Car-free adventures nearHuntingdonCambridgeshire
Tourists often overlook the area round the market town of Huntingdon, twenty miles north east of Cambridge. Trains take just an hour from London and there are some hidden gems hiding here among the thatched villages beside the River Great Ouse. Explore them by bike and boat, on foot and using the world’s longest guided busway.
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1. Visit Houghton Mill
The National Trust’s Houghton Mill is a working water mill beside the River Great Ouse. There is the 18th century mill to explore, a network of walking and cycle tracks through the nearby meadows, a simple café and bags of stoneground wholemeal flour for sale. It feels completely rural, but is relatively easy to get to by bus.
- Frequent Busway B stops outside Huntingdon railway station for the journey towards St Ives and – beyond, on the guided busway – to Cambridge.
- Get off at Mere Way and follow the map below. It’s a mile through the village to Houghton Mill, perched beside river with a popular swimming place nearby.
- The mill often opens in the afternoon; the café is open all day and the surrounding area is fabulous for flat, but scenic walks – perfect for a rural day out.
- Another way to walk to the mill is to take the busway to St Ives and walk back along Thicket Lane with views across the River Ouse to Hemingford Grey.
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2. Riverside walks and secret gardens
Across the river from Houghton, the idyllic villages of Hemingford Abbots and Hemingford Grey have pubs, thatched cottages and old churches to explore. The gardens of Hemingford Grey manor house, one of Britain’s oldest continually inhabited houses, are through a gate just off the riverside path.
- To get to the manor from Houghton, cross the bridges behind the mill (see 1 above), take the path across Hemingford Meadow and turn left through Hemingford Abbots (perhaps stopping for lunch in the Axe and Compass pub). Keep going beside the river and the manor is on your right.
- Alternatively, you can walk there from St Ives, a lovely town well served by the Cambridge Busway. Just follow this National Trust walk over ancient meadows and through pretty villages. Either way is a couple of miles’ walk.
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3. Messing about on the River
If you’d like to paddle along the river as well as walk beside it, you can hire canoes from the riverbank just behind Houghton Mill. The National Trust suggest a canoeing route to St Ives and back. At St Ives, you can canoe around Holt Ingle, an island nature reserve in the river and see the impressive medieval bridge with its chapel in the middle.
- Alternatively, you can loop back along the Houghton Trout Stream from Hemingford Lock. This version means carrying your boat around the lock before returning upstream past waterside St James’ Church.
- If all that sounds like too much work, there are regular cruises available on an electric boat from St Ives to Hemingford Lock.
- Whatever you decide to do, St Ives is a great place to end for tea. Check out Tom’s Cakes on Market Hill or the River Terrace café near the medieval bridge. From there, you can take the Busway back to Huntingdon or on to Cambridge, through the Fen Drayton RSPB reserve. Some buses stop at the new Cambridge North Station, making the area even quicker to access since the bus doesn’t need to battle through the notorious Cambridge traffic.
