diff --git a/ci/scripts/r_test_old_version.sh b/ci/scripts/r_test_old_version.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..712b996c072
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ci/scripts/r_test_old_version.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+set -ex
+
+: ${R_BIN:=R}
+
+source_dir=${1}/r
+
+pushd ${source_dir}
+
+printenv
+
+export TEST_R_WITH_ARROW=TRUE
+
+${R_BIN} -e "as_cran <- !identical(tolower(Sys.getenv('NOT_CRAN')), 'true')
+  remotes::install_version('arrow', '$OLD_ARROW_VERSION', quiet = FALSE, verbose = TRUE)
+  library(arrow)
+  testthat::test_file('tests/testthat/test-parquet-compatibility.R')"
+
+popd
diff --git a/dev/tasks/r/azure.linux.yml b/dev/tasks/r/azure.linux.yml
index 7ffe8c581cc..e715191fae7 100644
--- a/dev/tasks/r/azure.linux.yml
+++ b/dev/tasks/r/azure.linux.yml
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@ jobs:
         export R_IMAGE={{ r_image }}
         export R_TAG={{ r_tag }}
         export DEVTOOLSET_VERSION={{ devtoolset_version|default("-1") }}
+        export OLD_ARROW_VERSION={{ old_arrow_version }}
         docker-compose pull --ignore-pull-failures r
         docker-compose build r
       displayName: Docker build
diff --git a/dev/tasks/tasks.yml b/dev/tasks/tasks.yml
index f2b6094edd7..30b8db938ff 100644
--- a/dev/tasks/tasks.yml
+++ b/dev/tasks/tasks.yml
@@ -1770,6 +1770,16 @@ tasks:
       not_cran: "TRUE"
       devtoolset_version: 8
 
+  test-r-rstudio-r-arrow-1.0.1-compatibility:
+    ci: azure
+    template: r/azure.linux.yml
+    params:
+      r_org: rstudio
+      r_image: r-base
+      r_tag: 3.6-bionic
+      old_arrow_version: "1.0.1"
+      run: r-forward-compatibility
+
   test-r-rstudio-r-base-3.6-opensuse15:
     ci: azure
     template: r/azure.linux.yml
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 381fbad8cd5..dc4c2aa16a4 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -854,6 +854,31 @@ services:
     command: >
       /bin/bash -c "/arrow/ci/scripts/r_test.sh /arrow"
 
+  r-forward-compatibility:
+    # This lets you test forward compatilbity from old arrow versions (given in OLD_ARROW_VERSION)
+    #
+    # Usage:
+    #   R_ORG=rstudio R_IMAGE=r-base R_TAG=3.6-bionic OLD_ARROW_VERSION=1.0.1 docker-compose build r-forward-compatibility
+    #   R_ORG=rstudio R_IMAGE=r-base R_TAG=3.6-bionic OLD_ARROW_VERSION=1.0.1 docker-compose run r-forward-compatibility
+    image: ${REPO}:r-${R_ORG}-${R_IMAGE}-${R_TAG}
+    build:
+      context: .
+      dockerfile: ci/docker/linux-r.dockerfile
+      cache_from:
+        - ${REPO}:r-${R_ORG}-${R_IMAGE}-${R_TAG}
+      args:
+        base: ${R_ORG}/${R_IMAGE}:${R_TAG}
+        r_dev: ${ARROW_R_DEV}
+    shm_size: *shm-size
+    environment:
+      ARROW_R_DEV: ${ARROW_R_DEV}
+      ARROW_USE_PKG_CONFIG: "false"
+      OLD_ARROW_VERSION: ${OLD_ARROW_VERSION}
+    volumes:
+      - .:/arrow:delegated
+    command: >
+      /bin/bash -c "/arrow/ci/scripts/r_test_old_version.sh /arrow"
+
   ubuntu-r-sanitizer:
     # Only 18.04 and amd64 supported
     # Usage:
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/parquets/data-arrow2.parquet b/r/tests/testthat/parquets/data-arrow2.parquet
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..002a44fd697
Binary files /dev/null and b/r/tests/testthat/parquets/data-arrow2.parquet differ
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-parquet-compatibility.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-parquet-compatibility.R
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..e715acc0602
--- /dev/null
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-parquet-compatibility.R
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
+# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
+# distributed with this work for additional information
+# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
+# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
+# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
+# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
+# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
+# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
+# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
+# specific language governing permissions and limitations
+# under the License.
+
+# TODO: skip mostly? Or use this for backwards compat?
+
+pq_file <- test_path("parquets/data-arrow2.parquet")
+
+test_that("reading a known Parquet file to dataframe", {
+  df <- read_parquet(pq_file)
+  expect_data_frame(df, data.frame(col1 = 1:10))
+  expect_identical(dim(df), c(10L, 1L))
+
+  tab <- read_parquet(pq_file, as_data_frame = FALSE)
+  expect_s3_class(tab, "Table")
+  expect_equal(
+    # unserialize like .unserialize_arrow_r_metadata does (though we can't call
+    # it directly because it's not exported)
+    unserialize(charToRaw(tab$metadata$r)),
+    list(
+      attributes = list(class = "data.frame"),
+      columns = list(col1 = NULL)
+    )
+  )
+
+  # test the workaround
+  tab$metadata$r <- NULL
+  df <- as.data.frame(tab)
+
+  expect_data_frame(df, data.frame(col1 = 1:10))
+  expect_identical(dim(df), c(10L, 1L))
+})