2000 Years of Travelling Between London and Cambridge

It is a truth universally acknowledged ... that when you have a group of people living in some place A, some of them will wish to be in place B, and vice versa, hence travel. But how has travel changed over the last 2000 years? Let's have a look at the case where place A is Cambridge and place B is London...

Precisely 2000 years ago in AD20 there may not have been much travel between the two, as London didn't really exist and Cambridge was in a different tribal region. However Claudius launched the Roman conquest of Britain in AD43, and by AD47 the whole south-east had been subjugated. Roman Cambridge, named Duroliponte, was founded around AD70, initially as a miltary camp on the site of an Iron Age fort. London, founded soon after the Roman invasion, was burnt down by Boudicca in AD61, but soon bounced back.

Before long the Romans had constructed an extensive road network. London was connected to Cambridge by Ermine Street, which ran from Bishopsgate in London along the route of the modern A10 through Stoke Newington, and then kept west of modern Cheshunt and Broxbourne to cross the River Lea in Ware. It then headed due north along the old A10 route through Puckeridge and Buntingford to Royston and then along the A1198 alignment through Caxton to Huntingdon and points north. From Braughing near Puckeridge a road led north-east to Great Chesterford and onwards up the route of the modern A11. About two miles north of Babraham this was crossed by a local Roman road that reached Cambridge via the Gog Magog Hills. However this latter road seems to have been quite a minor one, and the main route from Cambridge was to branch off from Ermine Street at what is now Wimpole Lodge along the alignment of the A603 past Wimpole Hall. The Roman road headed straight for Castle Hill, and diverges from the route of the modern A603 just before Barton to cut across Grange Road at an angle.

So now we have a road link covering the fifty-plus miles between London and Cambridge, how about travelling on it? Well if you were a Roman soldier, you had to walk, up to about 20 miles per day. If you were a top official, you sat in a sedan chair whilst others did the walking. If you were an army commander in a hurry you could go by horse. If you were carrying an important message you galloped, changing horses at way-stations every 8-10 miles, and could complete the journey in about three hours. If you were a local, you probably weren't allowed on the paved road at all, but could walk along the cleared area between the central roadway and the boundary ditch on either side.

Problems at home led to the Romans abandoning Britain to its own devices in 410, and Anglo-Saxons soon came to dominate the region. The roads appear to have continued in use, but they were no longer maintained. From 820 the Anglo-Saxons themselves were under attack from Viking raids: London was targeted several times, and Vikings even sailed up the Cam to Cambridge in 875. The treaty between Alfred and Guthrum in 878 left London and Cambridge effectively in different nations, with Cambridge, within the Danelaw, developing as a port trading with northern Europe.

Even after the reunification of the nation, and under the efficient Norman administration, transport seems to have languished, a situation that continued until at least Tudor times. Travel was on horseback for the wealthy and on foot for the peasant, and any remaining paving stones from the Roman roads were pilfered as building materials.

However things changed during the late Stuart period. By the time of Ogilby's atlas of 1680, the first true road map of England, much of the current road network was already in place, albeit in a rather rudimentary form. Turnpiking began in 1663 as a novel way to fund road maintenance. The A10 route to Cambridge was turnpiked between 1713 and 1733, as well as the secondary route from Puckeridge to Harston through Barkway, now the B1368. The A11 route, and the branch to Cambridge along the A1307 was turnpiked between 1722 and 1766. The more direct route through Sawston seems to have been a minor road at that time. Turnpiking, though unpopular with local farmers in particular, led to much improved roads, as evidence by the massive subsequent decrease in freight costs.

Stagecoach services make their appearance in the 16th century; by 1690 there were scheduled stagecoaches and packhorse trains between Cambridge and London. Even after turnpiking, it still seems to have taken two days to travel between London and Cambridge. However, in 1784 a Mr Palmer introduced an improved suspension allowing coaches to reach 10mph, and as road-building improved this was raised to a stratospheric 12mph.

In the heyday of coaching in the 1830s, i.e. just before it all came crashing down with the advent of the railways, there were ten coaches each day between London and Cambridge; six via Royston, two through Barkway, and two through Great Chesterford, although some of these were primarily mail coaches, running in the dead of night. Each coach had a name such as 'Union', 'Defiance', 'Telegraph' and 'Star' and ran between specified coaching inns. The discomfort, the dangers of highwaymen, and the frequent accidents meant that those who could (i.e. men in the prime of life) would still ride on horseback rather than travel by coach.

In 1821 a route was surveyed for a canal from Bishop's Stortford to Clayhithe on the Cam near Waterbeach, to connect London via the Rivers Lea and Stort to the Fenland waterway system and thence to North Sea trade coming to Kings Lynn. But the railway from Shoreditch to Romford opened in 1839, and from Stratford a line branched off to Bishop's Stortford in 1842, reaching Cambridge and continuing on to Norwich in 1845. In the 1870s a shortcut via Hackney Downs was added, and the new Liverpool Street terminus opened.

