Peterborough Cathedral

Six things not to miss

The Cathedral rewards slow looking. Some of its greatest treasures dominate the building. Others are astonishingly easy to walk straight past.

Before the Cathedral: Anglo-Saxon Peterborough

The Cathedral’s story begins long before the Norman church. A monastery was founded here in the seventh century at a place known as Medeshamstede. Over time the religious settlement became one of the institutions around which the town itself developed.

One of the most extraordinary physical survivors from this earlier world is the Hedda Stone. Usually dated to the late eighth or early ninth century, its carved figures offer a tangible connection to Peterborough centuries before the great Norman nave existed. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

The abbey that wrote history

Peterborough was not simply a place where history happened. Its monks recorded it.

The Peterborough Chronicle is the local version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Its scribes continued writing after other surviving versions had stopped, creating exceptional evidence for England after the Norman Conquest and for the changing English language.

The abbey was also responsible for other important manuscripts and records, including the Black Book of Peterborough and the later chronicle and cartulary associated with Walter of Whittlesey. These make medieval Peterborough important not simply for architecture, but for the preservation of written memory. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}

You can explore the wider culture of collecting, observing and recording in The City That Looked Harder, or discover surviving pieces of Peterborough’s past through Peterborough in Objects.

Peterborough in objects

Some of the Cathedral’s biggest stories survive through surprisingly small things. They are ideal starting points for exploring Peterborough through individual objects.

Two queens. One Cathedral.

Few visitor experiences connect Peterborough so directly with the drama of Tudor Britain as the Cathedral’s royal burials.

Katharine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, was buried here in 1536 when the church was still Peterborough Abbey. She remains here today.

Just over half a century later, Mary Queen of Scots was brought from Fotheringhay after her execution. Peterborough became her resting place for twenty-five years before her son James I ordered her remains transferred to Westminster Abbey.

For a generation, therefore, two of the most famous queens in British history lay beneath the same roof. Their burial places can still be encountered inside the Cathedral. :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}

For the complete story, explore Peterborough’s Two Queens.

Take a Weird Weekend inside the Cathedral

The Cathedral is one of the richest stops on Peterborough Weird Weekends. Rather than treating the strange details as footnotes, the route encourages visitors to actively look for them.

Find Simon Magus beneath the West Front. Search for the finger holes in the Hedda Stone. Locate Old Scarlett. Walk the cloisters and imagine the famous lost medieval image of the Last Supper with a Fenland pike on the table.

Then explore the full archive through Peterborough Folklore, where the Cathedral sits at the centre of stories involving saints, omens, fires, medieval memory and things heard riding through the darkness.

Walk beyond the church itself

The Cathedral building was only the centrepiece of a much larger medieval world.

At its height, Peterborough Abbey included cloisters, a chapter house, dormitory, refectory, kitchens, infirmary, guest accommodation, workshops, gardens and extensive lodgings. Important fragments of that landscape still survive around the Cathedral precinct. :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

Take time to walk rather than leaving immediately after the nave. Historic gateways, monastic remains, green spaces and later buildings allow the visitor to understand that medieval Peterborough was organised around an institution that functioned almost like a town within a town.

People who bring the Cathedral to life

Peterborough’s story becomes much richer when the names in the history are treated as people rather than dates.

Put the Cathedral into the bigger Peterborough story

The Cathedral can feel ancient enough to be the beginning of everything, but Peterborough’s story stretches much further back.

The interactive Peterborough timeline begins millions of years before the Cathedral, passes through prehistoric landscapes, Roman industry and Anglo-Saxon Peterborough, and then shows how the monastery became one of the great forces shaping the city.

The broader Peterborough History hub connects the Cathedral into Flag Fen, Must Farm, Roman Durobrivae, the Two Queens, Norman Cross, the railway city, brickmaking, engineering and the remaking of Peterborough in the twentieth century.

Seen in that context, the Cathedral becomes not an isolated old building but one enormous layer in a city built repeatedly on top of its own past.

Continue exploring Peterborough

The Cathedral is one of the best possible starting points for discovering the rest of Peterborough because so many of the city’s stories begin, end or pass through this one place.