Cambridgeshire……..my word

My wife is from the fens. Left for uni and never looked back but we do go back for family visits. I genuinely struggle to think why anyone would live there. You can make a case for most places in the UK but I really struggle when it comes to the fens. It would be very much towards the bottom of any list of places I’d live.

The Fen bits are plain wierd and thank God ‘we’ have got the ‘shittiest city in Christendom’ crown back (Peterborough – ugggh) after being usurped last year by the horror that is Aylesbury. I say ‘we’, obv not me. I’m an interloper but that post industrial gem is our nearest local City.

Thanks for the psa, crosses off Peterborough from places to move to when we leave Aylesbury.

There is bugger all in terms of proper outdoor stuff to do, but there is something about the place that is really good.
I did love on the true edge of the fens, but family had lived there for generations. Clearly there was enough movement between the villages to make my genetics diverse enough for survival.
Peterborough is a shit hole, ramsey is just a hole, chatteris is just weird and anywhere in the North fens is just the badlands, wisbek being a prime example of where not to go

I genuinely struggle to think why anyone would live there. You can make a case for most places in the UK but I really struggle when it comes to the fens. It would be very much towards the bottom of any list of places I’d live.

I dunno, there’s a lot to be said for solitude on this crowded little island. And I mentioned the big skies earlier. I have family around there, or did, so I’ve spent some time in the area, you see these little isolated farms in the middle of fields. I imagine the’d be quite a romantic situation for a blistering sunset. A bit like the family home in ‘What’s Eating Gilbert’s Grape’ if you’ve seen that? Mind you, the main character hated it and ended up burning the family home to the ground so…

chatteris is just weird

Lol, could you expand on that please? I always thought it sounded quite nice but whenever I asked local family members about it they’d give you the ‘there be demons’ look… 🙂

I dunno, there’s a lot to be said for solitude on this crowded little island. And I mentioned the big skies earlier. I have family around there, or did, so I’ve spent some time in the area, you see these little isolated farms in the middle of fields. I imagine the’d be quite a romantic situation for a blistering sunset. A bit like the family home in ‘What’s Eating Gilbert’s Grape’ if you’ve seen that? Mind you, the main character hated it and ended up burning the family home to the ground so…

We moved to Scotland for that… May struggle for a blistering sunset, but otherwise…

Chatteris?

Car crime’s low, gun crime’s lower…….

At least someone wrote a song about it.

My grandparents lived in Chatteris for maybe 80% of their lives.
I guess the best way to describe it is a a bland sandford. Less greater good and more beige

never been more disappointed by anywhere.
Well, maybe Chester.

I thought Chester was quite nice…. Having said that, I grew up in Thurrock and thenlived in Blandford, sorry, Chelmsford, for a few years.

I even thought Ipswich was attractive in parts.

Lived in Cambridge for 4 years

It’s lovely in places, but yeah claustrophobic, despite all that sky, head fenwards for real weirdness

As much as anything its not well connected, making it a pita the arse to get anywhere else

Chester is like a chavvy York.
And the walk round the walls is ruined by the stench of piss.

Unexpectedly nice places?
Glasgow, Liverpool annnnnnnd Norwich, funnily enough.
And when younger found Birmingham to be amazing fun when down there for work. Great nightlife.

I grew up in Mereside, and even I find Chatteris a bit concerning…

Having said that I do genuinely love the emptiness and skies of The Fens, especially in winter.

Plus I have a distinct advantage when it comes to using my fingers to count on…

you should head into the fens

As averred above, you really shouldn’t. @alpin ssh about Ipswich otherwise there’ll be more incomers.

Having said that I do genuinely love the emptiness and skies of The Fens, especially in winter.

To be serious for a mo, yes, I genuinely get that.
The skies were awesome.
I used to live in a valley and hated it. Which is why I now live on top of a hill.

For ultimate shite, try Dartford or Hull or…

Trouble is, a lot of places are now post industrial wastelands and have no reason to exist beyond the population that’s failed to escape.

Bit sad really.

@colournoise
A mate of mine at college was from whittlesey, so i made the obvious comment about webbed feet. Turns out i got it right, I knew that out there they were adapted for the damp.

