The Lowdown on the Lode villages of Cambridgeshire

by Paula Griswold

The isolated Fens* of East Anglia have always evoked mystery, and on moonlit nights unearthly forms were said to rise out of the marshes, accompanied by eerie noises. Early Christian communities and great towns were established here, and solid waterway canals called dykes or "lodes" were built, mainly by the Romans, to connect them to the rest of the country, carrying goods, supplies, and soldiers through the wetlands.

Some lodes connected with rivers and others reached to the sea from far inland: The Romans built Car Dyke (which runs along the western edge of the Fens) to connect ancient Cambridge to Lincoln, and settlements along the lodes became important port villages. After the fenland was drained for farmland, and trains began making regular stops, most of the lodes were no longer needed and the port villages dwindled to port hamlets.

But most visitors to Cambridge today know nothing of the region's remarkable waterway history.

Stow-cum-Quy

Known as Quy to locals (it's Anglo-Saxon for Cow Isle), this village is just over four miles from Cambridge and was recorded in the Domesday book**. It dates back even further however: The 14th-century church of St. Mary's was re-built from a Saxon church that stood on a pagan site. Among the sights here are Quy Fen Nature Reserve, at the far edge of the village, and Anglesey Abbey. Across from the church is Best Western-owned Quy Mill Hotel-the original watermill was also recorded in the Domesday book.

Bottisham

Close to Quy, this could be called a "perfect English village" with its long main street of saffron and Suffolk-pink thatch-roof cottages and grange, Tudor manor, tea shop, pubs, and 14th-century Holy Trinity church. It was an evacuee center for Londoners during WWII and U.S. Army Air Corps pilots were also stationed here. You can see the Roman-built Bottisham lode-canal from the B1102 road.

Lode

Lode was an important Cam river port attached to Bottisham until 1898 and backs up to Anglesey Abbey. The abbey was initially an Augustinian Priory abandoned after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, but where, in the 1920s, Lord Fairhaven created a stunning home and garden park. It's now a public National Trust property with an outstanding art collection.

Swaffham Bulbeck

This village, 10 miles northeast of Cambridge and seven miles from Newmarket, is where the early botanist, Rev. Leonard Jenyns, lived. He was to have accompanied Captain Fitzroy on the H.M.S. Beagle, but sent his friend Charles Darwin in his place. A busy commercial center has sprung up along the Roman-built waterway here and the village still grows reed for thatch roofs. The lode is about one mile from the village.

Down-loding travel essentials

Visit by bus-driving in Cambridge is a nightmare in the summer. Stagecoach sells a Dayrider PLUS ticket ($7) for one day's unlimited travel: Buses X11 /111 and X12/112 crisscross the villages and schedules are posted at most stops.

Anglesey Abbey, Lode, Cambridge CB5 9EJ. Tel: (01223) 810080. Open March 21-October 28. Entrance: $12.50; the house is open Wed to Sun. 1 p.m. - 5 p.m.; the grounds: 10:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Website: www.angleseyabbey.org.

* The Fens are a type of British swamp, originally stretching from the flat areas of Lincolnshire to Norfolk: wetlands, peat bogs, fresh- and salt-water marshes that were eventually drained and reclaimed for farming by the early 20th century.

** The Domesday Book was a survey commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085 of the over 13,000 English settlements that he gained control of when he won the Battle of Hastings in 1066.