The River Cam is a tributary of the River Great Ouse in the east of England. The two rivers join to the south of Ely at Pope's Corner.map 1 The Great Ouse connects the Cam to England's canal system (via the Middle Level Navigations and the River Nene) and to the North Sea at King's Lynn. The total distance from Cambridge to the sea is about 40 mi (64 km).
In earlier times the Cam was named the Granta, but after the name of the Anglo-Saxon town of Grantebrycge had been modified to Cambridge, the river was renamed to match. It has no connection with the much smaller River Cam in Gloucestershire.
It has been said that the River is the "Granta" above the Silver Street Bridgemap 11 (in Cambridge) and the "Cam" below it.
Read more about River Cam: The Lower River, From Jesus Lock and The Backs To Grantchester (middle & Upper River), Tributaries, Literature, Use For Recreation, Navigation, Flooding
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or cam:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The youngest stood upon a stane,
The eldest cam and push’d her in.”
—Unknown. Binnorie; or, The Two Sisters (l. 15–16)