Ely, Cambridgeshire

“ Hence it came about that Exning was the birthplace of St. Etheldreda, the foundress of our great "sacred fane" at Ely, round which, almost more than Cambridge itself, the fortunes of Cambridgeshire have centred. Her father, King Anna, was called to the East Anglian throne in troublous times. Christianity and Paganism were at death-grips throughout the land. And the latter cause was championed by the monarch who was, for the moment, far the most powerful of the English sovereigns, Penda, King of Mercia. From his central position he struck out north, south, and east, at his Christian neighbours. ”

“ Cambridgeshire was formerly included in the diocese of Lincoln, until, on the erection of Ely to a bishop’s see in 1109, almost the whole county was placed in that diocese. In 1291 the whole county, with the exception of parishes in the deanery of Fordham and diocese of Norwich, constituted the archdeaconry of Ely, comprising the deaneries of Ely, Wisbech, Chesterton, Cambridge, Shingay, Bourn, Barton and Camps. The Isle of Ely formerly constituted an independent franchise in which the bishops exercised quasi-palatinate rights, and offences were held to be committed against the bishop’s peace. ”

“ Large waste areas were brought under cultivation in the 17th century through the drainage of the fen-district, which was brought to completion about 1652 through the labours of Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutchman. The coprolite industry was very profitable for a short period from 1850 to 1880, and its decline was accompanied by a general industrial and agricultural depression. Cambridgeshire returned three members to parliament in 1290, and in 1295 the county returned two members, the borough of Cambridge two members, and the city of Ely two members, this being the sole return for Ely. ”

“ Littleport is more populous than Ely. It stands at the confluence of the Great Ouse and the Old Croft rivers, and at the lower end [Pg 290] of its long, long gritty streets, lined with whitey-grey brick houses, the road is bordered by yet another stream—the "Holmes River." Indeed, speaking of its situation in the Fens and by these waters, Carter, the eighteenth-century historian of Cambridgeshire, tells us that in his time it was "as rare to see a coach there as a ship at Newmarket." ”

“ Conqueror to those of Henry the Eighth. The manor had once been the property of the ill-fated King Harold, and was given by the Conqueror to Judith, widow of the saintly hero Waltheof, after his judicial murder. The church contains many North monuments, and Kirtling also possesses a pretty little Roman Catholic church, being one of the five "Missions" in Cambridgeshire—along with Cambridge, Ely, Newmarket, and Wisbech. For the Norths still hold, not only their ancient seat, but their ancient Faith. ”

“ Ely commanded no great road or river, and its Isle was too small an area to support an independent existence apart from the rest of the land. Its reduction was only a question of time, complicated by the geographical difficulties of the district. It was necessary that all the waterways leading from the fens to the open sea should be blocked, and this implied the concentration of a considerable number of ships and men-at-arms along the Great and Little Ouse. The siege of a quarter of Cambridgeshire demanded a greater expenditure of men and money than that of a single town or castle ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the headship of his college became vacant in 1778, he was considered, being ‘a decent man, of a good temper and beloved in his college,’ to have pretensions for the post; but he declined the offer of it, and was promoted by Bishop Yorke in 1796 to the rich rectory of Leverington, in the isle of Ely. As magistrate for Cambridgeshire and chairman for many years of the sessions at Cambridge and Ely, he studied the poor laws and other economical questions affecting his district. ”

“ Whether one enemy sought to penetrate from London to Ely and Norfolk, or whether another would come out of Norfolk into South Cambridgeshire or Herts, he must first of necessity dispose of those who held the key of this situation. ”

“ In 1831 he was presented by the Duke of Rutland to the rectory of Branstone, Leicestershire, which he exchanged in 1846 for the vicarage of Melbourne, Cambridgeshire, in the gift of the dean and chapter of Ely. He held Melbourne till 1853. In 1833 he was made a canon residentiary of Ely, an office which he retained till his death. In 1855 he was elected to the Lady Margaret professorship, beating his chief competitor, Harold Browne, who then held the Norrisian chair, by the casting vote of the chairman. ”

“ From Melbourn station, then, thirty tons a day is an average consignment. Little wonder, then, that when one has come down from the bleak downs and heaths of Royston to these sheltered levels, the swelling contours of the windy pastures and breezy cornfields give place to long lines of orchards.
Cambridgeshire very soon develops its flat and fenny character along this route, and Melbourn left behind, the road on to Cambridge is a dead level. The low church-tower just visible to a keen eye, away to the left, among some clustered trees, is that of Shepreth. ”

“ The good cheer of the Lamb was then, it seems quite evident, a matter of conventional belief rather than of actual existence.
It has been already said that nothing distracts the attention of the traveller on approaching the city. Ely, indeed, is nearly all Cathedral, and very little of that which is not can claim any interest. It is true that six thousand five hundred people live in Ely, but the figures are surprising. Where do these thousands hide themselves? The streets are not so many, and even at that are all emptiness, slumber, and yawns. ”

“ When the winter frost has gone, when the spring north-easter is still, when the summer sun is high, it is indeed a sleepy land. The spirit of the scenery may be not inappropriately summed up in the words written over the door of a waterside inn, half-way between Cambridge and Ely: “Five miles from anywhere; no hurry!” One object only breaks the monotony of the horizon; this is the vast mass of Ely Cathedral towering up from its island hill, and overlooking the fens of the Cam and of the Ouse.
This isle of Ely, a large but low plateau surrounded by meres and marshes, was of old a place of note. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They had, indeed, wandered as far as the ruins of Roman Cambridge before they discovered anything, but there they found a magnificent sarcophagus of white marble, which they joyfully brought back, and in it the remains of Etheldreda, entire and incorrupt, were laid.
In 870, the time of the fourth Abbess, St. Withburga, a great disaster befell the monastery of Ely. For years past the terror of the heathen Vikings, the ruthless Danes and Jutes from over sea, had been growing. ”

