From: Central Cambridge.

Distance: 6 miles.

Summary: Pretty village, good lunchtime pubs.

Click here to fly over this route in Google Earth (find out more…)

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Cambridge is an extremely rural city, with open countryside all around. There are lots of pretty villages easily within reach of a leisurely lunchtime cycle ride, and in the “0-10 miles” category on the right, I will try to pick out some of the best examples. Today, a short ride to Grantchester.

In detail:

• Heading south out of the city on Trumpington Road (position A on the map), you’ll find yourself passing a small stream on the left-hand side. This is Hobson’s Conduit — a man-made brook built in the early 17th century to provide drinking water to the city. Thomas Hobson, who financed this scheme, is perhaps better known in the phrase “Hobson’s choice” — on account of his policy of allowing customers to rent any of his horses, as long as it was the one that he wanted them to have.
• Continue down Trumpington Road for just over one-and-a-half miles, into the village of Trumpington. Soon after you enter the village, by the Unicorn pub, turn right into Church Lane. This is one-way in the opposite direction for cars, but has a cycle contraflow down the left-hand side.
• Church Lane takes you past the attractive St. Mary & Michael church, and from there into Grantchester Road, as you pass a wooded entrance to the Anstey Hall stately home.
• Continue straight on into the village of Grantchester, bearing right along the main road. Traditionally, students from Cambridge would punt to Grantchester for breakfast following May Balls. Punting to Grantchester continues as a tradition today, and you will pass The Orchard tea-rooms on the right-hand side as you cycle through the village.
• The poet Rupert Brooke wrote of Grantchester being his favourite place in all England, ending the poem The Old Vicarage with the lines, “Oh! yet / Stands the church clock at ten to three? / And is there honey still for tea?” and you will pass the church in question immediately afterwards on the left-hand side (position B).



• Today, Rupert Brooke’s name lives on in the name of one of Grantchester’s three pubs; you will also pass the Red Lion and Green Man on the right-hand side, as you begin to leave the village. [Correction: There are actually four pubs in Grantchester — thanks for pointing this out, Greg!]

  

• (At this point, it would be possible to extend this ride by turning left along Coton Road, and turning right at the top into Barton Road — this then rejoins this ride further down the page.)
• Continue down Broadway / Grantchester Road towards Cambridge. You will see the tower of the University Library dominating the skyline as you pass several of the college sports fields.
• When you reach the busy Barton Road T-junction, you are then best advised to follow the dedicated cycle paths into the centre of the city. These are signposted clearly, taking you across areas of open parkland (look out for the cattle grazing there in summer!), over the Fen Causeway at a puffin crossing, and through a network of cycle ways into the city centre once more.

This is a very pleasant, quite short, cycle ride — and is great if you feel the need to escape the office for a bit of sunshine at lunchtime!

Oh and lastly, kudos to anyone who manages to give me the Ordnance Survey grid reference for where I saw this nesting swan along the route — leave your suggestions in the comments…