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Arbury Update: The Manor School Caretaker's House, The Bomb, Arbury Court Library, Arbury Carnival...

Manor Girls' School 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. Lots of great emails and comments - all of which will be answered personally, or on here. Thanks very much indeed to everybody for taking the trouble to get in touch. The Arbury Blog has proved far more popular than we ever envisaged, and we are delighted. Thank you all to our visitors.  We've aimed to present a history of the historic Arbury district from the prehistoric, pre-Chesterton days of Arbury Camp, to the 21st Century, including Arbury Camp; the Roman developments and other finds on the ...
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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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More Arbury Snippets - From the Manor Farm Demolition in 1961 to Arbury Court 1960s Memories to Sharing Transport at St Laurence's, The Grove and King's Hedges Schools in the 70s to Saving The Manor Community College in the 80s, Plus Comments And Season's Greetings!

Thank you, thank you, thank you from the Arbury Archivists to all who visit the Blog here. We've had some wonderful comments and emails - and many, many visits. We've got a bumper blog post for you here, covering an array of things - hence the long title! We hope you enjoy it. Please contact us via the comments facility or at arburyestate@btinternet.com if you'd like to add any of your recollections to the Arbury Archive or have any enquiries. We were delighted to be contacted by the family of Mr Brian Downham, who lived at the Manor Farm. Mr Downham lived at No 2, Manor Farm Cottages, which stood in what is now the roadway by the junction of the Arbury and Campkin Roads. Traffic now passes over the spot where Mr Downham's semi-detached cottage once stood. Mr Downham made a photographic record of his old home's demolition, and you can see one of his photos above. And if you take a close look in the bottom left corner you will get a glimpse of Arbury Court. The house...
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The History of the Cambridge Gurdwara in Arbury Court...

In January, 2013, Arbury gained a major community first.  The Grove (formerly Snowcat) public house in Arbury Court, became the Cambridge Gurdwara, the first Sikh temple not only in Arbury, not only in Cambridge city, but in the whole of Cambridgeshire. The building was erected in 1959 as the Snowcat public house, to serve the 'rapidly expanding Arbury estate'. The architect was David Roberts, the builders Kidman and Sons, and the cost £16,000!  A 1965 report on the Snowcat. The Snowcat was a part of the Arbury community for years, but times changed, and its reputation as a decent pub went downhill around the turn of the 21st Century. In an effort to improve things, the Snowcat was renamed 'The Grove' - confusing, with the Grove School in Campkin Road (named after Manor Farm trees) in close proximity. Two 'Groves' - one a primary school, one a boozer? It really did not compute. As usual, it's the few that give a pub a bad name, and after a particularly nasty...
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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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