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Picture source: Stephen Harris

The Cambridge Arms was situated at 4 King Street and is now in use as a restaurant.

My Father was the last Landlord there in the early 70's before Greene king took back the pub and converted it to some sort of wine bar. Name William Frederick Bolton, now deceased. (I used to live in the apartment upstairs when I first got married up to about 1972).It was the last stop for the "King street run" and most runners were worst for wear by the time the got to us. I remember when we took it over it was run down attracting only winos from the local common nearby. Soon sorted that out by purchasing a baseball bat!! My parents built a good business there using the courtyard and the bar for good value meals in the summer. We left as my Father retired to Norfolk.

Michael Bolton (May 2016)

I was a student at Sidney from 1971 and 1974 and stayed in Cambridge until 1975. The Cambridge Arms was my local in that time, right opposite the back gate of the college. Not sure how this fits with Michael Bolton's memories, but the landlord then was John (don't know his surname), a man of few words but a genuine welcome. If you were a regular you got just the slightest nod of the head when you walked in. His beer was marvellous and it was a regular in early CAMRA beer guides. If you can source a copy of the Varsity Handbook for 1974 you will find a picture of him pulling a pint. The Public Bar was a lively place with lots of discussions going on, many of them political, the Saloon at the back a much more sedate affair with some elderly regulars, and a group of Sidney dons in the evening. It was a quite wonderful pub and what's happened to it is horrible. I was last in Cambridge in 2007 when it had been bshed through and was called 'D'Arry's Wine Bar'.

Andy Foster (June 2017)

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