Grantchester
A rural village upstream on the River Cam, reachable on foot across the meadows or by punt. Afternoon tea at The Orchard Tea Garden has been a Cambridge student tradition for over a century.
Grantchester lies about 3 km south of central Cambridge. A walk of about an hour along Grantchester Meadows, upstream on the River Cam, brings you there, passing grazing cattle, willows and flat-bottomed punts on the river. You can also rent a punt at Mill Pond and pole upstream, a 2-3 hour trip that is fairly demanding. In the village, The Orchard Tea Garden has operated since 1897. Enjoying scones and tea on canvas deckchairs beneath the apple trees is its signature experience. The poet Rupert Brooke once lived beside the orchard, and Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Keynes and other 'regulars of the orchard' gathered here. The village also has a medieval church and several traditional English pubs, and the British TV series Grantchester was filmed here. If you don't want to walk back, you can take a bus to the city center.
Opening hours
All day (orchard tea room approx. 09:30–17:30; shorter in winter)
Nearby sights
- Queens' College, Cambridge
- River Cam Punting & Mathematical Bridge
- Fitzwilliam Museum
- Corpus Clock
- King's College Chapel, Cambridge
- The Eagle
- Trinity College, Cambridge
- Great St Mary's Church