Two miles further we cross the old bed of the Ouse (containing now only such scanty waters as the Bedford rivers have left to it) at Elford, and enter the Isle of Ely. The ramp of the Island, however, lies two miles further on yet. We climb it by the village street of Stretham, where the ancient Town Cross still exists, an interesting and rare feature. It stands hard by the church, which contains various ancient tombstones, one to Nicholas de Ryngestone, rector under Edward the First, and a late fifteenth century brass to Dame Joan Rippingham, mother of two other rectors. A later rector was ejected in 1644 "for having made new steps to the altar, himself bowing twice as he went up, and as often while he came down." The church was an ancient possession of Ely, but was reft from the See by Elizabeth. Stretham lies at the extreme end of the little peninsular ridge on which Wilburton and Haddenham stand.[204] Beyond it we sink to the enclosed inlet of Grunty Fen, passing the hamlet of Little Thetford, and rise again to the higher ground where the towers of Ely greet our eyes, a little over a mile away. [Footnote 204: See p. 282.] [Illustration: _Cottage at Rampton._] After leaving Waterbeach our road has diverged widely from the Cam. Those who have followed the river course, either by boat or by the towing-path, will be rewarded by finding themselves, in course of time, at Upware, the tiniest and most sequestered of hamlets, where the wide Fens spread all around, bare, treeless, houseless, open to the sweep of every breeze, and giving the same delicious sense of space as a sea view. The whole atmosphere breathes remoteness, the very inn calls itself "FIVE MILES FROM ANYWHERE." But, though wide, the view is not like a sea view, boundless. The Island of Ely limits it to the north-west, and to the south-east the nearer uplands of East Anglia. For here is the nearest point on the Cam to Reach, the little hamlet once so important an emporium, where the Devil's Dyke runs down to the Fen.[205] To Upware, accordingly, there was cut through the sedge and peat, at some time beyond memory, the long straight waterway of Reach Lode, whereby even sea-going ships were able to discharge their cargoes on Reach Hithe. At a later date, but as early as the twelfth century, Burwell Lode was led to the same outlet. Those to Swaffham and Bottisham come in somewhat higher up the river. [Footnote 205: See p. 194.] [Illustration: _Dovecote at Rampton._]