Note 205 — Chapter XIII

After leaving Waterbeach our road has diverged widely from the Cam. Those who have followed the river course, either by boat or by the towing-path, will be rewarded by finding themselves, in course of time, at Upware, the tiniest and most sequestered of hamlets, where the wide Fens spread all around, bare, treeless, houseless, open to the sweep of every breeze, and giving the same delicious sense of space as a sea view. The whole atmosphere breathes remoteness, the very inn calls itself "Five Miles from Anywhere." But, though wide, the view is not like a sea view, boundless. The Island of Ely limits it to the north-west, and to the south-east the nearer uplands of East Anglia. For here is the nearest point on the Cam to Reach, the little hamlet once so important an emporium, where the Devil's Dyke runs down to the Fen.[205] To Upware, accordingly, there was cut through the sedge and peat, at some time beyond memory, the long straight waterway of Reach Lode, whereby even sea-going ships were able to discharge their cargoes on Reach Hithe. At a later date, but as early as the twelfth century, Burwell Lode was led to the same outlet. Those to Swaffham and Bottisham come in somewhat higher up the river.