There is a really good book called ‘The Fens’ which gives a great flavour of why the fens are actually pretty amazing and have been for millenia

We joke we’re the only people ever to move INTO Burnley.
But, it’s surrounded by really interesting countryside, the people are very friendly and the economy is on the up, lots of tech firms moving in etc.

Mind you, we both come from the Moston*/Harpurhey/Blackley badlands, so anywhere is an improvement. 😀

* Now massively improved thanks to African immigration. Schools full of well dressed kids eager to learn, Moston Lane now full of thriving new shops etc…..

Heard “Ipswich”, was drawn to the thread…

Cambridgeshire is a strange county, it’s like they slammed two very different parts of the country together and joined them where the A14 is. North of that it is flat, very fertile and just odd and seems to be mostly farming. South of it has a bit of geography, some farming, but has more money and the university. I lived on the border of the two for a long time, travelled to the fens a lot and worked in Cambridge. I accept that it’s a good university, but I don’t like the culture of the place.

Ipswich though, damn. Post-industrial and post-fishing wasteland, similar to a lot of coastal Suffolk. Home to what used to be the largest housing estate in Europe and a half-finished harbour regeneration project that needs more regeneration. I guess it has some nice buildings and Christchurch Park is ok, but not really feeling much other than that.

I grew up in Mereside

Do Mersiders disassociate themselves with Ramsey? And is there competition between the different Ramseys?

the wedding was at Sheene Mill,

ah! Used to stay there when visiting Melbourn & Cambridge for work. It is nice. Though the geese and other birds at the back can be noisy early on a morning.

Very welcoming and a nice place to relax.

Cambridge? Nice enough. More town-sized than city-sized. Had fun visiting friends who studied there back in the day. And some nice visits for work. Not easy to get to though. Even with all the new roads.

Cambridgeshire – not much to add to what’s been said. Big, flat, rural.

Way back in the day, in another career, I used to go out as far as Wisbech. Different again.

I worked in the area for about 6 months, around Huntingdon, St Neots and up towards Swaffam. Came very close to buying a house in a village near Ely – the job then went to rats, so a bit of a lucky escape. Some of the fenland towns like March and Chatteris just plain weird – anywhere you see a hairdressers called Curl Up and Dye – just keep going! Driving was truly scary, particularly late summer autumn where there are slow moving tractors on the roads – you’d be minding your own business with a tractor coming towards you and then someone would pull out to overtake the tractor and you’d have to stand on the brakes to avoid a collision. Used to loath the A14 – too much traffic and bad driving with 2 trucks side-by-side attempting to pass each other at 50mph for mile after mile. Global warming a good outcome when it all gets flooded 😉

Real fascination with The Fens – in small doses. Recall Winter rail journeys from Norwich to Leicester and wondering whether that was what the Trans Siberian railway might be like. In certain lights the land and sky seem inseparable. Couldn’t conceive of living there though. Graham Swift’s Waterland is a good read. Used to be far more prosperous. Wisbech has its issues, but there is some great Georgian architecture.

I like that there’s a place there called EYE. Seems to sum up the weirdness.

Wisbech: is it pronounced Wizbeach or Wizbeck? Always thought the former but heard the latter used on telly recently.

Wizzbeach. No idea where the other one came from.

It’s Wizbeach not Wizbeck, the latter is a slur on the large immigrant community who live there, often also called Wisbekistan.

I’ve lived in the area most of my life, like anywhere there are good and bad bits. Walking along the Ouse can be nice as are some of the villages. Cambridge itself is now over developed and just always heaving with tourists.

Wisbeach.. I did my A levels there. Chatteris is very odd, not friendly, and hot for petty crime and now growing weed I’m reliably informed.

There are great skies but living there is hard work. My grandparents lived out on Prickwillow which is really out there

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains?

Highlight of my Christmas was getting that question right when the teams didn’t on the Only Connect special. 🙂

As this is (supposedly) a mountain biking forum, I’m sure we’d all like to live with hills and mountains on our doorsteps. Unfortunately, that’s not always possible, work and family get in the way. Having said that, I like the bleakness of the Fens, I like the huge skies, and when it says sun rise is it 7:30 that’s when you see the sun, it’s not hidden behind some inconveniently placed hill (which also means we get a full days worth of daylight).

Yes, there are some dodgy towns, and some people do drugs, but is that any worse than anywhere else? Plus it’s one of the driest places in the UK, so less wet rides.

