Leaving Denver Sluice the flat fenland landscape stretches away into the distance as it heads southwards on the non-tidal Great Ouse. More of an artificial drainage channel than a natural river – the original course of the Great Ouse ran further to the west. Passing Littleport and the Black Horse (now called The Swan By the River –I expect the poor old horse died and rather than buy another one they decided it was cheaper to adopt a nearby swan) we head for Ely. If you want and as I did once, you can divert left onto the River Lark and head for Prickwillow and Isleham Lock . There was a pub there, gone now of course (and I’m not surprised), that had green church pews in a square round the bar room and a bar that boasted few temptations. We had a rule back then that, if on entering a new pub, (new to us that is) and the atmosphere was not to our liking then only half pints would be ordered. On this occasion the half pint was the definite call. As I touched the latch on the green door (they’d obviously had a job lot of green paint) and pushed the door open the silence was deafening. The assembled half dozen customers who had been jawing happily until my intrusion sat as though in a doctor’s waiting room. Not a word. I’d heard, though never experienced, others tell of this happening to English visitors to parts of Wales but not to Englishmen visiting parts of England!

I recall a journalist describing his visit to Atlanta for the Olympic Games in 1996. He wrote that his impression of many of the locals was that their family tree had hardly ever forked and that was my impression that day in East Anglia.

On leaving the bar, conversation restarted as we shut the door; but I couldn’t resist waiting five seconds before just tapping the latch and hearing immediate silence from within. We didn’t stay in Prickwillow overnight for fear of re-enacting one of the gorier scenes from Midsommer Murders with us providing the gore.

If you want to know why Ely is so called well apparently back in 1086 the village of Littleport (then Litelport) was worth 17,000 eels a year to the Abbots of Ely so it should be safe to assume if the movers and shakers of that city were motivated by an income of eels then they became known as Ely. Oh that life was that simple.

King Canute, the well known anagram, was allegedly the founder of Littleport.  A fisherman gave the king shelter one night, after drunken monks had denied him hospitality. After punishing the monks, (they don’t say how but I bet it involved eels) he made his host the mayor of a newly founded village. Apart from the odd riot after returning veterans of the Battle of Waterloo found there was no work and they couldn’t afford grain (or I suspect eels) Littleport carried on catching eels.

Its next claim to fame came much later when William Harley, born in Victoria Street, Littleport, in 1835, emigrated to the United States in 1859. So what? Well his son, William Sylvester Harley in partnership with his childhood friend Arthur Davidson formed the famous motorcycle company in 1903

In 2003, a Harley-Davidson statue was unveiled in Littleport to mark the centenary of the motorcycle company.In 2021 some drunken monks, returning from an illegal rave in Downing Street, threw the statue into the Ouse believing Harley Davidson to have profited from the race industry**

As for Ely the earliest record of the name is in the Latin text of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, where he wrote “Elge” meaning "district of eels" afterwards re-interpreted to mean "Eel Island".

The problem is that as the word eel (or similar) did not exist at the time of the founding of Ely (they were instead referred to as aguilla or anguilles until the 1300s). Later  Ovin, Ethelreda’s Chamberlain, described it as "an ancient place of great spiritual importance to the people of the region, a paradise" or “Elysium". Ely for short.

Another option, discussed by S H Miller in 'Fenland Notes and Queries', is that the name is an old Celtic name deriving either from the Brythonic helig (modern Welsh helyg) meaning willows or heli meaning salt water. Miller construes the name as meaning the singular and thinks it odd a place so abounding in the trees would be called 'a willow', So after all that we’re none the wiser. Take your pick.

 

The moorings at Ely waterfront are very handy for the city as long as you like a climb. A climb that is worthwhile if you visit the cathedral. From this dizzy height (dizzy for Norfolk anyway) you can see for miles and as was the wish of previous Ely rulers control and defend your borders.

