Everything about The River Cam totally explained
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 Pope's Corner. The Great Ouse connects the Cam to
England's canal system. In earlier times the Cam was named the
Granta, but after the name of the Anglo-Saxon town of Grantebrycge had been modified to Cambridge, the river was renamed to match. It has no connection with the much smaller
River Cam in Gloucestershire.
The lower and middle river
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 three
locks in and north east of Cambridge: Jesus Lock, Baits Bite Lock and Bottisham 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 training and racing home of the
university college and
town rowing teams. The Cambridge
Lent,
May and Town
Bumps rowing races are held here.
There are also many houseboats on this stretch, forming a community who call themselves the Camboaters. Access for mechanically powered boats is allowed as far as 'La Mimosa' Pub at the upstream end of Jesus Green between 1 April and 30 September. Between 1st October and 31st March access is allowed as far as Mill Pool, but few people take advantage of this, as the river has very few mooring places along the Backs, and the river is too narrow and bridges too low to afford easy passing/turning for many boats.
From the Backs to Grantchester
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 the remains of a
submerged towpath: the riverside colleges didn't 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's 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.
Tributaries
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.
Literature
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:
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?
—"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 memoir of a childhood messing about on the river. The mill house is now part of
Darwin College.
Children's author
Philippa Pearce, who lived in Great Shelford until her death in December
2006, featured 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).
River Cam is referred to as "Camus, reverend Sire" in line 103 of
John Milton's pastoral elegy
Lycidas.
Edward King, in whose memory the elegy was composed, was a fellow student at Cambridge.
Use for recreation
Like many rivers, the Cam is extensively used for several forms of recreation activity.
Swimming
The local swimming club's annual swim from the Mill pond to Jesus Green was cancelled for some years in the past because of higher pollution levels.
However, swimming on the upper river is very popular in the summer, with many people bathing at Grantchester Meadows all year round. The New Year's Day swim is also a treat for more hardy bathers.
Angling
The water isn't murky and is clean enough from its source to its confluence with the Great Ouse to support fish.
The Cam below Bottisham Sluice may still hold
Burbot, a fish thought to be extinct in English waters since the early seventies. A novice fisherman named Phil describes a fish he caught there that matches the distinct characteristics of the Burbot.
Further Information
Get more info on 'River Cam'.
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