Scudamore’s is the place where you can hire a punt for an hour or two – or even a whole day. You will find Scudamore’s in several locations around Cambridge, but the punting station at Mill Lane is the busiest one at the River Cam. When the weather is good, crowds of students and tourists throng the place! Some are very experienced, and others are more doubtful first-timers who certainly could need a punting guide.

If you have no punting experience, you may need instruction in the alluring discipline. A punting guide or an instructive punting lesson may save you from falling in on your first tour! You may therefore want to study Scudamore’s online punting guide before going: How to punt.

You set out from the punting station at Mill Lane | Photo: 139904 / Pixabay

The River Cam flows through several Cambridge colleges’ Backs. The Backs refer to the backs of the colleges and are the rear grounds of King’s College, Clare College, Trinity Hall, Trinity College and St John’s College. Traditionally, the land here was used for cattle or growing fruit.

King’s College | Photo: Travel In Culture

Photo: Travel In Culture

The Cambridge colleges have their college punts conveniently placed in the water, right outside their buildings at the Backs. They are always ready for a spontaneous punt tour on the idyllic River Cam. Particularly around the time of the traditional and recurring May Balls, it is a favoured activity to jump into the punt with strawberries and champagne in your hands.

Punting is a favoured sport in Cambridge, both among students and visitors | Photo: Travel In Culture

On a fine, sunny day like today, it is crowded around The Mill and the old restaurant and pub The Anchor. Here, you can get a traditional English pub lunch and a refreshing cold beer on the terrace adjacent to the river. It is swarming with students who fill the green areas along the River Cam and Granta Place. The voluminous willows, whose branches reach out as a roof over the river and provide adequate shade on the river banks, contribute to the light and relaxed atmosphere among the students sitting and chatting on the grass.

The Mill, where you can pull up the punts to continue towards the Orchard in Grantchester | Photo: Travel In Culture

From Scudamore’s and the riverside, you have an excellent view of Darwin College, founded as part of the old buildings Newnham Grange and the Old Granary previously belonging to Charles Darwin’s family.

Punting at the Backs of the Cambridge Colleges | Photo: Travel In Culture

Not surprisingly, when the weather is nice, it is tremendously popular to go punting at the Backs, and it may well get extremely crowded on a Friday afternoon!

Tranquil morning at the Backs | Photo: Travel In Culture

Alternatively, you can punt a longer stretch of the River Cam (or River Granta) against the stream, in the other direction from Silver Street and Scudamore’s, towards the hamlet Grantchester. The outing to Grantchester passes by the oldest college, Peterhouse, and continues across the picturesque lowland areas of Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green or Lammas Land with grazing cows.

Grantchester is still a most picturesque hamlet with traditional, charming houses like the Old School and the stone church. When arriving by punt, you leave the punt and the pole at the riverside and head for the old tea garden.

The Orchard is continuously popular as an outing from Cambridge | Photo: Travel In Culture

The Orchard in Grantchester is the old tea garden where you sit in the classic green deckchairs beneath the blossoming fruit trees. The wooden deckchairs and tables in the garden are popular on a sunny day when Cambridge students and tourists flock to the garden for cream tea.

In 1897, a group of students asked Mrs. Stevenson if she could maybe serve a cup of tea to them in her orchard between the fruit trees. That was the beginning of a tradition among students in Cambridge. Weather permitting, they set out for Grantchester to enjoy a classic afternoon tea in the orchard.

The Orchard Tea Garden in Grantchester serves a traditional cream tea | Photo: Travel In Culture

The Cambridge students might walk across meadows, fences and stonewalls, bike or punt a couple of hours against the stream on the River Cam / River Granta to get to The Orchard Tea Garden.

The poet Rupert Brooke, from King’s College, stayed in the Orchard House in 1909, and he became one of several famous people who frequented the place and had tea and scones with clotted cream in the garden. He immortalised afternoon tea in The Orchard with the lines: ’Stands the church at ten-to-three. And is there honey still for tea?’

Grantchester features extremely picturesque old houses | Photo: Travel In Culture

Other personalities, out of a range of famous people coming regularly to Grantchester, included the writer Virginia Woolf, the economist Maynard Keynes, the philosopher Bertrand Russell, the atom physicist Ernest Rutherford and the genius and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

The visitor list extends all the time. To punt to Grantchester by the River Cam is still strikingly attractive, notably sometimes with strawberries and champagne. Nevertheless, the students and other visitors still come to The Orchard Tea Garden for scones and clotted cream, following the hundred-year-old tradition.

The Orchard Tea Garden is a lovely place, weather permitting | Photo: Travel In Culture

Read next: Where in Cambridge is Darwin and One-Day Itinerary for London

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