Old Arbury - Campkin Road: The Site of the Manor Farmhouse...

Manor Farmhouse, Arbury Road in the early 20th Century.

I've had some queries here at the blog so I will do my best to answer them.

It will be a one-by-one process, so please bear with me.

Here goes with the first:

Jake has asked:

Where exactly was the Manor Farmhouse on Campkin Road, and what's on the site now?Also, can you tell me why Arbury Ward was moved away from the original estate? This is a puzzle.

Thanks for that, Jake. The Manor Farmhouse stood opposite what is now Arbury Town Park - which was once part of the Arbury/Harborough Meadows, and then the Manor Farm's 'Stable Field'. Harborough was a variation on the Arbury name.

The Arbury/Harborough Meadows ran up to Milton Road and the original (dead end) King's Hedges Road. Up to 1977, Arbury Road ran from Milton Road to the Histon/Cambridge Road - until the building of the A14 motorway and the expansion and redirection of King's Hedges Road.

Our 1900 map, featuring the locations of the Arbury/Harborough Meadows, including the furlong and corner fields. We have marked on the Guided Busway site for orientation.

My grandparents often referred to Arbury Road as 'Arbury Meadow Road'. The Arbury Meadows became the Manor Farm after the 1840 Chesterton Enclosures. The Manor Farm's 1909 sale documents reveal the farm's field names - including two called 'Arbury' and 'Arbury Field' just north of Arbury Road, in the old Arbury Meadows. These fields now contain Buchan Street, the Pulley play area, Walker Court, etc - and part of the late 1970s King's Hedges Road redirection and extension across the Arbury.

The Arbury Meadows were probably the first seepages of the 'Arbury' name beyond the Arbury Camp Farm and the road - both ended up being North Arbury which later, and not at all appropriately, fell into 'King's Hedges Ward'.

The 1900 map with details of field names from the Manor Farm's 1909 sale documents. King's Hedges - was a small farm led to by a dead-end road, and contained two Victorian semi-detached cottages. It stood north of the railway line/guided busway.

Arbury Ward was moved from its most historic area to simply being South Arbury and to areas which included Stretten Avenue (previously North Chesterton Ward and then Castle Ward) - which had nothing to do with Arbury at all. The 'King's Hedges' ward was named simply because of the expanded modern road. The notion of taking the dead end track and redirecting and expanding it across Arbury had been in the air since at least the 1930s.

The current King's Hedges ward area has nothing to do with King's Hedges in reality. It was formed out of the northern part of the original Arbury Ward. This is important because the original Arbury Estate was based on localities and history, and the current Cambridge City Council wards are not.

King's Hedges was never the name of an area. It was a small, country estate, very clearly defined, so-named by local landowners the Brackyn family. The spreading of the name was always nonsensical - even King's Hedges School is not in the historical King's Hedges area. The name 'King's Hedges' appears to originate from a royal hedged hunting warren in the days of the old Royal Manor of Chesterton. The king's tenants drove local wildlife in there - deer, boars, etc, chased them through the warren and then killed them. This passed for 'sport' in those days, which the king apparently enjoyed watching.

The 'King's Hedges Estate' sub-district within North Arbury was a vague and shadowy notion, occupied by such Arbury institutions as the North Arbury Post Office, the North Arbury Chapel, and the Arbury Adventure Playground.

The ward names (King's Hedges City ward first appeared in 1976; County in 1985) were not regarded as being important by most locals initially, and not reflecting an area's history/identity - as witnessed by the Arbury 1980 and Arbury Is Where We Live! project and book of 1980 and 1981. Locals simply saw the newly concocted King's Hedges as being part of Arbury.

The wards have assumed more importance in recent years with apparent efforts to exorcise the Arbury name as much as possible and the appearance of online maps which use the wards as area boundaries. King's Hedges Ward has not only taken over North Arbury, but also parts of East Chesterton.

