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 across the Arbury Meadows into a highway in the 1970s as part of the A45/A14 motorway development, was then a dead end farm track. Arbury Road connected with Histon Road until the late 1970s.

Arbury is the prehistoric people and their settlement at Arbury Camp. It's Roman villas with flooring heated from underneath by fires, Roman life and Roman burial sites - the Roman community which sprang up beside the old Arbury Camp earthwork. It's the 1840 Enclosures and the quiet tempo of life at the Manor and Hall Farms.

The Manor Farm on Arbury 'Meadow' Road.

It's a mischievous small boy hiding in the hedgerow on Arbury 'Meadow' Road, startling the young women cycling home from work at Chiver's in Histon, with a lighted pumpkin face - just a few years before he was sent off to fight in World War One.

It's buying sandwich paste at Palmer's or Bishop's supermarket in Arbury Court, coping with power cuts and playing with Klackers by the 'block' near the Kingsway Flats and Rutland Close in the 1970s.

It's the Manor School losing a Rubik's Cube contest, people grappling with Pac-Man and Space Invaders in the Carlton, Ship, Snow Cat and Jenny Wren, everybody calling the newly arrived mobile phones 'yuppie toys', and watching the Berlin Wall fall in the 1980s.

It's the wonderful Arbury Carnival.

It's 'Arbury 1980' and Arbury Is Where We Live! - the 1981 community booklet which put the area fully on record; it's the building of Arbury Park (now Orchard Park) on the site of the original settlement; it's memories of 'Yarrer's' and 'Stopsiz'.

It's the schools which took part in the 'Arbury 1980' project and contributed to Arbury Is Where We Live! - Arbury, the Grove, St Laurence's and King's Hedges.

It's the Manor School/Community College, now the North Cambridge Academy.

It's the North Arbury Chapel, Arbury Court, Arbury Town Park and the Cambridge Gurdwara.

Nicholson Way as viewed from Arbury Town Park.

It's Arbury Kebab and fond recollections of the Arbury Adventure Playground.

If you like Arbury or are just interested in its history, stick around.

We believe it's time Arbury had a bit more positive WWW. space.

Arbury Community Centre and Arbury Town Park in Campkin Road. The community centre opened in 1974.

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A Tribute To Debbie - Much Loved Arbury Archivist

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...

Manor School Memories Part 1

The Manor School on Arbury Road was one of the main focuses of life for North and South Arbury for decades. With its evening classes and youth centre, and various community activities - like the annual Christmas party for the elderly and the annual school play in the 1980s ( Annie Get Your Gun and Dracula Spectacular spring to mind) - the Manor opened as separate boys' and girls' schools in 1959 (the girls had to share the boys' buildings at first as their own were still under construction). The school later became co-ed. An aerial view of t he Manor Schools - Boys' and Girls', around 1960, with a section of Arbury Road and Arbury Court. Note Arbury Court was yet to gain its library and large supermarket building, and Campkin Road was still the Manor Farm Drive. The lay of the land, complete with field names, at the Manor Farm in 1900. The Park Meadow contains the Manor School/Community College and North Cambridge Academy sites. The Manor Farm was established...

Exploring The REAL King's Hedges...

The Cambridge and St Ives Branch railway line is now the Guided Busway. Where was King's Hedges historically? How did the name come about? Why is the majority of King's Hedges Road no more historic than late 1970s - and nothing to do with the course of the original road? What have council planners of the 1960s and 1970s and the needs of motorists got to do with the King's Hedges presence in the historic Arbury district? All will be revealed... We're going to leave Arbury briefly and go to King's Hedges. No, not King's Hedges Ward/King's Hedges Estate (AKA North Arbury) - that area is, in reality, one of the most Arbury of Arbury areas in Cambridge historically, but the REAL King's Hedges. North of the Guided Busway. You see, the land north of Arbury Road is the site of the Arbury Camp, the Arbury/Harborough (a variation on the Arbury name) Meadows and Furlongs and the Arbury fields of Manor Farm. It has absolutely nothing to do with King's Hedges at...

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) 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, Arbury Town Park, the Guided Busway, and t...

Manor School Memories - Part 2

Lads from the Manor Boys' School in 1960. D. Claton, M. Farrow, R. Mitchell, C. Peck, I. Skeels, R. Potter and G. Paine are present. Do any readers remember who is who? School's back in - Manor School/Community College on Arbury Road that is (now North Cambridge Academy). Here is the second part of our series on Manor Memories - Part 1 is here . Pupils' foreign holiday, 1960: the first Manor girls to go on a joint foreign holiday with Manor boys: G. Anderson, J. Barnes, C. Blackwell, H. Brown, S. Budd, L. Carter, A. Clarke, L. Doggett, C. Doughty, P. Drake, S. Hardy, E. Harradine, B. Kaspar, D. Miller, J. Parker, L. Phillips, J. Reeves, J. Spencer, J. Symonds, with headmistress Mrs Firman. Note the Manor Schools' caretaker's house can be seen in the background, and the trees of the old Manor Farm orchard. October 1960, and here is a view of the Manor Boys' and Girls' schools from the car park at the Snow Cat public house (now the Cambridge Gurdwara). A view ...

What Did The Romans Ever Do for Arbury? Jim Smith

Our trusty old Arbury map showing location details before the Manor Farm was established. The red line, inspired by Jim Smith's Roman Arbury map, indicates the course of the Roman road - Akeman Street or the Mere Way. The land north of Arbury Road was the Arbury or Harborough Meadows, Arbury/Harborough furlongs and Arbury Camp, King's Hedges was in its original position, north of the railway (now guided busway) and Arbury Road ran from the Ely/Milton Road to the Histon/Cambridge Road - as it did until the late 1970s. Introduction - by the Arbury Archivists Jim Smith is a local history researcher and a good friend of the Arbury Cambridge Blog. He has been researching Roman finds in the historic Arbury area and has written this article for us. We are most grateful! He follows the adventures of those who scraped away centuries of soil to reveal ancient findings beneath. Of course, as always, we deal with historic Arbury here, not council planners' estates or electoral wards, ...

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...

Ask Arbury: The Roman Villa in Arbury

E-mail to Arbury Cambridge blog: Was a Roman villa found at King's Hedges? I recently saw an outside display in North Arbury/King's Hedges Ward called 'The Roman Landscape in King's Hedges' which claims there was one. And is King's Hedges Road Roman? We've seen that display. Electoral wards are not historic areas and local historians really do need to be mindful of that fact. The answer to your questions regarding the Roman villa and King's Hedges Road is no. The Roman villa was found on the site of King's Hedges School, which is not part of the historic King's Hedges acres. Historically, King's Hedges was simply a named property, a farm, of fifty eight acres, and is now north of the guided busway. It was never a district. King's Hedges School is dearly loved by many of us and we treasure it, but those in the know accept it's not actually in any historically meaningful King's Hedges district, and the site it was built on ha...

Mrs Hinchcliffe's Memories of Old Arbury, Chesterton & Vicarage Terrace - Part 9

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...

Ask Arbury: "King's Hedges Woods"

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...

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