“ It may be, for we have already seen how that Norman knight, shown the riches of the Isle of Ely by Hereward, described it even as another Canaan, a land figuratively flowing with milk and honey.
ELY CATHEDRAL, FROM THE LITTLEPORT ROAD.
An old toll-house still stands here by the wayside and heralds the approach to Littleport, whose name, preparing the stranger for some sleepy, old-world decayed creek-side village, with rotting wharves and a general air of picturesque decrepidness, ill fits the busy, ugly place it is. ”

“ This dedication took place in 1252. "Two years later the good bishop died at his manor at Downham, and his body was carried with much reverence to Ely, where it was buried in a magnificent Presbytery which he had founded and built." Such is the witness of Matthew Paris, a contemporary chronicler. We may mention that the income of the See of Ely was at this time equivalent to £30,000 a year. ”

“ From the churchyard of Swaffham Prior we get a grand view over the limitless fen to the northward; Ely Cathedral, ten miles away, rising conspicuous above it. The road we have been pursuing leads us on Ely-wards; but, a mile hence, comes to a dead stop at the little hamlet of Reach, once one of the most important places in the whole county. For here the mighty earthwork of the Devil's Dyke runs down into the fen. To meet it the greatest of all the Lodes was cut from the Cam at Upware, and at its hithe (or quay) our road has its termination. ”

“ A twelfth century chronicler, the writer of the "Liber Eliensis," asserts that, within the first years of the seventh century A.D., Ethelbert, King of Kent, newly converted to Christianity, founded a monastery at Cratendune, about a mile south of Ely, and that Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, consecrated it. But we cannot say that the authentic history of Ely begins till seventy years later, when we see an Anglo-Saxon lady founding a monastery on this rising ground in the midst of the Fens. The lady is Etheldreda, once Queen of Northumbria ”

“ The other lane, to the right, which leads to Madingley, is also worth traversing. From its hedgeless "switch-back" terraces we look northwards across the valley, not of the Cam but of the Ouse, bounded by the uplands of the island of Ely, ten miles away at the nearest point, and nearly twice as far where the ridge is crowned by the dim and distant towers of the cathedral. Conspicuous in the nearer distance is the red-brick mass of the Ladies' College at Girton, some three miles away from us. ”

“ The roystering old days at Upware are done. They came to an end when the railway between Cambridge, Ely, and Kings Lynn was opened, and coals and heavy goods no longer went by barge along the Ouse and Cam. In that unregenerate epoch, before modern culture had reached Cambridge, and undergrads had not begun to decorate their rooms with blue china and to attempt to live up to it, the chief delight of Cambridge men was to walk or scull down to Upware and have it out with the bargees. ”

“ To dig out masses of that spongy peat, to cut through miles of those tall reeds would be no light business even with our own modern means of excavation. What must it have been to the rude implements of the ancients?
The Quay, Ely.
Some two miles beyond Upware the Cam falls into the Ouse, and the united stream sweeps past Thetford and round the corner of the island to Ely, where the Cutter Inn (near the railway station) makes a good landing-place. ”

“ The town of Ely was roomy, but it was crowded; vast were the monastery, and hospitium, and dependencies, but they were crowded also: and far and near, on the dry hillocks, and in the green plains fenced from the waters, were seen huts and rude tents, and the blue smoke of many fires rising above the grey willows and alders. ”

“ Ely, Sir Bate Dudley, and many gentlemen and persons of consideration, invading Littleport and wilfully stirring up again the excitement that had spent itself. Rumours of this advance have been spread, and on entering the village they find the men of the place hidden behind doors and windows, whence they fire with some effect, wounding a few. ”

“ In the past summer, looking to my custom of making a visit to Cambridge in some part of the October Term, I had determined that a visit to Ely this year should not depend on the chance of being free to leave Cambridge, but that, if it should be found convenient to yourself and the Dean, the first journey should be made to Ely. ”

“ As a rule students have one year of special training and study; and during this time they take part in the parochial work of the cathedral city.
St. John's Farm.
The other conspicuous building is a round castellated structure that might well pass for a Norman keep, but is, in fact, the water tower of Ely, supporting a huge tank into which water is forced from springs at Isleham some seven miles (p. 384) distant. [231] The inhabitants of the city have good reason to be thankful for this water supply ”

“ Above it rises steeply the eastern extremity of a chalk spur to the height of 220 feet. From the summit, though so low, we get one of the widest panoramic views in England, embracing the whole valley of the Cam. "Ashwell Bush," [170] which marks the source of the river, is conspicuous on a hill some ten miles to the south-westward, and Ely Cathedral, just beyond its junction with the Ouse, may be seen, twice as far away to the north; Cambridge, with its spires and pinnacles, lying between, five or six miles distant. ”

“ What the church of Ely held at the general survey is thus accounted for: four carucates in demean, 30 acres of meadow, &c; the village is said to be one league and half in length, and one in breadth, and paid 30d. ob. gelt, and was valued at 12l. per annum.
Bishop of Ely's Manor This part was held by all the succeeding Abbots, till the reign of King Henry I. at which time the monastery of Ely being turned into a bishop's see ”