Around Cambridge: St Ives

Continuing our day trips to places around Cambridge:

St Ives

Another small town not too far from Cambridge city is the small, historic town of St Ives. It originally began its life know as ‘Slepe’, which is apparently Saxon for “mud”. There was plenty of this commodity to be seen, as much of St Ives still regularly floods, due to its situation at the edge of the Great Fen.




We parked near the part of the town that regularly floods, which is known as “The Waits”. The River Great Ouse curls around the town, and the day we were there ducks, swans and geese were again in evidence on the water. St Ives was renamed for St Ivo, after his body was apparently discovered in a field in 1001.

One of its more unusual and famous features is a small chapel built right on the bridge that leads into the main part of the town. According to a nearby information board, this chapel was also used to collect the tolls of those who wished to enter the town via the bridge.

The local museum (pictured below), whose display we enjoyed very much, tells a slightly different story, stating that a toll booth was originally built next to the chapel. After the dissolution, the chapel was used as a house, so maybe both versions are true.



A further thing that has made St Ives famous is a well-know nursery rhyme:
As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits;
Kits, cats, sacks and wives -
How many were going to St Ives?




It would appear that this anonymous nursery rhyme refers to someone off to the fair, as St Ives was once a famous market town, and still continues this tradition today with a regular Monday market and a large fair every Bank Holiday Monday.

We explored the market, under the stern eyes of Oliver Cromwell. We also had a look at the nearby URC church, known as The Free Church, because it was built and supported without any cost to the government (or the people).

As a "non-conformist" church, it is very proud of its independent status in this country where the Established Church has dominated in so many ways. After visiting The Free Church, we walked along the river to the much older Anglican church, All Saints.

It was obvious that many of the buildings were quite old, and one in particular took our fancy. Now a home, it apparently started life as a butcher’s shop.