Nine Wells wood just outside Cambridge was a major source of fresh
water for the city for over 250 years.
The diversion of the stream was completed in 1614 with the
building of a ditch from the then Vicar's Brook to the end of
Lensfield road. The brook was renamed in honour of the main backer
of the project
Thomas Hobson this is a link to archive.org cache.
Hobson also gave his name to "Hobson's choice" as he would only
supply horses from his stables on a strict rotation so as not to
exhaust any particular horse.
Nine Wells itself is a wood with suprisingly enough 9
natural wells in it! These feed into the stream known as Hobson's
brook or Hobson's conduit.
If you want to explore then wellies are advised - particularly
after rain!
There is parking for a few cars at 52° 10.053 N 0° 8.951 E which
is about 3/4 mile from the wood.
Alternatively there is the Babraham Road Park and Ride at 52°
10.100N 0° 9.666 E (approximate coordinates from the map) and it
there is a circular walk via Red Cross Lane near Addenbrooke's
Hospital.
New There's now a cycle path that runs along side the
railway line from Great Shelford to Addenbrookes' Hospital. This is
probably one of the easiest ways to get to the cache now.
There is a permissive foot path that follows the course of the
old Oxford to Cambridge railway, and this picks up a foot path
which follows the conduit all the way into the centre of Cambridge,
about 4 miles.
The Cambridge Corners web site has details of the paths
The cache is a small/medium plastic box with a black lid. You
may have problems with GPS coverage at the site as it's quite
wooded.
While the wood is easily accessible for kids, the cache location is
a bit tricky - I've removed the "Kid friendly" tag.