A1-The Great North Road
Godmanchester Bridge, long low and lovingly rebuilt in 1988.
Godmanchester is lovely. Not much to stop for but it looks good. There's Hinchingbrooke House which belonged to Oliver Cromwell's ancestors and the Old Mill, picturesque and ancient, dating from 1499. Take a walk round.
The town arose on the site of a Roman settlement (Durolipus or Durovigutum in the Ravenna Cosmography). The Roman road from Sandy and the Via Devana from Cambridge and Colchester meet Ermine Street here. The Sandy road was long abandoned though still traceable as field boundaries and crop marks. The Via Devana is followed by the A14 from Cambridge and doubles up with Ermine Street northwards to Alconbury, from where it leaves to continue its Chester-bound course. The Old North Road, as the A1198, faithfully follows the Roman line of Ermine Street from Royston to Godmanchester but now by-passes the town by joining the A14 on the eastern side, leaving the town centre pleasantly tranquil.. Unfortunately the A14 crosses the Ouse by a high bridge with elevated approaches allowing the traffic to broadcast a large noise footprint over otherwise tranquil riversides.
The Ouse was the first real barrier or, perhaps, defensible line from London on the Ermine Street route to the north. Before the St. Ives bridge was built in the 12th century, Huntingdon Bridge was probably the lowest bridge on the Ouse. A considerable amount of goods from overseas, by way of the Wash and King's Lynn was unloaded on its wharves.
Huntingdon High Street is surprisingly narrow and almost, but strangely not quite, straight. It must have been awful before pedestrianisation and traffic diverted round the ring road to the west. There is a mixture of buildings from 17th to 20th centuries, ancient coaching inns and moderns shops, jumbled together in a gloriously unplanned way. Samuel Pepys has a pub at the southern end and Oliver Cromwell a museum at the north. Both men were born nearby and went to school in Huntingdon. It’s a nice little museum, dominated by a crowd of oil portraits and bits of Cromwellian ephemera. I was impressed by the great man’s hat. (Or was it the man’s great hat?). You’ll find the museum in an ex-church just off the market square at the north end of the High Street. Admission free. Just down the road is the George Hotel, reputed to have been the home of Cromwell’s grandfather. At 60 miles or one day's travelling from London, The George became an important coaching inn with stabling for 80 horses. The buildings round the courtyard are 17th Century but the main part of the inn was burnt down and replaced by the present Victorian frontage. They put on Shakespeare in the courtyard in summer.
It's not far to Hemingford Grey where there is a Norman manor house, built in 1130. The beautiful gardens on the south bank of the Great Ouse, are open to the public.
B & B Lincolnshire B&B
©Biff Vernon 2001, 2003