ miles almost dead straight across the chalk landscape, as a means of controlling the main routes into and out of East Anglia, including three Roman roads – for this was, of course, well after the Romans had decamped.

The footpath is on top of the bank and, being chalk, was greasy with its slick of morning dew. Across the racecourse there are three breaches in the bank, two of them for horses, the last allowing the Rowley Mile to pass through. To my left, a woman was walking her dog, despite a ban until 1pm, presumably to allow the horses to be exercised in peace. The dog was on a lead and giving no trouble. To my right, another woman was walking her husband – he too seemed well under control, without the need for a leash.

Hidden behind a cordon of bushes, and sunk below the level of the racecourse, was the ghastly A14. I crossed on a footbridge, continuing to follow the ditch/dyke. This corridor forms a linear nature reserve, grassy and flower-filled despite the attentions of a herd of horned sheep. Mushrooms and/or toadstools, many of them brightly coloured, were putting on a particularly good show.

After nearly another mile, I deserted the dyke, turning due West towards Swaffham Prior. A disrupted stretch of path across a recently-cropped field was made easier to navigate because of the twin landmarks of the church tower and the windmill – the trick was to aim between them. The path soon became better defined, and by now the bright-but-chilly day had become warm and lovely.

Foster's Windmill was built in 1857. It stands on the site of an earlier post mill and it is believed that mills have stood on this site since Domesday. The mill was purchased by the Foster family who worked the mill for all of its working life, ceasing in 1946 when the mill was ‘mothballed’. The mill was rescued in 1970 and then began a restoration process carried out by Michael Bullied which culminated in the mill grinding corn again in 1992. The mill now works daily in the care of the current owner, Jonathan Cook. Thanks to the mill's website (fostersmill.co.uk) for that information.

On the same hill (hill, as I have observed before, being a relative term in these parts) there is another non-functional mill. Swaffham Prior and neighbouring Swaffham Bulbeck go back beyond Domesday, the former not only sporting twin windmills but twin churches as well, a matter of yards apart but now serving a single parish.

The existence of a bypass road enables it to be a sleepy sort of place on a Saturday morning. I passed the former pound and keep – the pound for stray animals and the keep for local scallywags. Two notices bore witness to a sociable spirit in the place. Firstly a Movable Feast was advertised – not a religious rite but a meal of three courses in three locations. The second ad was for the Dog Show, with prizes for the dog which looks most like its owner (tricky to judge – so many do) and for the dog which the judge would most like to take home. The winning owner presumably has to keep a tight hold on the mutt while collecting the prize.

It was now a really nice day. As I walked between the two Swaffhams, I had a feeling of great contentment, which was perverse, as I was walking beside a busy and noisy road. On the outskirts of Swaffham Bulbeck I turned on to a side road heading West again. This road led to a series of footpaths taking me further West. After another undefined path across a field, a complete contrast came in the form of a tarmacced half mile between the one-road hamlet of Long Meadow and the village of Lode.

Lode was pleasant in itself, a spider's web of footpaths running between the quiet roads. But I had planned to walk through here because it is the “home village” for Anglesey Abbey, a National Trust property where I intended to have my lunch.

A community of Augustinian canons built a priory here, known as Anglesea or Anglesey Priory, some time during the reign of Henry I (i.e., between 1100 and 1135), and acquired extra land from the nearby village of Bottisham in 1279. The canons were expelled in 1535 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The former priory was acquired around 1600 by Thomas Hobson, who converted it to a country house for his son-in-law, Thomas Parker, retaining a few arches from the original priory. At that time the building's name was changed to "Anglesey Abbey", which sounded grander than the original "Anglesey Priory". In the late 18th century, the house was owned by Sir George Downing, the founder of Downing College, Cambridge. Further alterations to the building were carried out in 1861. Huttleston and Henry Broughton bought the site in 1926 and made improvements to the house. They were the sons of Urban Broughton (1857–1929), who had made a fortune in the mining and railway industries in America. Henry married, leaving the abbey to his brother, then 1st Lord Fairhaven, in 1930. Henry became the 2nd Lord Fairhaven. Huttleston used his wealth to indulge his interests in history, art, and garden design, and to lead an eighteenth-century lifestyle at the house. On his death, Huttleston left the abbey to the National Trust so that the house and gardens could "represent an age and way of life that was quickly passing". (Wikipedia)

It was a popular resort on a bright October Saturday. The car park was nearly full, and I approached the entrance somewhat gloomily. My mood was not improved by the sight of a queue for the café/restaurant – the Beige Brigade were out in force, and they were all going to have a good think before they chose anything. I bit the bullet and stood patiently in the queue (no, really!). It was a good lunch when I got it.

