St Ives is possibly best known for the fine medieval bridge spanning The Great Ouse, one of only four bridges in England to incorporate a chapel which, since being deconsecrated, has been used as a toll house, as a pub, as a doctor’s surgery, as somebody’s house and even as a brothel.
According to Wikipedia (so it must be true), the word “tawdry” originated from St Ives and describes cheap and colourful clothes made from discarded, inferior wool - bought at the market in St Audrey’s Lane.
There will be many tawdry clothes on display in St Ives today – many of them made in lycra - as fifteen hundred cyclists pass through the control point on their way to Edinburgh.
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