Bleak, desolate and exceedingly flat: like most people, this was my passing impression of the East Anglian Fens. So I wonder if I’ve taken a wrong turn as I follow the winding river Cam. Water-lilies sprout shiny wet balls of yellow flowers, pollarded willows creak in the breeze, and cattle graze in dinky water meadows. This bucolic scene isn’t even that flat: beyond the riverbank is a gentle rise, where villages are sensibly situated. Only their names – Horningsea, Waterbeach – betray that this green land was a vast inland estuary until we turned it into a fertile place that grows most of our vegetables.
I’m walking the Fen Rivers Way, a footpath tracing the banks of the Cam and river Great Ouse for 50 miles from Cambridge to the ancient Hanseatic port of King’s Lynn. This is the Waterland of Graham Swift’s novel, a strange, arresting landscape of black soil, huge skies and endless fields, many of which are below sea level – and sinking. Once 2,500 square miles of impenetrable reedbed and marsh where Iceni rebels could hide from the Romans, this wilderness was conquered by a Dutch engineer, Cornelius Vermudyen, who built the first sluice and began draining and reclaiming the marshes in 1651.
The rich peaty soil has since shrunk and blown away, leaving the land in many places lower than the rivers, which are encased in huge banks. If we travel through this landscape by boat, we mostly see high riverbanks. If we travel by road, we can’t see over these banks either. So the best way to experience this landscape is to walk on top of these mighty floodbanks. A little elevation goes a long way in a flat land and, at times, the sense of space is like a transcendent mountain stroll.
If you desire an escape from the claustrophobia of the city, this unheralded long-distance path is for you. There is wildlife – great-crested grebes, dragonflies and more herons than people – and a surprising amount of human history, too: two cities, a medieval port, Dutch architecture, a dozen villages and countless quirky boatyards and old farms.
As you might expect, the Fen Rivers Way is flat, easy walking. The Cambridge-to-King’s Lynn railway line is never far away, which means the walk can be undertaken in stages, and there is always an escape route. It can still offer a bit of adventure, however. When I walked the route in late June, I waded through several overgrown sections to the south and north of Ely (pack nettle-proof trousers). Most parts are mercifully well-grazed – but that means you have to walk carefully through herds of cattle. It is best not to take a dog.
Cambridge to Wicken Fen, 11 miles
I begin in Cambridge because it seems logical to follow the flow of water to King’s Lynn, where the river meets the North Sea. Cambridge is famed for its university, and first-time visitors should definitely spend a day punting along the Backs, where the Cam winds past the famous water meadows behind King’s College, Trinity and St John’s. I set out from the railway station and pick up the Cam at Midsummer Common – home to a midsummer fair now in its 805th year – and follow the towpath.
We usually experience our countryside by road; a river gives us a completely different picture. There are still traces of the university here, with scullers and “eights” gliding through the water, their coaches cycling past me, hollering instructions. Then I enter a different world, of narrowboats and riverside pubs (the Green Dragon on Water Lane is a good place for an early stop), pretty villages such as Fen Ditton and open country.
By the fine Dutch gabled house at Clayhithe, home to the “conservators” of the river who were given control of this stretch by a 1702 act of parliament and still look after it, the landscape opens out. You can walk on either the east or west bank and I cross to the east bank so I can visit Wicken Fen nature reserve.
At Upware, I pause for a drink at the Five Miles From Anywhere – No Hurry, an enormous riverside pub. In the 19th century, moth collectors refreshed themselves here on their way to Wicken, a marshy hotspot for rare lepidoptera. So many collectors lit lamps to attract moths that there were complaints that the Fens resembled a city street. In 1899, Wicken became the first proper nature reserve in Britain when it was protected by the National Trust. Although rare butterflies, such as the swallowtail, died out when the surrounding fen was drained, Wicken has been extended, and its mosaic of scrub, reedbed, marsh and open water is home to marsh harriers, bittern, cuckoos, nightingales, water rails and other rare birds. Take the footpath by Burwell Lode to reach the reserve, which is open all year round.
Wicken to Ely, 9 miles
North of Upware, the Fen Rivers Way enters a gorgeous green lane, a broad old drove road with high hedges of elm, elder and bramble. This ends by a lime quarry before Kingfishers Bridge, a nature reserve created from arable land 20 years ago with bird hides (free to enter), kingfishers, sand martins and marshes grazed by Koniks, striking grey wild horses from Poland.
Suddenly, the magnificent hulk of Ely cathedral appears on the horizon. For five miles, there are fine views of this stunning gothic building with its octagonal tower. Ely, a tiny city built on what was once an island, takes its name from the eels that were traditionally used to pay debts. Ely’s last eel-catcher retired recently and it’s now an increasingly chic home to Cambridge’s hi-tech crowd, with a pretty waterfront and good restaurants (locals recommend The Cutter Inn on the riverfront and The Old Fire Engine House for locally sourced food).
