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.

Land north of Arbury Road. We have pasted the 1800s locations onto our map (1900) which features the Manor Farm for clarity, and also some details of modern locations. The Arbury or Harborough Meadows (both names were current and each a variation on the other), North Arbury/North Harborough Furlong, West Arbury/Harborough Corner and Arbury/Harborough Furlong. The 1840 Chesterton Enclosures map features the 'Harborough' variation on the Arbury name, but an 1839 newspaper article refers to the 'Arbury' Meadows. The names were interchangeable.

We saw an outside display entitled 'The Roman Landscape At King's Hedges' on one of our rambles round Arbury, trumpeting the grand history of King's Hedges, including a Roman villa. The Roman villa was on the site of King's Hedges School, but King's Hedges School is not in the historic King's Hedges acres, and the villa was found on Manor Farm land, on the acreage known as Arbury/Harborough Meadows, not far from the Arbury iron age earthwork. 

'The Roman Landscape at King's Hedges' - an epic piece of misinformation. The Roman villa and the historic area described had nothing to do with King's Hedges - and a lot to do with Arbury. We do hope the display wasn't sponsored by money from public coffers.

1969: Much excitement in the 'Cambridge Evenings News' over the discovery of the Roman villa, and even older finds, in a North Arbury barley field. The road built on the site was called Northfield Avenue.

King's Hedges Road is the story of a farm drift. It began as a private farm track - leading to King's Hedges, a small farm. But then, at the Chesterton end, the marvellously retro Golden Hind was built and house building started along the road and, finally, after North Arbury was built, with its sub-district, King's Hedges Estate, northwest of Campkin Road, King's Hedges Road ROARED, changed direction, and swept across the old Arbury Meadows by Arbury Camp and lopped off the end of Arbury Road as part of the A45 (A14) motorway development. The King's Hedges Road extension and redirection was known in its planning stages as 'The Northern Peripheral Road'.

We have been asked why we don't include more King's Hedges history on this site, but that is because, historically and right up to the original North Arbury Estate, King's Hedges had nothing to do with the Arbury part of the area that is 'King's Hedges Ward'. It's manufactured. It's fake. King's Hedges School was simply named because council planners were determined to import the name, although it was built in the old Arbury Meadows, and the "new" King's Hedges was simply a poorly defined area within Arbury, near the original road.

Streets off of King's Hedges Road had occasionally been referred to as 'King's Hedges Estate' previously, and nobody knew - and many didn't much care - what the Council was thinking or doing. 

What would become the original King's Hedges Road was a narrow, nameless, private road, leading north of the railway to the 58 acre King's Hedges farm plot at the time of the 1840 Chesterton Enclosures, according to the map. It was a dead end - basically, a farm track.

When was it first called King's Hedges Road? Well, old maps often don't reveal what rural roads were known as locally. The track led right into the original King's Hedges and is referred to as King's Hedges Road/Lane (or 'King's Hedge', singular) in the local press well before 1840 - after all, it was actually the track leading to a named property.

Arbury Road is referred to as the 'Histon Road from Chesterton' and similar in several maps we have seen from the early-to-mid 1800s. Very descriptive, but quite a mouthful! It's highly possible locals had adopted the Arbury (or Harborough) name long before the 1840s. Roads were often named after local landmarks. There is reference to 'Arbury Meadows' (land north of Arbury Road) in an 1839 newspaper report, and the road is referred to as 'Arbury Lane' in an 1842 newspaper report. 

An 1829 newspaper advertisement for a sale of wood reveals the presence of a property called 'Arbury Hedges' in the district.

The Ely Road... well, we have an idea it may have become Milton Road simply because locals then were much more likely to be travelling out to Milton than Ely as it was much closer and so referred to it thus. Pure conjecture on our part, but one of the Manor Farm fields by that road was called the 'Milton Road field' at the time of the farm's sale in 1909 (it was sold separately as 'valuable building land') and if this was the original name, would be indicative that 'Milton Road' was in use locally long before it made the maps and popular press.

But to return to King's Hedges.

In the 1930s, questions were raised about the maintenance of King's Hedges Road, and why a private road was costing the ratepayers for its upkeep. The Cambridge Town Clerk replied that the old Chesterton Urban District Council had begun repairing the road, thus making it a public road, in error, and this had been passed on when Cambridge took over part of the road. The County Council later handed over the rest of the road under the same arrangement. 

In 1924, King's Hedges Road was still a narrow, dead-end country road, with rough grass margins and hedges on each side. By the late 1930s, with the motor car making its presence felt, the rise of King's Hedges into something rather different was being planned. With some, at first, wood framed houses being built along the road, builders were told to keep them far enough back to allow for a major widening of the road and its future as part of a new Cambridge ring road was being planned by the Council.

