Grantchester Meadows

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Grantchester Meadows
River Cam at Grantchester Meadows, England (44199469135).jpg
The River Cam at Grantchester Meadows
Grantchester Meadows
Nearest city Cambridge, UK
OS grid TL 438 565
Area50 acres (20 ha)
Owned by King's College, Cambridge
Managed byCambridge Past, Present & Future

Grantchester Meadows are an open space to the south of the city of Cambridge, England. They occupy the west bank of the River Cam as it flows from the village of Grantchester to the edge of Cambridge at Newnham Croft. The flood plain of the river continues into the city centre via Skaters' Meadow (managed by the local Wildlife Trust), the Paradise Local Nature Reserve, the Sheep's Green and Coe Fen Local Nature Reserve and on to the Backs. [1]

Contents

The Meadows are owned by King's College and have been managed by Cambridge Past, Present & Future (CPPF) since February 2025. [2] Red Poll graze from April to October. [2] In its previous guise as the Cambridge Preservation Society, CPPF raised funds to pay King's College to take out legal covenants on the Meadows to protect them from possible development, and in the 1930s successfully opposed a proposal to construct a ring road through them. [2]

The Meadows are "one of the most fully enjoyed stretches of rural country in the vicinity of Cambridge" [3] , used for dogwalking and picnics. A popular summer excursion is to walk, punt or paddle from the centre of Cambridge through the Meadows to the pubs in Grantchester.

The area has been known for swimming in the Cam for over 500 years, including notables such as Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke; Lord Byron's Pool lies just upstream at Trumpington. In June 2021, King's College installed signs prohibiting swimming in the River Cam from Grantchester Meadows. This change was met with controversy. [4] [5] A King's spokesman said: "Sadly it has become increasingly apparent that this not only causes significant problems for the emergency services, but also brings with it a serious risk to life. As such it would be irresponsible for the College to continue to encourage swimming in an area where it is unsafe to do so". [6] Camila Ilsley launched a petition against the closure, criticizing it as a "drastic action" that would "shut down traditions dear to the people of Cambridge, and choke our connection with its beautiful natural surroundings". [6]

The Meadows feature in the poem "Watercolor Of Grantchester Meadows" by Sylvia Plath, [7] and a 1969 song by the British rock band Pink Floyd. [8]

References

  1. ↑ Martin Garrett - Cambridge: A Cultural and Literary History 2004 -- Page viii 1902669797 "Its propensity to flood has threaded through Cambridge from the pubs in Grantchester to the Ditton Plough, a broad green ribbon of flood plain — Grantchester Meadows, The Lammas Land, the Backs, Jesus Green, Midsummer Common, ... "
  2. 1 2 3 "Grantchester". Cambridge Past, Present & Future. 2025. Retrieved 4 March 2025.
  3. ↑ Cambridgeshire Regional Planning Report - Page 82 "The fields adjoining the river from Sheep's Green down to Grantchester should form a continuous open belt, as already Grantchester Meadows are one of the most fully enjoyed stretches of rural country in the vicinity of Cambridge."
  4. ↑ Weaver, Matthew (2 July 2021). "Cambridge college bans swimming at literary skinny-dipping spot". Guardian. Retrieved 4 July 2021. A college has banned swimming in a stretch of the River Cam that has been popular for bathers for centuries and where the writers Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke went skinny-dipping. King's College Cambridge, which owns Grantchester Meadows, a riverside beauty spot south of Cambridge, erected a noticeboard on Thursday that also bans camping and launching boats from the banks. By Friday lunchtime, within a day of it launching, a petition against the ban on access to the water had been signed by more than 8,000 people.
  5. ↑ Ferguson, Donna (11 July 2021). "Troubled waters: the Cambridge river dividing town and gown". Observer. Retrieved 16 July 2021.
  6. 1 2 Somerville, Ewan (2 July 2021). "Cambridge college plunged into row with locals over River Cam wild swimming ban". Telegraph. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  7. ↑ Gothenburg Studies in English Ingrid Melander - 1972 - Volume 25 - Page 70 "Dyson's remark "Walking in Grantchester Meadows, since Rupert Brooke the very touchstone of English nostalgia, she [Sylvia Plath] notes ..." (p. 205) is indeed relevant. It should be pointed out, however, that Brooke's poem, as the title clearly ...
  8. ↑ Palacios, Julian (1998). Lost in the Woods: Syd Barrett and the Pink Floyd (1st ed.). London: Boxtree. p. 6. ISBN   0-7522-2328-3.

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