Ely is an excellent place for an overnight stop: Peacocks (doubles from £125 B&B) offers upmarket B&B accommodation by the water, or you could rent a narrowboat, Puzzle, for the night via Airbnb (from £79). I stayed at The Gate House (doubles from £85 B&B) in Littleport, by the footpath five miles north of Ely, a really high-quality B&B with just the kind of excellent breakfast required before a long walk.
At Ely, I stop by The Boat Yard, a lovely old-fashioned workshop where Garf Norman builds narrowboats (yours for £50,000-£110,000). “A lot of people don’t understand the Fens. They think they are bleak and cold but, ultimately, this is one of the warmest and driest parts of the country. I call it sky country,” says Garf. “We’ve got some lovely black fen soil. That can look a bit scary on a dry windy day – you get black clouds of soil called the Fen Blow, with sun and blue sky above. It’s stunning.”
Garf kindly takes me for a boat ride around Ely. For all the joys of walking, it makes sense to see a bit of the Fens from a boat. (There are motorboats and canoes for hire at Bridge Boatyard in Ely.) “A lot of people say, don’t you get bored?” says Garf. “A friend of mine in Shropshire has a lovely hill, but it’s the same every day. Here, the same bit of river is always different. And the sky is always different.”
Ely to Denver Sluice, 16 miles
After visiting Ely cathedral, as awe-inspiring on the inside as out, I continue north along what has become the river Great Ouse (you can walk all the way along its banks from its source near Brackley, Northamptonshire). The river runs straight for three miles to Littleport, which is the only time the walking becomes a little monotonous. At Littleport, the path then unnervingly cuts through people’s gardens. After so long in fields, it’s like entering a tiny model village – there are Union Jack flags, closely mown grass and the smell of dinners cooking. I stop for a good pub meal at the Swan by the river. Littleport has another atmospheric boatyard by the start of Ten Mile Bank, which does what it says on the tin, although the river meanders in a pretty fashion. The riverbank gets higher, providing an aerial view of farmyards full of old machinery, boats, caravans and sheds. So much of our countryside has been gentrified; this is working land, and all the more interesting for it.
Denver Sluice is a series of awesome river gates where Vermuyden first began the draining of the Fens. Here, the Great Ouse meets the colossal drainage channels of the New and Old Bedford rivers. Two Environment Agency workers live by the sluice, controlling the water levels and operating the locks for passing boats. It’s as if they are at the helm of the Fens, driving such a huge volume of water over such a vast land. As a narrowboat, Daizy V, comes through, one of the lock-keepers tells me there are fewer boats on the river now. Perhaps this is because the tides are intimidating: Garf Norman – who has sailed Dutch barges from the Netherlands via Denver Sluice – reckons the tidal Great Ouse is a “horrible” stretch of river for boating because the tide rips in and out dangerously quickly.
Denver Sluice to King’s Lynn, 14 miles
There’s food and accommodation at Denver Sluice in the classic shape of The Jenyns Arms (doubles £45, room-only), with more B&Bs and a traditional hotel, the Castle (doubles £75 B&B), in nearby Downham Market, an attractive, old-fashioned Fenland market town.
I hadn’t anticipated being thrilled by the final section of the walk by a broad tidal river, but I was wrong. Beyond Downham, the path follows a ginormous bank and, below me, the river moves as swiftly as I can walk. I’m the highest thing in the landscape, flying through beautiful grassland filled with pink clover, dog rose and hogweed. A sedge warbler darts among the reeds and oystercatchers cry out from terracotta-coloured mud banks. In the far distance rises a factory’s plume of smoke: King’s Lynn.
Small villages with long names – Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall St Germans – are tucked below the riverbank, with pubs (closed when I pass in the mid-afternoon) and beautiful churches. Prettiest of all is the ruined church of Wiggenhall St Peter: its pinky stone is the same colour as the mud, and it’s a peaceful place for a picnic.
Unlike the dreaming spires of Cambridge, King’s Lynn’s spires are cranes, wind turbines and a power station chimney. Its industrial edge is fascinating – a sluice gate has an automatic loudspeaker, which makes me jump as it warns me to take care as I cross; a paper factory is half-a-kilometre long. But King’s Lynn also has handsome heritage from its days trading in the Hanseatic League, a trade association that was the EU of the 14th to 18th centuries. The Custom House, home to tourist information, is particularly graceful. Many of Lynn’s riverside treasures are being renovated: by the water are Rathskeller wine bar and bistro and Marriott’s Warehouse, which specialises in local produce; you can also find accommodation here in the form of the refurbished Bank House, offering boutique rooms with riverside views from £115. A local friend of mine recommends Archers Cafe Bar on Purfleet Street for food by day and cocktails at night. Beyond beckon more long-distance walks and more adventures: the epic tidal flats of the Wash, and the glorious sandy beaches of north-west Norfolk.
• Ordnance Explorer Maps: 209 (Cambridge), 226 (Newmarket and Ely), 228 (March and Ely) 236 (Kings Lynn, Downham Market and Swaffham); more route information at britishwalks.org
