The Arbury Adventure Playground on the Nuns Way playing field in North Arbury was a fixture for over twenty-five years. It made its debut in 1973. One of the featured newspaper articles in this post details progress towards its creation - and is something of a hymn of praise to the original Arbury community spirit. Hello, and welcome to our latest round-up of past newspaper articles about Arbury, which was a hive of community action in its early years. The three articles we include here are shining examples of the community spirit of  'The Arbury', with an adventure playground in the offing, a social club for lonely elderly people already established, and a county councillor happy to chop down four foot high weeds... But first... A Word About Arbury...  Where Is Arbury, What Is It? Readers familiar with historic Arbury as opposed to 'Arbury Ward' and 'King's Hedges Ward' (a name imported into the Arbury Meadows from elsewhere) can skip this. But, for newcome

 My brother Richard alerted me to the following article from Current Archaeology , issue 405, December 2023. This refers to sites numbered 16 and 17 in Aragon Close and Sackville Close, on the map of Roman Arbury which you will find here . The article refers to King's Hedges: I hardly need to repeat that we know it's North Arbury. Article link here .

Our trusty old Arbury map showing location details before the Manor Farm was established. The red line, inserted by Jim Smith, 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, which are both prone to

What particularly fascinates us about the Arbury habitations is the close proximity of the developments - Iron Age and Roman. These provided part of the impetuous for the 'Arbury 1980' primary schools' project and the 1981 book 'Arbury Is Where We Live!' Part of the earthwork outline, which gave rise to the Arbury name, can still be seen in the course of Ring Fort Road. Not sure what was discovered at the original King's Hedges, north of the guided busway site. Perhaps something medieval relating to the hedged hunting warren of the old Royal Manor of Chesterton? If anybody has any information, we would be glad to hear it. Archaeologists had an immensely exciting find in a North Arbury barley field in the late 1960s. The field, previously part of the old Manor Farm and, before that, the Arbury/Harborough Meadows, was awaiting development into Northfield Avenue and  King's Hedges School - which actually isn't in the historic King's Hedges area, but in

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. 'Aunt May had worked at Luke Eyres' [pronounced Eye-ers] knitting factory on the corner of Hale Street and always been bustling about, 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 she was able to do less and less. She was becoming paralysed, slow but sure. It was awful. 'Aunt May had wanted a home of her own for her and Uncle Frank, and Grandma fancied the idea of a move so they all went in together and bought No 1 Arbury Road, up near Milto

A frozen Manor Farm Drive in 1956. The photographer was looking towards Arbury Road, and standing opposite what is now the Arbury Town Park. The Manor Farmhouse was empty at this point. Photo: Cambridgeshire Collection. The original Arbury district has a long history of mud. From the iron age Arbury Camp, wreathed in the mists of prehistory and, no doubt, quite squidgy in the old soil department at times, to the Roman habitations built in the Arbury Meadows beside the earthwork north of Arbury Road, and on through the centuries to the Manor and Hall Farms, north and south of Arbury Road, mud was always a fact of life. As it was in rural districts across the country. On the subject of Arbury mud, Mrs Osland wrote about the Manor Farm Drive (now Campkin Road) and having to ride her bike down there to visit her aunt:  We used to hear all sorts of things about Arbury being haunted by Romans and the part we called the 'Roman Arbury' was over by Chivers at Arbury Camp Farm and along