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ARBURY Road... The Only Road Name With Prehistoric Connections In Cambridge City...

From ' Cambridge Street Names -Their Origins And Associations' by Ronald Gray and Derek Stubbings, 2010:  The only street-name in Cambridge that has connections with prehistoric times is ARBURY Road. The name is spelled Herburg, Ertburg and similar in thirteenth-century documents, and means earthwork. It used to be thought that Arbury Camp, at the north end of the road, was a fort like the one at Wandlebury or the War Ditches at LIME KILN Hill, south of the reservoir (now destroyed) but it is today regarded as an undefended site. A low circular bank and ditch about 100 metres in diameter, it was almost certainly an iron age enclosure for keeping animals safe from wolves and robbers. (See Alison Taylor: 'Prehistoric Cambridgeshire', 1977, and Sallie Purkis, 'Arbury Is Where We Live!', EARO, The Resource Centre, Back Hill, Ely, 1981.)  The book is highly recommended for anybody interested in Cambridge history. Times change, and modern archaeological digs have ...

Ask Arbury: "King's Hedges Woods"

The Arbury district, circa 1904. Various farm and field names have been inserted, including the 58 acre King's Hedges. Although King's Hedges was a farm, it always appears simply as 'King's Hedges' on maps. While Arbury Camp Farm became a poultry farm and an orchard for Chivers of Histon, King's Hedges housed some much older trees, as did the neighbouring Impington Park, which was an entirely separate property. Lovely email to the Arbury Cambridge  site today. Thanks to the sender: When I was a kid in the 50's and 60's, we often used to play in Kings Hedges woods. It was a lot of fun. I came on this site to try and find out why the woods were just done away with, which is a shame. There used to be cuckoo's there and numerous wildlife. How destructive to just get rid of it Valuable oak, elm and ash trees (timber) were recorded on the sales particulars for the historic King's Hedges acres in the 1909 sales particulars for the 58 acre farm. They are...

Arbury Through Time...

The Kingsway Flats in South Arbury, built in the mid-1960s, with their hills and silver birches. The hills were a popular destination for bored children in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s - along with the 'The Hump', 'The Seats' and 'The Block'. The Arbury/Harborough Meadows, furlongs and Corner, north of Arbury Road. 'Harborough' was a variation on the Arbury name.  'Cambridge News', 1969: a Roman villa with underfloor heating (a 'hypercaust') has been discovered in the Arbury Meadows north of Arbury Road, soon to be followed by iron age finds. The villa was on the site of Northfield Avenue and King's Hedges School - which is in the city's most historic Arbury area, not King's Hedges, a small farm north of the guided busway. Arbury, circa 1900. Note Arbury Camp and the Manor Farm field names. King's Hedges was a fifty eight acre farm, north of the railway line (guided busway) and King's Hedges Road, redirected and expanded...