Photograph from Sara Payne's 1981 'Down Your Street' article - the Kingsway Flats. The photograph was taken by the 'Hump' and the seats on the corner of Verulam Way. The seats were let into the low wall, facing the hills and the flats. They were removed sometime around the late 1990s/early 21st century. The South Arbury 'Hump'... North Arbury had the Arbury Adventure Playground on the Nuns Way playing field, the Arbury Town Park and the Arbury Community Centre in Campkin Road. South Arbury couldn't really compete with those. But the children of the South did have the Hump, the seats, the Kingsway hills and the Kingsway blocks to play on, as well as St Alban's and Arbury Court recs. The hump is fondly remembered for being an exciting bike ride - and for being an excellent place to kick up dust - fascinating play for many children back in the '60s, '70s and '80s. The Hump was bricked in circa 2008. Some of ...

So, via Sara Payne's Down Your Street visit to Carlton Way in 1981, our own memories, and our (mostly previously unpublished) transcripts from the Arbury 1980 project, we're back in the original South Arbury's main street for a further look at its history. Carlton Way did not, of course, arrive all at the same time. While Arbury School opened in 1956, the Carlton Arms public house wasn't built until the late 1950s, for instance. It opened in 1959 - complete with its cosy off licence. Happy memories from years gone by of being taken to the Carlton Arms off licence to buy crisps and fizzy pop on summer evenings in the late 1960s, and also to return Gran and Grandad's Guinness bottles to get the deposit back for 'sweeties' a few years later, make one of our Arbury Archivists go 'all misty-eyed' over this picture. The Carlton Terrace shops were a 1960s innovation. Looking back to the 1970s days of Dean's, Blackwell's, Yarrow's (Yarrer's...

The War is over...  The third part of the 1981 book, born of the Arbury 1980 project. The building of 'The Arbury' begins.... Self-build houses in Essex Close and Brimley Road... For the Christian worshippers on the Arbury Estate - from an old army hut to the Good Shepherd Church! Community spirit was strong on the original Arbury Estate. Mrs Lark, who lived in the original King's Hedges Road, was concerned at the lack of community resources and joined forces with other Arbury people to campaign. Even so, it was a struggle, with the Arbury Adventure Playground (in the field near King's Hedges Road) being funded by local residents and the Arbury Town Park in Campkin Road being reduced in size from what the City Council had originally promised. Arbury did not gain a community centre until 1974. Fun at the Arbury Adventure Playground... I remember 'Tig Off Ground' very well indeed! The Arbury Adventure Playground goat in 1979! Raising money for the Arbury Adventur...