The Orchard

One of our favorite things to do here in Cambridge is to walk to Grantchester via the lovely (but tiny!) Cam River. The entire distance is around 2 miles, and the way treats you to very typical Cambridgeshire views across the flat flat countryside. This is fen country - more on that in a future blog - and there are virtually no hills whatsoever. So you can see for miles.

Now, punting is a tradition here in Cambridge, and you can punt to Grantchester:


- or canoe


...or swim, even - I've come across folks swimming many times. But we like to walk.


Along with way, you might see some wildlife. Now, you may not consider cows to be wildlife. Below, see how domesticated and tame they look?


But shortly after that picture was taken, two big mamas - and they were COWS, not the notoriously more aggressive bulls - began attacking each other, and they had horns! We watched them for a good 10 minutes as they wrangled back and forth, neither giving ground, and I thought I saw blood on the neck of one of them. This earned them wildlife designation in our book (maybe they were MAD cows - but mad about what? "You ate my favorite patch of clover, so I'm gonna kill you"? Don't want to anthropomorphize here...).


Thankfully, by the time we walked back, they were calmly co-existing again.

Occasionally, you might see swans, with their cygnets in tow:

We weren't sure what the blue noose was for, but we hoped it involved swinging INTO the Cam rather than ABOVE it...

Anyway, the path takes you right along the riverbank:









Eventually, as you approach Grantchester, the land rises a bit - the closest thing to a hill in the vicinity.

And then you are in Grantchester. Grantchester is a charming and quaint little village which was immortalized by Rupert Brooke, who lived in Grantchester around 1909 while he was fellow at King's College , in his poem, "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester". A few excerpts, which well describe the river, the land, the feel:

But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!
There's peace and holy quiet there,
Great clouds along pacific skies,
And men and women with straight eyes,
Lithe children lovelier than a dream,
A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,
And little kindly winds that creep
Round twilight corners, half asleep.
*********************
Ah God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grantchester!
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?
Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

The church clock DOES still stand at 10 to three...and the church itself is a little gem:





Some of the stony wild life here includes a lovely and functional gargoyle...


...a pelican, piercing her breast to feed her babes, symbolizing Christ's self-sacrifice for his flock (along with a mosaic of same from inside)...



...and a somewhat shopworn but still visible green man, encased in the flint stone that abounds in this area.


By now, one is ready for tea. And, as luck would have it, Grantchester offers the most spectacular and fitting spot for tea imaginable: The Orchard!



In operation since 1897, the Orchard is also a tradition, and is really the reason we walk to Grantchester in the first place. It is indeed a real orchard with ancient apple and pear trees of several types, and it is fairly vast and unstructured, with tables and chairs randomly spread throughout:




It is, as Tom Hailey might say (via Taj and others),built for comfort, not for speed. You go to the main building and select your choice of eats and drinks - tea or wine, soft drink or Pimms cup, sandwich or salad or - my favorite - scone with clotted cream and jam - and take it to your table. Of course you have brought your book, your journal, or your paper ...


....or all three!



Or your computer:


Or maybe just your best friend:


You have chosen your spot:



...you have heaven on a tray:



And...it is perfection!

We recently spent an entire afternoon - 4 or 5 hours - lounging, eating, reading, talking, watching the children around us cavort, eating more.....and despite the fact that it was a busy summer Sunday, no one ever came out to suggest that we move our sorry selves on and let someone else have a go. In fact, a strange equilibrium seemed to prevail - there was always enough room for whomever wanted to find a table. Refreshingly, there seem to be no rules at The Orchard at all - you can move tables to a felicitous location, you can pick fruit...


...put your feet on the table


As the Brits say (and often), "No worries!" No, there is only ONE thing you can't do: Just in case you take too much of a liking to the very comfortable adjustable chairs they provide, the management has taken steps to ensure that you won't walk off with one:



Yep, each and every chair is labeled thusly... DRAT! And me with all that extra room in my suitcase....

Lots of intellectual luminaries have loved Grantchester - so much that there was a "Grantchester Group", upon which the poster below elaborates:




Who knew that in addition to the Bloomsbury group, Virginia Woolf - at this point still a Stephens - hung out with the likes of Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, the painter Augustus John and of course, at the center, Brooke, who Yeats called the best looking young man in all of Britain, in a loose affiliation she called the "neo-pagans"?


This was the period between 1909 and 1912, before the Great War, and apparently they all loved long walks, swims in the river, sleeping under the stars, and wearing very little clothing - especially the Adonis - like Brooke, who would canoe his way into Cambridge as needed.

We walk back...knowing that we will come again!