Ask Arbury: From Randy, Rippett and Raft and Swinging Cats to a 1970s Road and a Manor School Diary...

Every so often we like to upload some of the questions posed by readers via email. Here's another selection.

I got to thinking after your article with the Manor School diary. Do you remember a series that ran in the 'Manor Banner' school magazine called 'Randy, Rippett and Raft'? It was a spoof on the boys' PE teachers.

We do, and at the top of the post is the first part from the Manor Banner, summer, 1983. The comic strip was drawn by pupil Adrian Tompkins. The teachers in question were Mr Radcliffe, Mr Tippett and Mr Daft. They were good sports about the spoof (good sports, geddit, PE teachers?! Oh never mind...) and in the second part got into terrible trouble with Mr Raggs (Mr Gaggs), the headmaster. 

The 'spooky wordsearch' is a reference to Dracula Spectacular, the school play that year. We love the inclusion of the word 'teachers' under the spooky heading!

We recall a lot of excellent comradeship between pupils and teachers at the Manor in those days, and some teachers were excellent at helping children who were experiencing problems outside of school - we speak from personal experience. So much better than these days of 'outstanding' schools, heavily populated by pupils from areas with natural academic leanings - and that's all that counts. Just our opinion, but in those days the Manor truly was outstanding...

Next question, please...

Great to see the old Manor School diary. I remember them very well and I wonder if we could have a peep inside?

Yes, we'll upload more scans of the diary soon.

Next - our most oft asked question of all, best summed up by: 'When is historic King's Hedges not historic King's Hedges? Answer: When it's historic Arbury...

I enjoy the blog, but are you seriously telling me that the majority of King's Hedges Road is late 1970s, and that the area around it wasn't King's Hedges historically, not even King's Hedges School?

We are constantly answering this question. Sorry, but yes. King's Hedges School is historically in Arbury or Harborough (Harborough was a variation on the Arbury name), and the majority of King's Hedges Road has nothing to do with King's Hedges either, but an awful lot to do with historic Arbury, running right by the ancient earthwork which gave Arbury its name, and lopping off the end of the original Histon end of the historic Arbury Road. It is theorised that the original Arbury Road's course was based on the alignment of an iron age track, running from Arbury Camp to the river in what is now Chesterton, so it's been treated pretty shabbily by planners.

King's Hedges was never a district, you see - but a small farm north of the guided busway, covering fifty eight acres. And King's Hedges Road was a dead end farm track leading to it from Chesterton, terminating at the farm, north west of the busway site.

The 'King's Hedges' name appears to be derived from a royal hedged hunting warren. The king would come over from Cambridge Castle and watch his tenants from his box near the hedges as they pursued and killed various wild animals - deer, etc, in medieval times. King's Hedges later played host to more 'sport' - boxing matches attended by large numbers of town and gown folk.

Northfield Avenue was named as the famous Roman villa with underfloor heating was discovered in a North Arbury field.

Much of King's Hedges Estate/King's Hedges Ward is also historically Arbury - although it extends into Chesterton now. Of course, the historic Arbury part is also known as North Arbury and was part of the original Arbury electoral ward.

A lot of people are startled by the historic facts, particularly those who don't know the area well or who do not remember the vast King's Hedges Road expansion and redirection in the late '70s as part of the A14/Cambridge Northern Bypass development.  Many others just call the district North Arbury (a far more legitimate name historically) or 'The Arbury' - lumped in as one estate with South Arbury. 

North Arbury (we recognise the existence of a 'King's Hedges' sub-district within it, but that's all) is one of the most Arbury of Arbury areas historically. Check out our trusty old maps, and the modern misinformation display and 1977 road building photographs below.

We've annotated this 1904 Ordnance Survey map to include the earlier details of the Arbury/Harborough Meadows, furlongs and Corner. Manor Farm was established some time after the 1840 Chesterton Enclosures.

The Arbury district in 1904.

Misinformation on a modern outside 'local history' display. The Roman villa referred to was near the ancient Arbury earthwork, which pre-dated it - and the area was known as the Arbury/Harborough Meadows. King's Hedges was a small farm elsewhere. For 'Roman Landscape at King's Hedges' just substitute 'Arbury' for the final two words. We hope the display wasn't financed by public funds. Local history is local history. This is inaccurate.

'Cambridge Evening News', 1969: the Roman villa and other findings in the North Arbury field. This is why Northfield Avenue was so named. The name 'King's Hedges' was imported by council planners in the 1960s and 1970s who seemed to be rather fixated with it.

The new King's Hedges Road comes into being in the late 1970s, lopping off the original end of Arbury Road.

And finally (humorously, we think...)

When you wrote there wasn't room to swing a cat at Yarrow's in Carlton Way, wasn't that a bit anti-catist?

Heavens, yes thanks for that. Our bad. Let's just say there wasn't room to swing a pair of flared trousers.