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Arbury Court - Part Of The 'Centre' Of The Original Arbury Estate...

A view across Arbury Court, looking towards Arbury Road, in 1976. Arbury Court is part of the 'centre' of the original Arbury Estate in Cambridge. The Court, with its pub, supermarket, hardware store and post office, chip shop, newsagent, TV shop, greengrocer, hairdresser, chemist, supermarket and branch library, is part of the 'hub' of the estate. The historic Arbury district. The Arbury or Harborough (the names were variations on each other and interchangeable, although the Arbury form was more common) Meadows and Furlongs covered land north of Arbury Road, and included a swathe of land south of the road. Arbury Road ran from Milton Road to the Histon/Cambridge Road until the late 1970s. The Manor Farm was formed in the years following the 1840 Chesterton Enclosures. Orchard Park (originally Arbury Park and, before that, Arbury Camp Farm) features the outline of part of the Arbury prehistoric settlement at Ring Fort Road. We've inserted the sites of Arbury Court, ...
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Arbury Carnival 2026

                Hooray - hot off the Press, the latest news from the Arbury Carnival organisers! The 2026 Carnival will be on Saturday, 13th June - at the Arbury Town Park in Campkin Road. It was nearly half a century ago that the very first Arbury Carnival was held at the Park in 1977... Our wonderful Carnival organisers are seeking a theme for 2026, and we can all be involved. The suggested themes are Colours of the World, Follow Your Dreams or Music Legends. You can vote HERE .  The Arbury Carnival theme for 2025 was circus - 'The Greatest Show'. The procession was photographed from a bus!  A wonderful time was had by all. Andy, who attended the first Arbury Carnival in 1977, often wonders what he would have made of a glimpse of the 21st Century future back then. MOBILE phones?! And people using them to make videos and take photographs? Good grief! The first hand-held mobiles arrived in the UK in 1985 - they were far more basic, no ca...
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Charles Harcourt: Arbury Road - Bellerbys College Memories

Bellerbys College Manor House Student Residence. For generations of schoolchildren the old Manor School/Community College tower block and boys' gym will be instantly recognisable. Charles Harcourt is an old friend of the Arbury Blog and has shared a few of his memories of the time he worked as a teacher at Bellerbys College, on the Manor School site. When Charles first came to Bellerbys, around January 2009, he knew nothing of the prehistoric Arbury Camp and the other iron age and Roman remains found in Arbury: 'When I first arrived at Arbury Road, I had no idea of the ancient history of Arbury or anything like that. It was never discussed. I don't think any of the students knew either, though I think they would have been fascinated! 'I came to teach English as a Foreign Language to Bellerbys students, to prepare them for other courses. Bellerbys also taught maths, sciences and lots of other subjects. 'Students came from all over the world - China, Saudi Arabia, Ru...
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Arbury Cambridge Video 2 - Over 2,000 Years in just over Two Minutes!

We recently uploaded our second Arbury Cambridge YouTube video, another whirlwind tour of Arbury from the Iron Age right up to the North Cambridge Academy! We included a couple of quotes from the oral history contributions to the original Arbury Archive and much more, and we're very happy with it. We've also included a tribute to our sadly missed Arbury Archivist Debbie Brett to close on. Thanks so much for all the support we've received, many terrific comments and lovely e-mails. We are now averaging around 4,000 page views per month, so our dream of having a positive Arbury space online, and re-establishing exactly where Arbury is, are attracting interest. Andy, Debbie's husband, the creator of the original Arbury Archive back in 1983 (inspired by the work of teacher and historian  Sallie Purkis  in  History Today  magazine, the Arbury 1980 project and the 1981 book,   Arbury Is Where We Live! ) has been hearing about early 21st Century life at Bellerbys Colle...
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Main Streets of Arbury: Campkin Road - Part 1

Left: work begins on Campkin Road in 1961. Numbers 1 and 2 Manor Farm Cottages have been demolished, but the intention is to preserve the old trees lining the old Manor Farm Drive. Right: a similar view in more modern times, with the Arbury Town Park and Campkin Road. In 1982, Campkin Road was described as the 'Hauptstrasse of North Arbury' by local journalist Sara Payne. Ms Payne's local history articles in the Cambridge Weekly News were hugely popular and, for each one, Ms Payne visited a street in Cambridge and talked to the residents, collecting their memories for publication and producing a fascinating series of 'Then and Now' style articles. 'Cambridge Weekly News', 1982. Down Your Street followed in the footsteps of a similar series in the local press in the early 1960s - by Erica Dimmock - and both now make fascinating reading. We're starting our look at Campkin Road with material from the 'Arbury 1980' project and accounts from locals...
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Things Called Arbury In Cambridge...

How many things that are, or have been, called 'Arbury' in Cambridge and its immediate environs can you think of over the years? Most 'Arbury' things are clustered north of Arbury Road - one of the most historic Arbury areas in Cambridge, although, nonsensically, part of the "King's Hedges" electoral ward. Check out King's Hedges on the map. That's right. It's north of the guided busway/railway line and was a fifty eight acre farm. A lot of the land north of Arbury Road, and a swathe of land to the south, were known as the Arbury or Harborough Meadows, North Arbury/Harborough Furlong, etc. Harborough is a variation on the Arbury name.  We put our thinking caps on, and came up with: 1) Arbury Road: This road connected the Milton/Ely Road with the Histon/Cambridge Road until the late 1970s when a new road was built across the Arbury Meadows/Manor Farm by the iron age Arbury Camp at the time of the A14 development. The new road linked the formerly...
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