Highways and byways in Cambridge and Ely

Front matter

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Preface

THE Highways of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely are usually regarded as unattractive compared with those of England in general. Nor is this criticism wholly unfair. The county does lack the features which most make for picturesque rural scenery. ‘There are no high hills, little even of undulation, and, what is yet more fatal, a sad sparsity of timber. The Highways, then, seem to the traveller merely stretches of ground to be got over as speedily as may be, and _ he rejoices that their flatness lends itself so well to this end.

It is however far otherwise with the Byways. These abound with picturesque nooks and corners. In every village charming features are to be found,—thatched and timbered cottages, hedgerow elms, bright willow-shaded watercourses, old-time village greens, and, above all, old-time village churches, often noble, and never without artistic and historical interest of high order. Few counties better repay exploration than Cambridgeshire.

And if the Highways are devoid of attraction during their course through the country districts, they make up for it by the supreme beauty and interest of their passage through the towns. Cambridge itself is, as all know, amongst the loveliest and most interesting places in existence, with its world-famed colleges and its epoch-making history. And Ely stands in the very first rank amongst the glorious cathedrals of England.

To introduce my readers, then, to the unique interest of these two places, with special regard to the points mostly passed over in guide-books, has been my chief purpose in the vii

Viii PREFACE following pages. And to those who may think that a disproportionate amount of my space has been allotted to these, I would apologise by reminding them that the vast majority of travellers perforce confine their visits to such special centres, and have no time for exploring country lanes. But those who can make the time will find it (as this book, I hope, will show them) time well spent, and their exploration no small treat.

I need scarcely add that on such well-worn themes originality is hardly possible, and that I have made use both of my own earlier writings on the subject, and of those of others, my debt to whom I gratefully acknowledge. Most especially am I bound to do so with regard to Messrs. Atkinson and Clark, whose monumental work “‘ Cambridge Described ” is a veritable mine of information, and to Professor and Mrs. Hughes for the help which I have found in their “ County Geography of Cambridgeshire.”

EDWARD COoNYBEARE.

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CHAPTER I Cambridge Greenery.—The Backs.— The Lawns.—Logan’s Views

Old Common Fields. —Old Cambridge.—Origin of Cambridge.— The Castle.—-Camboritum.—Granta-ceaster.— Danes in Cambridge. —Cambridgeshire formed.—Battle of Ringmere.—Norman Conquest. —The Jewry.—Religious Houses.—Rise of University. —Town and Gown. — Proctors. —-The Colleges. —Examinations. — College Life.—Cambridge and Oxford eth der

Chapter II

Entrance to Cambridge. — Railways.— Roman Catholic Church.—Street runlets, Hobson, Perne.—Fitzwilliam Museum.—Peterhouse, Chapel, Deer-park.—Little St. Mary’s Church, Washington Arms.—Gray’s window.—Pembroke College, Large and Small Colleges, ‘‘Querela Cantabrigiensis,” Ridley’s . Farewell.— St. Botolph’s Church.—The King’s Ditch.—Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Guilds, St. Benet’s Church, Firehooks, Corpus Library, Corpus Ghost.—St. Catherine’s College.— King’s Parade.—Pitt Press.—Newnham Bridge, Hermits. —The Backs River, College Bridges, Hithes . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER III Queens’ College, Erasmus, Cloisters, Carmelites, Chapel.—Old Mill

Street.—King’s College, Henry VI, King’s and Eton,

Henry’s ‘‘ Will.”—King’s College Chapel, ardienacth, Milton,

Windows, Rosa Solis, Screens, Stalls, Vaulting, Side-Chapels,

WOU, ee ee Gp kG kk ek we Ix

PAGE x CONTENTS

Chapter IV Page

Spiked gates. —Old Kings.—University Library, Origin, Growth, Codex Bezae.—Trinity Hall, Colours, Library.—Clare College, “‘Poison Cup,” Court, Bridge, Avenue.—The Backs, Sirdar Bonfire, College Gardens. —Trinity College, Michaelhouse, King’s Hall, Henry VIII, Boat-clubs, Avenue, College Livings, Bridge, Library, Byron, Nevile’s Court, Cloisters, Echo, ‘* Freshman’s Pillar,” Prince Edward, Royal Ball, Goodhart, Buttery, College Plate, Grace-cup, Kitchen, Hall, Combination Room, Marquis of Granby, Tutors, Old Court, Fountain, Gate Towers, Clock, Lodge,

