Ask Arbury: Community Activism in North and South Arbury

Arbury Is Where We Live! - 1981: Mrs Lark and many others campaigned for Arbury community facilities.

An interesting question from Badger: Why was community activism more prevalent on North Arbury than South?

Answer: the estate was united as Arbury - far more relevant than 'North Cambridge' (historic Cambridge is a distant city centre) or the misplaced, council planners' whim and motorway driven 'King's Hedges' - and gained a sense of local history very quickly. And South Arbury did participate. The united Arbury estate gained the Nun's Way Field, Arbury Adventure Playground, Arbury Community Centre and Arbury Town Park. North Arbury also begat the Arbury Carnival.

The North Arbury name is historically correct - much, if not most, Arbury history lays north of Arbury Road (though it is important to remember the many Roman finds in South Arbury) - and the North Arbury community, in unison with its South Arbury counterpart, campaigned for and organised some of our best community facilities and functions. The 'Arbury' name, North or South, is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

The Arbury Adventure Playground greets the Arbury goat in 1979.

The Arbury Community Centre in Campkin Road.

Much Arbury history lays north of Arbury Road - and it is not King's Hedges in any meaningful or historic sense. Find King's Hedges on this 1900 map.

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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

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 Down Your Street 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. 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 contributed to t

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 no

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