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 ...

THIS IS THE GREATEST SHOW! The 2025 Arbury Carnival has a circus theme and will take place at Arbury Town Park, Campkin Road, on 14 June. For this spring edition of Arbury Snippets , we focus on the approaching Arbury Carnival, the return of our Arbury Guru, a winged 1970s visitor at the Arbury Adventure Playground, an early 1980s visit to King's Hedges School, and insights into local life from other long ago Arbury children. We also answer a question and feature a little brain teaser... Lovely account of a feathered visitor to the Arbury Adventure Playground on the Nun's Way recreation ground from August 1974 . The Arbury Adventure Playground, which opened in 1973 on the Nuns Way Recreation Ground, was a much appreciated feature of local life for many years. Schoolboy Nicky Wright gave his views on the playground in 1980 for the 'Arbury 1980' project of the district's schools - Arbury, King's Hedges, St Laurence's and the Grove: I like it because you can pl...

Take a look at this map of North Cambridge from the late 1950s. We've used it to indicate all the Arbury-named locations we could find in the city and its environs, past and present. Most of the locations are north of Arbury Road in the fields by the Arbury Iron Age settlement or fort, once known as the Arbury Meadows. This area, with the fields south of Arbury Road, is historically the most Arbury area in Cambridge - and, for new readers, not King's Hedges at all, not even King's Hedges School. Importing the 'King's Hedges' name into the historic Arbury area was, apparently, the council planners' whim of the 1960s and 1970s.  Read all about the real King's Hedges here .  The Arbury name is derived from the ancient earthwork at Arbury Camp, the oldest human landmark in the area. In the Arbury Meadows/Furlongs/Corner beside it (see map at top of post) were found many iron age and Roman structures and artefacts (more were discovered last year, including a ...

What particularly fascinates us about the Arbury habitations is the close proximity of the developments - Iron Age and Roman. These provided part of the impetuous for the 'Arbury 1980' primary schools' project and the 1981 book 'Arbury Is Where We Live!' Part of the earthwork outline, which gave rise to the Arbury name, can still be seen in the course of Ring Fort Road at Orchard Park (originally Arbury Park and, before that, Arbury Camp Farm). King's Hedges, of course, is north of the guided busway, a fifty-eight acre farm. Archaeologists had an immensely exciting find in a North Arbury barley field in the late 1960s. The field, previously part of the old Manor Farm and, before that, the Arbury/Harborough Meadows, Furlongs and Corner, was awaiting development, including King's Hedges School - which actually isn't in the historic King's Hedges area, a fifty-eight acre farm, at all.  A Roman villa was discovered - apparently ten-roomed, and boasting a...

Wonderful to mix, merge and match old maps of the historic Arbury area with modern aerial views. The planners at Orchard Park (originally Arbury Park) were rather ingenious to include the outline of the earthwork of the iron age Arbury Camp in their plans - this is called 'Ring Fort Road'.  Arbury was believed by archaeologists to have been an undefended site, an iron age settlement within a circular ditch in which people lived, for many years. The ditch was believed to have been for keeping the animals belonging to the settlers safe from wolves and robbers. But other, more recent, excavations on the site indicate otherwise - that Arbury was a defended site - a fort. We'll take a delve into all this soon. The earthwork outline looks great from above - a real indication that people have lived in the area for over two thousand years, and of the origin of the Arbury name. A broader view of the historic Arbury district. The Arbury/Harborough Meadows. Furlongs and Corner, north ...

Imagine an iron age settlement. It is surrounded by a circular earthwork. People live here. There are houses, and pens for animals within the enclosure. Until recent years, it was not believed to be a fort. The settlement is larger than some, but believed to be very much the equivalent of what we now call a village - the earthwork simply to defend it from wolves and animal thieves. The earthwork is filled with water, and reeds and rushes grow there. Despite the naming of the Arbury earthwork as 'Ring Fort Road' in the Arbury Camp Farm Arbury/Orchard Park development, the original height of the earthwork and its enclosed area were not believed to indicate that Arbury was a fort (compare to Wandlebury), and the findings of archaeologists from Cambridge and London from the early 1960s to 1970 discounted the notion. Comment from Arbury Camp, Cambridge, A Preliminary Report on Excavations - by John Alexander and David Trump, 1970: The excavations therefore tend to confirm earlier s...

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 ...