Two of my South Arbury childhood joys - the hump and the hills. The hump, where we kicked up dust and rode our Chopper bikes, is sadly no more. Something I always tried to avoid on rainy Sundays way back then was listening to the Osmonds with cousin Sharon. Cousin Sharon had an old record player - a 1960s portable which had belonged to her mother - and she loved listening to records in her bedroom in Rutland Close. I have strong memories of her rain spattered window and the view of the Kingsway and lead grey sky beyond. Sharon was so overflowing with enthusiasm for Donny Osmond I felt quite unwell. This fixation was followed by another with the Bay City Rollers, then David Soul, and then John Travolta. None of them appealed to me.  We always listened to the charts at teatime on the radio. I think that only the Top 20 was broadcast then, but the pop scene was well established by the early 1970s. We even bought a magazine of current chart songs lyrics. I think this was published because,

Be a hero for the Arbury Carnival... The emails and phone line here were red hot last Wednesday night as we mounted a whip-round to support the Arbury Carnival.  The Carnival is so special. It is a day for the whole of modern Arbury to get together, to have fun and be friends and neighbours, and for those 'outside' of Arbury (and the historic Arbury district boundaries are NOT a matter of inaccurately named electoral wards and a modern highway) it's also a time to join in, have fun, be friends and neighbours and so on. Be a hero - duck in and help! The Arbury name is very special indeed. Arbury Road is the only road name in Cambridge with prehistoric links, and the ancient human habitation and its surrounding Harborough (a variation of the Arbury name) or Arbury Meadows and Arbury Fields are local history writ plain. The Arbury Meadows - north of Arbury Road, with the North Arbury Furlong, West Arbury Corner and Arbury Corner. The name is derived from the prehistoric earthw

Pondering on Arbury... things that make us go hmm... on Arbury we do sit and ponder... On the Arbury Estate, we archivists often think that the older we get, the more nonsensical life becomes. We decided we'd share a few of the things we find distinctly odd - and, sometimes, downright annoying... It's odd that the Council takes our council tax from us, decade after decade, without once uttering 'PROVE YOU ARE WHO YOU SAY YOU ARE!', but as soon as somebody is ill and needs help paying, various forms of ID are needed... a passport? Chance would be a fine thing! A recent bank statement? But I was pressed to go paperless to save the planet - and you've been receiving payments from my bank account for over thirty years anyway - without question! My birth certificate? Yes, I have it - somewhere! But WHERE?! Shall I fork out for a new one? These sort of nitpicking things can contribute greatly to stress at times of illness, as one of our Arbury Archivists is discovering. H

The Arbury Carnival mapped in historical context - the event takes place just a couple of fields away from the site of the ancient human settlement that gives the district its name, in the old Arbury/Harborough Meadows. Harborough was a variation on the Arbury name, and the names were interchangeable - derived from the ancient earthwork. A newspaper article from 1839 refers to 'Arbury Meadows' and t he 'Harborough' form was used for the 1840 Chesterton Enclosures map . An 1829 newspaper advertisement reveals the presence of a property near the Cambridge/Histon Road called 'Arbury Hedges'. Note Arbury Road connects Histon Road with Milton Road. This was so until the late 1970s, when an extension of the formerly dead-end King's Hedges Road redirected it across the Arbury Meadows and lopped off the original end of Arbury Road. The Arbury area after the 1840 Enclosures, which brought into existence the Hall and Manor Farms. We have marked on the Manor Farm field

So, having missed out on the archaeological digs at Arbury Camp, we're busy digging up artefacts from the Arbury Estate and the three Arbury farms of yore  - Arbury Camp, Hall, and Manor. For our new selection, we begin with the religious text above, which used to hang in Mrs Amelia Brett's bedroom at the Manor Farm on Arbury 'Meadow' Road. The text was apparently obtained from a seed catalogue, about 120 years ago and framed between glass and board with a paper tape called 'passe partout'. If you applied water to this, it stuck like crazy, and came in a range of colours and finishes to give an attractive framed effect in the days before easily affordable mass-produced frames. Amelia's place of religious worship was the Wesley Chapel, in High Street, Chesterton, and she was also a member of the Mothers' Union at the village's St Andrew's Church, where she was laid to rest in 1924. We have several pages of complete transcripts of conversations of