Elizabeth Way is a road in northeast Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. It is designated the A1134 and forms part of Cambridge's inner ring road

Ring road

A ring road, orbital motorway, beltway, circumferential highway, or loop highway is a road that encircles a town or city...

. At the northern end is a roundabout

Roundabout

A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The word dates from the early 20th century. Roundabouts are common in many countries around the world...

 forming a junction with Milton Road (continuing the A1134 to the left and as the A1309

A1309 road

The A1309 is a short road which links the two ends of the A10 to north and south of Cambridge city centre in Cambridgeshire, England. It was numbered as part of the A10 prior to the construction of the Cambridge Western Bypass and the Northern Bypass .Its northern end is at the Milton Interchange...

 northeast out of Cambridge to the right). Near the north end is another roundabout linking with Chesterton Road

Chesterton Road, Cambridge

Chesterton Road is a road in the north of Cambridge, England. The southwestern part of the road is known as Chesterton Lane. This links with Northampton Street at the junction with Castle Street to the northwest and Magdalene Street leading southeast across the River Cam into central Cambridge...

 (the A1303

A1303 road

The A1303 is a predominantly single carriageway road running entirely in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. Prior to the construction of the Cambridge northern bypass and the Newmarket bypass, the A1303 had been classified as part of the A45....

) to the west. At the southern end there is a roundabout

Roundabout

A roundabout is the name for a road junction in which traffic moves in one direction around a central island. The word dates from the early 20th century. Roundabouts are common in many countries around the world...

 that links with East Road

East Road, Cambridge

East Road is a dual-carriageway road in the east of Cambridge, England. It is designated the A603 and forms part of Cambridge's inner ring road. The southwest end of East Road is next to Parker's Piece, at the junction with Parkside, Mill Road, and Gonville Place...

 (part of the A603, continuing the inner ring road southeast) and Newmarket Road

Newmarket Road, Cambridge

Newmarket Road is an arterial road in the east of Cambridge, England. It is designated the A1134 at the western end, linked by a roundabout forming a junction with Barnwell Road to the south. The eastern end links with the city's inner ring road at another roundabout, with Elizabeth Way to the...

 (also part of the A1134, leading east out of the city).

Just north of the Newmarket Road roundabout to the west is Cambridge Regional College

Cambridge Regional College

Cambridge Regional College is a college of further education located in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England.-College profile:The college, which has some of the best facilities in the country after a £23 million development programme, is a centre of vocational excellence offering courses in a wide...

, a further education

Further education

Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is post-compulsory education , that is distinct from the education offered in universities...

 college. The houses on Elizabeth Way are mainly terraced

Terraced house

In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...

 and semi-detached

Semi-detached

Semi-detached housing consists of pairs of houses built side by side as units sharing a party wall and usually in such a way that each house's layout is a mirror image of its twin...

.

Midsummer Fair was granted in 1211 and held in June each year on Midsummer Common

Midsummer Common

Midsummer Common is an area of common land in central Cambridge, UK. The Cambridge Midsummer Fair held on the common is one of the oldest fairs in the UK and at one point was among England's largest...

 in the area around the modern Elizabeth Way. It is now a modern funfair

Funfair

A funfair or simply "fair" is a small to medium sized travelling show primarily composed of stalls and other amusements. Larger fairs such as the permanent fairs of cities and seaside resorts might be called a fairground, although technically this should refer to the land where a fair is...

.

The northern part of the road in Chesterton was known as Haig Road and Cam Road, before it was linked across the River Cam

River Cam

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. The Great Ouse connects the Cam to England's canal system and to the North Sea at King's Lynn...

 by Elizabeth Way Bridge. Elizabeth Way is named after Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

.

Bridge

Elizabeth Way Bridge on Elizabeth Way crosses the River Cam

River Cam

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. The Great Ouse connects the Cam to England's canal system and to the North Sea at King's Lynn...

 just to the north of the Newmarket Road roundabout, with Midsummer Common to the west. In the 19th century, Chesterton to the north was not formally part of Cambridge. Links to the city were not good because of the River Cam, which blocked the way. Until 1890, the only bridge access into Cambridge from Chesterton was via Magdalene Bridge (the "Great Bridge") to the west. In 1889, the Cam Bridges Act enabled two new bridges to be constructed between Chesterton and Cambridge. In 1890 the first of these was built, Victoria Bridge on Victoria Avenue, between Jesus Green

Jesus Green

Jesus Green is a park in the north of central Cambridge, England. It is located north of Jesus College, hence the name. Jesus Ditch runs through Jesus Green. On the northern edge of Jesus Green is the River Cam, with Chesterton Road on the opposite side. To the east is Victoria Avenue and beyond...

 and Midsummer Common.

In 1911, Chesterton was incorporated into Cambridge and a new bridge was promised by 1917. However, with the outbreak of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, this never happened. In 1950, a report state that the construction of a second Chesterton bridge should be undertaken a matter of urgency. Eventually, in 1971, the Elizabeth Way Bridge was opened, on the proposed 1950 route.

The bridge is a plain four-carriageway concrete bridge. It was formally opened by Rab Butler

Rab Butler

Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, KG CH DL PC , who invariably signed his name R. A. Butler and was familiarly known as Rab, was a British Conservative politician...

 in his capacity as High Steward

High Steward (academia)

The High Steward in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge is a once-important but now largely ceremonial university official...

 of Cambridge on 13 July 1971. It is still the most recent road bridge to be built in Cambridge and is now one of the main vehicular bridges across the Cam in the city.

There is a target shooting range under Elizabeth Way Bridge.

To the west on the northern bank of the Cam is The Eights, a private marina

Marina

A marina is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats.A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or cargo from freighters....

and apartment blocks.