Chapel, Newton, Organ, Bentley, Windows, Macaulay 78

Chapter V

Whewell’s Courts.—All Saints’ Cross.—The Jewry.— Divinity School. —St. John’s College, Trinity and John’s, Lady Margaret, Fisher, Hospital of St. John, Gate Tower, First Court, Hall, Wordsworth, Compulsory Worship, Combination Room, Second Court, Library, Great Bible, Third Court, Bridge of Sighs, New Court, Roof-climbing, Blazers, Wilderness.—Caius College, Gonville, The Three Gates, Kitchen, ‘‘ Blues.” —Senate House, Congregations, Vice-Chancellor, Voting, Degree-giving.— University Church, Mr. Tripos, Golgotha, Sermons, Tower, Chimes, Jowett.—Market Hill, Peasant Revolt, Wat Tyler, Bucer and Fagius, Bonfires, Town and Gown SOE me em SO, Ss ek tet

Chapter VI

Round Church.—Union Society.—The ‘‘Great Bridge,” Hithe.— Magdalene College, Buckingham College, Pepys, Charles Kingsley, the ‘‘College Window,” Master’s Garden.—Castle Hill, Camboritum, Cromwell’s Rampart, Repulse of Charles I, the ‘‘ Borough,” View from Castle.—St. Peter’s Church. —‘* School of Pythagoras.”—Westminster College.—Ridley Hall.—Newnham College.—Selwyn College.—Convent of St. Radegund, Bishop Alcock.—Midsummer Common.—Boat Houses, Bumping Races.—Jesus College, ‘‘ Chimney,” Cloisters, Chapter House, Chapel, Cranmer, Coleridge ‘ stat “a. Se) I ere eae

Chapter VII

Sidney College, Oliver Cromwell, Fellow Commoners.—Holy Trinity, Simeon, Henry Martyn.—-Christ’s College, ‘‘ God’s Ilouse,” Lady Margaret, Flogging of Students, Bathing for-

CONTENTS xi

PAGE bidden, Milton, Lycidas, Gardens, Paley, Darwin.—Great St. Andrew’s, Bishop Perry. —Emmanuel College, Harvard, Sancroft, Chapel, Ponds.— University Museums. — Downing College, Miss Edgeworth.—Coe Fen.—First Mile Stone.— Barnwell, Priory, Abbey Church.—Lepers’ Chapel, Stourbridge Fair, Vanity Fair . 151

Chapter VIII

Roads from Cambridge.—Cambs and Isle of Ely, Girvii, East Angles, Mercians, Formation of County.—Newmarket Road.—Quy.— Fleam Dyke.—Devil’s Dyke.—Icknield Way.—Iceni, Ostorius, Boadicea. —Newmarket Heath, First Racing. —Exning, Anna.— Snailwell.—Fordham.—Soham, St. Felix.—-Stuntney.—Wicken. —Chippenham.—Isleham, Lectern. — Eastern Heights.—Chevely, Cambridge Corporation. — Kirtling. —Wood Ditton.—Stetchworth. — Borough Green. — Bottisham. — Swaffham Bulbeck. — The Lodes.—Swaffham Prior.—Reach, Peat, Submerged Forest.—

Burwell, Church, Clunch, Brass, Castle, Geoffry de Magnaville. 168 eal

CHAPTER Ix

; Hills Road.— Gog Magogs.—Vandlebury.—Babraham, Peter Pence. — f Old Railway.—Hildersham, Brasses, Clapper Stile.—Linton.— ‘ Horseheath.—Bartlow, St. Christopher, Battle of Assandun.— Cherry Hinton, War Ditches, Saffron.—Teversham.— Fulbourn, ‘ Brasses.—Wilbraham.—Fleam Dyke, Wild Flowers, Butterflies, Ostorius, Last Cambs Battle.—Balsham, Battle of Ringmere,

