Arbury Carnival 2024 - We Love The '80s & '90s

The wonderful Arbury Carnival this year takes as its theme the 1980s and 1990s. The fabulous procession will be making its way across the old Arbury Meadows from Minerva Way to the Arbury Town Park, where there will be many attractions to make a great day.

That fabulous mythical creature the kracken was a benevolent presence at last year's Carnival, as it romped across the historic Arbury Meadows from Minerva Way to the Arbury Town Park.

As usual, the Carnival is organised by volunteers - for the community by the community - and, as usual, we say a great big thank you to all those involved.

The '80s and '90s... well, decades of huge change and colourful fashions.

We still remember the Rubik's Cube and the shell suits and the brick sized mobile phones (available in the UK from 1985 onwards) and the invention of the World Wide Web and the deely boppers and the Kids From Fame and the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the launch of the Space Shuttle and the Power Dressing and the neon fashions and the house music and the synth pop and the Brit pop...

Can't wait to see the procession!

Modern Arbury - a vibrant scene from a recent Carnival. People have lived in the Arbury district for over 2000 years and the name originates from the prehistoric earthwork, which became the name of the road and the meadows north of the road.

Arbury Town Park is situated on the corner of Campkin Road and Arbury Road and was once part of the historic Arbury Meadows, land north of the original Arbury Road, adjacent to the prehistoric Arbury earthwork at Orchard Park (originally Arbury Park and, before that, Arbury Camp Farm). Many historic finds have been found in the Arbury Meadows, including a Roman villa and Iron Age remains.

The whole Carnival depends on volunteers, and if you would like to help, please email general@arburycarnival.org.

The Arbury Carnival website is here.

Historic Arbury... spot Arbury Court, Arbury Camp, the Guided Busway site and the Arbury Town Park, site of the Arbury Carnival, on our historic 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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