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 recorded as the 'Spinney' at the original King's Hedges, north of the Guided Busway.

There never was a 'King's Hedges woods' historically - it was never recorded on any maps, it is not an historical fact. It was simply a term applied by some locals. Others, as you'll see further on, referred to it as the 'Mere Way', after the Roman road near which the trees stood. We're always fascinated by local terminology on this site. For instance, the Manor Farmhouse at Manor Farm, which stood opposite what is now Arbury Town Park, was called the 'manor house' by many locals, although it wasn't!

Unlike the cultivated modern orchards elsewhere in Arbury - Chivers at Arbury Camp Farm, the Arbury Orchard on Histon Road and the Manor Farm orchard by Arbury Road, the King's Hedges trees were old and untended for many years, a great place for wildlife and games. The Manor Farm orchard also contained some old trees, but these were tended by the farm's tenants and, later, by Mr Ernest Sale of the Manor Nurseries on Arbury Road, who rented the Manor orchard from the council.

The 'woods' were a great place to play. And, on one occasion, for two prison escapees to hide out:

May, 1830, and two prisoners escape from the County Gaol and hide at 'the King's Hedges', which contained 'thick groves and hedges' at the time. We have often wondered if there were vestiges of the original hedged hunting warren on the site, where the king watched his tenants pursuing and killing local wildlife as 'sport' a few centuries before? In April 1824, King's Hedges is described as a 'retired field'. Large crowds gathered to watch local men fight there in organised matches in those days. More 'sport'.

In 1909, the purchaser of King's Hedges (Cambridgeshire County Council) had to pay £42 for the trees - not an amount to be sneezed at in those days.

There were also many more trees the other side of the Mere Way/Roman road and these were part of an entirely separate property,  Impington Park. A relative of Samuel Pepys lived at Impington Hall, and it is mentioned in his diaries!

King's Hedges, a 58 farm north of the Cambridge & St Ives railway line (now the Guided Busway), bordered the Roman Mere Way on one side and the Rectory (later Trinity Farm) on the other. Impington Park was the other side of the Roman road. The photograph shows a 1960s view of King's Hedges - and the original road disappearing into it - from a train. In the late 1970s, a new road was built across the old Arbury/Harborough Meadows by the prehistoric Arbury Camp, lopping off the Arbury Road junction with the Histon/Cambridge Road. The council called this 'King's Hedges Road' as it was attached to the old King's Hedges Road (although that ran north west of the Guided Busway and terminated). The name is not historically appropriate - King's Hedges was simply a named property elsewhere. 

In 1980, Mr Reg Jones of Leys Avenue, who was born in 1910, told the children at the Grove School about what he called the Mere Way when he was child in the early 20th Century: 'When we used to have our six weeks holiday in the summer, we used to go over the railway line and turn into what we called the Mere Way - all trees. We used to spend our time up there with a little bonfire. We used to take our sandwiches and always managed to scrounge an egg off mother and we'd take it up there and boil it in an old salmon tin we used to find.'

1909 sales particulars for King's Hedges.

Sadly (in some ways), King's Hedges is now a very modern site, housing the Cambridge Regional College and a section of the A14, although part of it remains as open land the other side. The trees there have disappeared, as our reader says. It is a shame. But then the 1970s extended and redirected King's Hedges Road zooms across historic Arbury land and actually lopped off a section of Arbury Road. You will remember that it is theorised that Arbury Road is based on the course of a prehistoric track, connecting Arbury Camp with the river in what is now Chesterton.

Arbury Road was a public highway of considerable importance, connecting the Ely/Milton Road with the Histon/Cambridge Road. King's Hedges Road was a private, dead end farm track, leading to a named property - and the name's modern presence by the prehistoric Arbury Camp is odd and confusing to local historians.

So, the historic Arbury Road has been treated very shabbily by planners.

'Progress' can have a down side.

But where would we be without it? 

Although motorways and road extensions, renamings and redirections definitely have a downside...

But we can treasure our memories.