Ely to Cambridge

 27th May 2022

Ely to Cambridge can be done on one bus in about an hour, but this trip isn't about speed or directness! This short sector of the project would end in Cambridge, the next country town I'd encounter, so today was a compromise between seeing a bit of Cambridgeshire and spending some time in the county town (cities are still "county towns") itself.

I was able to make full use of my free pass by leaving Ely bang-on 0930, when passes become valid, but only at the expense of retracing my steps on service 39 to Chatteris. I had another half-hour between buses there and the town did look a bit more inviting on a sunny morning.

Even from Chatteris I was still covering old ground on service V2 as far as Warboys, where after a circuit of the village we struck off southwards to St. Ives.  I'd now left the Isle of Ely, but not for Cambridgeshire. The counties roundabouts are small and the bus routes pay no attention to the boundaries, so before reaching Cambridge I had first to re-enter Huntingdonshire.

It was market day in St. Ives, which always adds a bit of excitement to a place.

Market day in St. Ives

I had a number of options to complete the short journey on to Cambridge, including a quick run down the guided busway from St. Ives, so I decided to just wander around the town and see how I felt when I'd had enough.

Back in September 2019 I'd visited the Oliver Cromwell museum in Huntingdon, that town being his birthplace. I was surprised therefore to see a statue of the great man here in St. Ives

A nearby noticeboard informed me that the statue had originally been intended for display in Huntingdon, but with the population there being strictly CofE, with objections to his "puritan" views, it was rejected. St. Ives was (is?) a more non-conformist town and was happy to have it instead.

Mind you, I'm not sure how Oliver would have felt had he realised that nearly 400 years after his death his memorial would be festooned with bunting to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the accession to the throne of one of his old enemy's successors.

My dilemma as to which bus to take next resolved itself when this bus turned up on service "B" to Huntingdon

These Volvo buses are 13.4m long (over 2m longer than most double-deckers), have three axles, two doors and seat 98 passengers! They are very suitable for the guided busway between Cambridge and St. Ives, which is built on a former railway line, but the route on to Huntingdon takes them through a series of housing estates and back streets that must make life interesting for the drivers.  

Perhaps because of this we were a few minutes late arriving at Huntingdon bus station, where I had hoped to grab a quick cup of tea and a sandwich, as the effects of my full English breakfast at the hotel were beginning to wear off. But service in the bus station caff was slow and I wanted to make sure I caught my next bus.

This was the only non-Stagecoach bus of the last two days and was run by a firm called "Whippet Coaches", which must give visiting Americans something to think about. Unfortunately it was not a good advertisment for bus travel, being old, noisy, uncomfortable and not particularly clean.

After a tour of the village of "Godmanchester" ("Gumster" to the locals) and a new housing area nearby we had a fast run down main roads, entering Cambridgeshire at the village of Papworth Everard.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE:  County Town: Cambridge

Cambridgeshire is a relatively small county with Cambridge itself the only large settlement. The northern half of the county was administered separately by the Isle of Ely County Council until 1965, whilst the modern-day administrative area includes the county of Huntingdonshire. 

The county is generally low-lying, particularly north of Cambridge.

One of my schoolfriends went to Cambridge University, the first from our school in South Wales to do so. He only stuck it a year - feeling completely out-of-place and ill-at-ease with the affluence and privilege of the place. Even on a brief walk around the city centre I could see why. It wouldn't have suited me either, not that that was ever an option!

King's College. Just one of the remarkable buildings in the city

"Watching the stunts. . ."

Accommodation in central Cambridge is not cheap, so my hotel was quite a way out of the city on the Newmarket Road, although so poor is the on-street information of where to catch your bus in the city I ended up walking.

I had time for another look around the city the following morning on my way to the station for the train home.

Peterborough to Ely                                                                                        Cambridge to Norwich