When I showed my NT membership card, a rather grumpy volunteer asked me whether I was going to visit the house. Remembering the number of cars, I asked her how busy it was. She sucked her teeth and looked at me disapprovingly. “I really couldn't say.” Since she was handing out the tickets, I rather think she could have hazarded a guess. I wondered why she volunteered.

I decided not to go in the house – I could always come again with more time to spare – and have a quick look around the garden. I merely scratched the surface; it's a large garden, with formal parts and wilder bits, and you could obviously lose yourself for hours without getting bored. I was very taken by a cathedral-like planting of silver birches – magical. There is a watermill to visit as well as the house, but with a few miles to go to reach Cambridge I did the place scant justice.

In order to visit Anglesey Abbey I had had to divert from the footpath I was following, so I had now to retrace my steps for half a mile. This is something I dislike beyond reason, but the alternative was a spell on a main road, a very unappealing prospect. Soon I was heading South West beside the Quy Water, a stream which looks more artificial than natural, although very lovely along the wooded stretches near the Abbey. The artificiality is not surprising: after the comparative heights of the Newmarket area, I was back in fenland, the flat fields often lying at or below sea level, and well below the Quy Water – I was walking along the retaining bank.

I approached the village of Stow cum Quy on a wide concrete roadway, which looks as though it might once have been the driveway for Quy Hall. A car came towards me, stopped and turned, and drove away so slowly I almost overtook it. It accelerated slighly, but stopped at a gate. Two women emerged and examined the gate.

One of them came across and asked me if I knew who might have locked the gate since they drove in. "We just came for a look round", she told me. "We used to live here." I sympathised, and we shared a look at my map for alternative escape routes; it didn't look promising. I left them questioning a man up a ladder cutting his hedge opposite the gate.

After skirting the village and Quy Mill (now a hotel) I turned South to pass beneath the A 14 and then within a hundred yards, to dice with death crossing the A1134, which connects the Eastern part of Cambridge with the A14. Then it was back to the fields again. While I was eating and rubber-necking, the blue sky had been totally overwhelmed by cloud, which was now thick and threatening, although it remained dry. Had it been Lord's, bad light might have stopped play.

When the path finished at Teversham, the rural part of the walk had more ot less come to an end; it was mostly road work between here and Cambridge. Teversham itself was not busy – it, too, is bypassed. Nearby, the presence of Cambridge Airport was betrayed by the buzzy noise of small planes taking off and landing.

As I walked South towards Cherry Hinton, I passed a car in a layby with its door open. A woman was picking blackberries. She carried her plastic box back to the car, looking well satisfied with her haul. I was tempted to start picking, but I wanted to avoid further delay, so I decided to make do with the Tesco blackberries at home in the fridge. Within fifty yards I passed another woman blackberrying; she was sticking them straight into her mouth. Then a third blackberry-picking woman, this one feeding the spoils to her baby. Talk about living off the land!

Cherry Hinton is a suburb of Cambridge, so it was unsurprisingly suburban and tedious to walk through. Relief came in the form of a footpath cum cycleway which started off narrow, widened and became rather posh as it passed between new commercial units and a huge indoor tennis shed, and then narrowed again as it crossed the railway (the branch to Newmarket) on a bridge. When the path ended, the streets of Romsey Town took me West towards a bridge over the main railway line and Cambridge Station.

Cambridge is Cycleville. There seem to be more signs guiding cyclists than there are for drivers. The forecourt of the station is a sea of tethered bikes. The station was the nearest I would get to the Centre of the City today (that is, not very near); the pretty bits were for next time.

The 5.15 train to Kings Cross was packed – the students were off for a night on the town.