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...

Every so often we like to upload some of the questions posed by readers via email. Here's another selection. I got to thinking after your article with the Manor School diary. Do you remember a series that ran in the 'Manor Banner' school magazine called 'Randy, Rippett and Raft'? It was a spoof on the boys' PE teachers. We do, and at the top of the post is the first part from the Manor Banner,  summer, 1983. The comic strip was drawn by pupil Adrian Tompkins. The teachers in question were Mr Radcliffe, Mr Tippett and Mr Daft. They were good sports about the spoof (good sports, geddit, PE teachers?! Oh never mind...) and in the second part got into terrible trouble with Mr Raggs (Mr Gaggs), the headmaster.  The 'spooky wordsearch' is a reference to Dracula Spectacular , the school play that year. We love the inclusion of the word 'teachers' under the spooky heading! We recall a lot of excellent comradeship between pupils and teachers at the Manor ...

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 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: ...