As has been said above, Ely cathedral is a staggeringly beautiful building (said as an atheist) which I can see from the village I live in, and Cambridge has an almost infinite supply of the high tech jobs I need (for a few mores years anyway).

And I’ve yet to meet anyone with more than the correct number of fingers.

Unexpectedly nice places?
Glasgow, Liverpool annnnnnnd Norwich, funnily enough.

The first time I went to Liverpool, I was scouting out universities. After all the stereotypes, I was astonished how nice it was.

Glasgow is decent enough, but there’s too many neds whose idea of a good night out is eight pints and a glassing.

We joke we’re the only people ever to move INTO Burnley.
But,

I suspect this is true of many places but, there’s nice bits (honest!) and not-so-nice bits of Burnley. Moving into Burnley makes total sense when you consider where I moved here from.

Didn’t realise wisbek was short for that
The fens would be dead if there were no immigrants

It’s Wizbeach not Wizbeck, the latter is a slur on the large immigrant community who live there, often also called Wisbekistan.

I’ve never heard of the place until just now, but purely based on the spelling I’d have pronounced it Wizbeck.

But these fair isles have always had a fractious relationship with town pronunciations. I live between Oswaldtwistle and Barnoldswick, spoken as Ozzletwizzle and Barlick.

Unexpectedly nice places?
Glasgow, Liverpool annnnnnnd Norwich, funnily enough.

Probably my top three unexpectedly nice places as well.

Absolute belter of a cathedral in Ely.

Agreed. We saw the bogwood table last time we were down. Some nice pubs in Cambridge too. Cambridge Brewhouse is our regular whwn we are down.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61407297

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Though I admit the first time I visited Cambridge I was surprised how the city centre was a mixture of stunning university architecture beside pound shops.

And I like seeing cycling as a major slice of local transport.

Wisbekistan

Shoot me but 🤣

I always thought the wisbekistan was more a comment on the state of the town rather than the inhabitants. As it doesn’t really work, most are Eastern european rather than from any of the stans. However the town wouldn’t look out of place in one of the poorer stans it just hasn’t got any obvious shell holes

Tbh, I always knew it as Wizbeach, I’d never heard of the Wizbechistan thing, the Wizbeck I heard on the telly was just probably the result of some inept TV researcher who’d never been north of Islington getting it wrong.

I’d heard of Bradistan of course as my Pakistani mate proudly delights in calling it at every opportunity, but as the previous poster pointed out, I wasn’t aware of a large Pakistani community in Wisbech, so the Eastern European ‘stan’ thing makes sense due to all the farm workers. Haven’t they all buggered off now due to Brexit? I have an old school friend who moved out that way who was always very angry and red-faced on the matter whenever he posted online. He’s been quiet for years…

There’s generally too many tourists in Cambridge but if you know the right places to go then there are some lovely quieter places. It definitely helps if you know someone who can get you into the colleges.

Cambridge born and raised. Used to be a much nicer place before it became a tech hub. All the Colleges were just open to walk into and take shortcuts through. No guided punts or touts, just self propelled ones hired from outside the Anchor or opposite the grad centre. Some of the best pubs I’ve ever been to – Freepress, King Street Run, Flying Pig, Live and Let Live, Boat House. I guess most of these have gone now or are just tourist traps like the Anchor and the Eagle which used to be awesome but is just a shadow of itself. Used to be weird interesting shops in little corners everywhere. Always bumping in to cool people from the world of science and the arts

My wife and I left in 1999 but went back for a weekend break a couple of years ago and it was horrendously busy and they had ripped out loads of the old buildings to replace them with awful shopping centres and office blocks. Cars, tourists and touts everywhere. Stupid massive triple punts blocking the whole river and all the colleges closed off unless you paid for a tour – no thanks!

…and the countryside around Cambridge is soooooo dull. My memory of cycling as a teenager and young adult is one long ride into a headwind with a never changing view of a single massive ploughed field….

The first time I went to Liverpool, I was scouting out universities. After all the stereotypes, I was astonished how nice it was

Try going to a match at Anfield and take your life in your hands with a stroll through the surrounding streets, for the true third world experience. There’s a good reason away fans serenade the Kop with a rousing chorus of ‘in your Liverpool slums’