River Cam
The
River Cam is a
tributary of the
River Great Ouse in the east of
England. The two
rivers join to the south of
Ely at a place called Pope's Corner. The Great Ouse connects the Cam to England's
canal system. In earlier times the Cam was named the
Granta. After the name of the Anglo-Saxon town of Grantebrycge had been modified to Cambridge, the river was renamed to match.
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Looking north from King's College bridge |
The Cam connects
Cambridge with the
North Sea at
King's Lynn, a total distance of about 40 miles (64 km). An organisation called the
Conservators of the River Cam was formed in 1702, charged with keeping the river navigable. The Conservators are responsible for the two
locks in and north east of Cambridge: Jesus Lock and Baits Bite Lock. The stretch north of Baits Bite Lock is called the lower river.
The middle river, between Jesus Lock and Baits Bite Lock, is the home of the
college rowing teams. There are also many houseboats on this stretch, forming a community who call themselves the Camboaters. Access for houseboats to the upper river is permitted during the winter months.
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The Backs: King's College chapel and Clare College |
The stretch above Jesus Lock is known as the upper river. Between Jesus Lock and the Mill Pond, it passes through
the Backs below the walls of many of the colleges. This is the section of river most popular with tourists, with its picture-postcard views of elegant bridges, green lawns and graceful willows. This stretch also has the unusual feature of a submerged towpath: the riverside colleges did not permit barge horses on the Backs, so the beasts waded up the Cam to the mill pulling their loads behind them.
From the Mill Pond and its weir, the river can be followed upstream through Granchester meadows to the village of
Grantchester and Byron's Pool, where it is fed by many streams. In the summer the upper river is open only to manually propelled craft, the most common of which are the flat-bottomed
punts. Punts and canoes can be manhandled around the weir by means of the rollers, a slipway from lower to upper level.
The two principal tributaries of the Cam are the
Granta and the
Rhee, though both are also officially known as the Cam. The Rhee begins just west of
Ashwell in
Hertfordshire running 12 miles through the farmland of southern
Cambridgeshire. The longer tributary, the Granta, starts near the village of Widdington in
Essex flowing the 15 miles north past
Audley End House to merge with the Rhee a mile south of Grantchester. A further tributary, also known as the Granta, runs 10 miles from south of
Haverhill to join the larger Granta south of
Great Shelford. Another minor tributary is Bourn Brook which has its source near the village of
Eltisley, 10 miles west of Cambridge, running east through
Caxton,
Bourn and
Toft to join the Cam at Byron's Pool, where the
poet, Lord Byron, is reputed to have swum.
Byron's Pool was certainly a bathing place for
Rupert Brooke and the Cambridge
neo-Pagans. Brooke used to canoe from Cambridge to lodgings in Granchester, which included the
Old Vicarage. His homesick poem of 1912 evokes the river memorably:
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Byron's Pool, in a painting by E. W. Haslehust. Possibly 1920s |
Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
Beside the river make for you
A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
Deeply above; and green and deep
The stream mysterious glides beneath,
Green as a dream and deep as death.
...
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell, and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
â€""The Old Vicarage, Grantchester", Collected Poems (1916)
One of Brooke's contemporaries,
Gwen Darwin, later Raverat, grew up in the old mill by the Mill Pond. Her book,
Period Piece, is a wonderful memoir of a childhood messing about on the river. The mill house is now
Darwin College.
Children's author
Philippa Pearce, who lives in Great Shelford, features the Cam in her books, most notably
Minnow on the Say. The river is re-named the River Say, with Great and Little Shelford becoming Great and Little Barley, and Cambridge becoming "Castleford" (not to be confused with the real town of the same name in West Yorkshire).
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The confluence of the Cam (left) and the Great Ouse |
Ingesting the river water is reputed to bring on a flu-like illness, known locally as Cam fever. The water is certainly murky, but clean enough at Cambridge to support fish.
*
Camboaters*
Free ebook of The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke at
Project Gutenberg*
Rivers of the United Kingdom*
Bridges in Cambridge*
Punting in Cambridge*
History and course of the River*
Conservators of the River Cam*
First and Third Trinity Boat Club guide to the Cam