Massacre, Church Brasses, Grooved Stones . 201

Chapter X

London Road.—Trumpington, Church, Brass, Chaucer’s Mill, Byron’s Pool, Upper River.—Grantchester, Church.—Cam and Granta. — The Shelfords.—Sawston, Old-world Industries, Hall, Hiding- Hole, ‘ Little John.”—Whittlesford, Old Hospital. —Duxford.— Triplow Heath, Civil War.—Fowlmere, Hinxton, Sacring Bell.— Ickleton, Monolith Pillars. — Chesterford. —Icknield Way.— SctitenPeVV Iden yas) nee, ky kd aw te > a 200

Chapter XI

London Road.—Hauxton Bridge, Indulgences, Church, Becket Fresco.—Burnt Mill.—Haslingfield.—White Hill, View, Clunch Pits, Chapel, Papal Bulla.—Barrington, Green, Church, Porch xii CONTENTS

PAGE Seats, Chest, Fountains, Finds, Coprolite Digging, Hall.—Foxton. —Shepreth.—Meldreth, Parish Stocks.—Melbourn, Shipmoney. —Royston, Origin, Cave, Heath. —Bassingbourn, Old Accounts, Villenage.—Black Death.—Ashwell, Source of Cam, Church, Graffiti.—Akeman Street.—Barton Butts.—Comberton Maze.— Harlton Church, Old Pit.—Orwell Maypole, Church, Epitaph. — Wimpole Hall, Queen Victoria.—Arrington.—Shingay, Hospitallers, Fairy Cart. — Wendy.—Artesian Wells. — Guilden Morden, Screen, St. Edmund, Confessionals . . . . . . 235

Chapter XII

Oxford Road, Observatory, Neptune, Cambridge Discoveries. —Coton. —Madingley. — Hardwick. — Toft, St. Hubert. — Childerley, Charles I.—Knapwell. — Bourn. —Caxton.—Eltisley, St. Pandiania, Storm.—St. Neot’s, Neotus and Alfred.—Paxton Hill. — Godmanchester, Port Meadow. — Huntingdon, Cromwell’s Penance.—The Hemingfords.—St. Ives.— Holywell.—Overcote. —E arith, the Bedford Rivers, ‘‘ Parallax” . . . . . . . 265

Chapter XIII

Island of Ely. —Haddenham. — Aldreth, Conquerors Causeway, Belsars Hill.—Wilburton.—Sutton. —Wentworth.—Via Devana. —Girton, College. — Oakington, Holdsworth. — Elsworth.— Conington, Ancient Bells.—Long Stanton, Queen Elizabeth.— Willingham, Stone Chamber.—Over, Gurgoyles.—Swavesey, Finials.—Ely Road.—Chesterton.—Fen Ditton.—Milton, Altar Rails. —Horningsea.—Bait’s Bite, Start of Race.—Clayhithe.— Waterbeach. —Car Dyke. — Denny. — Stretham.—Upware. — Wicken Fen. . Seek e roel Foe thay On Ce Seep mee

Chapter XIV

Ely.—Island and Isle.—St. Augustine.—St. Etheldreda, Life, Death, Burial, St. Audrey’s Fair.—Danish Sack of Ely.—Alfred’s College. —Abbey Restored.—Brithnoth, Song of Maldon.— Battle of Assundun.—Canute at Ely.—Edward the Confessor.— Alfred the Etheling.—Camp of Refuge, Hereward, Norman Conquest, Tabula Eliensis, Nomenclature, Norman Minster.— Bishops of Ely, Rule over Isle.—Ely Place, Ely House . . ~ 303

Chapter XV

Bishop Northwold.—Presbytery Dedicated.—Barons at Ely.—Fall of Tower, Alan of Walsingham, Octagon.—Queen Philippa.—Lady Chapel, John of Wisbech, Bishop Goodrich,—Bishop Alcock. —

CONTENTS xill

PAGE Bishop West.—Styles of Architecture.—Monastic Industries.— Medizval Account Books.—Clothing and Food of Monks.— Benedictine Rule.—Dissolution of Abbey.—Bishop Thirlby.— Bishop Wren.—Bishop Gunning.—Bishop Turner *, ee, fe 324.