The 'wards' are also subject to change, via City Council 're-wardings'. In 2021, Arbury Ward lost the Chesterton triangle, gained Garden Walk and Arbury Court (which had been residing in King's Hedges Ward since 2004) and the Warwick Road area. All willy-nilly and, apart from Arbury Court, having nothing to do with Arbury historically.

And yet, the original Arbury area still survives as everyday reality for many locals.

See how it all happened here: http://www.cambridgeelections.org.uk/cityarb.htm

I include a photograph of the Manor Farmhouse site in recent years. It's from roughly the same angle as the farmhouse pic. You can still see two large trees by the old Manor School perimeter fence which stood in the farmhouse garden and were planted around the 1930s.

The Manor Farmhouse and garden site.

View from Campkin Road - showing the two Manor Farmhouse garden trees. There were three until recent years, the third standing to the left.

Comments

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, 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

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 - 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 the Arbury fields of Manor Farm. It has absolutely nothing to do with King's Hedges at all. And King's Hedges was never a district. It was

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

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 side of the Manor School 'new block', built in the early 1970s, the tower block and boys' gym beyond. The school was built in the Park Meadow of the old Manor Farm - which is how the &

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 covered most of the land north of Arbury Road. The 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, the Guided Busway and Campkin Road. Arbury Road marks the boundary of North and South Arbury, a

Arbury Archaeology and History: Part 1

Imagine an iron age settlement. It is surrounded by a circular earthwork. People live here. There are houses, and pens for animals within the enclosure. Until recent years, it was not believed to be a fort. The settlement is larger than some, but believed to be very much the equivalent of what we now call a village - the earthwork simply to defend it from wolves and animal thieves. The earthwork is filled with water, and reeds and rushes grow there. Despite the naming of the Arbury earthwork as 'Ring Fort Road' in the Arbury Camp Farm Arbury/Orchard Park development, the original height of the earthwork and its enclosed area were not believed to indicate that Arbury was a fort (compare to Wandlebury), and the findings of archaeologists from Cambridge and London from the early 1960s to 1970 discounted the notion. Comment from Arbury Camp, Cambridge, A Preliminary Report on Excavations - by John Alexander and David Trump, 1970: The excavations therefore tend to confirm earlier s

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

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 Arbury Means To You...

We thought it would be good to invite comments (or emails - arburyestate@btinternet.com) from readers about what Arbury means to you. Of course, many have already made their views plain on here, but we like the idea of a dedicated blog post. Please be aware that we are referring to the original Arbury area here, the area between Gilbert Road and King's Hedges Road, not modern electoral wards/misnamed apparently 'separate' housing estates. From 'Arbury is Where We Live!' (1981): Community action has always been important in Arbury. The first Arbury community groups were formed with the building of South Arbury in the 1950s, and North Arbury has seen many fantastic community efforts - resulting in the likes of the Arbury Adventure Playground, Arbury Carnival, Arbury Community Centre and the Arbury Town Park. So, what does Arbury mean to YOU? How long have you lived here? Are you interested in Arbury history? What do you like about Arbury? What do you dislike? What mak

Arbury Snippets Part 4: Arbury Terrace, Arbury Hedges, 19th Century Pugilists, Hunting & Escaped Prisoners At The Real King's Hedges And Suspects On The Arbury Meadows...

We've superimposed the old Arbury Meadows, Furlongs and Corner onto a 1900 map. Remember, the Manor Farm, which covered most of North Arbury (or the Council's inappropriately named 'King's Hedges Ward'), did not exist before the 1840s. Our 1900 map also features the details from the 1840 enclosures map. The names Arbury and Harborough were variations on each other and interchangeable. Whilst the 1840 enclosures map used the 'Harborough' form, an 1839 newspaper article (featured) used the 'Arbury' form. During the late 1800s, the 'Harborough' form all but disappeared. The Arbury name is derived from the Old English for 'earthwork', the earthwork surrounding the iron age settlement at Arbury Camp Farm (now Orchard Park, originally Arbury Park). The earthwork, or at least part of it, was a landscape feature for around 2000 years, and the part of the outline seen on this map is incorporated into the design of Ring Fort Road. Arbury was. f

Search This Blog