.

TravelTips24 :

Grantchester

Grantchester is a small village (population 550) in the English county of Cambridgeshire, located some 3 miles up the river Cam from Cambridge.

Culture and History

Immortalised by the poet Rupert Brooke [1] in his 1912 poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, Grantchester is a favourite amongst both tourists and students travelling upstream from Cambridge by punt to eat a picnic in the meadows or at the tea gardens called The Orchard.

The story goes that in 1897 a group of Cambridge students persuaded the owner of Orchard House to serve them tea, and this subsequently became a regular practice. Later lodgers at Orchard House included the poet Rupert Brooke, who later moved next door to the Old Vicarage (built c. 1685). In 1912, while in Berlin, he would write his well-known poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, in which Brooke recalled happy days in the idyllic English surroundings of Cambridgeshire. (The Old Vicarage is presently the home of the novelist Lord Jeffrey Archer of Weston-super-Mare [2]).

Travel to Grantchester & Visa Requirements

Grantchester is probably most romantically accessed by punt, however, it is also possible to walk or cycle. The shared use path from Cambridge to Grantchester that runs beside Grantchester Meadows is nicknamed the Grantchester Grind.

Tours & Getting around Grantchester

Grantchester attractions and sightseeing

Further upstream from the Orchard is Byron's Pool, named after the (in)famous Lord Byron, of whom it is said to have swum there (at least, according to Brooke). The pool is now located below a modern weir at the junction of the Bourn Brook and the River Cam.

Grantchester city tours

  • The Orchard, 45-47 Mill Way, tel +44 01223 845788, open Su-Sa 10.30am-6.30pm. The target of many a punt journey up the river Cam from Cambridge, the Orchard is a famous tea tooms with a long list of famous patrons that include Rupert Brooke, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster and Bertrand Russell. Taking tea in The Orchard is a well-established Cambridge tradition. Planted with apple trees, the large garden of The Orchard is perfect for lounging on a deck chair in the sun with a cup of tea and a scone for sustenance. Long queues can be expected on sunny days, but there is always room to be found in the garden.

Grantchester souvenirs & shopping

Grantchester Restaurants: cheap, moderate and expensive

Grantchester nightlife, bars, clubs & pubs

Grantchester cheap and luxurious hotels, youth hostels & lodging

Get out

This page was last edited at 19:19, on 9 July 2007 by Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel. Based on work by Stacy Hall, Jani Patokallio and Jimmy Wales, Wikitravel user(s) Jonboy, Huttite and Pjamescowie and Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel.

Content on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0 license