Head four miles upriver from Ely and you reach Pope’s Corner where the Ouse meets The Cam, turns right and becomes The Old West River. Pope’s Corner is now a busy marina but when I knew it and visited frequently it was a well-known local public house—the ‘Fish & Duck Inn.’, a Spooner inn if ever there was. Nobody ever called it by its correct name. 

 Built in 1850 with seven rooms and 12 stable blocks, it was of a considerable size considering its remoteness. The first named owner and publican was a gentleman named Richard Pope hence ‘Pope’s Corner’.

The Inn changed in the 1980s when it was converted into a licensed riverside discotheque.

Around this time a marina was opened. The pub unfortunately gave up its battle against subsidence and water damage in 2009.

I remember a couple that ran it, they were Swiss I think, and could be a tad short in their conversations with customers but the food and drink was tolerable. It became one of my favourite moorings allowing easy access onto the Cam or up to Ely then back on the Old West. It ended badly.

One lunchtime we were waiting patiently to be served. There was no sign of any staff behind the bar and two other customers had been waiting longer than us. Then the phone started ringing. It was a payphone on the wall by the entrance. We waited.  And waited. The phone kept ringing.  And ringing. It rang for a long time suggesting the caller had urgent need of an answer and was hanging on till they got one. Another couple of minutes passed. One of the other customers decided action was needed and called out “Your phone is ringing” He got no response so he crossed to the entrance and lifted the receiver.” There’s nobody here at the moment- Sorry, I’m just a customer-I suggest you call back later” The phone was replaced just as mein host appeared and in English with a Swiss accent demanded to know “vot ze”  customer  “vos” doing. The phone answerer’s companion said “Vot he vos doing  vos answering the phone because as no staff had been seen for the previous 15 minutes the phone was in danger of imploding”

It was the Swiss innkeeper who imploded. “You can get out of my house-how dare you walk in like you owned the place” The departing pair had one last salvo and having assumed mein host was a German shouted back “Well it didn’t bother you lot when it came to Poland and Czechoslovakia”

I laughed, my crewmate laughed but the redfaced Gnome didn’t see the joke and told us to leave as well thus removing his entire lunchtime trade. He disappeared from whence he came.I suspect he also had the pub in Prickwillow As we exited, never to return, the phone began ringing so I picked it up and explained there were no tables available for the coming Saturday because of an ongoing rat problem in the kitchen. Revenge is sweet.

Up the Old West River to Earith. In my opinion one of the loveliest waterways in the country it meanders gently winding through fields under cultivation and riverbanks full of wild flowers and birds, wildfowl and little four-legged friends and a few bigger ones. Short on moorings and shorter on pubs this little used river is a diamond of the Fens much of which comprises man-made, straight navigations with high banks denying the traveller sight of the views beyond.

One regular stop was the Royal Oak at Stretham, having moorings, a camp and caravan site and a pub that opened early to sell papers, bread, milk etc and if the need arose a libation of alcoholic content though even by my low standards a tad early in the day. It was a quirky, untidy, unfussy site where one felt welcome and unrestricted and often with the chance of a pleasant, sociable evening, always remembering to take a torch.

 

The Royal Oak had changed its name over the years, history books recalling that in the late 18th century it was known as the Charles in Oak. This allegedly referred to a local legend that King Charles once hid in an oak tree nearby to escape Cromwell’s soldiers.  

Unfortunately the story of the king in a tree would appear to have happened miles away in Shropshire (after the Battle of Worcester which ended the Sauce Wars sparked by an argument as to the merits of HP (with its Parliamentary allegiance) and Worcester sauces, the latter a favourite with the Royals. **

I guess that as with so many things if it suited the locals and they happened to have an oak someone would claim Charles had hidden there at sometime.

It became The Lazy Otter in April 1987 and closed in 2022. There is now a marina and park homes adjacent. It all looks very tidy and I’m sure very welcoming. Progress.

Nearby you can visit the Stretham Old Engine.

