YOUR CUT-OUT-AND-KEEP PUB GUIDE TO CAMBRIDGE NORTH STATION

November 2024. Cambridge.

Leaving the Rose & Crown with blog material on a newish pub in the bag and two strong pints in my tummy, I suddenly realised I’d now have to walk all the way back to Waterbeach as dark descended.

And there’s no direct buses back from Histon to Waterbeach, despite it’s esteemed status as the Capital of the Fen Edge and home to two breweries

So I took a tortuous route. Walk a mile to the Busway, pausing only for the finials,

take a guided bus past the Science Park to Cambridge North station, train back to Waterbeach.

You know my views on buses (not quite the same as Maggie’s), but at least the Busway uses an old rail track and is therefore almost comfortable.

Sadly, it’s also late, and the train is on time, so I’m left with 26 minutes to kill in a station built solely for commuters and a few tourists using a shiny new Novotel.

Does it have a pub ? In 2017 when I compiled the Ultimate Guide to the new station it was a building site, now it has what might be a wedge pub,

but is actually a Co-op where folk on Untappd buy beers,

and then consume them in the more salubrious surroundings of the Novotel across the road, because drinking beers in supermarkets is weirdly banned.

The Novotel doesn’t have many paying customers, but it does have four (4) taps,

and that one on the left is from Harston, the first village south of Cambridge’s Waitrose (and the M11).

Yes ! A Locale !

Not that you’d know from that cluttered, unreadable keg font, and not that you’d discern any individuality about their Ripchord, priced at £4 a half to ensure you know it’s craft, which is chilled so effectively it could have been Camden. Or Carling.

The seating is so low down as to be ridiculous, and you realise why comfortable seating in a pub like the Beacon is so treasured.

“Caio” says the Australian woman with a large glass of Chiraz on Facetime.

She’s not talking to me.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

11 thoughts on “YOUR CUT-OUT-AND-KEEP PUB GUIDE TO CAMBRIDGE NORTH STATION”

    1. Well, I might as well have closed my eyes as a passed through there on the train from Birmingham to Cambridge and on the bus from Milton to Cambridge ten weeks ago.

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      1. Er, and as for “think of England” I’m still well aware of my whereabouts which this year have been 99% England, 1% being three nights in Scotland.

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  2. I remember there being a lot of controversy about that guided bus way, with many saying the route should have been kept as a proper railway. It’s construction has proved a major obstacle to the reinstatement of the Cambridge-Oxford Varsity rail line, which will now have to approach Cambridge from the south.

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    1. You’re right about the controversy, Paul. It seemed as if it might be a white elephant but there’s a new housing development at Northstowe and it seems to run regularly.

      I wasn’t aware about the impact on the Oxford-Cambridge route. I would love a direct route to Oxford.

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      2. I know that doing all the Donnington pubs is the ultimate beer trip, but I wouldn’t mind a crawl round Milton Keynes at some point in my life, even if it’s all Wetherspoons, brewery taps, Social clubs etc.

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