More Arbury Snippets - From the Manor Farm Demolition in 1961 to Arbury Court 1960s Memories to Sharing Transport at St Laurence's, The Grove and King's Hedges Schools in the 70s to Saving The Manor Community College in the 80s, Plus Comments And Season's Greetings!

Thank you, thank you, thank you from the Arbury Archivists to all who visit the Blog here. We've had some wonderful comments and emails - and many, many visits.

We've got a bumper blog post for you here, covering an array of things - hence the long title! We hope you enjoy it. Please contact us via the comments facility or at arburyestate@btinternet.com if you'd like to add any of your recollections to the Arbury Archive or have any enquiries.

We were delighted to be contacted by the family of Mr Brian Downham, who lived at the Manor Farm. Mr Downham lived at No 2, Manor Farm Cottages, which stood in what is now the roadway by the junction of the Arbury and Campkin Roads. Traffic now passes over the spot where Mr Downham's semi-detached cottage once stood. Mr Downham made a photographic record of his old home's demolition, and you can see one of his photos above. And if you take a close look in the bottom left corner you will get a glimpse of Arbury Court. The houses in the background are Alex Wood Road homes - this was before the building of the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Andy met Mr Downham several times in the 1980s, in the early days of the Arbury Archivists, and says: 'I remember him fondly. He was a very kind man, and very helpful with the Archive.'

Mr Downham's father, William, farmed many acres amongst the smallholdings of Manor Farm, and is commemorated by Downham's Lane, which was named in the early 1980s. 

The northern side of Arbury Road in 1955 and 1961. The Downham family lived in the second of the two cottages. Mr Brian Downham photographed the demolition of his old home and the widening of the old Manor Farm Drive into Campkin Road. Locations are marked on the two photographs, including the future site of Arbury Town Park and Arbury Community Centre.

Returning to Arbury Court, we've had some brilliant comments on our main Court article:

As a child I used to catch the 130 red double decker bus on Alex Wood Road when there was a stop in between the Court and the Library and Alex Wood Road joined Arbury Road in front of the Snowcat. 

As a child, I used to have my hair cut by a man called Mr. Woods who had a barber shop a couple of doors down from the Snowcat. There was a launderette on the corner next to the Snowcat. 

There was McCulloch's TV shop run by Mrs. McCulloch and her son, Andrew. I remember a big fire they had there in the early seventies and later a Fire sale of smoke damaged electrical goods before it reopened. McCulloch's moved to a shop on the other side of the Court where the hardware and Post Office started off. The Post Office and hardware shop took over Palmers. 

I seem to vaguely remember a wool shop, dress shop and ladies hairdresser before a very popular greengrocers to the left of Palmers superette. As you turned the corner there was Farrow's butchers, that later became a cycle shop, the Paper shop, Fish and Chip shop, Markillie's bakery run by Mrs. Sherwood and her daughter Pamela Evans, The Post Office, Curtis's Pork Butchers, a Chemist, the underpass to Alex Wood Road and then finally a Dry Cleaners.

Everything people needed could be found on the Court. It was only when the big out of town supermarkets arrived like the Beehive and later Sainsburys and Tesco's that Arbury Court stopped being the only place people ever used.

And a sad moment which turned to happiness for a young local girl at the chip shop in Arbury Court in the early 1960s: 

We used to get 2 "pennorth" of chips after Brownies in the Church Hut, circa 1963/64. One week, the price had gone up to 3 pence and I was refused, having only 2 pence. I burst into tears and the other customers shamed the owner into letting me off. A belated thank you to those customers!

Many thanks to the sharers of these memories. They bring the Arbury of the past to life and we really appreciate them.

Both comments query the opening of Arbury Court Library in 1966, but that is the only information we have at the moment. We have a letter sent to the local press in 1995 from the original librarian-in-charge, Mr R J Tarrant, which reads:

I was appointed its first librarian-in-charge when it opened in January 1966, on a three day basis in conjunction with my other charge of Cherry Hinton Library, open on the alternate three days.

Arbury Court was an immediate success. I recall something in excess of 2,000 books being issued on its opening day and within twelve months or so it was operational on a full five-day week and had established itself as the busiest branch library (on book issues) within the city.

Mr Tarrant also wrote that he cherished the memories and friendship of 'Arbury folk' as some of the warmest of his career.

We have updated the main Arbury Court article to feature the details of Mr Tarrant's letter.

If anybody has any other details, we would love to hear.

Early days at Arbury Court, before the large supermarket building and library.

So, with Christmas and New Year beckoning, we thought it would be nice to look at a couple of successful community efforts in the Arbury district over two adjacent decades, the 1970s and 1980s. First, we go to the 1970s - to 1974, when local primary schools sought a mini bus, raised funds - and agreed to share one.

From the Cambridge Evening News, 17 December, 1974:

Key to success in schools' bus bid.

Today sees the end of a long struggle against sudden price rises, strikes and other delays for four Cambridge schools trying to buy a minibus.

It was delivered to the Grove School, Campkin Road, the day before yet another Ford price increase - eight per cent - was due to come into effect.

The headmasters of the Grove, St Andrew's, Chesterton, St Lawrence's and King's Hedges, Arbury, were there to see the bus come in. Each of the schools had raised more than £500 over two years.

The head of King's Hedges, Mr Murray White, said: 'We were originally expecting delivery in September, but Gilbert Rice's said there were delays because of strikes and lack of components.

'Several children at my school wrote to to the managing director of Ford's and within a week the bus was here.

'I'm rather pleased because we have just beaten the latest price rise, and we would have had to go fund raising again otherwise.

'I have the feeling it could have gone on indefinitely.'

The bus is to be used by the four schools for educational outings.