When work began on the Arbury Estate in the 1950s, the Council planned a 'King's Hedges Estate', not based on local history and not in the original King's Hedges plot, but in the Arbury Meadows which had become Manor Farm. Why? Well, perhaps the Council planners thought it would all make sense after the road redirection and expansion finally took place in the late 1970s?

Aerial view of part of the district, showing the original King's Hedges (outlined in red). Part of it remains as grass, and it straddles the motorway.

One cannot help asking: Did the Council think council tenants wouldn't give a fig about local history - or that they'd be too stupid to research it? After all, it wasn't Newnham, or West Chesterton or the historic city centre, was it? 

The Council it seems, was seriously out of touch with locals and local history. The idea of naming North Arbury 'King's Hedges', after a small farm plot with a council house on it north of King's Hedges Road (which simply led to it), seemed too bizarre to anybody knowing the district well - and the history of King's Hedges was as nothing compared to the ancient Arbury earthwork.

The original end of King's Hedges Road in 1968, from a train on what is now the guided busway. Click on image to see details on map.

However, the 'King's Hedges Estate' was going full steam ahead with the publication of a plan for the estate in 1967, but the following year the planned 'estate' was subsumed into the new Arbury Ward. As South Arbury had been so-called years before, the northern side of Arbury Road was quite logically already being called 'North Arbury'.

So, King's Hedges Estate became a sub-district of North Arbury - and a far less aptly named area within the Arbury - but Arbury was very much the dominant name. Community identity in Arbury was running very high. 

Just where King's Hedges Estate was became rather vague, and this only increased with the opening of the North Arbury Post Office in Cameron Road in 1971. If the GPO didn't know its districts, who did?

People had long ago united under the historic Arbury name, and the residents were fund raising and campaigning for Arbury facilities.

Hmm... time to break it up...

Things called 'Arbury' in Cambridge over the years. Most of them are north of Arbury Road, including the ancient Arbury Camp and the Arbury Fields. There was a time when almost all of North Arbury was called 'Arbury/Harborough Meadows' - Harborough being a variation on the Arbury name.

The 'King's Hedges' City Council Ward of 1976, formed out of the original Arbury Ward's northern area, was simply named by local government planners for local government convenience and dragged right up to Arbury Road, sounding an electoral death knell for Arbury unity and becoming a nonsense historically.

Many local people didn't pay much attention for years. They were suddenly getting a council newsletter called Focus On King's Hedges, but King's Hedges was in North Arbury, along with the North Arbury Post Office, the North Arbury Chapel, the Arbury Adventure Playground, the Arbury Community Centre and Arbury Town Park - the majority of these created with a great deal of fund raising and campaigning by the locals.

And electoral wards were just for voting purposes. Most people thought.

Councillors positively fawned over the local schools' history project 'Arbury 1980' and the 1981 book Arbury Is Where We Live!, which covered the original Arbury area, but plans to break the estate in two, leaving the most historic Arbury area in an historically groundless, separate 'King's Hedges ward', were, of course, already half achieved by then.

As far as the County Council was concerned, King's Hedges Estate was still in Arbury until the mid-1980s, when a new King's Hedges Ward was established there.

Many local residents, including ourselves, still regard 'King's Hedges Ward' as North Arbury and King's Hedges as being primarily the original King's Hedges, north of the busway (now occupied by Cambridge Regional College), with a King's Hedges Estate sub district within North Arbury near the original King's Hedges Road.

Most people we know refer to King's Hedges primarily as Arbury/North Arbury, which is, of course, historically correct. Residents past and present researched the history via Arbury 1980 and Arbury Is Where We Live! and the Arbury Archivists have been delving ever since. There is a major disconnect between the City/County Councils and large numbers of the general public there. The general public are right.

People in the (North Arbury) King's Hedges Ward really don't live in any historically meaningful King's Hedges area - and the name didn't spread naturally and organically outside of its own boundaries. 

In the case of Arbury Camp, the Arbury name spread via the road and the Arbury/Harborough Meadows (all north of Arbury Road). North Arbury/Harborough Furlong was actually by the King's Hedges farm track, as our map shows. 

The ancient earthwork had long been referenced by locals - appearing as 'Ertburg', 'Herdbury' or 'Herburw' in the thirteenth century, and there were references, no doubt, right back to its origins. The name is thought to be derived from the Old English for 'earthwork', and references will have predated the English language. It was very much a landmark.

With King's Hedges, the name's spread on the Arbury is due to out of touch council planners and the road expansion, taking the name where it never was and never, logically, should have been applied.