 In my experience the world comprises two types of people. Those for whom the words “you can visit the Stretham Old Engine” would cause them to enthuse at such a prospect; to be in the same room as a piece of mechanical genius bursts into a giant, hissing, steaming and rattling rhythmically whilst performing a service of such importance to mankind. The second group would rather live on muesli and water in a shed than enter the portals of this sacred place. The Stretham is the last complete survivor of more than a hundred similar engines that worked the drainage network all over Cambridgeshire. 

I quote from their website

https://www.strethamoldengine.com/

“The boilers, similar to those of the Titanic, have run their course and no longer roar the water into steam to turn the mighty engine. Today, the engine still thrusts and hisses, the massive beam, high above your head, still nods and the cast iron flywheel still turns to the delight of our visitors, but now by the aid of electricity”.

If you’re ever out that way pay a visit.

 

Don’t pay a visit to the Twenty Pence Inn at Twenty Pence Bridge further up river because it’s not there anymore, demolished in 2008 for new housing. As I said earlier the Old West River was short on pubs back in the 70s and it’s even shorter now; in fact it has none. The Twenty Pence Bridge which carries Twenty Pence Road is named after the Twenty Pence Punt which once was the only way of crossing the river between Wilburton and Cottenham.

As to the origin of the name ”Twentypence”  apparently it cost 1d per person to cross one way and 2d to include a bike. One suggestion is that from Wilburton church to Cottenham return journey would cost 20d for two carts their horses and Wagoner’s but no hard evidence exists.

There is now a Twenty Pence Marina but I doubt anything at that price is available even in new money.

 

Onwards in the direction of St Ives you rejoin the main Great Ouse at Earith where the river widens. There was and still is, a marina and amazingly still a pub, The Crown. I don’t recall much about the Crown, not because of drink taken but time past but I do remember learning about Bandy.

“Who the doings was Bandy?” I hear you ask.

Well it’s not a “who” it’s a sport

I asked one of the locals why the town sign showed people skating on ice.

“Oh” he said “it’s not skating- it’s a bandy match”

Apparently records dating back to 1813 show that the nearby village of Bury-on-Fen in Cambridgeshire had a Bandy team that were unbeaten for a hundred years!

To stage a game you would need an area of flooded frozen field the size of a football pitch.  Bandy is played with a real ball rather than a puck, so it’s much faster than ice hockey and because everyone’s on ice skates, it’s much faster than field hockey, too.

Like ice hockey, there are two goals, and the game is played with a curved stick, which is called the Bandy. The rules are much more akin to football than ice hockey.                                                    

                                                            

In colder times long gone such areas plus dykes, lakes and even part of the River Ouse would freeze allowing games of bandy and other ice based activities. The warmer climate since the middle of the last century means such frozen opportunities rarely occur .1963 was the last full freeze when students from the university could skate or cycle on the Cam towards Ely, a regular occurrence in the 1800s and before.

 

Even nowadays on the rare occasions when acres of fen and washland beside the Great Ouse river become natural skating rinks, people from far and wide don skates to chance their luck and up the footfall at the local A and E.

 

 Metal skates were introduced in the 17 century, partly thanks to the exile of the English Royal family in the Netherlands. Skating was hugely popular on the Dutch canals and the Royals loved it, so when they returned to England they held a skating display.  In Cambridgeshire, the Dutch engineers working with Cornelius Vermuyden on the huge fen drainage projects mentioned earlier also began to stage races.

The game was perfected in England by James Tebbutt, from the nearby village of Bluntisham in 1891. Tebbutt was a member of the Bury Fen Bandy Club and was the first player to set out the game's rules and spread the popularity of the sport by taking it overseas.

 

The Norris Museum in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, has a copy of the Bandy Code of Rules, developed in 1882.  As an example  Rule  11 states: If you drop your stick during a game of Bandy then any of your opponents is entitled to pick it up and throw it away One can judge what sort of game it is.

All classes were involved in playing Bandy. There was a famous exhibition match at Windsor Castle in 1853 in the presence of Queen Victoria, with Prince Albert playing as one of the goalkeepers!

