PETERBOROUGH : CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF ST PETER, ST PAUL & ST ANDREW.
Cathedral Post Code PE1 1XS
Open daily to visitors but check Cathedral website in case of closure due to events or special services.
How do you do justice to the cathedral in one page? The obvious answer is that you can’t so I am not going to try! Instead I am starting this page with a basic timeline of important dates in the cathedral’s history. This will then be followed by a photographic tour, with a few notes added here and there. The photographs are from several different visits over a number of years.
655. A monastery was first founded on the current cathedral site.
870. The monastery was attacked and destroyed by Viking raiders.
966 – 970. The monastery was re founded on the authority of King Edgar as a Benedictine house.
1116. Fire destroys much of the monastery.
1118. The building of the present structure began.
1238. The new Abbey was consecrated.
1174 – 1177. The Becket Chapel was built.
1272 – 1286. The Lady Chapel was added to the north side of the church.
1349. The Black Death hits Peterborough with roughly a third of the townspeople dying and 32 out of the 64 monks perishing.
1370. Alterations to the central tower.
1375. The Galilee was added to the west front.
1536. Katherine of Aragon the first wife of King Henry VIII was buried here.
1539. Peterborough Abbey was closed down under the Dissolution of the Monasteries with lands confiscated by the king.
1541. The dissolved Abbey became a cathedral with the foundation charter being drawn up in September 1541.
1587. Mary Queen of Scots was buried here after being executed at Fotheringhay Castle.
1643. The cathedral suffered severe damage caused by Oliver Cromwell’s troops during the English Civil War. Medieval stained glass was broken with the altar and reredos broken down and Lady Chapel demolished.
1822 – 1830. The damage from the Civil War was repaired with the church being restored.
1880’S. There was a further period of restoration which included the rebuilding of the central tower.
2001. Fire breaks out in the south transept, which led to a further period of restoration.
The magnificent west front; with the grass in front being a popular resting point, but not in the snow!. The 12th century Becket's Chapel, just out of picture to the left, was a popular tea room until April 2025 when it ceased to trade.
Below, approaching the cathedral from the south.
Above right, the view through the precinct gates, looking west to Cathedral square with the Guildhall and the church of St John the Baptist, which was the parish church for Peterborough until the rapid expansion of the city in Victorian times.
There are some fine wooden carvings to be seen here; but just to mention one in a little detail. We see a male figure carrying a human arm. This refers back to around100AD when a monk from Peterborough Abbey stole the arm of Oswald the King of Northumbria! Oswald died in battle in 642 and his arm was taken back to Bamburgh castle. The monk took no notice of the seventh commandment and the arm was taken to Peterborough where it became their primary relic (St Oswald was a convert to Christianity and became known for his piety and generosity). There was a chapel dedicated to St Oswald where the relic was kept, until it disappeared during the reformation.
Tomb to Alexander of Holderness, abbot between 1222-1226
Memorial to 13th century Abbot
Memorial to Archbishop William Connor Magee d1891
Monument to Thomas Deacon d1721
To follow, four memento mori symbols
Reminding those looking on that Man is mortal and will die. Therefore live a good Christian life, trust in God and do not be caught short when your own time comes...it might be later than you think!
Memorial to William Clavell Ingram d1901 Dean of Peterborough from 1893 until his death
Former burial place of Mary Queen of Scots. Her body was exhumed in 1612 and buried at Westminster Abbey.
Burial place of Katharine of Aragon who died at Kimbolton Castle in 1536
The carved stone above left is the 'Hedda Stone' and is believed to be an Anglo Saxon memorial stone carved in memory of the abbot and monks who were killed in a Viking raid in 870.
Old Scarlett spent most his life as Sexton at Peterborough Cathedral and dug the graves for two Royals in his time, for Katharine of Aragon in 1536 and for Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. He was in his 90's by the time that he dug the grave for the latter. His own turn came in 1594 when he died aged 98 years; an incredible achievement for those days. He is memorialised in a wall painting; pictured wearing a scarlet tunic with the gravediggers tools of pick and shovel alongside.
There is script below, which my spell checker did not care for at all which reads...
'You see old Scarletts picture stand on hie but at your feete tere doth his body lye. His gravestone doth his age and death time show His office by theis tokens you may know. Second to none for strength and sturdye limm. A scarbabe mighty voice with visage grim. He had interd two queens within this place and this townes house holders in his lives space twice over : but at length his one turne came, What hee for others did for him the same was done : no doubt his soule doth live for aye in Heaven though here his body clad in clay'.
