If we’d come to Witcham in June, we’d have been watching out for flying peas – this out-of-the-way Cambridgeshire village is the venue for the annual World Pea-Shooting Championship. First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Today, however, it was the fen wind making our eyes water on a piercingly cold morning, a peerless midwinter day of wall-to-wall blue sky like a Ming bowl upturned over the land.
Like all the other long-established settlements in Fenland, Witcham is footed on an island. This almost imperceptible hummock of clay stands marooned among enormous, saucer-flat fields, reclaimed by constant drainage, labour and bank-building from what was formerly a fenny, marshy and flood-prone landscape. We slogged our way with clay-weighted boots along the margins of waterlogged fields, then turned north-east along the raised bank of the New Bedford River, a broad highway of steel-blue water rippled by the wind.
The twin Bedford Rivers, Old and New, were dug ruler-straight and half a mile apart for more than 20 miles across the face of Fenland in the mid-17th century, to prevent disastrous flooding and to drain the land for agriculture. We followed the New Bedford River for a couple of miles, the wind pouring into our faces as cold and sharp as glass, looking out over pale clay fields that suddenly gave way to a patchwork of chocolate-dark peat ploughland interspersed with winter wheat glinting green in the low sunshine. The exhilaration and sense of space were intoxicating, the views immense, especially to the east where the great central lantern and twin west towers of Ely Cathedral rose on the skyline like a celestial city.
At last we dropped down off the river bank and made our way back to Witcham by way of sticky black drove roads, the cathedral glimmering ghostly pale beyond the sunlit fields. A big flock of Bewick’s swans, over from the frozen Siberian tundra for the winter, was feeding on potato and sugar beet fragments, the white bodies and yellow nebs contrasting brilliantly with the dark peat soil. Their restless piping and honking followed us a long while, a haunting keynote of winter in Fenland.
Start: Witcham village green, near Ely, Cambs, CB6 2LB (OS ref TL463800)
Getting there: Bus Service 106 (dews-coaches.com) from Ely. Road – Witcham is signposted off A142 between Ely and Chatteris.
Walk directions (8 miles; easy; OS Explorer 228): North up village street. Where Mepal Road bends left (462803), ahead along Martin’s Lane for ⅔ mile. At bridge, left (460813, fingerpost) beside ditch for 1⅓ miles to New Bedford River (445817). Right along bank for ¾ mile to pass house at Witcham Gravel (456825). In another 1¼ miles go through fence (469841); down bank, left along path for 200 m; right (470843) through gate; ahead along drove. In 300 m, right (473840); in 350 m left (471837); in 200 m, right (472836). In ½ mile, bear left at fork (465832) for ⅔ mile to road in Wardy Hill (462823). Left along The Green, round left bend; at next bend (470820), ahead (fingerpost) through Vine Leigh Farm gate. Right beside house, through gate, on beside hedge to crossing of droves (471818). Ahead for ¾ mile to Witcham. At T-junction (466802), right through 2nd of 2 gates; left through kissing gate; path to road (465800); right to village green.
NB: Droves can be muddy after rain!
Lunch: White Horse, Silver Street, Witcham (01353-777999) – closed Monday; food Thurs-Sun, lunchtimes and evenings; opening times negotiable for groups.
Accommodation: Anchor Inn, Sutton Gault (01353-778537; anchor-inn-restaurant.co.uk) – cosy, warm and welcoming
Info: Ely TIC (01353-662062); visitcambridgeshire.org
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk