Category: EASTERN ENGLAND

An easy and rewarding day trip from Cambridge, Ely (ee-lee) is a charming and historic city-town with a dazzling cathedral, scrupulously tidy Georgian and medieval centre and pretty riverside walks running out into the eerie fens around it. It’s a thriving place, and while it used to be something of a joke that such a diminutive town could technically rank as a city, these days it’s one of the fastest-growing cities in Europe. The odd name harks back to the days when Ely was an island marooned amid the undrained fens, which were inhabited by an abundance of eels that still make it into local cooking pots today.

You have to pinch yourself to remember that this charming rural backwater of England was once an astonishingly rich place that amassed great wool wealth and operated a string of busy ports. However, its gentle hills and lush valleys are filled with reminders of its golden age, from the magnificent ‘wool churches’ (as in paid for by, not made of) that dot the landscape, to the lavish pargeting (decorative stucco plasterwork) that adorns its buildings. The Stour Valley particularly delights with villages that seem freeze-dried since the Middle Ages, Bury St Edmunds impresses with both its mighty past and lively present, while the coast is strung with pretty and poignant seaside resorts increasingly nibbled by the sea.

Suffolk’s county capital was one of the very first Saxon towns in England, a thriving medi-eval centre of commerce and a major point of emigration to America. But while heavy investment jazzes up its lively waterfront marinas, in its centre beautiful timber-framed buildings moulder behind scruffy boards and ugly modern chain stores nudge medieval churches. The most beautifully preserved buildings, of which there are several humdingers, are occupied by private enterprises. That said the town has some beautiful parkland, a burgeoning cultural scene and great transport connections.

Long labelled as ‘the Warehouse on the Wash,’ the medieval port town of King’s Lynn was once so busy with waterborne traders that it was said you could cross from one side of the River Great Ouse to the other by simply stepping from boat to boat. Staunchly pious citizens and wild-and-woolly sailors would mingle in its cobbled streets, and fishing fleets would rub woodwork with trading vessels and even New World explorers. Something of the salty port-town tang can still be felt in old King’s Lynn, though the petite modern-day port barely passes as a shadow of its former self.

An undervisited delight, Lincoln’s tightly knotted core of cobbled streets and majestic medieval architecture is enough to leave visitors breathless, albeit as much for its thigh-pumping slopes as the superb stonework and timber-framed treasures to be found there. Uptown Lincoln is crowned by an extraordinary hill-topping cathedral, an unusual Norman castle and compact Tudor streets, although the town then tumbles down the hillside losing charm and picking up modern pace as it goes. At the hill’s base, the university breathes life into a waterfront quarter where bars are positioned to watch boats come and go. While there’s little to keep you for a longer stay, Lincoln has a welcoming aura and enough cultural clout in its centre to keep you very happy for a day or two at a stretch.

A steady stream of movie makers searching for ready-made period sets find their quarry in the stunning stately homes and time-capsule towns of rural Lincolnshire. This sparsely populated corner of Eastern England has a reputation of being flat, plain and proper, although on closer inspection it’s remarkably varied and uncommonly friendly. County capital, Lincoln, is the perfect place to start, with a stunning Gothic cathedral, Tudor streetscapes and a dramatic hilltop location.

For such a small and stringy village, self-important Long Melford has a lot to boast of. For starters there are its two fine stately homes and a 2-mile High St that claims to be the longest in England, not to mention the stunning timber-framed buildings and antique shops that line it. Here too is a magni-ficent church, which presides over a sprawling village green that’s totally disproportionate to the village’s size.