Rebecca Downham, step-daughter of Brian Downham, who was born at the Manor Farm in 1943 and lived there until its demolition, got in touch with us just before Christmas last year.
It was a marvellous surprise for Andy, who had interviewed Brian several times in the very early days of the Arbury Archive.
'I was very nervous about starting the Archive,' he says. 'It was a big undertaking, but Sallie Purkis was very encouraging. She had been a great power behind the 'Arbury 1980' project and the 1981 book, Arbury is where we live!, knew a tremendous amount about the district as a teacher, historian and author, and she was very keen for an Arbury Archive to be established. She was very kind.
A relative of Brian had contributed to the Arbury 1980 project and the 1981 Arbury is where we live! book and Andy was eager to hear Brian's memories.
Andy recalls: 'When I first went to interview Brian, I was very uncertain as I was only eighteen and the Archive was just beginning. 'Hello, Mr Downham!' I said, as he opened the front door. Mr Downham smiled at me: "Come in! Call me Brian!"
'Within a few minutes we were talking like old friends. I remember him very fondly, a very kind man, who knew rural Arbury very well and was happy to share his memories.'
Brian lent Andy many photographs of rural Arbury, which Andy took to the Cambridgeshire Collection for copying. Rebecca has been through Brian's photo albums and provided other photos we have never seen before!
This article features transcript extracts from two of the interviews Andy had with Brian, in the autumn of 1983 and the summer of 1984.
'Of course, Arbury Road ran from Milton Road to Histon Road until a few years back.
'If you turned and looked down Arbury Road towards Chesterton, you saw houses further on in Arbury Road, and Leys Avenue and all that were already up.
'Dad farmed in quite a big way. He had the big Arbury and Arbury Field where the new King's Hedges Road is. That's a funny name for it because that wasn't King's Hedges. That was the last big Arbury Meadow at Manor Farm, then the watercourse ran across, and west of that was Arbury Camp Farm. The watercourse at that place was a boundary between the two farms. It's been piped now.
'King's Hedges School isn't in King's Hedges, but the Council seems to love that name for some reason - I don't know why - me and Dad used to laugh about it. "They've got a bee in their bonnet about that name," that's what Dad said.
'People used to love walking right through Arbury - along the Manor Farm drive from Arbury Road, and sometimes across the rail tracks, and up King's Hedges. There were lots of trees round one side there, and more at Impington Park just across the Roman road, and we kids used to love playing there.'
Andy had brought some old maps of Arbury with him, and Brian was interested to place various locations his father had farmed.
'Yes, Dad farmed the Arbury fields - they came right out towards Campkin Road - and he farmed the field up at the North Arbury Chapel and land at Trinity Farm and more than that over the years. He employed men as labourers and cow hands and all that. He had a real head for it all, My grandad lived at Trinity Farm. Farming was in the family.
'Of course, nobody owned land around the district. It was either Council or College land, all rented.
'Dad cared about the men and the animals. He always made sure the regular men and the casual workers we had at busy times of year were paid on time, and looked after the animals. I was brought up in the farming way.
1959 - a cow in the river at Stourbridge Common caused problems for the local fire brigade in 1959. Brian recalled it: 'The cow was all right, but the men had a real struggle to get her out!'
'There were still places round about that just had gas lighting. They put electricity in our house. We got a telly and watched Sunday Night at the London Palladium!
'Arbury, of course, is very old, very old indeed - iron age and Roman, but we didn't know a lot about about that. We knew a bit, like the Roman road and Arbury Camp Farm, but not a lot. We weren't really scholars, there's no time when you're farming, but it was all very interesting to read about in the book'. [Arbury is where we live!]
'It amazes me that Arbury's older than Chesterton. Well, it's prehistoric! And the Romans and all that followed, right up through the years to our little house and now North Arbury.
'It's strange to think of all those years and all the different people and different ways of life.'
Brian was a member of the Cambridge Philatelic Society, and collected many different stamps covering a wide range of interests. One particular interest, prompted by the historic Arbury area, led him to collect stamps covering many features of farming life and equipment, from Neolithic times to the modern day.
I'm sure Brian would be fascinated by modern DNA findings from sites like Oakington!
'We knew change was on the way for a long time. People needed houses, and the council had started on St Kilda Avenue before the war, before I was born.
'You could see how the houses had crept closer and closer to the Arbury meadows over the years, up Arbury Road and Leys Road and that, and in the early fifties things changed really fast.
'The fields opposite were suddenly full of noise and diggers and men as South Arbury went up. Alex Wood Road went in and Essex Close and round there, and Carlton Way and all round about it - and Arbury School opened. That was 1956. It seemed funny having a school named after Arbury. No Kingsway Flats. They built a lot of South Arbury then did infilling, bits they'd left empty for builders' huts and to store equipment, they built on them.
'It all felt very sudden to me, and I couldn't believe how fast it all was. Of course, we knew it was going to happen through the council and the paper, but I couldn't really take it in till they actually got started. I couldn't imagine the view changing until it did.
'And they started talking about building in the north Arbury fields, that was Manor Farm, our bit, quite quickly. It was years before they got started, but it was in the wind for a long time.
'Colonel Bennett at the big old farmhouse retired and moved, to Histon, if I remember rightly. And nobody lived in that house again.
'We'd had problems with children playing on the farm and doing damage from Chesterton, Ramsden Square and all that, and even a few out from Histon and Impington for years. With South Arbury getting going, new people moving in, this got a lot worse. We took to closing the farm gate at night, but that didn't stop it of course!
'The children made a terrible racket running around in the Manor Farmhouse in the evenings, and it wasn't good. It sounded like the house was haunted at times because it was empty and the shouting and yelling echoed. I sympathised a bit. A big old house like that - it was very tempting to children!
'Some of the other smallholders were very upset by damage that was done. It could be bad I must say, things were smashed, broken into and even set fire to at times, and we had a few problems ourselves. But I liked the kids I spoke to. They weren't bad kids, just bored and full of energy and looking for fun and a bit of adventure! The trouble was, they had no idea of farming and what was important in farming. Some of the children offered to help us and learned a bit about farming life.
'They were used to things just being in shops on the shelves, not how they got there! I remember telling a little girl she musn't walk between two cows standing close together because they might move together and crush her. It felt like a big responsibility having all these children about. We worried.
'They put up the first bit of Arbury Court, and Dad said: 'We're not moving to the town - the town's moving to us!'
'It always seem funny now, when I look at the junction of the Arbury and Campkin Roads and see lorries and cars and all sorts like that passing over the site of our house, where we'd have our breakfast, and chat and laugh and watch the telly. Good times and bad times... It seems even funnier when I look up to where our bedrooms were and there's just thin air! I used to relax and eat where vehicles now pass over, and sleep in what's now thin air. That gives me a funny feeling!
Dear Andy,
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for this article! It’s very nice to read about the Manor farm and Brian’s farm life! We miss him very much.
Chawee
I enjoyed writing the article and remembering Brian. Thanks again to you and Rebecca for the photographs. They are brilliant!
DeleteBest wishes,
Andy and the Arbury Archivists