Rabbits chase one another across the grassy hummocks. Buzzards wheel overhead. The nibbled turf is a fragile tapestry of bedstraw, wild thyme and salad burnet, milkwort and speedwell. I'm strolling throughout Nice Wilbraham Frequent, considered one of Cambridgeshire’s greatest surviving areas of biodiverse grassland. It’s an early spotlight on a route that’s wealthy in wildlife and historical past. There’s a transformed windmill, a medieval moat, an Anglo-Saxon earthwork and thatched cottages.
This round stroll from Nice Wilbraham, the place the Carpenters Arms reopened in April, loops by villages and historic meadows, big-skied farmland, orchid-studded wetlands and flowering woods. After the frequent comes Fulbourn Fen, a patchwork of habitats that feels far larger than its 31 hectares (76 acres). There's a internet of paths throughout meadows which have by no means been ploughed or handled with chemical substances.
I’ve visited this nature reserve a number of instances and written guides to the Harcamlow Method, a long-distance stroll that runs by Fulbourn Fen, but I hardly ever take the identical route twice.
At the moment, from the closest fringe of the reserve, I observe a path to Moat Meadow to see the deep ditches that when ringed a medieval manor home. The centuries-old oak in the midst of the subsequent subject is a well-liked picnic place, with easy logs underneath shady branches. The cowslips listed below are giving method to buttercups and the grassy path components a sea of gold.
Heading left, you attain East Fen Pasture, the place late spring sees six species of orchids flowering: 1000's of purple spires within the marshy grass beside a boardwalk. A path to the best leads by cow parsley into Fulbourn village.
The village church is considered one of solely two within the UK devoted to Saint Vigor, a sixth-century bishop of Bayeux, popularised by the Normans. I wander previous Tudor tombs and memorial brasses to a putting pulpit the place two panels have Fifteenth-century work of saints. The oddest tomb, underneath an arch close to the altar, is a cadaver monument – an emaciated stone corpse mendacity in a picket coffin.
As I depart, 4 swifts come screaming and swooping out of the church tower into the rekindled sunshine. They nest within the tower, and somewhere else across the village, each summer time. A couple of steps additional on, there’s a discover by the eagle-topped gates of the native manor. The Fulbourn Swifts Group, which displays the birds and installs nesting bins, is organising Wednesday night walks to “benefit from the swift flying shows”.
On the far finish of Stonebridge Lane, I head again into Fulbourn Fen, with its vivid inexperienced beeches and chestnut bushes spiked with blossom. The solar is filtering mistily by shining raindrops. I've walked right here some years in February, when the corners of the woods are white with snowdrops, in bluebell season, and in excessive summer time, underneath dense, leafy shade. I observe the paths previous an previous orchard and rows of poplars.
Fleam Dyke, an enormous fifth-century earthen financial institution, stands simply past the character reserve. It's nonetheless greater than seven metres tall in locations and stretches for 3 miles throughout the flat Cambridgeshire panorama. There are chalk hill blue butterflies dancing over chalkland vetches, and hawthorn blossom gleams white and pink within the late-afternoon gentle.
Anglo-Saxon weapons and human stays have been discovered close to Fleam Dyke (whose identify could come from an Previous English phrase that means flight or fugitive). The embankment might have been constructed to defend East Anglia from marauding Mercians, however later archaeological clues, together with a fourth-century Roman coin, recommend it was begun even earlier, maybe to dam Romano-British assaults alongside the Icknield Method.
From the highest of a picket flight of steps, there are views all spherical. In a county of flat fields and fens, the walker on a human-made financial institution is king. A well-recognized path alongside the highest of the dyke unrolls to the south-east. A mile away, simply earlier than the A11, is Mutlow Hill, an enormous bronze age barrow. Turning northwards, I can see the tower of Saint Nicholas in Nice Wilbraham throughout the cornfields and I climb down and hurry pub-wards. It has became a gorgeous night, filled with scented bean flowers, ox eye daisies and skylarks singing overhead.
With half an hour earlier than dinner, I stroll up Temple Finish to look throughout fields on the website of Nice Wilbraham’s medieval manor home, as soon as owned by the Knights Templar and nonetheless generally known as Wilbraham Temple. There’s nothing a lot seen by the gates, however the fairly row of cottages lining Temple Finish is value seeing twice; the greens and gardens are candy with clover and honeysuckle.
Google map of the route
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Begin/end: The Carpenters Arms, Nice Wilbraham
Distance 7.5 miles
Time 4 hours
Complete ascent 43 metres
Issue Reasonable
GPX map at Ordnance Survey
The pub
There are almost 40 listed buildings in Nice Wilbraham and one other 60-odd in Fulbourn. The Carpenters Arms, a pub for almost three centuries, is considered one of them. Its timber-framed core is late Seventeenth-century, constructed partly with brick and clunch, the chalky native limestone. The standard bar space has terracotta tiles, log fires and patchwork canines.
A altering collection of three actual ales presently options a few beers from Woodforde’s brewery in Norfolk. A malty amber ale within the centuries-old bar to toast the previous inn’s glowing resurrection makes a becoming end to a green-and-golden stroll.
The Carpenters Arms was closed for almost three years earlier than it flowered into life once more in spring this 12 months. The previous constructing’s beams and inglenooks distinction pleasantly with the modern menu and decor.
Breakfast is continental: contemporary berries, sizzling croissants and Icelandic-style skyr from Fen Farm Dairy in Suffolk. It’s served within the jewel-bright comfortable, the place daylight picks out a bit kumquat tree within the turquoise fire and a gilt-framed mirror displays the cerise wall reverse. The spectacular new glass-walled restaurant, constructed on to the again of the pub and going through the flowering terrace, is equally vivid, with lime and tangerine bench seats.
The seasonal meals (mains from £16.50, puddings from £8) lives as much as the setting: duck eggs, cream and uncooked butter from native farms, inexperienced stems of Cambridge asparagus, a meltingly gentle roast veg tart with wild garlic.
The rooms
Cosy and vibrant, the 4 new bedrooms above the bar have the identical dramatic type as downstairs. The interiors have been created by trainer/florist-turned-designer Paula Pryke. Her husband, Peter Romaniuk, was the architect behind the pub’s renovation and others within the native Chestnut Group.
There are three dog-friendly “Good Bedrooms” and the most important “Greatest Bed room”, which might sleep 4 at a pinch. All of the rooms have splashes of color: orange throws, fuchsia-pink cushions and daring flower motifs. And thru the home windows are inexperienced views of the backyard or the previous thatched cottages over the lane.
Doubles at The Carpenters Armsfrom £104, B&B
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