The main line north from King's Cross opened in 1850, and a branch reached Royston from Hitchin two years later. The Royston and Hitchin railway wanted to extend to Cambridge, but the Eastern Counties Railway didn't want them coming anywhere near Cambridge and stealing their business. They themselves had permission to build a line to Bedford via Shepreth. After a lot of wrangling, the ECR only built their line as far as Shepreth (the eventual Varsity Line through Bedford taking a more northerly route), and because of their serious financial difficulties, they were forced to lease it to the Great Northern Railway who extended the Royston branch to make a connection - which is why today there is still a tight bend at Shepreth with a speed limit of 55mph compared to 80 to 90mph for most of the rest of the branch!

The 1850 timetable shows seven trains a day to London via Bishop's Stortford, with times varying from 3hrs 24mins for the 6am all stops, to 1hr 55mins for the 6pm express. The GNR wanted to compete even before they had renovated the Shepreth branch to make their line to Cambridge fully operational: five connecting 'omnibuses', i.e. horse drawn carriages, ran each day between Shepreth and Cambridge, covering the nine miles in 40 minutes, giving a best King's Cross-Cambridge journey time of 2hrs 10mins. So even at this early date, the trains were three times as fast as the stage coach and much more comfortable. It is not surprising that the last London-Cambridge stage coach ran less than two years after the opening of the railway!

By 1880 times had improved greatly, and the direct express to King's Cross, stopping only at Hitchin, took 75min; times to Liverpool Street were comparable. Even in 1910, when the rivalry between companies had died down somewhat, times were similar. In the 1923 reorganisation both companies became part of LNER, and therefore no longer competitors, but between 1932 and 1939 there were five Cambridge Buffet Expresses per day reaching Cambridge from King's Cross in 72min. Timings increased significantly however post-war, in 1947 expresses to Liverpool Street took 85mins, and stopping services took a painful 2hr 20mins.

The Cambridge area was one of the first to switch to diesel in 1958/9 and by 1962 all the steam trains had gone. Electrification reached Bishop's Stortford in 1969, and Royston in 1978 (Cambridgeshire refused to pay towards electrification onward to Cambridge). As a result the only through service was to Liverpool Street, with the Class 37 and Class 47 hauled expresses taking 57mins, and stopping only at Audley End. Travelling from King's Cross involved changing onto a two-coach connecting diesel multiple unit service at Royston, and took about 80mins.

Meanwhile things were happening on the roads. Tarmacadam, i.e. a macadamised road made of smaller stones layered on larger ones, plus a waterproof bitumen surface, was patented by a Welsh inventor in 1902, and by the Second World War most roads of any importance were tarmacked. The A10 was slowly improved with the addition of bypasses, most importantly that past Broxbourne, Hoddesdon and Ware in the late 1970s. Puckeridge to Buntingford was dualled in the mid-1970s and the single carriageway Buntingford bypass built in the 1980s. The Melbourn bypass, mooted as long ago as 1954 to pass to the east of Melbourn, opened to its west in 1988. Finally a new dual carriageway from north of Ware to Puckeridge opened in 2004.

By this time of course, the A10 was no longer the main route to Cambridge, as the M11 had opened, first as far as Bishop's Stortford in 1975, and then finally to Cambridge in 1980, although an eastern express route aligned with the A11 had been proposed as early as 1915. Those were heady days, National Express timetabled, and sometimes achieved, journey times of 1hr 40mins to Victoria Coach Station, almost comparable with the train, at least if you wanted to go to Victoria. There were also even direct London buses down the A10 through Buntingford, and via Hitchin parallel to the A1, though these took about two and a half hours. Since then things have gone downhill, although the 1999 link road from the M11 to Hackney Wick allows you to get a little nearer London before the traffic jams start in earnest.

As congestion built on the M11, the trains came into their own again. Electrification reached Cambridge from Bishop's Stortford in 1987, and from Royston a year later. With electrification everything became emus, that is electrical multiple units: Liverpool street had class 317s, replaced several years ago by air-conditioned class 379s. King's Cross had steel-framed class 365s, replaced recently by air-conditioned alloy-framed class 387s which unfortunately give a much bumpier ride. Better are the new Thameslink class 700s which provide the stopping services to King's Cross or on through London via St Pancras.

Timings have not changed since the 2007 timetable, and probably earlier: 48mins for the fastest non-stop trains from King's Cross, and 71mins from Liverpool Street, now with several stops, and as a result considerably slower than when it was the primary route to London. Things are not going to get much faster, as the rail network is close to capacity. At least they shouldn't get slower, unlike on the road network.

Meanwhile whilst riding a horse to London is not recommended, at least for the last 20 miles or so, one can still walk there almost entirely off-road, entering London via the canal paths beside the river Lea and then on the Thames Path.

So travel has certainly improved in the last 2000 years, though I suspect a galloping Roman messenger changing horses regularly could do the trip faster then than you can currently drive between London Bridge and Cambridge at certain times of day!