Arbury Artefacts - Part One

Imagine the thrill of being on an archaeological dig at Arbury Camp.

Well, we would have loved it.

Just like Tony of Time Team!

But we didn't do any of that and now Orchard Park is there we can't. However, we can dig up artefacts from the original Arbury Estate and the Hall, Manor and Arbury Camp farms which predated it.

Take a look at the exercise book at the top of this post and below. It's from the Manor School, 1978.

The owner has asked that we blot out her name ('Don't you DARE show it!' she said), but it's still a real time capsule. Here was a John Travolta fan, a Fonzie (1950s retro style icon from Happy Days) fan, a Liverpool FC fan.

And also somebody experiencing a couple of 'crushes' on local lads.

Those were the days. No World Wide Web, no mobile phones, no home computing. In fact, no school computing either.

Yep, for the vast majority of us computers were things which Dr Who tackled (all flashing lights and spinning spools) and also pesky irritants that made mistakes on our utility bills.

Graffiti on exercise books was something most teachers turned a blind eye to then. Free expression, eh?! Well, up to a point.

We're even told kids did it at Chesterton School.

And here's a bus table from 1987. Cambus - it's much less fuss, as the slogan went.

Final destination or starting point King's Hedges Road, North Arbury, and running to Cherry Hinton or Addenbrookes Hospital.

Earlier in the 1980s, the Addenbrookes destination was marked 'New Hospital' on timetables and bus fronts - the original ('Old') Addenbrooke's was in Trumpington Street and the new one was still... well... quite new!

This bus (one of the dear old Eastern Counties models) is just about to leave Carlton Way - entrance to the original South Arbury - for the New Hospital in the early 1980s.

If you enjoy our Arbury digs - or have some Arbury artefacts you'd like to share, either from the original estate or the Hall, Manor or Arbury Camp farms, please get in touch via the comments.

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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

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