Do any readers remember Mr Murray White? He was also a central figure in helping to organise the Arbury 1980 project and is mentioned several times in the Arbury is where live! book.

Passing on to 1983, and the proposed closure of the Manor Community College presented a huge challenge to Arbury.

Local councillor Peter Cowell declared: 'The Manor is a central focus in Arbury and its possible loss would do immeasurable harm to people of all ages in the community.'

County councillor Janet Jones declared: 'The county council is trying to take the heart out of the community. But the people of Arbury will make this their campaign and fight to save their school.'

The Manor students were not idle. The pages of their newsletter, the Manor Banner, make fascinating reading. Below is the 16 November 1983 Banner Comment, headed by an illustration of sad children leaving the Manor for a bus to 'OTHER SCHOOLS', with a spooky vision of the Shire Hall as a bat-infested castle, and a vulture with a list of 'Proposals' sitting on a sign reading 'Dracula's' (crossed through) followed by 'Shire Hall', in the background. 

The 'spooky' features originated from the date the closure proposal was made public - 31 October, 1983 - Halloween. Feelings were running very high. As Mrs Lark of King's Hedges Road, an early campaigner for facilities such as the Arbury Town Park and Arbury Community Centre in Campkin Road, and the Arbury Adventure Playground on the Nuns Way playing field, had commented in the 1981 Arbury is where we live! book: 'The trouble is we found here on Arbury, everything you want you've got to fight for.'

Banner Comment

On Monday the 31st of October, 1983, a proposal was made by the Cambridgeshire County Council's working party to close our College. Initial reaction was stunned amazement. Why should anybody want to close the Manor? Our School, Our Community? When the news had sunk in we were all horrified and puzzled. The first thought was 'why pick on us?' - the Manor is the largest school in Cambridge of terms of land and buildings.

The School has done so much in its short life-time both for the Arbury Community and the pupils who have passed through it, that closing it would be like tearing Arbury's heart out. Taking it away would kill most of Arbury's Community spirit, a Community that is still fast growing.

If our College closes the working party proposes that our neighbour, the Chesterton Community College, would be "improved" to take about 240 children each year. It already takes over 200 so what would happen to all the others? Would they have to be ferried off to such schools as Impington and Netherhall? Or would the number of children allowed at Chesterton gradually be expanded until it became unbearably over-crowded? The City would be strangely lop-sided with one school on our side of the river and three on the other! We think no school should have to close.

Closure would mean disruption for many people, including the blind and visually impaired children. It has already been suggested that they would have many problems integrating with another school and we agree. They have settled in at Manor very happily and that would continue if our College is left alone.

We are not the only pupils who feel this way about our school. Feelings are running very high that it is just not practical to close Manor. A reliable statistician stated that if the College closes in 1987 a new one will have to be opened around 1992!

Our College with its excellent staff and facilities should be left in peace. We must all fight for the Manor and, what's more, WIN!

In December, the Manor was saved. The decision was taken that the site, once part of the Manor Farm's old Park meadow and today occupied by the North Cambridge Academy, was to be shared with the Cambridge College of Further Education. 

The Banner Comment from March 1984 is a very heartening read:

Schools are vigorous, seething places at the best of times. Add to that the following (and more) - water being swept off the tower block roof and sheeting past classroom windows, drills, cement mixers and intermittent hammering, clouds and settlings of dust, workmen on stilts and one half of the school cut off internally from the other. The new staffroom, a phoenix from the fire, is rising in the centre of the site.

Even so, throughout the rebuilding, fighting closure and anything else that can be thrown at us, day after day the varied, fascinating life of this place of talented people goes on without hesitation.

A visitor could see pupils in an unending variety of activity - dancing, doing a shopping survey, crouching over flaring bunsen burners, planing wood, stripping down an engine, crowding onto a coach for a trip, knocking out a complicated rhythm, on the muddy field learning to tackle, long silent lines sitting Mock GCE and CSE examinations in the big hall, writing poems, reading plays, discussing the causes of war, looking after Mr Woodcock's rats, silk-screening, drawing, painting, breaking through into another language, learning to fish and to play chess, dating fossils, charting market trends and economic growth, designing software, frowning over typewriters, cooking deliciously, playing in a full orchestra, practising the trombone, sewing a skirt, wiring a plug, drinking coffee from the machine, discussing football results and Boy George, drawing cartoons for the Banner, juggling with simultaneous equations, recognising symmetry, plotting a graph, laughing, screaming, running, chattering.

HOW COULD THEY HAVE CLOSED US?

Arbury community spirit had triumphed again.

STOP PRESS! The 2026 Arbury Carnival theme has been announced - Music Legends! So the district and the Arbury Town Park will be playing host to lots of wonderful celebrities, past and present, next year - local versions, of course. But then everybody's a star on the Arbury! 2026 is also the 49th anniversary of the Carnival. The half-century beckons in 2027!

To end on a festive note - to all our readers who celebrate Christmas, we wish you all you wish for yourselves, and exactly the same to all our readers who don't. We hope it's a happy, warm and peaceful time for everybody. And to everybody across 'the Arbury' and wider Cambridge - as we said earlier - thank you very much indeed for your support. We're ending on a nice festive scene below - Arbury with snow falling, and views of old landmarks at their locations inserted into the modern view (thank you, Google!). 

If you would like to read about an old Arbury Christmas at the Manor Farm in the early 20th Century, click here. If you fancy recollections of 1970s Christmases at Cunningham Close on South Arbury, click here.

We wonder what 2026 holds? Here, we'll be time-warping back to 1940s Arbury, looking into the true stories of stolen Arbury cabbages in the 1800s, and delving further into ancient Arbury.

See you next year! xx