A Stitch in Time

Window in the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral
showing the donation to its restoration by the
British Railway Board, among others 

Day Trip by Train to Ely Cathedral

Ely is a city we have visited many times, easy to reach by direct train from our home in Stamford and a very pleasant little city with much to enjoy. This particular day out in Ely was brought about by an exhibition at Ely Cathedral of ecclesiastical embroidery which my wife, a keen seamstress who have made a few items herself, was keen to see. It is several years since I have been inside Ely Cathedral which I used to know very well for the six years I was a parish priest in the Diocese of Ely, so it would be nice to visit it again.

We set off from Stamford on the 09:56 train bound for Stansted Airport which took us direct to Ely in well under an hour. This was the last train before the "missing" one in the timetable - the 10:56 which was taken out of the timetable during the Covid-19 lockdown and has never been restored - so it was quite busy, but there were enough seats. Once it arrived at Peterborough we had a better choice of seats while many passengers left and many others boarded. It was a lovely day for a ride across the fens and we were greeted at Ely by the magnificent view of the city centre and its cathedral across the river and marina.

We walked up to the city via the riverside to spy out possibilities for lunch by the river and to have our morning coffee, then we attended the exhibition and briefly looked around the cathedral itself, bringing back memories and also in some ways seeing its splendour for the first time now that I was not there on "business," so to speak. It really is (a) immense and (b) an amazing example of Norman architecture and medieval engineering - well worth a visit, and Ely has really good rail connections from all over England including direct trains from London, Birmingham and Liverpool among many other places.

Soon it was time to go and enjoy our pub lunch at The Cutter Inn on the riverside.- again, a place I have been before but the post-pandemic world seems very different from what I knew five or more years ago, and it was good to go there again. And a pint of real ale! So often lately I have been travelling by car and had to restrict myself to non-alcoholic beer which is OK but not as good as "proper" ale. Travelling by train meant I was free to drink beer, although just the one for health reasons.

The boat-shaped bar at The Cutter Inn

And so back to the station for the train home. This was the first one after the missing westbound train and again was very busy. We do need our full timetable back, for the trains are now as full as ever. Thankfully Cross Country did manage to acquire some more centre coaches for its Turbostar trains on this route so all our trains now have three coaches, but still run at or near (and sometimes over) capacity whenever I travel on them these days. The excuse about "changed travel patterns" wore very thin a good while ago, with most of the recovery in ridership being in leisure travel which must be most affected by the two remaining timetable gaps.

While travelling, and indeed while buying the tickets online for some other trips, we twigged that Cross Country no longer offer seat reservations on this route, even for Advance tickets, and neither do they sell First Class tickets for it (not that I was necessarily looking for those), so it seems that this service is no longer seen as part of Cross Country's inter-city network (it has never had that title but does, as a matter of fact, link a number of cities!) but as a local route, albeit a long one. That is fine, and a spin-off is that savvy travellers can, if lucky, travel in the more spacious former First Class section at the same price as everyone else - but it is very small and you have to be lucky to get in! It still has a refreshment trolley, whose schedule is a complete mystery so you may get a drink and a snack or you may not ... but for us on this sort of day out these are very minor matters and we had a great day out, arriving back in Stamford on time and enjoying our walk home across The Meadows as ever. And already looking forward to the next trip: watch this space!