VROOM! VROOM! BEEP! BEEP! That's King's Hedges.

A map showing the huge redirection and extension of King's Hedges Road, across the old Manor Farm and Arbury Meadows. Buchan Street was built on a Manor Farm field called 'Arbury'.

Anyway, all that being said, the council planners' and road-driven King's Hedges is kind-of-sort-of-perhaps King's Hedges (a very modern and misnamed King's Hedges offshoot within Arbury), and it now has a King's Hedges Drive (which is actually IN King's Hedges), as well as a chunk of Arbury Road, so it's done well, hasn't it?

The building of the extended and redirected King's Hedges Road across the Harborough/Arbury Meadows, seen in late 1977. The majority of King's Hedges Road dates from the late 1970s. Construction of what was referred to in its planning stages as the Northern Peripheral Road, to connect the original King's Hedges Road with Arbury Road, began in 1976.

The whole area, right through Arbury on one side and Impington/Histon the other is rich in archaeological finds and sites. The Mere Way used to be a lovely walk. We haven't been up there for years. Wonder what it's like now?

As with a lot of the rest of the area, there were archaeological finds on the King's Hedges site, but these are not linked to the name. We're not even sure what era they are from. Roman? They are definitely later than Arbury Camp, and absolutely not related to the King's Hedges name, which is much later. They do not seem to have been much cause for interest in the archaeological world. All of the documentation we can find focuses on Arbury Camp and the Manor and Hall Farm fields - 'The Arbury'.

King's Hedges has been subject to a certain amount of revisionism. But, as we have already said, it was a fifty-eight acre plot, beside Akeman Street/the Mere Way, the Roman road which ran across the whole district. Part of the road was actually named 'Mere Way' by the Council in South Arbury. 

The land beside the Mere Way on the Histon Road side (Impington Park) was also called the 'Mere Way' by some locals, and was a popular area for children's play, walks, etc.

In one piece of independent research from the 1980s, we found a map drawn up at the time claiming that the 'Mere Way' land west of the Roman road belonged to King's Hedges and was the 'King's Hedges Closes' (small fields). No, that land never belonged to King's Hedges and was, historically, part of Impington Park and, before that, the huge 'Burrow Field'.

Furthermore, the research map featuring the incorrect 'King's Hedges Closes' also lists North Arbury as 'King's Hedges Estate' and South Arbury and the Stretten Avenue district as 'Arbury Estate'. 

Incorrect. 

The Stretten Avenue district, a part of Arbury ward but not estate from 1976 onwards, and formerly part of the New Chesterton district, North Chesterton ward then Castle ward, was listed as 'St Luke's area, Arbury ward' in 1980s City Council newsletters, and the Arbury Adventure Playground, Arbury Community Centre, Arbury Town Park, North Arbury Chapel and so on continued to reside in 'King's Hedges Ward' - otherwise known as North Arbury. 

Arbitrary ward redefinitions do not rewrite districts. 

The inaccurate information is featured in the Victoria Histories and British History Online, the source given being a contribution to the Cambridgeshire Collection. It is easily disproven, simply by checking old maps, sales particulars, etc. Do be wary and check sources!

The Cambridgeshire Collection is wonderful, one of the very finest resources for local historians, we are heavily in its debt, but, with contributions from all us Joe and Josephine Bloggs out here, can contain a certain 'Wikipedia' element at times. First rule: all sources must be reviewed!

King's Hedges belonged to the Bensons of Chesterton Hall, as did the Manor Farm.

There were two small cottages at the farm, and two of Andy Brett's 'olde' family were born there, before moving to Manor Farm.

'I think it was a kind of satellite of Manor Farm,' says Andy. 'It was separate, but the Bensons' tenant farmers at Manor Farm probably also farmed the 58 acres of King's Hedges too.'

Good guesswork, Andy! An 1899 newspaper report reveals that George Ambrose, tenant of the Manor Farm, was also tenant at King's Hedges.

Back to Andy:

'I remember gazing down the original King's Hedges Road to the farm in the early 1980s and the cottages where my great grandfather and great aunt were born had long gone. The place appeared derelict and resembled a 1930s council house - it was a single house. The ground was all pitted and rutted and looked quite sad.'

The original road to King's Hedges - and the starting point of the mighty extension ripping across the Arbury. Vroom! Vroom! 

Where did the King's Hedges name come from?

Of course, it doesn't have any prehistoric links, unlike Arbury, and while the whole area is rich in Roman finds, it's much later than that too. Various stories exist and one of the farm's tenants believed that the farm was named because of the original hedge-bordered track which led to it from Chesterton and crossed what was known as the watercourse - a drainage ditch - officially known as the 'First Public Drain'. 

