Braham Farm

Braham Farm delights far beyond expectation. Look at the map and the signs are not hopeful: there’s a railway line to one side and the main Ely to Cambridge road on the other. However, once you’ve left the frenzied race track of the A10 behind you, and have made your way across a field to the farmhouse, a much more promising picture emerges. Around the side of a wonderful old farmhouse there’s a large lawn with a simply fantastic view across wheat fields to Ely Cathedral. At this point you could be forgiven for continuing your search for the campsite in some field beyond, but the joyful truth is that the large lawn is the campsite, and the wonderful old farmhouse its perfect backdrop. But back to the view. Somehow, rather than glimpsing just the very tips of the towers of the elegant house of worship, whole swathes of what travel writer HV Morton once described as ‘the only feminine cathedral in England’ are visible. If you care to walk to it (it’s only a couple of miles away), a footpath from the farm takes you to within a stone’s throw (though best not, with all that stained glass about). Cross another part of this 450-acre arable farm and dive under the railway line, and you can join the 150-mile Ouse Valley Way (www.ousevalleyway.org.uk), or the more modest 50-mile Fen Rivers Way (tinyurl.com/y9aoaxa) as they surge along the banks of the Great River Ouse.