Visit the Cromwell Museum in his old grammar school

Walk the riverside and the medieval bridge over the Ouse

Watch for wildfowl from the hides at Grafham's nature reserve

Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon in 1599 and sat for the town in Parliament from 1628; the Cromwell Museum occupies part of the medieval infirmary hall that became the grammar school he and Samuel Pepys attended. About five miles south-west, Grafham Water covers about 630 hectares with a traffic-free circuit round it for bikes and a nature reserve at the western end.

Huntingdon and Grafham Water: Cromwell's Town and a Reservoir Ride

Find the Holme Fen Posts and see how far the peat has sunk since 1851

Stand on the lowest land in Britain, 2.75m below sea level

Walk the open north and south sections of Holme Fen's birch woodland

Find out how Whittlesey Mere was drained in 1850–51

Holme Fen was once part of Whittlesey Mere, the largest lake in southern England, about three miles across, until landowners drained it with steam pumps in 1850–51. To measure how far the land would sink, a timber post was driven through the peat into the clay with its top level with the ground; in 1851 it was replaced by a cast-iron column said to come from the Crystal Palace, and that column and a second iron post of 1957 now stand high above the surface, marking the lowest land in the country at 2.75m below sea level. Around them grows what Natural England calls the finest birch woodland in lowland Britain, though part of it burned in the wildfires of summer 2026. It is part of the Great Fen project to put 3,700 hectares back to wetland.

Holme Fen: The Lowest Land in Britain

Take a punting tour on the River Cam along the Backs, passing Queens' College's Mathematical Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs of St John's College

Visit King's College Chapel, begun in 1446 by Henry VI and completed in 1515, with its fan vault and Rubens's Adoration of the Magi

Explore the Fitzwilliam Museum, founded in 1816 on Viscount Fitzwilliam's bequest

See the Corpus Clock on the corner of Corpus Christi College, where the Chronophage eats the seconds on its gold face

Henry VI began King's College Chapel in 1446 and it was finished in 1515, with its fan vault and Rubens's Adoration of the Magi. Punts go along the Backs past Queens' College's Mathematical Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs at St John's, the Fitzwilliam Museum was founded in 1816 on Viscount Fitzwilliam's bequest, and on the corner of Corpus Christi the Chronophage, a mechanical grasshopper, eats time on the gold face of the Corpus Clock.

Cambridge: King's College Chapel and the Backs

Stand in front of the three great arches of the west front

Look up at the painted nave ceiling of 1230–1250

Peterborough Cathedral was begun on 8 March 1118 and its Early English west front — three enormous arches side by side — has no precedent in architecture and no direct successor. The painted wooden nave ceiling, finished between 1230 and 1250, is the only one of its kind left in Britain, and Catherine of Aragon is buried here under the gold letters 'Katharine Queen of England'.

Peterborough: The West Front Without Precedent

See the bronze doors and museum at the Bunyan Meeting

Walk the Embankment gardens along the Great Ouse

Visit the Higgins Bedford and its Victorian collections

Find the statue of Bunyan at the top of the High Street

John Bunyan came from Elstow near Bedford, joined the nonconformist Bedford Meeting and became a preacher, and out of his years in Bedford came The Pilgrim's Progress; the Bunyan Meeting keeps bronze doors showing scenes from the book and the John Bunyan Museum telling his story. The Great Ouse runs through the middle of the town between long embankment gardens, and the Higgins holds the Handley-Read collection of Victorian decorative art.

Bedford: Bunyan's Town on the Great Ouse

Visit Ely Cathedral, begun in 1083, and see the Octagon and its timber lantern, built after the central tower fell in 1322

Tour Oliver Cromwell's House in Ely, where he lived from 1636 to 1647

Walk Ely's riverside along the Great Ouse

Ely Cathedral, begun in 1083, is the Ship of the Fens, and its Octagon, built after the Norman central tower collapsed in 1322 and topped by a timber lantern, lights the crossing. Oliver Cromwell lived in the town from 1636 to 1647, and his house is open; the Great Ouse runs along the town's riverside.

Ely: The Octagon and Cromwell's House

Walk the boardwalk out over the undrained fen

Look for the Konik ponies and Highland cattle grazing the reserve

See the wooden windpump, built in 1908 to drain peat workings and now run in reverse to keep the reedbeds wet

Watch hen harriers or marsh harriers from the hides

Wicken Fen is one of Britain's oldest nature reserves and the first piece of land the National Trust took on for nature, starting in 1899 — a surviving fragment of undrained fen in a landscape that was otherwise pumped dry centuries ago. Konik ponies and Highland cattle graze it now, and the boardwalk runs out over sedge and open water.

Wicken Fen: The National Trust's First Reserve

Walk the rings of the turf maze on Saffron Walden common

Walk the timber-framed streets and see the pargeting

Tour Audley End House and its Jacobean great hall

Walk Capability Brown's park and the kitchen garden at Audley End

Saffron Walden took its name from the saffron crocus grown here in the 16th and 17th centuries, and on the common by the castle mound is a turf maze cut in circular channels, about 30m across and the largest of its kind in England. Just west of the town, Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, built Audley End on the site of a Benedictine abbey — a house of palatial size, in which he entertained James I — and Capability Brown landscaped the park.