Once the rules of the game were established, Charles Tebbutt decided it was time to introduce the rest of northern Europe to the sport, and the first international Bandy match took place in 1891 between England's Bury Fen Club and Haarlem in the Netherlands.  From there, Tebbutt took the game to Sweden, and the rest is history. 

According to my new friend in the Crown, Bandy was one of the most popular games in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the US and could one day be included in the Winter Olympics! Well, 40 years on and Bandy still doesn’t feature in the Olympics but if you want, as I have, to support such a change visit https://www.bandyinolympics.com/

And sign the petition.

The Fenland weather no longer allows for the game, but every player knows the history of the game  and the Cambridgeshire Fens are credited with being the true home of Bandy.

 

If you want to know more about bandy and the history of The St Ives area generally, then instead of relying on what I recall from a conversation in a pub 40 years ago why not visit the excellent aforementioned Norris Museum in St Ives. https://www.norrismuseum.org.uk/

 

It never occurred to me to wonder who St Ives was. He must be significant to have three English towns named in his honour, the Cambridgeshire one straddling the Gt Ouse, the Cornish one probably better known and one in Dorset. There are at least two Saints Ives. There was French one who looks like he never came to Cornwall or The Fens and who is the patron saint of the poor and lawyers, a strange mixture.

Then there was St Ivo, whose remains were found in 1001 near Ramsay, Huntingdonshire so obviously did know the area. Little is known other than he was Cornish, a bishop and a hermit so he fits the bill for both places. The story goes that St. Ivo appeared to a ploughman in several visions, which obliged him to communicate the discovery to the local abbot's reeve. The latter did not take this seriously at first, whereupon Ivo, who obviously was keen to have his bones dug up, also appeared to the reeve in visions. When the monastic community learned of this, they rejoiced greatly at the discovery. A church was built and the local town of Slepe was renamed in his honour. 

 

You’ll have heard the rhyme-

As I was going to St Ives,

I met a man with seven wives,

Each wife had seven sacks,

Each sack had seven cats,

Each cat had seven kits:

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,

How many were there going to St Ives?

(The answer is one, of course)

 

Well, the jury’s out on that one as neither the Cornish nor the Cambridge folk can lay claim to being the subject of the rhyme. Both had markets , fish in the case of Cornwall, or, he may have been on his way to the Great Fair at St Ives. Part of the Fair was held in St Audrey's Lane where poor quality cloth and lace was sold  and the word tawdry evolved from that lane meaning something cheap and cheerful. 

The river at St Ives is a lovely spot with good moorings, an excellent pub and the beautiful St Ives Bridge which is unusual as it contains a chapel. I was surprised to learn that the bridges at Rotherham, Wakefield, and Bradford-on-Avon also have this feature.  After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1537, the chapel was given to the prior to live in. The lordship of the manor of St Ives changed several times, as did the chapel. And it was in turn - a private house, a doctor’s surgery and a pub, called Little  Hell with a reputation for rowdy behaviour where it is believed the landlord kept pigs in the basement. A favourite with the Bullingdon Club no doubt.

The bridge was partially rebuilt after, true to form, Oliver Cromwell knocked down two arches during the English Civil War to prevent King Charles I's troops approaching London from his Royalist base in Lincolnshire. During the civil war and for some period afterwards, the gap was covered by a drawbridge

Needless to say the town square contains a statue of “the bad old baste” , Oliver Cromwell, erected in 1901. There aren’t many statues of Ollie around, the other three being in Parliament Square, outside Wythenshawe Hall and in Warrington.

He has a pub named after him though and a very good pub it was and still is sitting adjacent to the riverside. It was there that we discovered that sometimes the recommended bitter of the day might unknowingly be a tad stronger than that to which one is used. To be fair it was pre breathalyser and five pints was not unknown but 5 pints of Mrs Cromwell’s Bladderwort or whatever it was called meant the drive back to the boat was a bit eccentric including going the wrong side of some traffic lights. Once back on board a short nod was thought sensible before dinner and neither of us woke till gone 8 a.m. the following day.

** I made those up.