Nine Wells
Chalk springs that fed Hobson's Conduit, the main water supply of Cambridge for over 250 years.
Nine Wells is a small local nature reserve of 1.2 hectares on the southern edge of Cambridge, east of Trumpington. Cambridge City Council owns and manages it. It is a patch of woodland in farmland, and several springs rise at the foot of a chalk hill here.
The source of Hobson's Conduit
The springs feed Hobson's Conduit, a watercourse constructed in 1610-14 through gifts from Thomas Hobson and other benefactors, bringing clean water to the town. Cambridge's ancient defensive ditch, dug in 1265, had become an open sewer by the early 1600s; Andrew Perne, Master of Peterhouse, had proposed in 1574 to flush it with a new channel. The conduit did this, and it was also Cambridge's chief water supply for more than 250 years. Water still flows into the city and fills the lake at the Botanic Garden. The water comes out at a steady 10.2 degrees Celsius.
What to see
An obelisk, put up in 1861 by public subscription, records the benefactors of the conduit and is Grade II listed. The reserve was once an SSSI for relict aquatic invertebrates but lost that status after the 1976 drought and heavier water abstraction. Beech trees dominate the wood, and sweet violets and bluebells flower there early in the year.
Practical notes
The reserve is reached by cycle path and permissive paths from Addenbrooke's Hospital towards Great Shelford.