Grantchester 1978

We lived near Grantchester 1977-8. We returned in 2006 to find it greatly changed, built up by housing and businesses, but still recognizable.

Grantchester, Cambridgeshire 1978

Come walk with me.

We’ll have a pint at Green Man

then go on to Anstey Way,

pass the tea room 

and the green grocer,

cross the high street

and wind along Maris Lane—

it’s just a country road—

past Saint Michael’s church—

Sir Roger stands in brass 

ready to be rubbed.

We could take a 

byway to the pond where

Byron swam,

but let’s continue past the barn

and the fields it still commands.

The lane bends around the house

where Frazer first conceived 

the Golden Bough—a Scotsman’s

take on magical religion.

As we go with the turning path,

voila! the tea room in the orchard

along the Cambs where scholars

dock their punts for quiet respite.

And there is Rupert’s tower—

“the Church clock at ten to three

and honey still for tea.” Of this place

he sang in midst of war

“There’s peace and holy quiet there.”

This is Grantchester—

before the masters of commerce

rewrote Rupert Brooke.

With respects to Rupert  Brooke

“The Old Vicarage, Grantchester”—1912

J. G. Frazer’s book is  “The Golden Bough: 

A Study in Magic and Religion “

(c) Phil Hefner 3/302021