The Kingsway Flats and a Rubik's Cube. What's the link? Read on! A little post to say hello, share some more Arbury history, answer some queries and apologise for our slowness in updates. Andy has been in hospital but he's out now, and working on our Grovebury Ladies and Arbury in wartime articles. Welcome back, Andy!  We're also working on our 'big hug' to Arbury School article, as it celebrates 70 years. Meanwhile, we've had quite a few queries which we've answered personally - via email - or on here - via the comments section. So, this little post will cover a bit of Rubikian "fun" (!) at the Kingsway in 1982, and a few queries we'd like to highlight. So, here we go! Anonymous asks: When did Tesco arrive in Campkin Road? I remember when there was a Stop's newsagent in both North and South Arbury, one in Campkin Road, one in Carlton Way. Ah yes, 'Stopsiz' as we pronounced it! Nice pic below of the Campkin Road shops from the A...

The Rubik's Cube was Lord of the Manor in 1981. I'm adapting the 1986 song  Snooker Loopy  for the blog post title here, and Rubik's Loopy  was certainly very descriptive of the Manor, the forerunner of the North Cambridge Academy, in 1981. The Rubik's Cube was quite an amazing thing in those days. It penetrated the Iron Curtain and made its way into the Western World - and that was really something! It was in January/February 1980 that Erno Rubik demonstrated his invention at toy trade fairs in London, Paris, Nuremberg and New York. This was the original 'Buvos Kocka' - 'Magic Cube'. The first test batches of the Magic Cube had been released in its native Hungary just before Christmas 1977, and there had been a small seepage across Hungarian borders in 1978, 1979 and early 1980, including a few into the UK. But the Magic Cube existed in only very small numbers and there were nowhere near enough to break the major pop culture barrier in the UK or the re...

With the summer holidays beginning, what could you do as an Arbury child in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s? Well, the Arbury Adventure Playground, off Wagstaff Close on the Nun's Way playing field, was a bit of a wow. And you could think yourself lucky you lived in Arbury - it was the only Cambridge City housing estate to have an adventure playground - and all provided by local residents' fund raising and campaigning and council grants to keep it going! Graham Odd, of the Cambridge Evening News , popped in on 23 July, 1979: It is the start of an intensive six-week season at the Arbury Adventure Playground. Between 150 and 300 children will daily pour into the 1.25 acre enclosure off Wagstaff Close. The sound of a bell rose above the bleating of goats and the crowing of cockerels in North Arbury this morning, and a crowd of children gathered to plan their summer adventures. In itself, the idea of an adventure playground is no longer startling. They are dotted all over the country a...

Roll out the pillar box! 'New Post Office for Arbury Estate', 'Cambridge Evening News', September, 1971. Thanks to Paul who recently sent us some pics of the sadly departed North Arbury Post Office, in Cameron Road. The North Arbury Post Office and Stores opened in September, 1971 - in a building which was intended to be temporary. It was there for around three decades! By 1981, the Stores were part of the Spar chain (remember the slogan, 'So near, so Spar'?) and also supplying hairdressing services for North Arbury! The North Arbury Stores and Post Office, Cameron Road, in the 1990s. Note the high tec 'Phonecards' phone box to the right! The first phone card boxes had arrived in the 1980s. The National Lottery - a 1990s innovation - had also arrived by the time this photograph was taken. Thanks again to Paul. Photographs like these are just what we're looking for - they help the Archive tremendously. We'll trawl the 'CEN' archive for mor...

From the Cambridge Citizens' Guide, 'Cambridge Evening News', January 1980. Bus routes in the city way back then. The old Cambridge and St Ives Branch railway line, which ran between North Arbury to the south, and Impington Park, the original King's Hedges acres and Rectory/Trinity Farm to the north, had been closed to passenger trains in the Beeching era of the late 1960s. Today, of course, it is the Guided Busway. It may surprise some that buses on the tracks were being mooted by local ecologists as far back as 1981... The Arbury area in 1900, with the Cambridge & St Ives Branch railway line - now the guided busway. 'Cambridge Evening News', 15/5/1981: Cambridge ecologists are planning a demonstration to prove that a bus which can run on railway lines is the solution to transport problems in 15 local villages. The aim is to borrow the prototype bus in early July, and run it from Cambridge's city centre to Huntingdon - and use British Rail's tracks ...

The excellent 'Arbury 1980' primary schools project led to one pupil from King's Hedges School writing: We have reasons to be proud to live in Arbury with such a rich history. People have lived here for thousands of years. The project swept pupils back to the iron age Arbury Camp, through the Roman invasion, and on through the history of the Arbury farms, Hall and Manor, the building of the estate, and life in 1980 for the pupils of the (then) present day. In 1981, the book Arbury Is Where We Live! was published and in 1983 one of the great powers behind the project, Sallie Purkis of Homerton College, schools officer of the Oral History Society and the general editor of the Longman Books series,  Into The Past ,   detailed the project in History Today magazine. It was a real Red Letter Day for the original Arbury Estate. Sallie believed in Arbury as a place on the map, and was a great encouragement to me when I began to delve into my family's pre-estate Arbury history...

The tremendous community spirit of Arbury was very much in evidence in 1983 as residents gathered to save their senior school, adult education and youth centre, the Manor Community College... In October 1983, a Cambridgeshire County Council working party recommended closing the Manor Community College in 1987. Coverage from the 'Cambridge Evening News'. A very rare item - the first newsletter of SACC - Save Arbury's Community College, 1983. Some of the (huge amount of) protest letters featured in the 'Cambridge Evening News'. To quote one woman from Campkin Road:  Our main concern is to keep this school going, and like the Prime Minister we can also say "There will be no U turns" but a fight straight away to keep this part of Arbury alive. '... the people of Arbury will make this their campaign and fight to save their school,' said Councillor Janet Jones, chair of the Manor governors.  Vice chair of the governors, Councillor Peter Cowell, said: ...

Photo captioned 'Flooding at North Arbury, 1970'. The children are having fun! Well, here's North Arbury in flood in 1970! We'll have more on this soon. Note the dear old Jenny Wren on the left - and we've got more on that too! Why 'Jenny Wren'? We'll have the details. South Arbury had the Carlton and the Snowcat public houses, which opened within a couple of weeks of each other in 1959, but for years North Arbury had only the Jenny. Until 1974 - in May the  Cambridge Evening News reported:  Residents of the North Arbury estate did not need a heat wave to remind them of their need for another pub and the opening of The Ship will meet with eager response. Campaigners for real  ale will be pleased to find that Wells of Bedford are making this their fourth Cambridge pub,  providing beer connoisseurs with their prize-winning bitter as well as a wide range of other beers, wines and spirits in spacious new premises... The opening of the Ship in Northfield Aven...

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 ...