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Showing posts from January, 2021

Arbury Vs North Cambridge

Bizarrely, in recent years, efforts at building a sense of community in Arbury have been replaced by rejecting the name as something beyond redemption and replacing it with 'North Cambridge'. People try to sell their houses under this name, and the Manor School, named after the Manor Farm, which carried the Arbury name within its boundaries in the form of two large fields - 'Arbury' and 'Arbury Field' - has also been eradicated and replaced by the 'North Cambridge Academy'.  Much of this former farm land, which forms what is logically and historically North Arbury, was lumped into the new King's Hedges electoral ward (formed out of the northern part of the original Arbury ward) in the mid-1970s by the city council and a new County Council electoral division in 1985, although King's Hedges -  a fifty eight acre farm - was on the northern side of King's Hedges Road - and the original road simply led to it.  The land north of Arbury Road, plus

Arbury Through Time...

The Kingsway Flats in South Arbury, built in the mid-1960s, with their hills and silver birches. The hills were a popular destination for bored children in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s - along with the 'The Hump', 'The Seats' and 'The Block'. The Arbury/Harborough Meadows, furlongs and Corner, north of Arbury Road. 'Harborough' was a variation on the Arbury name.  'Cambridge News', 1969: a Roman villa with underfloor heating (a 'hypercaust') has been discovered in the Arbury Meadows north of Arbury Road, soon to be followed by iron age finds. The villa was on the site of Northfield Avenue and King's Hedges School - which is in the city's most historic Arbury area, not King's Hedges, a small farm north of the guided busway. Arbury, circa 1900. Note Arbury Camp and the Manor Farm field names. King's Hedges was a fifty eight acre farm, north of the railway line (guided busway) and King's Hedges Road, redirected and expanded