Chapter XVI

Approach to Ely.—The Park.—Walpole Gate.—Crauden Chapel.— Western Tower, Galilee.—Nave.—Baptistery.—Roof.—Prior’s Door.—Cloisters.—Owen’s Cross.—Octagon.—Alan’s Grave.— Transepts. —St. Edmund’s Chapel. —Choir Stalls. —Presbytery. — Norman Piers, —Reredos. —Candlesticks ee eg a4

Chapter XVII

Monuments —West’s Chapel.—Alcock’s Chapel.—Northwold Cenotaph.—Bassevi.—Shrine of Etheldreda.—Lady Chapel.—View from Tower. — Triforium. — Exterior of Minster. — Palace, ‘“‘Duties” of Goodrich.—St. Mary’s.—St. Cross. —Cromwell’s House.—Cromwell at Ely.—St. John’s Farm.—Theological College. — Waterworks, —Basket-making. Je ee eae GOO

Chapter XVIII

Boundary of Fens.—Roman Works, Car Dyke, Sea Wall, Causeway. —Archipelago.—Littleport, Agrarian Riots.—Denver Sluice.— Roslyn Pit.—Fenland Abbeys, Chatteris, Ramsey, Peterborough,

Thorney, Crowland. 386 CHAPTER XIX

Draining of Fens —Monastic Works, Morton’s Leam.—Diversion of Ouse.—Local Government, Jurats, Discontent.—Jacobean polemics.—First Drainage Company.—Rising of Fen-men.—Second Company, Huguenot Labourers.—Third Company, Earl of Bedford, Vermuyden.—Old River.—Cromwell.—Fourth Comany, Prisoner Slaves, New River, Denver Sluice.—Later

PCED ee kk es 308

Chapter XX

Coveney. —Manea, —Doddington.—March, Angel Roof. —Whittlesea. —Old Course of Ouse, Well Stream. —Upwell, Outwell. —Emneth. —Elm.—The Marshland —West Walton. —Walsoken. — Walpole. —Cross Keys.—Leverington.—Tydd.—Wisbech, Church, Trade, Castle, Catholic Prisoners, Clarkson, —The Wash,—King John, 409

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PAGE xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XVii

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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

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CAMBRIDGESHIRE

CHAPTER I Cambridge Greenery.—The “Backs.” —The Lawns.—Logan’s Views. —Old

Common Fields.—Old Cambridge.—Origin of Cambridge.—The Castle. — Camboritum. — Granta-ceaster. -- Danes in Cambridge. — Cambridgeshire formed.—Battle of Ringmere.—Norman Conquest.— The Jewry.—Religious Houses.—Rise of University.--Town and Gown.—Proctors.—The Colleges.—Examinations.—College Life. — Cambridge and Oxford.

CAMBRIDGE has been described by an appreciative American novelist as “a harmony in grey and green.” And indeed it is true that few towns are so shot through and through with greenery. The London Road enters the place through two miles of umbrageous leafage ; wide, open spaces of grass-land —Stourbridge Common, Midsummer Common, Coldham Common, Empty Common, Donkey Common, Peter’s Field,

B

2 CAMBRIDGE GREENERY ~~ CHAP.

Parker’s Piece, Christ’s Pieces, Jesus Green, Sheep’s Green, Coe Fen—penetrate from the outskirts, north, south, and east, right to the heart of the town ; while the world-famous “Backs,” where the road runs beneath ancestral elms, between a continuous series of bowery College gardens and precincts— Queens’, King’s, Clare, Trinity, St. John’s—with their beckoning vistas of long avenues of lime and chestnut, ring it in to the west, and form a scene of park-like loveliness to be found nowhere else on earth. Port Meadow, at Oxford, and the Magdalen Walks, furnish the nearest comparison ; but only to show how far in front Cambridge stands in greenery. Even inside the Colleges this precedence shows itself ; for in Cambridge every College Court in the place, almost without exception, unlike so many of the “Quads” of Oxford, has its central grass-plot.

