One of the local history displays at the Arbury Court shopping centre. The origins of Arbury, of course, pre-date those of Chesterton by centuries. The display also mentions the Roman finds in the old Arbury Meadows/Manor Farm fields, including a Roman villa. More were found last year, including a plesiosaur bone - perhaps a prized curiosity of a Roman resident. The original Arbury Road connected the Milton (or Ely) Road to the Histon/Cambridge Road until the late 1970s, when the dead end King's Hedges Road, which led north of the guided busway to King's Hedges, a fifty-eight acre farm (what we term here the REAL King's Hedges), was redirected and expanded across the old Arbury/Harborough Meadows/Manor Farm and lopped off the end of Arbury Road as part of the A14 motorway development. Before Manor Farm, much of the land north of Arbury Road was known as the Arbury/Harborough Meadows, North Arbury/Harborough Furlong, West Arbury/Harborough Furlong, etc. A swathe of land sout...

Imagine gazing down Campkin Road from Arbury Road. On the left, you see Arbury Town Park, the Arbury Community Centre and Nicholson Way; on the right you behold the houses and the old farm cottage and a row of lovely old trees, lining the pavement edge... It's almost as hard to imagine as the old Manor Farm cottages, standing in the roadway at the junction of the Arbury and Campkin Roads, but the trees were a part of the original vision for North Arbury, a bequest from the old Manor Farm days... Unfortunately, workmen digging trenches and foundations for the new development inadvertently cut through the trees' tap roots. Nobody realised at first but, within a few years, the trees were plainly dying and had to come down. Some other Manor Farm trees survived - including three in the garden of the Manor Farmhouse, two of which still stand today. Colonel Charles Bennett brought the seeds back from abroad for the garden. Looking down a frozen Manor Farm Drive towards Arbury Road in ...

The original King's Hedges - and the original end of King's Hedges Road, disappearing into the original King's Hedges. How things have changed! Amazing what council planners' whims, plus extending a road and setting it on a course across Arbury can do, isn't it? VROOM! VROOM! Click on image for larger view - we've marked the train's location on our 1900 map. Local history researcher Jim, a good friend of the Arbury Blog, recently pointed us to a BFI film made by Edward Thorp of Leigh On Sea, who had a hobby of filming rail routes at weekends, accompanied by his wife, Edna, and their dog, Mickey. On one occasion, Mr Thorp recorded the shortly-to-close Cambridge to St Ives route. Much treasure there for Cambridge historians, including a sweep by King's Hedges. Yes, the original King's Hedges, the original fifty eight acre farm, north of the rail tracks (now guided busway) and now split in two by the motorway. Council plans were already in hand to exten...

Lads from the Manor Boys' School in 1960. D. Claton, M. Farrow, R. Mitchell, C. Peck, I. Skeels, R. Potter and G. Paine are present. Do any readers remember who is who? School's back in - Manor School/Community College on Arbury Road that is (now North Cambridge Academy). Here is the second part of our series on Manor Memories - Part 1 is here . Pupils' foreign holiday, 1960: the first Manor girls to go on a joint foreign holiday with Manor boys: G. Anderson, J. Barnes, C. Blackwell, H. Brown, S. Budd, L. Carter, A. Clarke, L. Doggett, C. Doughty, P. Drake, S. Hardy, E. Harradine, B. Kaspar, D. Miller, J. Parker, L. Phillips, J. Reeves, J. Spencer, J. Symonds, with headmistress Mrs Firman. Note the Manor Schools' caretaker's house can be seen in the background, and the trees of the old Manor Farm orchard. October 1960, and here is a view of the Manor Boys' and Girls' schools from the car park at the Snow Cat public house (now the Cambridge Gurdwara). A view ...

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...