From the Cambridge Citizens' Guide, 'Cambridge Evening News', January 1980. Bus routes in the city way back then. The old Cambridge and St Ives Branch railway line, which ran between North Arbury to the south, and Impington Park, the original King's Hedges plot and Rectory/Trinity Farm to the north, had been closed to passenger trains in the Beeching era of the late 1960s. Today, of course, it is the Guided Busway. It may surprise some that buses on the tracks were being mooted by local ecologists as far back as 1981... The Arbury area in 1900, with the Cambridge & St Ives Branch railway line - now the guided busway. 'Cambridge Evening News', 15/5/1981: Cambridge ecologists are planning a demonstration to prove that a bus which can run on railway lines is the solution to transport problems in 15 local villages. The aim is to borrow the prototype bus in early July, and run it from Cambridge's city centre to Huntingdon - and use British Rail's tracks b...

From ' Cambridge Street Names -Their Origins And Associations' by Ronald Gray and Derek Stubbings, 2010:  The only street-name in Cambridge that has connections with prehistoric times is ARBURY Road. The name is spelled Herburg, Ertburg and similar in thirteenth-century documents, and means earthwork. It used to be thought that Arbury Camp, at the north end of the road, was a fort like the one at Wandlebury or the War Ditches at LIME KILN Hill, south of the reservoir (now destroyed) but it is today regarded as an undefended site. A low circular bank and ditch about 100 metres in diameter, it was almost certainly an iron age enclosure for keeping animals safe from wolves and robbers. (See Alison Taylor: 'Prehistoric Cambridgeshire', 1977, and Sallie Purkis, 'Arbury Is Where We Live!', EARO, The Resource Centre, Back Hill, Ely, 1981.)  The book is highly recommended for anybody interested in Cambridge history. Times change, and modern archaeological digs have ...

The excellent 'Arbury 1980' primary schools project led to one pupil from King's Hedges School writing: We have reasons to be proud to live in Arbury with such a rich history. People have lived here for thousands of years. The project swept pupils back to the iron age Arbury Camp, through the Roman invasion, and on through the history of the Arbury farms, Hall and Manor, the building of the estate, and life in 1980 for the pupils of the (then) present day. In 1981, the book Arbury Is Where We Live! was published and in 1983 one of the great powers behind the project, Sallie Purkis of Homerton College, schools officer of the Oral History Society and the general editor of the Longman books series,  Into The Past ,   detailed the project in History Today magazine. It was a real Red Letter Day for the original Arbury Estate. Sallie believed in Arbury as a place on the map, and was a great encouragement to me when I began to delve into my family's pre-estate Arbury history...

The Arbury Community Centre on the Arbury Town Park in Campkin Road, was campaigned for by the Arbury Community Association and other community members, and took years to become reality. This year, 2024, marks fifty years of the Centre. The beginnings were fraught with financial difficulties, and even in May 1974, shortly before the official opening, nothing was secure. Arbury Ward councillor Peter Cowell, and others, stated that the centre needed more financial input from the Council.  Said Mr Cowell:  'It looks like being a white elephant before we even get it off the ground.' However, the centre survived and does to this day. But 1974 also brought more problems - this time with the centre's original signage: From the Cambridge Evening News , May 14, 1974: Residents see red over community centre sign Residents living opposite the new Arbury Community Centre, in Campkin Road, are seeing red - in more senses than one. The centre's temporary corrugated iron end-wall is f...

Roll out the pillar box! 'New Post Office for Arbury Estate', 'Cambridge Evening News', September, 1971. Thanks to Paul who recently sent us some pics of the sadly departed North Arbury Post Office, in Cameron Road. The North Arbury Post Office and Stores opened in September, 1971 - in a building which was intended to be temporary. It was there for around three decades! By 1981, the Stores were part of the Spar chain (remember the slogan, 'So near, so Spar'?) and also supplying hairdressing services for North Arbury! The North Arbury Stores and Post Office, Cameron Road, in the 1990s. Note the high tec 'Phonecards' phone box to the right! The first phone card boxes had arrived in the 1980s. The National Lottery - a 1990s innovation - had also arrived by the time this photograph was taken. Thanks again to Paul. Photographs like these are just what we're looking for - they help the Archive tremendously. We'll trawl the 'CEN' archive for mor...

Richard and Amelia Brett with their dog, Nell, at the Manor Farm, Arbury Road, 1913. The photograph was taken in the farm's 'Park' meadow - later the site of Manor School/North Cambridge Academy. The Bretts usually had family photographs taken in the 'Park'. 'Arbury', 'Arbury Field' and the 'Stable Field' (on the other side of the Manor Farm 'Drive'/Campkin Road towards Arbury Camp Farm) were cultivated, but the 'Park' was a grassed meadow - often used for grazing. Looking back at how Christmas was celebrated at the Manor Farm on Arbury Road, over one hundred years ago...  The Bretts, Richard and Amelia, lived at the Foreman's/horse keeper's house at the Manor Farm from 1886 to the early 1920s. They had eleven children and many grandchildren.  Richard and Amelia were married at St Andrew's Church, Impington, on 19/10/1880, and moved to King's Hedges a couple of years later. King's Hedges was the name of a f...