These lawns, it may be noted, are sacrosanct, not to be profaned by the foot of anyone but a Fellow of the College? itself. No outsider, from another College, however high in academic rank, may, unless accompanied by a Fellow, cross over them; still less any member of the College, old or young, who is not himself a Fellow, nor any casual visitor, even of the privileged sex. Should any such attempt be made, the College porters will politely, but quite firmly, remove the transgressor. This convention is absolutely necessary for the very existence of the greensward, which, if allowed to be traversed by all-comers, would speedily be cut up and ruined.

This greenery, however, is a comparatively recent development in the history of Cambridge, most of it dating no further back than the latter half of the seventeenth century. In the last decade of that century an artist named David Logan (or Loggan), said to have been of Danish nationality but Scotch extraction, made a series of views of the various Cambridge Colleges, elaborated with extraordinary care and fidelity. So truthful and observant was he that a mysterious bird, long a puzzle in his drawing of the great court of Trinity, has lately been discovered, by reference to the College muniments, to have been a tame eagle then kept by the Society. His views

1 The word ‘‘ Fellow” signifies, in any College, one of the strictly limited corporation to whom its whole property legally belongs. This corporation is kept filled up by co-option ; the most distinguished of the junior students being usually chosen.

I COMMON FIELDS 3 were re issued in 1905 by Mr. J. W. Clark, the greatest living authority on Cambridge antiquities, and should be consulted by all who are interested in the development of Cambridge. In these views the existing avenues in the College enclosures at the “ Backs ” may be observed, but all of young trees quite recently planted (as indeed we know to have been the case from the College records), while right up to these enclosures run open treeless fields, not meadows, but corn-land, where harvesters may be seen at work and sheep grazing upon the fallow land. Most of the now green Commons are in like manner shown to have been then under the plough.

The late Professor Maitland, whose recent death has been so irreparable a loss to Cambridge and to the whole historical side of English education, has shown (in his Township and Borough) how truly these views of Logan’s represent the seventeenth century facts, and how, somewhat earlier, the arable fields had come even to the river bank on the west of the town; or, to use his own more accurate language, that the western fields of Cambridge extended to the river bank. Every old English town and village, it must be remembered, was in theory (and originally in practice) self-supporting, and contained within its boundary sufficient arable and pasture land to feed its own inhabitants and their cattle. These were known as the “Common Fields” of the place. They were not “Commons” in our modern sense of the word, but were divided into small holdings amongst the townsmen, each man’s holding consisting of so many tiny strips, never more than an acre in extent, scattered as widely as possible to make things fair for all. They were cultivated upon the three course system ; every landholder having the right to pasture a proportionate number of cattle on the fallow of the year, as well as in the Common Meadows. The Common Fields of Cambridge comprised about five square miles, with the inhabited part of the township nearly in the centre, and roughly coincided with the existing Parliamentary Borough, though somewhat more extensive.

This inhabited part, the medizeval town of Cambridge, was comprised, (at least from the tenth century to the eighteenth,) in the space bounded by the river on the west, and on the east by a ditch, known finally as the “King’s Ditch,” from having been widened by Henry the Third in the Barons’ War.

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4 OLD CAMBRIDGE cil, 1

This ditch left the Cam at the “ King’s Mill,” (the modern representative of which still stands just above Silver Street Bridge,) and proceeded along the line of Mill Lane, Pembroke Street, Tibbs Row, Hobson Street, and Park Street, to fall into the river again opposite Magdalene College. Beyond the “Great Bridge,” from which the place derived its name, a small cluster of houses climbed the steep bank, on the summit of which stood the Castle. Our earliest records show this area as by no means thickly covered with houses. Not only the inhabitants, but all their cattle lived in it ; so there must have been many little farmyards and gardens interspersed amongst the dwellings.

