Richard and Amelia Brett with their dog, Nell, at the Manor Farm, Arbury Road, 1913. The photograph was taken in the farm's 'Park' meadow - later the site of Manor School/North Cambridge Academy. The Bretts usually had family photographs taken in the 'Park'. 'Arbury', 'Arbury Field' and the 'Stable Field' (on the other side of the Manor Farm 'Drive'/Campkin Road towards Arbury Camp Farm) were cultivated, but the 'Park' was a grassed meadow - often used for grazing. Looking back at how Christmas was celebrated at the Manor Farm on Arbury Road, over one hundred years ago...  The Bretts, Richard and Amelia, lived at the Foreman's/horse keeper's house at the Manor Farm from 1886 to the early 1920s. They had eleven children and many grandchildren.  Richard and Amelia were married at St Andrew's Church, Impington, on 19/10/1880, and moved to King's Hedges a couple of years later. King's Hedges was the name of a f...

We love receiving your enquiries, but please remember our Arbury Cambridge YouTube video, which answers a lot of questions about the historic Arbury district. There are more videos in the pipeline (this was our very first effort, so please forgive any rough edges!) but if the historic Arbury district interests you, we think you'll find the video useful. From the iron age site to the Carlton Arms, from the Roman settlement to Arbury Court, from the Arbury Community Centre to the Arbury Adventure Playground, from Manor Farm to Campkin Road - it's all there...

The ninth part of the memories of Mrs Grace Hinchcliffe (1910-1998), contributed to the Arbury Archive in the 1980s. Mrs Hinchcliffe was Andy's grandmother and this is very much an insider's view of life in rural Arbury and Chesterton (with occasional insights into life in Vicarage Terrace) in the 1910s and 1920s. If you would like to read Mrs Hinchcliffe's recollections in order, from the beginning, a link to Part 1 is here . 'Aunt May had worked at Luke Eyres' [pronounced Eye-ers] knitting factory on the corner of Hale Street and always been bustling about. I remember when I stayed nights at the farm her getting on her bike to go to work in the morning - she never seemed tired. She was always on the go, but she gradually got worse and worse with the Sleeping Sickness. And Grandma went downhill and they weren't good times.  'Grandma and Grandad Brett's house at Arbury was very quiet with the illnesses going on there. I think Aunt May was frustrated as s...

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...

Interesting query: I didn't realise the old Manor Community College in Arbury had been pulled down. Has it really? To our minds, it's a shame - but yes, the Manor disappeared a few years ago. We wish the council had used the money to upgrade the existing buildings and install a swimming pool for local community use. The Manor site had first known split use in the 1980s, with the Cambridge College of Further Education - then spread out over several sites in the city, now the Cambridge Regional College - having a department there. In later years, the old tower block was used as student accommodation by Bellerbys language school. It's hard to imagine actually living in the tower block, but students on the top floor would have had a fine view over North and South Arbury, with glimpses of some of the villages beyond, and Cambridge. We would love to hear from people who lived in the tower block. Bellerbys named their student accommodation 'Manor House', which is interesti...

The death of Debbie Brett on Sunday has saddened us all deeply. Debbie was very much an 'outdoors person', she loved the countryside. She painted and drew in her spare time, and liked nothing better than being on a train going somewhere! She was always deeply moved by the beauties of nature and, sitting in her hospital bed at home a few days before she died, watching the sky deepen from light to dark blue as the evening set in and the lights appeared in the windows opposite, exclaimed: 'Isn't it beautiful?!' 'I wouldn't have noticed,' said her husband Andy. 'But when I looked, it was. She took great pleasure out of looking out of the window, noting all the flora and fauna. I'm so glad the NHS supplied a hospital bed and she was able to stay at home until the end.' Debbie was a very loyal and active member of the Arbury Archivists - as she said, she 'married an Arbury man' - hubby Andy has family links here back to the old farm days in...

'Cambridge Daily News', 1954: 'The Arbury' is underway. Well, South Arbury anyway. We think this is Brimley Road. Thanks to all that have written. First out of the postbag today is an enquiry from Sanj: Why does Wikipedia say work began on the Arbury in 1957? It was earlier than that because of the council houses going up in the 1954 newspaper article you published, and Arbury School opened in 1956. Good work on your site - it is a must-read for me now and has given me an interest in the district. Hi, Sanj - and thank you! Yes, you're quite right. 'The Arbury' began springing to life in the early 1950s. We think the error stems from the Victoria Histories article on the area, which used inaccurate independent research. These things happen. The Histories make no claim to be infallible, depending as they do on various sources and are a valuable resource - but the sources listed must be noted and checked. Wikipedia can also be quite problematic in our experie...

Photo captioned 'Flooding at North Arbury, 1970'. The children are having fun! Well, here's North Arbury in flood in 1970! We'll have more on this soon. Note the dear old Jenny Wren on the left - and we've got more on that too! Why 'Jenny Wren'? We'll have the details. South Arbury had the Carlton and the Snowcat public houses, which opened within a couple of weeks of each other in 1959, but for years North Arbury had only the Jenny. Until 1974 - in May the  Cambridge Evening News reported:  Residents of the North Arbury estate did not need a heat wave to remind them of their need for another pub and the opening of The Ship will meet with eager response. Campaigners for real  ale will be pleased to find that Wells of Bedford are making this their fourth Cambridge pub,  providing beer connoisseurs with their prize-winning bitter as well as a wide range of other beers, wines and spirits in spacious new premises... The opening of the Ship in Northfield Aven...

Imagine gazing down Campkin Road from Arbury Road. On the left, you see Arbury Town Park, the Arbury Community Centre and Nicholson Way; on the right you behold the houses and the old farm cottage and a row of lovely old trees, lining the pavement edge... It's almost as hard to imagine as the old Manor Farm cottages, standing in the roadway at the junction of the Arbury and Campkin Roads, but the trees were a part of the original vision for North Arbury, a bequest from the old Manor Farm days... Unfortunately, workmen digging trenches and foundations for the new development inadvertently cut through the trees' tap roots. Nobody realised at first but, within a few years, the trees were plainly dying and had to come down. Some other Manor Farm trees survived - including three in the garden of the Manor Farmhouse, two of which still stand today. Colonel Charles Bennett brought the seeds back from abroad for the garden. Looking down a frozen Manor Farm Drive towards Arbury Road in ...

The wonderful Arbury Carnival this year takes as its theme the 1980s and 1990s. The fabulous procession will be making its way across the old Arbury Meadows and Furlongs from Minerva Way to the Arbury Town Park, where there will be many attractions to make a great day. That fabulous mythical creature the kracken was a benevolent presence at last year's Carnival, as it romped across the historic Arbury Meadows and Furlongs from Minerva Way to the Arbury Town Park. As usual, the Carnival is organised by volunteers - for the community by the community - and, as usual, we say a great big thank you to all those involved. The '80s and '90s... well, decades of huge change and colourful fashions. We still remember the Rubik's Cube and the shell suits and the brick sized mobile phones (available in the UK from 1985 onwards) and the invention of the World Wide Web and the deely boppers and the Kids From Fame and the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the launch of the Space Shuttle and...