We love receiving your enquiries, but please remember our Arbury Cambridge YouTube video, which answers a lot of questions about the historic Arbury district. There are more videos in the pipeline (this was our very first effort, so please forgive any rough edges!) but if the historic Arbury district interests you, we think you'll find the video useful. From the iron age site to the Carlton Arms, from the Roman settlement to Arbury Court, from the Arbury Community Centre to the Arbury Adventure Playground, from Manor Farm to Campkin Road - it's all there...

The ninth part of the memories of Mrs Grace Hinchcliffe (1910-1998), contributed to the Arbury Archive in the 1980s. Mrs Hinchcliffe was Andy's grandmother and this is very much an insider's view of life in rural Arbury and Chesterton (with occasional insights into life in Vicarage Terrace) in the 1910s and 1920s. If you would like to read Mrs Hinchcliffe's recollections in order, from the beginning, a link to Part 1 is here . 'Aunt May had worked at Luke Eyres' [pronounced Eye-ers] knitting factory on the corner of Hale Street and always been bustling about. I remember when I stayed nights at the farm her getting on her bike to go to work in the morning - she never seemed tired. She was always on the go, but she gradually got worse and worse with the Sleeping Sickness. And Grandma went downhill and they weren't good times.  'Grandma and Grandad Brett's house at Arbury was very quiet with the illnesses going on there. I think Aunt May was frustrated as s...

The Arbury district, circa 1904. Various farm and field names have been inserted, including the 58 acre King's Hedges. Although King's Hedges was a farm, it always appears simply as 'King's Hedges' on maps. While Arbury Camp Farm became a poultry farm and an orchard for Chivers of Histon, King's Hedges housed some much older trees, as did the neighbouring Impington Park, which was an entirely separate property. Lovely email to the Arbury Cambridge  site today. Thanks to the sender: When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's, we often used to play in Kings Hedges woods. It was a lot of fun. I came on this site to try and find out why the woods were just done away with, which is a shame. There used to be cuckoo's there and numerous wildlife. How destructive to just get rid of it Valuable oak, elm and ash trees (timber) were recorded on the sales particulars for the historic King's Hedges acres in the 1909 sales particulars for the 58 acre farm. They are...

Interesting query: I didn't realise the old Manor Community College in Arbury had been pulled down. Has it really? To our minds, it's a shame - but yes, the Manor disappeared a few years ago. We wish the council had used the money to upgrade the existing buildings and install a swimming pool for local community use. The site had first known split use in the 1980s, with the Cambridge Regional College's 'Arbury Centre' being accommodated there. In later years, the old tower block was used as student accommodation by Bellerbys language school. It's hard to imagine actually living in the tower block, but students on the top floor would have had a fine view over North and South Arbury, with glimpses of some of the villages beyond, and Cambridge. We would love to hear from people who lived in the tower block. Bellerbys named their student accommodation 'Manor House', which is interesting as there was no manor house in Arbury. But there was the old Manor Farmh...

The death of Debbie Brett on Sunday has saddened us all deeply. Debbie was very much an 'outdoors person', she loved the countryside. She painted and drew in her spare time, and liked nothing better than being on a train going somewhere! She was always deeply moved by the beauties of nature and, sitting in her hospital bed at home a few days before she died, watching the sky deepen from light to dark blue as the evening set in and the lights appeared in the windows opposite, exclaimed: 'Isn't it beautiful?!' 'I wouldn't have noticed,' said her husband Andy. 'But when I looked, it was. She took great pleasure out of looking out of the window, noting all the flora and fauna. I'm so glad the NHS supplied a hospital bed and she was able to stay at home until the end.' Debbie was a very loyal and active member of the Arbury Archivists - as she said, she 'married an Arbury man' - hubby Andy has family links here back to the old farm days in...

'Cambridge Daily News', 1954: 'The Arbury' is underway. Well, South Arbury anyway. We think this is Brimley Road. Thanks to all that have written. First out of the postbag today is an enquiry from Sanj: Why does Wikipedia say work began on the Arbury in 1957? It was earlier than that because of the council houses going up in the 1954 newspaper article you published, and Arbury School opened in 1956. Good work on your site - it is a must-read for me now and has given me an interest in the district. Hi, Sanj - and thank you! Yes, you're quite right. 'The Arbury' began springing to life in the early 1950s. We think the error stems from the Victoria Histories article on the area, which used inaccurate independent research. These things happen. The Histories make no claim to be infallible, depending as they do on various sources and are a valuable resource - but the sources listed must be noted and checked. Wikipedia can also be quite problematic in our experie...

Photo captioned 'Flooding at North Arbury, 1970'. The children are having fun! Well, here's North Arbury in flood in 1970! We'll have more on this soon. Note the dear old Jenny Wren on the left - and we've got more on that too! Why 'Jenny Wren'? We'll have the details. South Arbury had the Carlton and the Snowcat public houses, which opened within a couple of weeks of each other in 1959, but for years North Arbury had only the Jenny. Until 1974 - in May the  Cambridge Evening News reported:  Residents of the North Arbury estate did not need a heat wave to remind them of their need for another pub and the opening of The Ship will meet with eager response. Campaigners for real  ale will be pleased to find that Wells of Bedford are making this their fourth Cambridge pub,  providing beer connoisseurs with their prize-winning bitter as well as a wide range of other beers, wines and spirits in spacious new premises... The opening of the Ship in Northfield Aven...