Elm and Friday Bridge

   One of my local cycle rides is to the villages of Elm and Friday Bridge perfect for the mornings when I haven't much extra time with the villages only being 30 mins away. First I pass through Friday Bridge an interesting little village, marked by the huge Victorian brick built water tower that stands tall above the parish.

   The village as a small village store cum post office with friendly helpful staff, a post office we use often for our posting of bead orders and there is a nice village pub, The Chequers Inn that serves hot and cold meals.

   The parish church of St Mark is a Grade ll listed building, built by the Victorians in 1864, but sadly the condition of the tower is in a very bad state with cracked, broken and weather-beaten bricks plus the addition of bird sown flora that grows strongly from within the mortar. The tower leans because of the lack of solid foundations and the main building is nothing really but a large hall with a high pitched tiled roof. I must say of all the fen villages I have had the pleasure to visit so far on my cycling journey this house of God is, without a doubt, the poorest I've come across.

    One very good feature of the village is the unique war memorial erected in the form of a fine clock tower that stands in the center of the parish. A great structure of which to remember those brave "Tommies" the village lost in the great war.

   As I pass through Friday Bridge I'm soon entering the village of Elm, a nice quiet village surrounded by fruit orchards and running on towards Wisbech. The parish church of All Saints is dated from the 13th century and has a nice example of a pin spire. The main building is made from local stone including some really interesting stone-carved features. The churchyard is tidy and spacious with one path leading to the church including old gravestones from Elm residents of centuries past.

   Opposite the church stands the war memorial, a very fine clean example bearing the names of those brave Elm boys who laid down their lives for king and country.

   There are a number of older buildings in the village including cottages from the 17th century and many Victorian farm workers cottages. One cottage still has a reminder of its past engraved upon a stone nameplate.

15th Century Church Tunnel

   In most fen villages I visit on my cycling adventures I always seem to be drawn towards the older parts of the parish, namely the parish church, old mills or chapels. One such place is the remarkable parish church of St Peter located in the village of Walpole St Peter, a church famously known as "Queen of the Marshes".

   Of its many unique features, this magnificent building has one very unusual addition, a tunnel that lies beneath the chancel at its eastern end.
   In the 15th century, the chancel was extended and this took the church right up to the boundary of consecrated ground. To enable processions to continue around the building as was the fashion of that period, so a tunnel was placed beneath the high altar.

   The tunnel has a vaulted ceiling with lots of interesting bosses. The floor is flagged and has some amazing old cobbled areas. The horse-rings in the wall date from the 18th century when the tunnel served the purpose of stabling during services.

   If you ever get the chance to visit Walpole St Peter please make time to take in this wonderful old church and all her great features, you won't regret it I promise you. 

Words and Tales of The Fen

   There is one thing that really stands out above any other in my cycling around the fens, not the wonderful raw countryside or the stunning old parish churches that boast some of the best stonework and roof angels in the country, but the fascinating stories and fen sayings that I hear from the people I meet. From the old fella who still to this day calls river water "frog skin soup", to the old lady who explained how she and her childhood friends would fold the long leaves of the sedge reed into little boats which they then released onto the water rather like "poo sticks".
   After sixteen years of living here in the fens, I've just started to understand the local dialect and sayings, examples like "Goo" instead of go and "Mizzle" instead of mist. There are of course the old favorites such as "Fen Cuckoo" the old fen name for frogs and many more. One old farm boy told me I was as "long as a yard of pump water", a saying still used by many when describing somebody tall, I'm told the saying "straight as a pound of candles" means the same.

   One old fen tiger explained to me how when he was a small child their little single-story cottage would always flood in the winter and the beds were raised on bricks to keep the bed legs above the flood water. He told me the floors were of earth with flagstones on top, but they were never joined so the flood waters were able to drain away through the open joints, oh how different our world is now.

   So as you now see, not only does my cycling give me great exercise and a chance to explore this magical land of fen and marsh but I also get an insight into the people who lived the hard life you yesteryear, those who lived off the land and managed the cold winters and fen winds, the true famous fen tigers.