Domesday Book gives the number of these as only 400, and a couple of centuries later, in 1279, when the University was already in full existence, there were scarcely more. By the middle of the eighteenth century this number had trebled. But even in 1801, as may be seen in Lyson’s plan of the town, the King’s Ditch, which was then still an open watercourse, remained substantially the boundary of inhabited Cambridge. And the vast suburban extensions in the areas of Barnwell, Newnham, Chesterton, and Cherry Hinton are mostly very recent indeed ; the bulk in fact belonging to the last half century. Their rise, and the continuous intrusion of ever fresh University and College buildings, has had the effect of once more depleting the area of medizval Cambridge, which to-day contains barely 800 houses. The whole of the University buildings, whether ancient or modern, are contained within this area, with the exception of the Colleges of Peterhouse, Pembroke, Christ’s and Jesus (which together with a few of the Museums, stand just beyond the Ditch), and the New Court of St. John’s College, which is on the other side of the river, in the old Common Field. ‘The ecclesiastical and feminine foundations similarly situated, Selwyn College, Westminster College, Ridley Hall, Newnham College, and Girton College, are not recognised by the University as being strictly ‘‘ Colleges ” at all.

Such was old Cambridge ; with its eleven ancient parishes of St. Peter, St. Giles, St. Clement, Holy Trinity, St. Michael, St. Mary (the greater), St. Edward, St. Benet, St. Botolph, All Saints, and St. John (which was destroyed to make room for King’s College). Before the twelfth century closed three

Peterhouse Wall, Coe Fen.

6 CASTLE END CHAP.

more churches were added, those of the Holy Sepulchre, of St. Peter (now St. Mary’s the less) outside the “ Trumpington Gate,” of St. Andrew (the greater) outside the Barnwell Gate, and St. Andrew (the less) in the detached suburb which grew up round the great “ Abbey ” (really an Augustinian Priory) of Barnwell.

Old Cambridge probably owed its constitution—(quite possibly its very existence)—to the genius with which “ the Children of Alfred,” Edward the Elder and his Sister, the “Lady of the Mercians,” reorganised the Midlands after the great cataclysm of the Danish wars, which in the previous generation had swept over the district, obliterating all earlier Jandmarks and boundaries. One pirate horde, under the most renowned of all their chieftains, Guthrum—the deadliest antagonist, and afterwards the most faithful ally, of our great Alfred,—had for a space settled themselves in Cambridge, and from that strategic position overawed East Anglia on the one hand and Mercia on the other.t

The Cambridge which they sacked was not, however, as it would seem, the later medieval town which we have been already considering, but a much smaller stronghold on the western bank of the River, comprising what is now known as “Castle End,” and is still sometimes called “the Borough” par excellence. At this point the Cam, one bank or other of which is usually swampy even now, and was actually swamp in early days, is touched by higher and firmer ground on both sides. ‘The height to the west is quite respectable, rising some eighty feet above the stream. Here, therefore, and here alone, was there of old any convenient passage-way for an army ; the river elsewhere forming an almost insuperable barrier to military operations, from the Fens almost to its source. Such a site was sure to be amongst the earliest occupied ; and we find, accordingly, that both Romans and Anglo-Saxons (presumably Mercians) successively held it. Most probably it was also a British site ; but the great Castle mound, which earlier antiquaries attributed to the Britons, has been shown by Professor Hughes to be, mainly at least, a Norman work.

1 The kingdom of Mercia comprised the Midlands, and was (roughly) bounded on the north by the Humber and Mersey, on the west by Wales, on the south by the Thames, and on the east by the Cam and the Lea.

I CAMBORITUM 7

This site was the original Cambridge, and may even have been called by that very name in its earliest form. For it is hard not to identify the Roman settlement (which the spade shows to have existed here) with the “Camboritum,” which from the “Itinerary of Antoninus” (an official road book, probably of the third century 4.D.) must have been somewhere in this immediate neighbourhood. And the word Camboritum is plausibly derived from the British Cam Rhydd “the ford of the Cam.” Cam (which, being interpreted, signifies crooked) may well have been the British name for a stream with so tortuous a course. But, if so, it was not continuously used, so far as records can tell us.

