In 1981, the Arbury is Where We Live! book revealed the story of the 1950s South Arbury self-build houses to the community: Mrs Heath talked about the building of Essex Close: I'm going to take you back to the beginning of 1950. One evening my husband was looking at the 'Cambridge Daily News' and he saw an announcement in it to say there was going to be a meeting for anyone who was interested with a view for people who were unskilled to get together to build their own houses. My husband thought what a good idea so he and his brother went along and when they came home they were so excited to tell us they had become registered members of what was to be known as the Cambridge Self-build Society. Thirteen men from all walks of life - someone who worked for the Local Authority, someone who worked in a shop, my husband who was a Post Office engineer - in fact from everywhere. There were three skilled men, two were plumbers and knew about building and an electrician. They went to...

The Manor School on Arbury Road was one of the main focuses of life for North and South Arbury for decades. With its evening classes and youth centre, and various community activities - like the annual Christmas party for the elderly and the annual school play in the 1980s ( Annie Get Your Gun and Dracula Spectacular spring to mind) - the Manor opened as separate boys' and girls' schools in 1959 (the girls had to share the boys' buildings at first as their own were still under construction). The school later became co-ed.      An aerial view of t he Manor Schools - Boys' and Girls', around 1960, with a section of Arbury Road and Arbury Court. Note Arbury Court was yet to gain its library and large supermarket building, and Campkin Road was still the Manor Farm Drive. The lay of the land, complete with field names, at the Manor Farm in 1900. The Park Meadow contains the Manor School/Community College and North Cambridge Academy sites. The Manor Farm was established...

Our latest Arbury 'bits and bobs' feature - thanks to all readers for contributing! 'Cambridge Daily News', 1954: the Arbury Road housing estate is under construction... Our picture shows part of the latest development at the Arbury Road housing estate. Private houses and those built for the corporation are going up in three stages and at present work is being carried out on the first and second stages. Over 1,200 houses are to be built which are at present costing between £1,200 and £1,500 each. Lighting has been installed on the Arbury Road and other roads have been built with sewers ready to be connected as soon as the houses are erected. Lighting on these roads will be installed when the houses are ready. It looks as though it might be Brimley Road on South Arbury to us. Anybody know for sure? Here's a lovely aerial view of the Manor Schools, Arbury Road, Alex Wood Road, the Manor Farm Drive and Arbury Court around 1960. Note that the future site of Budgen's...

A fascinating mix of old and new in this view of the Manor School for Boys, Arbury Road, in 1959. Some Manor Farm buildings are still in existence, and will be until 1960. The Manor was built using the highly modern 'intergrid' system, which was later reviled by some. Many years later, Principal Ben Slade described it as looking like a 'grim 1960s car park'. Well, to be honest, nobody could call the original Chesterton Community College building of 1935 an architectural show piece (the view down Bateson Road hardly reveals an aesthetically pleasing structure), and as one Arbury Archivist said at the time of Mr Slade's comment: 'With headmasters like that, who needs enemies?' Mr Slade was, however, campaigning for improvements to the school. During his reign it became an 'academy' of the performing arts. Some locals expected to find pupils dancing on the tops of cars in legwarmers in Arbury Road, like the kids from Fame , but this never came to pass. ...

We have received quite a number of enquiries about the original Arbury Estate since we started this blog, and will attempt to answer them weekly. Sorry for any delays! This week, Alison has asked about Budgens in Arbury Court, South Arbury: It looks a much newer building than the main bit. When did the Court first get a supermarket? Thanks for that, Alison. That predates our memories, which only go back to around 1970, but we have the original full transcripts from the Arbury 1980 project here, including what was not published, and something a contributor recalled way back then sheds light on the subject: 'Arbury Court... it was much smaller  and you could take your cars right up to it where Bishops [Budgens] is now. When Bishops started it was in what is now Butchers, the hardware shop. It was called Palmers.'

So, this is Campkin Road, with the Arbury Community Centre, Arbury Town Park, Grove School and part of the North Cambridge Academy. I have marked in the field names from Manor Farm days. The old farm 'Drive', of course, became Campkin Road. The yellow star marks the site of the Manor Farmhouse. This was, as you can see below, a very large house - and was often referred to by locals as the 'manor house'.  After the farm was bought by Cambridgeshire County Council in 1909, the house was let to the Medlow family, and, after they left, became the residence of two County Land Agents in succession. There were also four semi-detached cottages at the farm, plus the foreman/horse keeper's house. A detached cottage was added in the 1920s. As mentioned before on this blog, the boundary of the farmhouse garden has been 'immortalised' in the old Manor School/North Cambridge Academy boundary, which was erected around it.  Compare the 1950s photograph below with the one ab...

  Arbury past... Taking you back to the days before North Arbury Estate , here's a view of North Cambridge Academy, Campkin Road and Arbury Town Park long before they existed. Find out what was there then - and what's there now. Following the Manor Farm 'Drive' to the left would bring you to Arbury Road, to the right to the future site of the Grove School. The fields at Manor Farm had names - 'Arbury', 'Arbury Field', 'Boys' Pit', etc. The Manor School/North Cambridge Academy site is part of the old 'Park' meadow. The circular shape of the old farmhouse garden was preserved in the Manor School's boundary fence, and two old garden trees, planted by Colonel Charles Bennett, a former County Land Agent and tenant of the house, remain. Copies of most of the prints featured on this blog are available to buy at the Cambridgeshire Collection, Cambridge Central Library. Many other prints and resources are also available there.