'They were originally known as the King's Ditches,' he said. 'As the King's Hedges farm track crossed one, that's how the plot got named.'

Could be. It was plainly part of local folklore at the original King's Hedges, and is fascinating to know.

We have found no official documentation regarding this, and none of the other Arbury Archive contributors who lived in the district when it was farmland, referred to any 'King's Ditches' - they referred to the 'watercourse'.

In medieval times there were, of course hedges in the area which were spotlighted as being the King's. Not common hedgerows, of course, which abounded in all rural districts, but something else entirely.

In an article which appeared in the Cambridge Review in 1897, Thomas McKenny Hughes, geologist, who led some excavations at Arbury Camp in the early 20th Century, pointed out that the original King's Hedges was in the area of the medieval King's warren or game preserve in the old Royal Manor of Chesterton, where hedges were grown to channel animals into an area where they could be chased and killed by hunters for 'sport'. 

Could this be the origin of the name? We think it's by far the most likely source. The warren would have been dubbed 'The King's Hedges' by locals as the King made his way from Cambridge Castle often to watch the 'sport' - and it was his warren.

We're indebted to Cambridge Street Names, a brilliant publication by Ronald Gray and Derek Stubbings for digging out the Cambridge Review article. Several of us Arbury Archivists knew Derek from the Chesterton Local History Group and remember him fondly.

The name 'Kinges Headge' was apparently applied to the original King's Hedges farm by its owners, the Brackyn family, first appearing in print in 1588. The warren may have gone by then, but knowledge of its location (and perhaps even vestiges of it) would perhaps have been motivators for the naming. The site is small and the name very specific.

From 'Cambridge Street Names, Their Origins & Associations', Ronald Gray and Derek Stubbings, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

So, as local landowners once decided to name a small farm after a royal hedged hunting warren, the Council then decided to name everything for miles around after that warren? The whole of North Arbury and parts of East Chesterton? Does not compute. And, speaking personally, we don't even like blood sports. The notion of the warren and what took place within does not make us feel any sense of homeliness or belonging. We'll stick with North Arbury and East Chesterton.

As an aside, in the 1980s, a popular local joke concerned William The Conqueror camping behind some hedges to preserve his privacy - 'That's how King's Hedges got its name!' we laughed.

It must be said, councillors played on the Arbury name to whip up unity at times. In 1983, when Cambridgeshire County Council proposed to close the Manor Community College on Arbury Road, Peter Cowell, originally an Arbury Ward city councillor and then 'King's Hedges' when the city council created the new ward out of the northern part of Arbury, said:

'Manor is a central focus in Arbury and its possible loss would do immeasurable damage to people of all ages in the community.'

A 'central focus in Arbury'? Yes, it was on Arbury Road, the boundary of North and South Arbury - very much in the centre of things.

Janet Jones, Arbury ward county councillor, was usually perfectly OK with dropping in 'King's Hedges' here and there in her comments to the press, but at the time of the Manor closure proposal, she said:

'... the people of Arbury will make this their campaign and fight to save their school.'

King's Hedges seemed to have slipped down the back of the sofa as far as both councillors were concerned at that point. We liked them both, they were committed workers for the district but, as one of our commenters pointed out in our article about the proposed Manor closure (here), both statements seem (perhaps) rather manipulative in retrospect.

The SACC campaign newsletter of 1983 - 'Save Arbury's Community College'. Councillors Jones and Cowell, chair and vice chair of the Manor governors, were heavily involved in the campaign, Councillor Cowell was on the Campaign Committee, and Councillor Jones served as a treasurer. The newsletter began: 'All over Arbury people are busy...' 

'All over Arbury...' Of course. King's Hedges was a little farm north of the railway tracks, or guided busway as it is today. In the late 1970s, it had been cut in two by the A14.

As a final point of interest, we mentioned earlier that the King's Hedges name sometimes appeared as 'King's Hedge' in the local press into the 19th Century and, as we know, the original name was first recorded in writing as 'Kinges Headge'. 

Perhaps the hunting warren back in the days of the Royal Manor of Chesterton was seen as being all one hedge? Something to ponder...

Anyway, below are the 1909 sales particulars for King's Hedges, here listed as 'King's Hedges Farm', although it was simply 'King's Hedges' on maps. 

The Ely Road is Milton Road. It was already known by the latter name by some people locally (this is how many old road namings and re-namings began) and was beginning to seep into print. More about that soon.

Field names at King's Hedges. Scroll back up to the map at the top of the article for locations.