The Roman Camboritum doubtless shared the almost universal destruction of Roman stations which marked the English conquest of Britain; and the site is described as still “a waste chester ” two centuries later, when the monks of Ely sought amid the ruins for a stone coffin in which to entomb their foundress, St. Ethelreda. By this time the older name both of the town and of the river seems to have been forgotten. The latter was called, by the English, the Granta, and the former was accordingly known only as Granta-ceaster—the chester, or ruined Roman city, upon the Granta. (It should be noted that the village now called Grantchester was, till comparatively recent days, known as Grant-set.)

Yet another century, and we find, in the days of King Egbert, the grandfather of Alfred and the first King acknowledged by the whole English nation, that a bridge had been built (or rebuilt) over the old ford ; and therewith the old site of Camboritum had been reoccupied under the new name of Granta-bridge, by which it is known throughout medieval history. We do not meet with “ Cambridge ” in literature till the fourteenth century, nor with “Cam” till almost the date of “Camus, reverend sire,” in Milton’s Lycidas.

However this may be, it is pretty certain that the Cambridge on which Guthrum, in the year 872, marched from Repton was the “Borough” of Castle End. After holding, or, as one chronicler (Gaimar) would have us believe, only besieging it, for a whole year, the Danish host hastily made off to Wareham in Dorsetshire, to take part in that life and death struggle in the west which began with Alfred’s great naval victory off Swanage, then drove him into hiding at Athelney, and ended

8 GRANTA-BRYG CH. I with the Peace of Wedmore. By that treaty all England north of the Watling Street was ceded to the Danes as an under-kingdom, the “ Dane-Law” ; Guthrum, now a Christian and Alfred’s godson, being set on the throne. Cambridge thus became undisputedly a Danish town. The district around was divided “with a rope” (ze. by chain Measure) amongst the invaders, and submitted as an organic whole, some half century later, to King Edward the Elder. It was probably at this time that the town began to extend itself into the East Anglian district to the east of the Cam. (Throughout its whole length the river, with its marshy banks, was the boundary between the old English kingdoms of Mercia and East Anglia ; and traces of this are to be “found i in the distinctive customs of adjoining villages, on one side or the other of the stream, even to this day.) The “Saxon,” or Romanesque, tower of St. Benet’s Church, may well be of this date, erected by the English inhabitants dispossessed of their homes in the Borough by the conquering Danes who lorded it over them.

After its submission to Edward the Elder, Cambridge began its career as a County Town, giving its name, (as was the case in nearly all these new Edwardian counties,) to the surrounding district, which thus became known as Grantabrig-shire. The name covered only the southern part of the present county ; for the Isle of Ely was reconstituted under the ancient jurisdiction of its great abbots and bishops. To this day, indeed, it has its own separate County Council, and even a separate motor-car lettering. The new political unit soon began to display no small local patriotism ; for we read that in the fatal battle of Ringmere, fought on Ascension Day, 1010, between the fresh Danish invaders, who were then pouring over the land, and the united forces of East Anglia under the hero Ulfcytel, “soon fled the East English. There stood Grantabryg-shire fast only.”

The victorious Danes, naturally, proceeded to wreak special vengeance on such obstinate foes. The county was ravaged with a ferocity even beyond the usual Danish harryings, and Cambridge itself was sacked and burnt. When it arose from its ashes, in the quieter days of the Danish Canute, the first “King of England,” (his native predecessors having been Kings ‘‘of the English,”) it was organised, Danish fashion, into a

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444 Gate.

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The Backs,

10 NORMAN CONQUEST CHAP.

ten Wards, each with its own “ Lawman.” In the reign of Edward the Confessor, it had, as we have seen, 400 dwellinghouses (masurae), not urban cottages closely packed in rows, but mostly tenements of the farmhouse type, each with its farmyard, the abodes of the husbandmen who owned and tilled the Common Fields of the town.