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Grantchester

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Grantchester
OS Grid Reference:
Lat/Lon:
Population: 552 (2001 Census)
Dwellings: 265 (2001 Census)
Formal status: Village
Administration
County: Cambridgeshire
Region: East of England
Nation: England
Post Office and Telephone
Post town: CAMBRIDGE
Postcode: CB3
Dialling Code: 01223

Grantchester is a village on the River Cam or Granta in Cambridgeshire, England. It is listed in the Domesday Book as Grantesete and Grauntsethe.

Tourists and students often travel from Cambridge by punt to eat a picnic in the meadows or at a Tea Garden called The Orchard. In 1897 a group of Cambridge students persuaded the owner of Orchard House to serve them tea, and this became a regular practice. Lodgers at Orchard House included the poet Rupert Brooke, who later moved next door to the Old Vicarage. In 1912, while in Berlin, he would write his well-known poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester. The Old Vicarage is presently the home of the Cambridge scientist Mary Archer and her husband, Jeffrey Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare.

Grantchester is said to have the world's highest concentration of Nobel Prize winners, most of these presumably being current or retired academics from the nearby University of Cambridge.

The footpath to Cambridge that runs beside Grantchester Meadows is nicknamed the Grantchester Grind. Further upstream is Byron's Pool, named after Lord Byron, who is said (by Brooke, at least) to have swum there. The pool is now below a modern weir at the junction of the Bourn Brook and the River Cam.

Grantchester is the subject of Grantchester Meadows, a song by Pink Floyd, whose lead singer and guitarist David Gilmour was born there.

See also

External links

 


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