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...

The Arbury Adventure Playground on the Nuns Way playing field in North Arbury was a fixture for over twenty-five years. It made its debut in 1973. One of the featured newspaper articles in this post details progress towards its creation - and is something of a hymn of praise to the original Arbury community spirit. Hello, and welcome to our latest round-up of past newspaper articles about Arbury, which was a hive of community action in its early years. The three articles we include here are shining examples of the community spirit of  'The Arbury', with an adventure playground in the offing, a social club for lonely elderly people already established, and a county councillor happy to chop down four foot high weeds... But first... A Word About Arbury...  Where Is Arbury, What Is It? Readers familiar with historic Arbury as opposed to 'Arbury Ward' and 'King's Hedges Ward' (a name imported into the Arbury Meadows from elsewhere) can skip this. But, for newcome...

Well, another interesting selection of Arbury emails this week, covering several different eras and topics... My friend is partially sighted and when the covid pandemic started he followed all the rules. When Mr Hancock and Mr Whitty said people could go out for a walk to exercise he did. He was in Arbury Road near the library and there was not many people about because of Lockdown. He heard a vehicle engine just behind him going slow and he thought it was a street sweeper or something and took no notice. Then it started blasting out an ambulance siren, and it was an ambulance moving slow. My friend nearly dropped his stick and he said it was a good job he didn't have a weak heart because he was really shook up. He thought the ambulance was going off on an emergency but it just cruised past him slowly and went on up Arbury Road. To this day he doesn't know why the driver did that because they're not supposed to scare people half to death. Sorry to hear this. These have been...

This edition of 'Arbury Artefacts' is a bit different as we're focusing on one small plot in the Arbury landscape - the Park Meadow at Manor Farm. This, of course, later became the site of the Manor School/Community College and is now the site of North Cambridge Academy. Join us as we flip from Manor Farm to Manor School for some fascinating findings from the old days, and a tie with knots in. First off is the cover of a 1983 Manor Banner, newsletter of the Manor Community College on Arbury Road. The school was preparing for its annual play, and 1983's was Dracula Spectacular. Geography teacher Ken Harker wrote a very witty piece to publicise the preparations. The play itself was spiced with local references. A thunderous knocking at the front door of Dracula's Castle brought forth Dracula's resigned comment: 'Not Janet Jones with more leaflets?' Ms Jones was then the Cambridgeshire County Councillor for the original Arbury electoral ward, which covered ...

The Cambridge and St Ives Branch railway line is now the Guided Busway. Where was King's Hedges historically? How did the name come about? Why is the majority of King's Hedges Road no more historic than late 1970s - and nothing to do with the course of the original road? What have council planners of the 1960s and 1970s and the needs of motorists got to do with the King's Hedges presence in the historic Arbury district? All will be revealed... We're going to leave Arbury briefly and go to King's Hedges. No, not King's Hedges Ward/King's Hedges Estate (AKA North Arbury) - that area is, in reality, one of the most Arbury of Arbury areas in Cambridge historically, but the REAL King's Hedges. North of the Guided Busway. You see, the land north of Arbury Road is the site of the Arbury Camp, the Arbury/Harborough (a variation on the Arbury name) Meadows and Furlongs and the Arbury fields of Manor Farm.  It has absolutely nothing to do with King's Hedges at...